“You were drunk enough to leave your back door wide open. I should put you over my knee for that stunt.” He opens one bright blue eye as he says it, but he doesn’t move except to snuggle deeper into the mattress and pillows.
“I might like that,” I tease, as I tip my head to kiss his chest.
“Oh girl, it’s hard to tell what I might do to you for that little comment,” he threatens, but he smiles as he says it.
I place my hands on his ribcage, and sit back a little to glance up at him. “I like this, Misha. I like having you to wake up with.”
“I was hoping you would,” he replies with a grin. “I’m hoping you might like to do it for a long time.”
I wiggle my center against him, and shiver at the sensation of thick denim against sensitive skin. I hear my own gasp. He smiles, and rests his tongue against his top teeth. “I want to watch you get yourself off. If my body is yours, take it however you want it.”
Our eyes meet, and I see his challenge. He looks so playful, so sweet, but the glint in his blue orbs is wicked as sin. His words make me hotter than maybe I’ve ever been, even when he seduces me. A jolt of desire crashes into me, as my gaze sweeps over his beautiful face. My hips buck, and he thrusts up against me. I cry out, and he grabs my hips and pulls me harder into his body. The sensations are shocking. But I want more.
I take a deep breath, and force the words out. “Then your jeans need to go.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” His fingers stray down and I feel them against my bare pussy as he slowly unbuttons and unzips his pants. “Damn, you’re wet treasure.” He flips his hand, and rubs his fingertips over my slit, and finds my clit easily.
“Ah!” I exclaim. The entire time he’s watching me, gauging my reactions. It’s sexy as hell, and a little more than I can take. “Take off your damn pants.”
He grins at me again, and shoves his hips off the bed as he does what I want. When his cock is free it thumps against me. My entire body shakes when I feel it. Then his lips shake, and it breaks something deep inside me. I want him, this, us, for the rest of my life. I want his love, and his sweetness, and his devotion. I want all of him.
I reach down between my legs, and hold him at the right angle as I slowly take him inside me. I hear him say no, but I don’t stop. The feel of him is too much, too hard, too wet, too silky. I smile, before I move forward to take his mouth. I have no idea why he’s saying no again and again. My tongue pushes its way between his lips, as I move my hips up and down on him.
This is heaven. Being with him, having him inside me, is everything I ever wanted. Finally he moves with me, driving us both toward our goal. I only have one thought, that there’s something I must do.
I pull away, while we make love, and find his eyes again. “I want you, Misha,” I murmur, as my orgasm crashes through me. “I’m yours.”
“Fuck everything,” he snaps, and flips me over onto my back. “Fuck all of it.”
I’ve said the wrong thing. He’s going to stop. He’s done with me.
His hands find my hair, his mouth takes mine, and his hips shove even deeper into me. I moan into his mouth. He’s way too damn good.
He breaks the kiss to whisper, “You’re mine, Chi. I’m going to make you mine. There’s no turning back for us.” Our eyes lock again. His are so full of emotion, and such a pure sparkling blue, I can see his love there. I feel his body shake as he thrusts one more time, so deep I feel all of him inside me, when he says, “I love you, Chi. I own you.” He finds his orgasm as he says it.
That’s when I realize he’s not wearing a condom. That’s why he was saying no. That’s why he tried to stop me. And that’s why he said he owns me.
Fuck! He looks so damn happy. He looks so pleased with what I’ve done, as if I meant to have sex without the condom and it wasn’t a huge mistake. Should I tell him it was an accident? Should I tell him it didn’t mean what he thinks it means?
“You really do want me, Chiara?” he whispers, before he kisses my cheek. “Is it true? Can someone like you want to be with someone as worthless as me?” He gently touches my face, and our eyes meet again.
I nod. It’s stupid, and it’s wrong, and it might get us both killed. But I can’t deny my feelings when he’s looking at me like that, like I am his only treasure and he would do anything to protect me.
