by Alexa Riley
“I do not think this wise,” he says, sounding completely calm.
“I don’t care.” I bunch a fist and ram it awkwardly into his back. Of course, it ends up making my own wrist throb. “Ouch, dammit.”
Sasha clucks his tongue. “I taught you to punch better than that.”
“Excuse me, miss? Are you okay?”
My blood cools, then freezes, at the sound of a strange man’s voice. Not because I feel threatened. Oh no. An angry mob could be chasing me and as long as Sasha was there, I wouldn’t feel an ounce of fear. No, my jolt of alarm has everything to do with the newcomer’s safety. Not mine.
Beneath my draped body, Sasha’s shoulders turn to rippling iron, his step slowing to a stop. I struggle in his grip to get myself upright, and Sasha lets me, remaining still as a marble statue as I slide down the front of him. I can count on one hand the number of times another man has dared to question Sasha — and it has never happened in relation to my well - being. When I catch sight of the deadly intensity he’s directing at the stranger, I know I have to intervene or he’s going to decorate the sidewalk with homeboy’s guts.
“Hey.” I frame his face with my hands and attempt to get his attention, but his neck is stiff, his gray gaze never leaving the stranger. “Sasha.”
“Move…” he rasps, one of his eyes twitching. “Along.”
A nervous laugh. “I was only checking to see if the girl was — ”
Sasha surges forward with malice written on his face.
I shoot onto my tiptoes and kiss him.
There’s a long beat of tension. A standoff where my lips work over his stiff ones. Someone questioned my safety. If that man knew how serious Sasha takes my well - being, he would have kept on walking. I don’t like it, either. The insinuation that my Sasha isn’t taking good care of me. A classic tale of “I can yell at my possessive Russian bodyguard, but God help anyone else who does.” And when the fight drains out of him and he groans, the edge is taken off my earlier anger, even more so. One big hand slides into my hair, the other finding my hip as he begins ravaging my mouth. Wait. No. I was only going to distract him from committing murder, but now…what’s happening?
Sasha walks me backward until I feel the familiar shape of his car pressing into my back. There are low murmurings all around us from passersby, but I’m having a hard time making out their words over the chirping canaries circling my head.
College. He just told me I’m not going to college.
I pull away from his kiss and drag in a gulp of breath. “Me. School. I’m going.”
“Still you believe this?”
Oh, hello, anger. There you are. “Did you ever plan to take me?”
He tilts his head, like I’m daft. “Nyet, Anya. After five years of making sure no one breathes on you, do you think I could leave you in the care of strangers?” His eyes glitter with malice. “Males. No supervision. Alcohol. Those things mixed together will not set foot near my Anya.”
Fire floods my cheeks. “Then where are you taking me?”
“Get in the car and you will find out.”
I try to push Sasha off, but he only pins me tighter between his body and the car. And…and…my train of thought is busted because his erection is so thick where it lies across my belly. Focus, Anya. You can’t let another man dictate your future.
Isn’t that what it all comes down to? I haven’t been in control of my own life. Ever. Now I’m about to get my first taste of freedom stolen. By the only person who’d tempt me to give it up of my own free will. If he cared about me, he wouldn’t ask me to do that, though. Right?
Right.
“I’m not going with you. I’ll find another way to make it to orientation.”
“Angel.” Panic slides across his expression. “You would not.”
Taking a deep breath, I lift my chin. “I would.”
For a few moments, I can’t read him. Except to know he’s deciding how to play me. Play the situation. And after what just happened in the library, I should have known seduction would be his choice. But even if I had known, I never could have prepared for the power of Seductive Sasha. “Anya. Angel.” His lips press to my forehead, detour down my cheek and open above my mouth, just a hint away, his warm breath coasting over me. “Did you not say you loved Sasha?”
Nine thousand butterflies dance through my stomach. “I might have,” I murmur, squeezing my legs together. “That doesn’t mean you can get away with whatever you want.”
