Chapter 29: Natalia

We drive back home in the same silence we left in hours ago.

It settles over us, and I’m so lost in my thoughts I’m too afraid to breathe.

I can tell he’s the same and that heated argument, or whatever the hell it was he had with his brother, has put him in a bad mood.

Mikhail has spent most of the journey clenching the steering wheel like he wants to wring someone’s neck.

When we get back to the house, he maintains his silence and walks with me upstairs to the bedroom. All the while I try to think of a way to talk to him and ask the questions weighing heavily on my heart.

It’s late, so I expect we’ll fall into bed, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to. He looks like he’s gearing up to go out again.

He watches me as I take off my heels and walks over to me to help me undo the zipper on the back of my dress.

He continues to stand behind, and we both look at our reflection in the long mirror. It scares me how good we look together. Staring at the reflection of ourselves is like looking at someone’s idea of a joke that ended up working.

Like throwing spaghetti on a wall and watching it actually stick like glue.

His warm fingers flutter over the bare skin of my back, snapping my mind back into focus.

“I don’t want you talking to my brother if you can help it,” he mutters.

I turn around to face him.

“Why?” After what Ivan said to me, I sound foolish to my own ears for asking that question, but I want to know why he doesn’t want me to talk to his brother.

“Because I say so.”

“You think just because you say so, it’s reason enough for me to be rude to your family.”

He grits his teeth. “Just fucking listen to me. I don’t want you talking to him or be alone with him. He’s not a good person.”

“And you are?” I know I’m poking the beast in the worst way. I can’t help myself. Everything is making me crazy, and I hate that there’s nothing I can do to save myself from this mess.

“Malyshka, do not let me punish you. You won’t like it. It won’t be anything close to what you liked previously.”

He steps away and heads toward the door, confirming my thoughts of him going out.

“Where are you going?”

“To work.”

“It’s late.”

He opens the door, and I want to scream and shout. I want to beg him to stay and tell me what he’s going to do with me.

I don’t want to be sold or given away to someone like Ivan.

Desperation gets the better of me, and I pick up the paperweight on the table and throw it into the wall.

It smashes, and he stops in his tracks then turns back to me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he growls, his eyes blazing “Are you going to sell me?” I choke out. Just saying the words to him fills me with terror. “Is that what you’re going to do to me after the wedding? Sell me? Or give me away?”

An uncontrollable tear slides down my cheek, and another follows. I hate crying, and worst of all, crying in front of him.

All I need now is for him to be the ruthless bastard he is and tell me yes.

But I’m the devil, too, because here I am, planning to escape the moment his back is turned or the instant someone puts a bullet in him to take him down.

But the thing about that is, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just run away and leave him to die so I can save myself. But he could sell me without batting an eye.

He walks back to me and stops a breath away to level me with a stare.

“Who told you that?” he asks.

“It doesn’t matter. You never did answer me that night when I asked you, what you wanted with me. You told me to go back to sleep. Why can’t you just give me an answer to a simple question? All I want to know is if you plan to sell me once I stop being a fuck toy.”

“Fuck toy?” he mutters pensively, and then his face hardens in understanding. “What did my brother say to you, Adriana?”

He knows.

“He said you would sell me or give me to him.”

His eyes darken with rage, and I swear the vein throbbing on the side of his head is going to pop.

He crowds me against the wall, and when my back hits the smooth wallpapered surface, the air leaves my lungs.

“Is that what you’re going to do, Mikhail?” I whisper, and he crushes his mouth to mine for a raw, unapologetic kiss.

He ravishes my lips, kissing me like he wants to possess me. He’s always intense. Always.

This time, however, feels like he’s desperate to take that last piece of me I try to hold on to for myself. His hungry lips consume me, and I take what he gives me knowing I’ve gone over that line of reason and crossed over into madness.

This is insanity. It crawls into my mind and weaves an invisible web of temptation I have no hope of escaping.

Only he could do this to me.

Only he could break me down like this with just a kiss that makes me relinquish my heart, body, mind, and soul.

He cups my jaw, and his lips wander over my cheeks, my eyes, my chin, my nose. Then brushes over my lips at the same time he lifts my dress up to my hips and pushes his fingers into my pussy.

He moves his nose over mine, inhaling me as he undoes his belt buckle and shoves down his pants.

Lifting my leg to hook it around his waist, he positions his cock at my entrance and rubs along my sex.

He lifts my jaw next and lowers his head so my eyes are in line with his. A wicked smile dances on his lips.

“No. My answer is no. Malyshka. I’m not going to sell you or give you to anybody, because you’re mine.”

I’m already wet for him, so when he thrusts into my pussy, my body welcomes him.

I can’t answer, but I don’t need to.

My body does the talking for me when I slip my arms around his neck and I pull him back to my lips to kiss him.

I do that.

Me.

And he welcomes me like he’s mine, too.

A jolt of wild sexual energy lances through me like fire, and pleasure steals the remaining breath from my lungs.

His pumps speed up, plundering my body, going deeper and deeper inside me as he fucks me hard and sure.

Every touch, every kiss, every careless whisper of sweet nothings in Russian sends me closer to climax. Then it comes. I come, and mindless ecstasy cripples through my body and our hearts pound together, beating as one. Our bodies quiver, sharing the release, and we both surrender to the force that’s been driving us together.

Even when I feel him come, he doesn’t stop kissing me or touching me.

We continue just like this, and I know everything will be different when we stop. Nothing will ever be the same again.