“We’ll run away. We’ll get married, then your father can’t come between us. We’ll run somewhere they’ll never find us, a cottage on a lake somewhere in the south, where we can just live and be happy.” He sounds so excited, as if he’s already got it all planned out.
“I only have a few thousand dollars in the bank. I’d have to work,” I tell him.
“You could sell your ring and we could live for a year or two. By then they’ll forget about us. I have some money squirreled away. I can sell my apartment. We won’t starve.”
The sound of his voice, his excitement, I can almost believe him. I open my mouth to answer him, just as I hear a knock on my door.
“Were you expecting someone?” he asks me.
“No one stops by without calling first,” I reply. Suddenly I’m scared. What if my dad heard I was looking for him, and decided to stop by? What if it’s Frankie? “I need to go down and get rid of whoever it is.”
I hurry out of the bed when I hear another knock, this time a little louder. I shimmy into my jeans from yesterday, and throw a t-shirt over my head. He reaches out and grabs my shoulders when I’m dressed, then kisses the top of my head. I nod, and run toward the steps.
“Coming,” I call out. When I open the door, there’s a man I’ve never seen before standing there. He’s an incredibly handsome, very well dressed man, with dark hair and eyes almost as blue as Misha’s. Suddenly, I’m afraid.
And when he murmurs, “Is Misha here?” in a deep voice with an obviously Russian accent, I’m even more scared.
I immediately lie. “Misha? I don’t know anyone named…”
“What are you doing here, Dimitri?” he asks from behind me. I didn’t even hear him coming down the steps, probably because my heart is beating so loudly. He’s quickly thrown on his clothes from last night too.
“I wanted to meet the girl you’re willing to go to war for,” he says, as he looks me over. “She’s sweet, but not my type. May I come in?”
My eyes go wide, as I turn toward Misha. “It’s okay,” he says. I have a hard time believing that having two Russians in my house at the same time will ever be okay. But I step aside, and let him in.
I glare at Misha as I shake my head. “Please, this way,” I mutter as I wave my hand toward the sitting room. My hands are shaking as I close the door behind him.
“Thank you,” the stranger replies, and Misha leads him toward my overstuffed gray couch with the light blue and gray pillows. He’s a few inches shorter than Misha, but his shoulders and chest are much wider. He’s incredibly attractive, and if I’d met him before Misha, I might have just… Stop thinking that way, I scold myself, as I glance up at my lover. He’s just as gorgeous as I remember, and I’ve always preferred blondes anyway. I smile at him nervously.
He takes a seat, sitting on the edge of the pillows with his back as straight as a steel beam. “Hello, Chiara. I am Dimitri Federov. My father heads the Federov Bratva in New Jersey.” His voice is smooth, and exudes confidence. He’s definitely a gangster, and a very attractive one at that. I take a seat in a chair across from him.
I’ve heard of the Federov family of course, who hasn’t? I’ve also seen pictures of the hot oldest son, on the news, but I had no idea he’d ever be sitting in my living room. This must mean Misha is telling the truth about who he is. Why else would the crown prince of the Federov family risk coming to the house of his enemy’s fiancée, if Misha wasn’t special?
“My oldest brother Ivan is married to his sister, Petra.” My attention returns to Misha when he speaks. He’s standing beside my chair, with his arms folded over his chest. He looks extremely protec
tive, almost like a bodyguard. I like it a lot. “I went to him for help.”
“He asked me to kidnap your sister. Is she as pretty as you are?”
I answer, “Even more beautiful, but she’s a little touched, if you know what I mean.”
He rolls his eyes, and says, “That’s too bad.”
Then I realize what he just said. “Wait, no one is kidnapping my sister!” This is a little too surreal for me. I shake my head, trying to clear it.
“You have a problem, though. You must marry Moretti, or lose your sister,” Dimitri says, as he looks at me.
“We’re past that now. My father was going to betray me either way.”
“Then, I guess it is war,” Dimitri says calmly, before asking, “Could I have a cup of tea?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Misha
I know Chi is close to freaking out right now, but she’s trying really hard to appear calm. Her eyes look so stormy, but I can see that she trusts me when she glances up at me.
