Sold To The Russian

by Isabella Laase

  “Paint? What color are you talking about? I don’t want pink or anything that would look foolish.”

  “No,” she drawled wistfully. “I’m thinking light green with maybe apricot and a purple-y red pomegranate color for accents. Those are the colors I think of when I think of Georgia. When I was a child, my sisters and I would spend hours exploring our little world. My parents wouldn’t worry about us unless we failed to come home for dinner.”

  “I suppose that would be fine,” he said, appreciating the imagination and vision that was uniquely hers. “Go to the hardware store and ask them to help you with everything you need. Just don’t pick anything frilly.”

  With a huge smile, she leaned over as if she were prepared to kiss him on the cheek, but he took her mouth as his own, invading her privacy with a hungry need and pulling her even closer. She hesitated for a second before giving in to his demands, but like a well-trained submissive, she allowed him full access to her exquisite taste. With her eyes closed, she was content and she was his. Her gift of trust and submission was completely unrelated to any fancy equipment or sexual gratification.

  Slipping the advertisement back into his pocket, he gently tapped her nose to open her eyes, her beauty and her grace beaming through her simple smile to pull at his emotions. “Come, Zoya,” he said, willing his voice to stay strong. “I’ll teach you a duet, and we can play together.”

  She caught on quickly and very soon, they were playing the simple American song that his mother had taught all of them when they were small. Zoya laughed at her own mistakes and even tried to confuse him into making mistakes of his own by crossing her hands over his until he stopped to tickle her into submission, her childish giggles warming his heart even further.

  They stayed in the quiet living room long after darkness had settled over the mansion, but when the rain finally let up, they walked hand-in-hand to his car in the back parking lot. She chattered the entire way home, entertaining him with colorful stories about her many brothers and sisters as he drove through deep puddles that splashed against the bottom of his car, and they rolled down the windows to enjoy the crisp and clean air that was unique to a summer downpour.

  He said little, slipping his hand over hers on the center console while he drove. Content to be by her side, he allowed the pretense for a brief period of time that they were just a normal couple who’d located a babysitter for their sons so they could enjoy a casual night out, postponing the difficult conversation about her future for another day.

  Chapter 14

  With the last of the dinner dishes loaded into the dishwasher, Zoya finished wiping down the kitchen counters and filled two plastic containers with leftover potato salad and green beans. It had taken weeks of sore muscles and elbow grease, but the fresh coat of moss green paint coordinated perfectly with the new dishes and matching placemats trimmed with the deep red and apricot colors from her dreams. The cabinets had been thoroughly cleaned, and the appliances and windows sparkled in the sunshine. The old linoleum floor had a shiny wax finish, even if she did dream of a nice beige twelve-inch tile that would have looked even better. With a view of the ocean, the kitchen was still her favorite place to spend time, experimenting with new recipes and perfecting many of her old ones with a never-ending supply of American groceries and Pavel’s credit card.

  Putting the food in the refrigerator, she pulled out two bottles of beer before joining him on the covered front porch to watch the sunset, a quiet routine that they’d added to the end of their day without even discussing it. “Those are new flowers,” said Pavel, taking his beer and pointing at a large clay pot filled with geraniums. “Did you buy those today?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I put the receipts in the envelope in your desk drawer. You said you wouldn’t mind if I bought some things, but maybe I should have asked you first. And you need to buy more beer the next time you’re near a store. I’m sorry that they won’t sell me alcohol until my next birthday, but that’s a very stupid law. I’m not a child.”

  “If you go to Gelman’s and identify yourself, he’ll sell you a six-pack of beer,” Pavel said dryly. “With all the tax laws that man breaks every year, selling you a case of Michelob is the least of his offenses. And I’m not criticizing your decision to buy the flowers. I don’t want you to charge diamonds and furs to your credit card, but you haven’t even come close to pushing your limits. Get rid of some of those old dresses that have seen their better days, too. Galena will take you downtown. I’m sure that she knows where all of the nice stores are.” With a smirk, he gently kicked her ankles. “Just stay away from any political protests. I hear the Namibians are starting to revolt.”

  “How were the boys yesterday?” she asked to change the subject. “You didn’t get much of a chance to talk about them last night.” Pavel went to Staten Island two or three times a week for dinner, leaving her to spend the evening with either Galena or just enjoying a little peace and quiet in front of the television set.

  “They’re fine. Linda had a nice picnic, and Anton stayed up late so I got to spend a little extra time with him. He’s still an aggressive little shit though, biting when he doesn’t get his own way and he went after Slavic with a baseball bat when he teased him about that ugly stuffed animal he still drags around. Linda holds him accountable, though.”

  “They shouldn’t tease him over the rabbit,” she said, sitting up a little higher with a frown. “You know what that toy means to him. And what do you mean by ‘holds him accountable’?” She added a pair of fake quotation marks to make her point. “He’s just a little boy who’s been through a great deal of trauma.”

  “Well, he’s also a little boy who bites,” dismissed Pavel with a wave of his beer. “She’s looking for a good preschool for the fall. She thinks that playing with kids his own age will knock him down a peg or two because those kids won’t be nearly as patient as Yuri and Slavic have been.”

  “She sounds like a skanky bitch,” she muttered. “Maybe he needs to see a specialist who deals in trauma. They have those, you know?” Her own visits to the gentle doctor in Manhattan had started a week earlier, but Pavel’s contribution to her therapy had been a cash advance on his credit card. Other than Galena who’d come along to translate, it was a secret that she was prepared to keep.

