The Bastard's Bargain

by Katee Robert

  Keira cried out, her back bowing, the force of her coming nearly tearing her wrists from his grip. He kept up the strokes, gentling them until she slumped against him, completely spent. “The first of many,” he repeated.

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself, Russian.”

  She was damn near comatose and still managed to throw verbal barbs. He’d be impressed if she wasn’t so fucking vexing. Something welled up inside him, a wildness he had kept locked down since as long as he could remember. Control was essential in his world, and there was nothing controlled about the thing that took hold of him. He let go of Keira’s wrists and dragged her sweater over her head, leaving her naked.

  She roused enough to twist to look at him. “What are you doing?”

  There was no space for words, but words rose all the same. “I am not a fucking toy for you to pick up and discard at will.” He dumped her onto the seat next to him and was already moving before she’d stopped sputtering, kneeling on the floorboard between her thighs. “You make me fucking psikh.”

  Her pussy was pink and swollen from her orgasm, the wetness there gleaming in invitation. She shook, her hands going to the seat cushion. “Russian, you’re scaring me.”

  Scaring her.

  That wasn’t the goal. That had never been the goal, no matter how aggravating he found her disobedience. He reined himself in enough to grit out, “I’m going to taste you now.”

  “Ummm.” Keira shifted, as if she wasn’t sure what her play should be. Damn her for always thinking when she stole that ability from him.

  Dmitri captured her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I am going to taste you now, Keira. I’m going to lick your aching clit, and I’m going to fuck you with my tongue until you come. And then I’m going to do it again, and again, until I’m satisfied.”

  “Until you’re satisfied.” She shot a look down at his cock before tipping her chin back up.

  “Da.” Rein it in, Romanov. He forced himself to take a breath, and then another, trying to think past the scent of her arousal. “Unless you do not want me to.”

  Keira blinked. “Is that a trick question?”

  “Nyet.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t want to have sex.”

  “Yes, you do.” He continued before she could protest. “But you have not given permission, and so we will not.” He would keep control enough to hold back from that. He wouldn’t risk breaching that trust. If he did, there would be no going back, and any chance they had of a future would die a terrible death.

  Keira gave him a single heart-stopping grin. “In that case, tongue fuck away.” She leaned forward until her lips brushed his with each word. “This pussy is yours for the duration of the trip.”

  Dmitri guided her back to the seat and slid down until he was exactly where he needed to be. This woman was infuriating and beautiful and broken and so damn calculating. He wanted her as crazy as he felt.

  He wanted her crazier than he was.

  But there was no room in his head for calculation in the current situation. There was only Keira and him and the lust that drugged the air between them. He descended to kiss her just below her belly button, and then lower on the top of her shaved mons. He used his thumbs to part her folds and licked her up her center, her cry assuaging some of his fury. Whether he was furious at her or himself was up for debate, but he wasn’t regaining any semblance of control until he was satisfied with her pleasure.

  Until she had no thought but of him and what he could give her.

  Her taste. Fucking hell, her taste. He sucked her clit into his mouth, rolling the sensitive bud between his lips and tongue, gauging her response. She went so taut, he had to hold her hips down to keep her from dislodging him.

  Keira blinked wild hazel eyes at him. “Romanov, that thing you just did…”

  He barely lifted his mouth enough to say, “You liked it.”

  “I loved it. Don’t stop.” She reached her arms up to wrap around the headrest, baring her body to him completely. He doubted she recognized the significance of the movement—the implied trust—but he did.

  Dmitri didn’t stop.

  He gave himself over to the feel of her against his mouth and the taste of her on his tongue in a way he hadn’t given himself over to anything in living memory. She was hot and wet and shaking and it was because of him.

  His wife.

  His Keira.

  His and yet not his at all.

  He hitched her legs higher and wider, opening her to him so he could do exactly as he’d promised. He thrust his tongue into her, relishing her cries even as he relished the act itself. His.