He handily ignores the second part, sweeping his thumbs along my hipbones. “If you love me, then you must not say such things. Parting from you would turn me into a madman.” There’s a low rumble in his chest as he licks the tips of our tongues together. “Especially now that I’ve finally eaten your pussy. I cannot be away from it.”
My lungs evacuate in a massive rush. “I can’t even handle you like this.”
His forehead meets mine. “Like what?”
“All sexy or whatever,” I pant. His mouth smiles against mine, and the butterfly wings in my belly beat faster. I can’t believe this. He’s totally succeeded in melting my rage. This is what happens in a game of sheltered virgin versus Russian hit man, isn’t it? “I’m only getting into the car because I have no other ride,” I whisper.
Sasha shakes his head, shaking mine along with it. “You go where I go. Always. That’s the real reason.”
He appears to be debating whether or not to kiss me again. But if I allow that, he’ll reduce me once and for all into a simmering pot of hormones. Already my panties are soaked in public and I’m making out with a man who looks like he belongs in a Guy Ritchie movie. What happened to my common sense?
My hands are shakier than I care to admit as I extricate myself from Sasha’s hold, shooting him a defiant eye roll over my shoulder as I climb into the passenger seat of the car. Like always, he waits until I’ve buckled up to close the door and cross to the driver’s side. With his typical tight control, he starts the ignition and pulls onto the road, coasting through yellow lights like he owns the world.
The turn signal is clicking to bring us onto the highway when he asks, “Are you warm enough?” A pause. “I’m asking because you have both arms wrapped around yourself like a straitjacket.”
He’s totally right, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of changing my position. This is my mad pose, and now that we’re not touching, I’ve managed to remember why I’m pissed as hell. “Did you ever plan to bring me to college?”
A curt headshake, but no further change in his demeanor.
“So you lied? To me? To my father?”
“Nyet, angel,” he answers calmly. “I said I would bring you where you belonged.”
I give a close - mouthed scream. “And where is that?”
“You will see. Please try and exercise some patience.” Sasha seamlessly joins the traffic on the highway, one tattooed hand resting on the wheel. “Are we having a fight, Anya?”
“Yes, Uncle Sasha,” I push through stiff lips. “We are most definitely having a fight.”
A muscle ticks in his cheek. “Fighting with you disagrees with me.”
“Good.” I sputter for a few seconds. “Have you already canceled my registration?”
“Nyet. It’s on the agenda.” He tilts his head at me. “I’ve been kept very busy resisting my need to touch you. That alone is a full - time job.”
God, what a frustrating man. One minute I’d like to claw his face off, the next I’m wishing he would pull over and seduce me again. My nerve endings are still quivering from that kiss he delivered on the sidewalk. From what he did to me in the library. Yeah. My attraction to him is seriously putting a damper on my wrath. “When my father finds out about this…”
“Yes?” He uncoils the word like a whip. “Continue. He’ll do what?”
“He’ll come and get me,” I say lamely, not even sure if it’s true.
The gaze Sasha turns on me belongs to an otherworldly creature. A male squaring of
f to fight over his mate. It’s wild. It’s…just the wrong side of insane. And it really should not send a hot thrill snaking around in my belly. It shouldn’t. “His name might be on your birth certificate, angel, and you might call me uncle. But we both know who has been daddy all this time.” His eyes have become slightly unhinged at the suggestion I could be taken away, and they travel over my thighs and breasts now, creating eruptions of need wherever they touch. “Would it please the angel to watch her daddies fight over her?”
“No,” I say, winded. No way. It wouldn’t even be a fair contest.
“David has done much for my family, but the debt has been repaid. Now he is merely a man who cannot read a calendar.” Sasha’s hand drops from the wheel to his lap, where he grips his erection. “Cannot do the math and realize I’ve been counting the days until I can put this big cock in his beautiful baby girl.”
