Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 64304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64304 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Sex is the only weapon she’s been taught to wield.
This is why I need to work harder to disarm her. I roll on my side and loop an arm around her waist, dragging her backward until her ass meets my lap. With great effort, I will my erection down as she stiffens and stops breathing.
I kiss her shoulder. “You’re mine now,” I tell her softly. “Which means we’re on the same team. Stop fighting me.”
She continues to hold her breath. I feel her belly flex against my arm, and then she lets out her breath on a sob.
I pull her tighter. Aw, fuck. She just lost her father, with whom she had a complicated relationship with at best. She got married off like a medieval bride to a guy she doesn’t trust not to break her.
She sucks in her breath and holds it again.
“Let it out,” I murmur against her nape. “You’ve had a hell of a week.”
She doesn’t breathe, though. She keeps holding it until my own lungs feel like they’ll burst out of sympathy, and then she wallops me in the eye with her elbow.
“Blyat.” I release her, but she turns in the darkness and strikes out at me again.
My reflexes fire too quickly, and I catch her wrists, holding her captive before I realize she needs this tantrum. I let her go, and she attacks me, sobbing as she pummels me with her fists. She must not want to hurt me, though, because she picks up a pillow and uses it, instead, to whack me over the head and shoulders.
I let the blows fall, listen to her sobbing breath and whimpers until they slow, then I take the pillow from her. “Enough.” I pin her wrists down beside her head, my body blanketing hers.
She whimpers again, an angry sob. My mouth crashes down on hers. She tastes of tears and toothpaste. I slide my lips over her softer ones, dragging her lower lip into my mouth, then going at it again, flicking my tongue between her lips.
She kisses me back, moaning softly into my mouth.
I catch myself grinding in the notch between her legs, and I stop myself. This isn’t about sex. I’m not going to force that issue. I just want to give her the connection she craves. Bind the two of us together with something besides bitter words and an ugly past.
Our lips twist and tangle. I slow the claiming.
“Enough,” I murmur again, possibly more to myself than her, and force myself off of her. I slide once more to her side, rolling her to face away from me and looping an arm around her waist. “Go to sleep, caxapok. We can fight more in the morning.”
Her breath rasps quick and frantic for a few more minutes then slows to normal and eventually into slumber.
Only then do I let myself drift into a much-needed sleep.
Chapter 5
Sasha
Maxim gets up first, waking me as he climbs out of bed. I pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why—I guess because I’m not ready to face him.
Not after last night.
The way I broke down in front of him. The way he kissed me. At least it was dark. I didn’t have to look into his handsome face after he’s seen so much of me.
The real me, I mean. Not just the naked me.
I hear the shower turn on, and the urge to run comes over me.
It’s a literal urge—I’m a morning jogger—but also an emotional one.
I’m not running away from Maxim permanently. That would accomplish nothing. He controls my cash. And my mother’s. I wish I could say I’m one of those girls who gives the middle finger to money and walks away, but I’m not ready for that. And my mom needs me to do this.
Maxim claims my father put him in charge to keep me safe. Well, I don’t mind letting him scramble a bit to make that happen, then.
Same thing I used to do to the guards my father assigned to protect us.
I get up and quietly put on a pair of yoga pants, a jogging bra, and sneakers. I pull my hair up into a high ponytail and smile to myself. Me going out in nothing but a jogging bra might give him a conniption alone.
No, that’s wrong. He told me yesterday I should flaunt it. That unfamiliar sense of warmth snakes through me again.
I quickly and silently pull on my sneakers and shoes and slip out the bedroom door.
There are guys in the living room, the same as last night.
Maxim hadn’t bothered to introduce me to everyone, but some I recognized. Ravil, obviously, their pakhan.
I didn’t get to meet his mistress, the pretty blonde who’d been curled up with him on the couch. She looked pregnant, which goes against bratva rules. Of course, my father had a child, too, but he kept us secreted away. We never lived with him. He never married my mother or officially claimed me as his daughter until he put me in his trust.