  And yet not his.

  Keira released the seat to lace her fingers through his hair, holding his face against her pussy as she ground against his mouth. “I’m so close, Dmitri. Don’t stop.”

  His name on her lips only spurred him on. He increased his tempo, growling against her heated flesh. And just like that, she was coming, her cries filling the car, her body so tense it was a wonder it didn’t shatter.

  Dmitri rested his forehead on her stomach, breathing hard. He wanted to keep going, to drive her to orgasm again and again until all she knew was the feel of his mouth and the sensation of his touch. Until he became her world.

  It wouldn’t solve anything.

  When she managed to recover, she’d still hate him. She’d still do everything in her power to undermine him and work against his goals. Keira was furious at him, and it may be time to admit she had reason to be.

  The issue was that, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure how to fix a problem. He didn’t know how to fix this. He couldn’t outmaneuver her into being less difficult. Every time he thought he had her locked down, she turned around and managed to surprise him. She wasn’t going to quit. She absolutely wasn’t going to roll over and obey his commands. She didn’t even seem to fear him most of the time.

  He finally lifted his head to find her watching him. She cleared her throat. “If you throw that into the bargain on a regular basis, I might reconsider sharing your bed.”

  A small concession, but a concession all the same. He didn’t grin, but the impulse was there. Maybe there is a way to convince Keira to cleave to my commands. He dragged his mouth from one of her hips to the other. “Every night, moya koroleva.”

  “You keep calling me that.” She shifted to let him nip at her inner thigh. “What does it mean?”

  “Would you have all my secrets in the space of an hour? Nyet, I will tell you another time.” He licked over the dip where thigh led to pussy. “Stay in my bed tonight, Keira.” He wasn’t self-delusional enough to pretend his insistence was for his own purposes. He wanted to know this woman, and part of that was seeing her when all those glorious defenses were down. He wanted to observe her in the small moments upon waking and before sleep.

  He wanted her available for his every whim, to reach for in the night when he woke desiring her. He wanted to sink his cock into her pussy and discover her desires and needs when sex was on the table.

  But, for now, he’d be content with her in his bed at all.

  She shuddered out a breath. “Tonight. One time only.”

  Still with the stipulations. He growled against her skin. “Tonight, and we’ll discuss tomorrow tomorrow.” It would give him plenty of time to find a way around her protestations and convince her that it was really her idea to be in his bed—permanently. “In the meantime, I’m nowhere near satisfied yet.” He slid his hands under her ass and lifted her to meet his mouth.

  * * *

  Keira woke up to find the car still and quiet. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, totally disoriented. She’d passed out sometime after the sixth or seventh orgasm, tucked against Dmitri’s body with his hand idly stroking her thighs. Now there was no one in the backseat except her.

  She dressed as quickly as possible with her legs still feeling like Jell-O. No lie, she’d known it would be good with Dmitri Romanov, but she hadn’t antic
ipated how good. They hadn’t even had sex yet and he’d made her body sing…though he hadn’t let her touch him. She stopped in the middle of slipping on her shoes and frowned. That was weird, right? Every guy she’d been with up to this point had seen sex as a transaction—each side paid in orgasms. It wasn’t always equal, but both parties came at least once. Usually.

  What game is he playing at now?

  There had to be some reason behind it, even if he hadn’t seemed particularly cool and collected when he’d gone after her pussy like it owed him money. She shook her head. It didn’t matter what his motivation was. She’d gotten hers, and she hadn’t given anything in the process. Best to put it out of her mind because if the car was stopped, that meant they were back in Boston and she had to face her family.

  What was left of it.

  Her good mood evaporated. She couldn’t be in the O’Malley house without looking for the missing piece. Every time Keira walked into the library, she half expected to find Devlin holed up with a book, and every time the door to her room opened, she’d held out hope that it would be him coming in to tell her what new brilliance he’d gotten up to with his tech stuff.