I’m swamped in so much heat by the time he finishes, I have to talk myself down from another orgasm. Right there in the passenger seat, without even being touched. My inner thighs spasm and I can’t seem to draw enough breath, my hips squirming on the leather. Sasha is overwhelming me and I’m already starting to forget why I’m mad at him. He’s bringing me where I belong, and I trust Sasha. Implicitly. What if I just forgot my anger, my outrage, and let him take care of me, as he’s always done?
Because that’s my job. My dream has been to become an independent woman who calls her own shots, and no matter what happens, no matter how much Sasha threatens to drown my objections with love and lust, I have to keep my eye on the prize.
Which means…I have to get away from the man I love.
Chapter Six
Sasha
I’ve had my fair share of arguments with the angel.
She has been a teenage girl for our entire acquaintance, so this did not come as a surprise. When one of her younger tutors invited Anya to a party, Anya didn’t bother asking me if she could go, obviously knowing I would object. She merely attempted to sneak out, tiptoeing right past where I sat waiting in the driveway, drinking a cup of coffee. Her reaction was not pleasant. Especially when I enumerated the kind of trouble waiting for a fifteen - year - old girl at a house party. I came dangerously close to explaining what I would have done, in my former life, if I came across her at a party. And I wasn’t handcuffed by my vow.
She would have been flat on her back before she could blink, my dick so deep she would feel it in her little throat.
My thirst for Anya is unmatched. Before the day I saw her looking so sad on the front porch, I’d spent my life providing for and protecting my family. Moving up through the ranks of the Mafiya. There was no time for women, and I didn’t give a shit. Yet the moment Anya turned her green eyes on me, I was consumed. Obsessed. Never before had a female of any age even turned my head, but this one. She’d called to the deepest part of my soul. Life stopped being a burden and became something that would be spent making her happy.
Making her mine.
“Are we almost there?”
My cock grows thick hearing her voice for the first time in an hour. “Da,” I rasp. “Very close.”
She sits up straighter and scans the lush greenery we’re passing. There’s a definite curiosity in her expression, but not quite enough to overtake the stubbornness.
“You have been thinking very hard over there.”
“Yes, I have.”
Her arms are back to being crossed, and I sigh. “Would you like to share?”
“Yes, I would.” My patience thins rapidly, waiting for her to continue, but she finally does. “In the library, you said…you’ve been wanting to touch me for a long time.”
Fuck. My blood pumps fast and hot at having my hunger for her out in the open. “I’ve been a slavering beast in a cage, angel. Is not quite the same thing.”
“R - right.” Her posture loses some of its rigidness, and she begins talking in a rush. “Well, I was thinking about how you take off every Sunday night and you don’t come home until Monday afternoon.”
Seeing where this conversation is headed, my lips jump at one end. “What about it, angel?”
“You’re a man, Sasha. And you might think I’m totally innocent — ”
“I don’t think,” I interrupt, unable to keep the steel out of my voice. “I knew you were innocent already, but now that I’ve had my finger buried in your extra - tight pussy, there’s no question.”
“Fine,” she returns, her cheeks pink. “But I’m smart enough to know men need…sex. So if you weren’t touching me, who were you touching?”
I glance over to find sweet little Anya looking fierce as hell. I’ve been keeping close track of the clock, and we’re only one hour from the end of my contract. But this display of jealousy is going to make the next sixty minutes feel like a fucking eternity. Because her Russian temperament would make her feisty and giving when in the green monster’s grip. However, I will never know this for sure, because I will not give her a single second to feel jealous for the rest of her life. “I have touched no one since we met, Anya. Only myself, while thinking of you. Is that clear?”
Her anger seeps from her in degrees. “Yes.”
“Good. On Sunday evenings, I make this very drive, to check the progress of our home.”
“Our — ”
I am privileged to witness the moment she spies the house. There is no need to point it out to her, because she recognizes it. “Sasha…” she whispers, her hands flying to her chest. “That’s…is that…?”
“Da.” Pride gets trapped in my chest. “For you, angel.”
