Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I let her leave and run away toward our bedroom. I’d give her a few minutes to gain her bearings, and then I’d seek her out. Annoying the fuck out of her was part of my plan. Hurting and raping her was not. Nor was terrifying her.
Some men couldn’t handle facing off with me. Adelaide was just a woman. I should have gone easier on her.
I moved toward my office, removed my jacket, and threw it across the chair. The scotch called to me. I made my way over to the drink, poured myself a generous shot, and drank it straight down, enjoying the burn.
A memory of my father flashed through my mind. I couldn’t have been much older than six or seven. My mother had asked me to go and grab the photograph album she’d left in his office. I had been a klutz back then, and as I lifted the heavy book, I knocked his bottle of vodka off the table. The glass had smashed. He’d entered as I tried to clean it up, and as punishment, he’d grabbed the glass and slashed me right across the arm, three times. I was bleeding, he’d punched me in the gut, and tossed me out into the cold. Three days later, the doctor had come to fix me up. I’d nearly died of infection.
Pushing the memory to the back of my mind, I put the glass down and made my way toward the bedroom.
Adelaide wasn’t there. I heard the sound of the shower running, and I walked toward the door. Her clothes were on the floor, and I saw the outline of her body in the frosted glass. My dick hardened. She was my wife. Mine.
After removing my clothes, I eased them onto the floor and stepped toward the shower. Opening the door to the stall, I stepped inside and heard her gasp.
She wrapped her arms around her body and turned her back to me, but I was a man who liked a woman’s ass, and the one she presented me with was sheer fucking perfection. Rounded, juicy, almost a little too big, but a generous handful.
I closed the door, moved in closer, and she stepped forward to try and keep some distance from me. There was nowhere for her to go. Reaching past her so that our bodies touched, I grabbed the soap.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Taking a shower.”
“I can’t even have one of those alone anymore?”
I smiled, lathering up my hands with soap. “Tell me, Adelaide, do you want to live?”
“What kind of question is that?” she asked.
“A real one.”
“Of course I want to live. Who wouldn’t?”
Putting my hands on her hips, I pulled her back against me. She was so damn tense. “Then I will start to teach you tomorrow morning,” I said. There wasn’t much to teach, not really. Ivan liked to consider this new era of Bratva to be modern, thinking outside of the box, and making sure our enemies didn’t have a fucking clue what to do.
Adelaide was too adorable to show disrespect, and I could imagine Ivan would find her cute as well. He wasn’t a stickler for tradition unless he faced someone he hated, and then he made sure tradition was served.
I slid my hands around to her stomach, feeling the roundness of her flesh. I’d never been a man who liked a skinny woman. When I was younger, I’d been with a couple, and they’d always whimpered and complained about how I touched them. They couldn’t handle a man like me. Adelaide was built to take me. To be mine.
I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to finally father a child. To have my baby growing inside her. Adelaide would make a wonderful mother. She was a kind soul, which marveled me from the household she grew up in.
“As for the rest, Adelaide, all you’ve got to do is kiss me, and what you desire will be yours.”
Chapter Five
Adelaide
A kiss.
That was all he asked. A single kiss. Not a peck on the lips, but a proper kiss. I remembered his terms and it was so easy to think that a kiss would be just a simple brushing of lips, nothing too hard or strenuous. But it wasn’t that simple.
To most people with experience, it meant nothing. I had never kissed anyone, other than Andrei at our wedding, and did that really count? It was part of the binding. Husband and wife, that kind of thing.
This was … horrible.
The penthouse apartment was driving me crazy. It was a beautiful place to stay but I hated it. I needed fresh air. Freedom. I’d never been trapped for so long.
Andrei wasn’t wrong about teaching me. At least, if he called what he did most mornings a teaching. There was no lesson. He told me that Ivan was a Pakhan, the boss, and I had to show him respect. That was lesson one. Great, as if I didn’t know that. Lesson two, I got to know the main brigadiers. I knew him and Slavik. Then there was Ivan—but we referred to him as Ive—Yahontov, Victor Abdulov, Peter Orlov, and Oleg Pavlov. I couldn’t remember meeting them.