  She hadn’t realized how much of that pressure had disappeared in New York until she stepped out of the town car and found herself in front of her old home. God, I miss him so much.

  Shut it down.

  But there was no convenient haze of alcohol or drugs to keep the grief from sinking deep and taking hold. It had been three years since Devlin died, but all that meant was that he should have graduated college by now and be in the middle of his great European adventure. He wasn’t supposed to be dead, rotting six feet underground while the rest of them went on as if nothing had changed.

  Nothing, and yet everything.

  “Keira.”

  She was pathetically grateful for Dmitri’s presence intruding on her thoughts. She turned to find him leaning against the trunk of the car. He caught sight of her expression and pushed to his feet. “Come here.”

  “I’m not a dog you can summon whenever you want.” But she took his hand and let him pull her against him. His thighs bracketed her in, but for once she didn’t feel trapped. The contact grounded her the same way his spicy scent did. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. “I’m fine.”

  “I know.” He slipped one hand along her jaw to guide her face up, and then he kissed her as if he’d done it a thousand times before. This wasn’t the claim of ownership their last had been. He brushed his lips across hers once, twice, a third time, and then traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue. Asking.

  She gave herself over to the kiss, to him, parting her lips even as she tucked her arms into his jacket to wrap around his waist. What are we doing? The reason—because there was a reason for every single goddamn thing Dmitri did—didn’t matter as much as the distraction he offered. With his tongue stroking hers, she wasn’t thinking about the town house looming behind them, or the coming confrontation, or even the memories that had plagued her for years while she lived in this place.

  No, there was room only for this man.

  A throat cleared, and she jumped and spun, nearly clocking Dmitri in the chin. He kept her held between his legs, his hands on her hips as she turned to face…“Aiden.”

  Her oldest brother and leader of their family. He looked so much like their father with his dark hair and the line of his jaw, but she couldn’t fault him for the similarities because she shared more than a few herself. However, she could fault him for the murderous expression he was aiming over her shoulder at Dmitri.

  If he attacks Romanov, all this will be for nothing.

  The only option was to play to her strength—being a pain in her brother’s ass. “Get that look off your face, Aiden. You were going to marry me off to him, so you don’t get to throw a bitchfit because it didn’t happen on your timeline.”

  His attention fell to the massive ring on her left hand. “Come inside, Keira. We have things to talk about.”

  Dmitri’s grip tightened ever so slightly on her hips, and his murmur reached her ears alone. “Remember what I said, Keira.”

  She elbowed him and slipped out of his grasp without responding. She’d made her choice, and she didn’t need him threatening her to remind her of that fact. Her brother and her husband stared at each other like junkyard dogs about to attack, so she stalked past Aiden. “Let’s get this over with so I can check in on Charlie.” The last she’d heard, her brother’s fiancée had been taken by the enemy and might not survive. Obviously, Charlie was okay, but Keira wouldn’t quite believe it until she saw it for herself.

  Aiden fell into step behind her as she marched through the front door and headed down the hallway to his office. In the ten seconds she was in the house, it already stood in stark contrast to the Romanov home. Voices came from the kitchen, accompanied by the clink of dishes, and somewhere upstairs it sounded like elephants were stampeding. Elephants, or Dmitri’s niece.

  Aiden touched Keira’s shoulder and turned back to where Dmitri stood in the front doorway. “I’ll have Olivia bring Hadley down.” He jerked his chin to the library. “They’ll meet you in there.”

  For once, Dmitri didn’t have anything to say to that. He held Keira’s gaze for a long moment and then turned and walked obediently into the library. That’s a first. She knew what he was doing—keeping his promise to her. He wouldn’t antagonize Aiden beyond smart-ass remarks because peace was the condition to Keira agreeing to be his wife. He might be sneaky as fuck, but he’d keep his word.

  Good.