“I’d love a cup, too,” I say, before looking over at Dimitri.
“Okay, tea it is,” she agrees, and heads toward her kitchen.
Dimitri’s eyes follow her out of the room. When his eyes return to mine, he makes them large, and I can see what he’s thinking before he even says it. “She’s hot. I completely understand your feelings. But she’s Italian, Misha. And her father is Nico Rossi.”
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so jealous, and at the same time so proud. “I’m in love.”
“That’s all you can say? You’re starting a war, and all you can say is I’m in love?” He’s calm and straightforward. He’s always seemed very contained when I’ve been around him. He’s never been funny, or angry, or emotional.
“I don’t want to start a war. I just want her. We’ll leave the city. We’ll go somewhere quiet.” I leave unsaid the most important part. After I kill her father.
“Why don’t you go to your father and tell him that?” Dimitri questions.
“He wants Chi to marry Moretti, so that he can have a mole inside the organization. He wants to torture me while she’s married to another man, and make me her handler.” I try to stay calm the way Dimitri does, but I can’t. My anger bleeds over into my voice.
Dimitri sits quietly, watching me while I’m quickly skidding into a breakdown. He’s thoughtful for several moments, tapping his fingers together under his chin. Then, he says something I don’t expect, but had hoped for. “I’ll put a contract out on Nico Rossi. How does half a million sound?”
I hear dishes rattling in the kitchen. Then she calls out, “I can hear you in there. I don’t want you guys talking about killing my father in my house!”
“Or we could eliminate the root of the problem, and take out Dante Moretti,” Dimitri ponders.
Chi carries a tea set into the room, and places it on a coffee table in front of Dimitri. “Here’s your tea. I’d appreciate it if you two didn’t talk about killing anyone, not even Dante.” She places her hands on her hips, staring down one of the most powerful men in New York and New Jersey. I feel so proud right now. “Please.”
Dimitri again gazes at my woman, this time he’s obviously confused and unsure of what to do. I like it that my girl can mess with the Federov heir. “Are you saying you don’t want to be with Misha?” he challenges her. “Because I can’t see another solution to your problems.”
She says nothing for several moments. I’m afraid she’s going to say she should go back to Frankie yet again. If she says that in front of Dimitri, it will literally break my heart. Instead, she seems so sad and alone as she looks toward me, and says something almost as bad. “Can’t we just talk to them? Frankie assured me that he wouldn’t force me to marry him if I didn’t want to. And I don’t.” She must see how my expression falls as she’s talking. “I don’t want him, Misha.”
Dimitri is deep in thought again. “Talking it out won’t help. Men like Moretti and Rossi only understand one thing, and that’s violence.”
“How do you…” she interrupts.
“Because it’s what men like us understand,” I speak over her. “Like my father, and Dimitri’s father. I’ve killed with my bare hands, because my father ordered me to. You got away from it for a while. And you are a girl, so you aren’t asked to do the worst of it.”
She’s shocked at my words. “You think marrying a man I don’t love, having sex with a man I don’t want, every day for the rest of my life, isn’t as bad as killing a man?”
We silently stare at each other. She might have been content with it, before she met me. And me? She has to know that I don’t kill because I want to.
“You don’t think men don’t deal with that too? You think being married to a woman you didn’t choose is any easier? You think having a wife who leaves everything behind because her father has died and she is finally free of his threats feels good? Sometimes I think I would rather kill than live with that pain.”
Dimitri stuns both of us. Chiara has turned to look at him sympathetically.
He’s looking away, far off in the distance, when he continues. “She found out she was pregnant. It was a mistake, of course, she was extremely careful with her birth control. She immediately had an abortion. After that, we no longer had sex. That was more than a year ago. She’s been gone for six months.”
Chiara pours him a cup of tea, and sits beside him. “I’m sorry. That’s terrible,” she murmurs, as she hands him the cup. “It needs to stop.”