The moment the car is in park, Anya unhooks her seatbelt and jumps from the car, running into the yard where I’ve pictured her millions of times. Great, sweeping trees hang around on all sides of the white two - story home I commissioned, complete with a green roof and window shutters. Without removing my eyes from her, lest I miss her reactions, I step from the car and follow.
Once afternoon when Anya was sick with the flu, I stood at the foot of her bed, watching every move made by the doctor. When the woman handed me a prescription and left, Anya asked me to read her a book. On her shelf, I found a worn - out copy of Anne of Green Gables and learned it was her favorite. From that day forward, it became a tradition to read it to her when she ails. In the last five years, I have only been sick once — and it only lasted one day. But I’ll never forget when Anya slipped into my dark room with her copy of Anne of Green Gables, curled up beside me on the bead and read it, her voice musical and clear.
“It’s the house on the cover of Anne of Green Gables.” She spins around with tears in her eyes, launching herself into my waiting arms. “You did this? You…built this for me?”
“Of course.” Her hold tightens around my neck, and I lift her off the ground, my hands sliding down her back to cup such a tight backside. “Do you like it?”
Her head lifts to reveal tears in her eyes, the moisture spiking her lashes. “Like it? It’s the most beautiful house in the world. It hasn’t even sunk in yet.” She turns toward the house and releases a choppy sigh. “Oh my God. Sasha. Can we go inside?”
Before she finishes asking, I’m already striding toward the entrance with Anya’s legs wrapped around my waist. As happy as I am that she has reacted favorably to my gift, there’s dread bubbling inside me. We arrived earlier than expected due to the lack of traffic, and there’s a tick behind my eye, sharpness in my gut. Thirty minutes remaining until I can spill my need between my angel’s thighs. How will I make it so long with our marriage bed within reach?
Soon she will be yours in all ways. Just hold on a short while longer.
I unlock the door and we cross the threshold, flipping on the light as I’ve done on countless visits while furnishing the house. Anya squeals at our surroundings, wiggling around on my cock to get down. My lips peel back in a growl, but I let her go, forcing myself to set aside my torment and memorize this moment.
Easier said than done.
She’s
the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, running from room to room and gasping in delighted surprise at the open floor plan, the professionally decorated space. Her skirt swishes around her ass and thighs, her tits jiggling up and down beneath her tank top. My name is a constant exclamation on her lips. It reminds me of the year I built her a reading nook in the pool house. The first time she crawled in to test it out, she invited me to come join her. God help me, I almost did.
Holding myself in check becomes almost impossible when we go upstairs and she enters the bedroom. What will soon be our bed is a mere foot away, king - sized and softer than a cloud. I know this because I tested and discarded several choices before settling on the gold comforter and white silk sheets. She runs a finger over the bedding, and my loins tighten with need, my hands aching to push her backward on the mattress and fill the house with her screams. Somehow I manage to resist.
Whether I’d broken the vow that long - ago day or with ten minutes left on the clock, it would count as a failure. And I will not allow that to happen. So I hold tight to my patience and follow Anya into the backyard, where she dances around the swimming pool and spins in joyful circles on the grass, laughing without a care, sunshine beaming down on her face.
I see the moment her earlier reservations set back in, however. Her smile dims slowly and she falls down cross - legged on the lawn. My heart is pounding in a frenzy by the time she opens her mouth to speak. “It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of, Sasha. Thank you. Knowing you care about me this much…well, you’re the only one who has ever cared about me enough to make my dreams come true.” She wets her lips. “But this house and a life with you isn’t my only dream. Why can’t I have both?”
“I have explained this to you.”
Her chin lifts. “Not in a way I can accept.”
This is not ideal timing for this discussion. Two minutes remain until five o’clock and I’m already fully erect, my bonds beginning to shred in anticipation of my need breaking loose. The way she’s sitting on the lawn is giving me a peek at her smooth, taunting cunt, and it’s taking everything inside me not to pounce on her. “I must bring you inside now, Anya.”