  The office had been their father’s before it became Aiden’s, and although he hadn’t done anything overt to it, it felt different. Not welcoming, exactly, but more comfortable. Keira took her customary chair, but to her surprise, Aiden didn’t sit behind the desk. He leaned against it in front of her and crossed his arms over his chest. He seemed to be debating how to handle her, and she was so goddamn tired of being handled. In reality, her role hadn’t changed all that much—from possession to possession, even if one label was a sister and the other was a wife.

  Keira cut to the chase. “I chose this.”

  “Really? Because it sounds like Dmitri forced your hand the same way he forced Cillian to let you walk out of here. He waited until he knew I wasn’t going to be here, and then he coerced you to leave with him.”

  It was more or less the truth, but Aiden was missing one very important fact—they couldn’t afford a war. Three years ago, the conflict with the Hallorans hadn’t reached more than a few skirmishes and Devlin had died. If they went to a full-out war with Romanov and his people, there was no way her remaining siblings were all going to walk away unscathed. And their alliances would pull in the other two families in Boston, and maybe even Sloan and her husband from wherever they had settled down, and endanger her new nieces and nephews, too.

  What was a marriage to Dmitri Romanov when weighed against all that?

  She couldn’t say that to Aiden. He wouldn’t understand, for all that he put their family first over and over again. It was okay for him to make sacrifices, but for his baby sister? No, he wouldn’t see things her way at all.

  Keira leaned forward, trying to make him understand. “I want him.”

  “Bullshit. You’re just spitting out the rhetoric he rehearsed with you. I know what you’re doing, Keira, but you don’t have to. We’re stronger than we’ve ever been, and he’s weaker than he lets on. I’m not going to sacrifice you at the altar of Romanov’s pride and power.”

  He wasn’t exactly wrong—the dinner last night had more than proven that truth—but even without being at 100 percent, Dmitri was more than a formidable opponent. It was only sheer stubbornness preventing her brother from admitting that. Frustration took hold. “You let Sloan leave with Jude.”

  “Sloan is head over heels in love with that crazy asshole, and he’d die for her and their baby. It’s a different situation, and you damn well know it.” Aiden clen
ched his fists and then made a visible effort to relax. “Nothing’s been done that can’t be undone. Just let me fix this, Keira.”

  Fix this. Bring her back into the fold so she could keep living her half life holed up in her room, because every time she left it, she had to face down the missing piece evident in every board of this goddamn house. She hated this house.

  She knew her brother, and she knew the stubborn expression on his face. She’d worn the same expression more times than she could count when she looked in the mirror. If she didn’t force him to accept her decision, he would bring her back, whether she wanted to come or not. “It’s too late. We’re married. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  He froze, his green eyes going icy just like their father’s did before heads rolled. “Have you slept with him yet?”

  It was such a Catholic thing to ask. “Yes,” she lied. “We’ve fucked on every surface of his house. If I’m not already pregnant, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.” Liar, liar. Her brother flinched with every word as if she’d reached out and struck him. She hated hurting him, but it was for his own good. “In fact, we fucked on the ride up here. It’s no use, Aiden. There’s no annulment option, and neither of us wants a divorce. You can’t do anything about it, so you might as well let me live my life like I’ve been asking you to since I turned eighteen. I know what I’m doing.”

  If anything, his expression went subzero. “If I kill him, it wouldn’t come to divorce.”

  She shot to her feet. “What the hell is wrong with you? I didn’t like Charlie when she first came around, but I wasn’t threatening to kill her. Jesus, Aiden, you sound like our father.”

  He flinched again, but his eyes thawed. Just a little. “That’s different.”

  “No, it’s not.” It was totally different. “I don’t know how many ways you’re going to make me say this—I choose him.” I choose peace. I choose to keep the family safe. I choose the only option I ever really had.

  Aiden hissed out a breath. “Fine, Keira. Just…fine. I’m not going to strong-arm you over this, but if you change your mind at any point, you just have to say the word, and I’ll get you out and to hell with the consequences.”