“You’re right. It does,” he replies. His hand is shaking as he takes the tea. “I will try to speak with Frankie Moretti. This archaic practice needs to end. It helps no one. It doesn’t engender love between the families, it only brings pain to the husband and wife. Sometimes they grow to tolerate the situation. Rarely does it lead to love.”
She smiles at him sweetly. “Thank you, Mr. Federov.”
He turns his bright blue eyes to her, and I think I see a hint of tears. “Call me Dimitri.”
“I’ll try to talk to my father,” I offer. She looks at me again, and smiles. I can’t describe how much my heart aches for, longs for, this girl who is wearing yesterday’s clothes she pulled off the floor, with no makeup and her just been fucked hair. She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. She is mine through and through.
“I will talk to my father, if I can keep from killing him,” she concedes.
“Then it’s settled, for now. Perhaps we can all meet back at my hotel, and have dinner to celebrate.”
“I’d like that. Thank you Dimitri,” Chi replies.
“Thank you for reminding me that I’m not the only one hurting,” he says, as he sits the cup down onto the tray.
He stands, and she walks with him toward her front door. He shakes my hand, then kisses both her cheeks before he leaves.
After he’s gone, I follow her to her bedroom, to gather my shoes and my jacket. She looks content, now that we have a plan. I just don’t think it will work. “We should have a backup plan. Are you ready to run?”
“I can be ready in a few hours, but I don’t think we’ll have to.” She stops on the top step, and turns to face me. I’m two steps down, and we’re nearly eye to eye. “Have faith, darling. Everything is going to work out.” She reaches out, and wraps her arms around my shoulders. “It has to.”
My eyes sweep over my goddess, my beautiful fantasy. And my hands go out to touch her stomach. “After today, I’m not letting him even look at you. If we can’t talk sense into our fathers, we’re leaving tonight.” She sighs lightly, and shakes her head. “You could be carrying my child, and there’s no way in hell he’s touching you now.”
“Let’s just plan for the two of us, dear, and worry about the other if it happens,” she replies lightly, while staring into my eyes.
“Not if, but when it happens, my love. Because we will get married, and we will have many babies.” My fingers move up to push her messy hair off her cheeks. She blushes, and looks away. “I
wish you could see how beautiful I think you are.”
She smiles at that. “And I wish you could see how fucking sexy you are. You are so much taller and better looking than Dimitri.”
I roll my eyes, but pull her closer. “Thank you for lying to protect my ego.”
“I’m not lying at all. I’ve always had a thing for blondes.” She kisses the tip of my nose.
I grab her, pull her close, and kiss her lips gently. She pulls away, before I can get too excited. I let her. We have a lot to do today.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her, and I bring her into my arms for one more embrace.
“You’re pretty awesome too, you sexy hunk,” she whispers in my ear, right before she nibbles on my earlobe.
My cock responds immediately to her flirting. Oh, my treasure is going to be the death of me.
Chapter Twenty-two
Chiara
It’s Sunday, and usually I’d be leaving church right now instead of heading to my parents’ house. I can’t say I’m not nervous, because I am. But I feel something else along with it. I feel like I’m doing the right thing, and I’m this close to being set free.
I thought about it while I was in the shower, how I’ve allowed myself to be defined by what my father does, or what my fiancé does. I’m tired of complaining that I didn’t get dates in high school because my father was a made man. I don’t want to be defined by the family that my father belongs to any longer. I want to be me, Chiara Rossi, educator.
I smile as I walk toward the door, but the smile fades, and my steps slow, when I see it open, and find my dad on the other side. His face is full of disappointment, but his eyes are burning with anger. I guess he knows. Somehow, some way, he’s found out that I’m seeing Misha Ivanovich.
I stop. I’m not entering his house with that look in his eyes. I have no idea what he’ll do to me. On the other hand, if I don’t go in, I have no way to protect Guilia. I’m trapped, again. Fuck.
War (Bratva and Mafia Chronicles Book 1) Page 13