  “Behave yourself,” he said with a grin. “You’ve never even met her. She has a degree in early childhood education, and she’s much better equipped to care for him than I am.”

  “Do you think… that maybe I could see him, sometime? I miss him. A lot.”

  “Give it a little more time,” he said, shaking his head. “Linda and I talked at length about bringing him back here and decided that he needs to focus on one adult’s demands at a time. It would be too hard for him to go back and forth, and Staten Island is in all likelihood going to be his home for the foreseeable future. All things considered, he’s doing well there. He’s learning English fast enough that he can make his basic needs understood without Yuri or Slavic having to translate for him.”

  “But he needs love and attention, too,” she persisted. She understood what he was saying, and a part of her even agreed with him, but the memory of his tiny body snuggled into her side for a hug was hard to dismiss. “He trusted me at a time in his life when he was very vulnerable, and he must feel that I abandoned him.”

  Pavel took her hand, but she pulled away. “I understand that this is hard,” he said gently. “But our situation is still evolving, too. Linda doesn’t know any Russians other than me, and Liam’s agreed to keep the confidence, so none of them know anything about us. Neither one of us totally understands what this marriage means, and it isn’t fair to bring any of the boys here until you and I figure things out.”

  “Just what exactly does this marriage mean?” she said with a bitterness that was impossible to hide. “Should I plan on living here for the rest of my life or just until Damir Petruskenkov forgets that I exist? I’m just looking to figure it out so I can, you
know, plan out the rest of my life.”

  Not ready to hear any life-changing answers, she regretted the question as soon as she spoke. Staring uncomfortably down the street, he paused before continuing. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about getting you your own apartment. I’m sure that you don’t want to stay with me forever, and there are some really nice places on the Upper East Side where you could walk to the park or the museums. Maybe Galena can take you up there next week when you do some shopping, and you can check a few of them out. A little further away from everything Russian would probably be the best place for you.”

  There was no reason why his plan should hurt, but it did. She’d never even spent the night in his bed, and she wasn’t innocent enough to believe that a little kinky sex would change their future. To him, she was nothing more than an easy fuck and a convenient housekeeper, but the Upper East Side was an hour plus long commute from Brighton Beach. She’d grown to love the house and community and had even started to keep a small notebook filled with ideas for expanding the living space and bringing the kitchen and bathrooms up to date. But most of all, Brighton Beach meant Pavel. To limit their relationship to a weekly romp through his bed before he returned to his real life drew an unwelcome comparison to Jelena’s role in Damir’s twisted world.

  “You’re very quiet,” he said. “Do you have something you need to say?”

  “No,” she said quickly. Her small stash of money wouldn’t even get her a decent hotel room for the night, and she hadn’t added to it since the day they’d spent at the banya. An apartment of her own in a nice part of town would be a gift, and she needed to appreciate the extent to which he was willing to go to make her happy. “I’ll check them out this week. And thank you for not just pushing me out the door.”

  “Pushing you out the door? I plan on being a regular visitor, but I think a little separation is good for both of us, at least until we figure a few things out, and it’s certainly better for the boys. If you don’t see anything you like, though, we can reevaluate. New York is a big city, and I’m sure we can find you the perfect place.”

  Forcing a smile, she added, “An apartment sounds like a wonderful and generous idea. Thank you.”

  With an aura of gentle chivalry, he kissed the back of her hand, and they settled into their chairs to watch the sunset, a fiery red and orange display of color spiraling against the low clouds. The singing cicadas and frogs filled the silence as the sky grew darker until the streetlights came on, broken by the occasional headlights from a passing car.

  “Pavel?” she asked. “Would you have spanked me that day if you’d known what Damir and his friends had done to me in St. Petersburg?”

  “Why would you ask that?” he asked warily.

  “I’m just wondering if I’d made a mistake by not being honest with you from the beginning, if that would have put us on a different path than this one.”

  “You stabbed me, Zoya,” he said dryly. “Yes, I would have spanked you no matter what.”

  “No, I mean before that, like, even before I threw the vase. Would you have been so threatening if you’d known that it might have been a trigger for me?”

  “Was it? Did I remind you of my brother that night? Because I admit that I’m not very happy with that information.”

  “Maybe a little,” she said honestly. “But I probably stopped seeing any similarities real between you two from the moment you were so kind to Anton at the airport… even though your attitude toward me was less than hospitable. I’m just wondering if all of this would have been different if I’d said something at the beginning.”

  He appeared to give her question serious consideration before he shrugged. “I would have still demanded your obedience, but yes, it probably would have looked different. And I probably wouldn’t have taken you to the banya, but no matter what, I would have explored your beautiful body with some degree of dominance because your agreement was easy to read.”

  He squeezed her hand a little harder. “But you aren’t responsible for what happened in St. Petersburg, and it doesn’t change my opinion of you. I’ve told you, life is about the here and now. You’re a thousand times stronger than he is. But the spanking? You stabbed me, Zoya. You’re still lucky that all you walked away with was a red bottom.”

  “I didn’t actually stab you, you know,” she said with a wink and a cheeky grin. She moved her hand with a quick movement like a knife cutting a loaf of bread. “It was just a little, well, a slice.”

  “I just got the stitches out,” he said, holding up his arm. “Look at that scar you left. I look like Frankenstein.”

  “Oh… that does look painful,” she said with mock sincerity. “I think you have more duct tape in the garage if you need it because we all know about its proven benefits in defeating infection.”

  “Your sass knows no bounds, does it?” he asked with his eyebrow raised, pulling her out of her chair to stand between his thighs. “Even though I have very much enjoyed our time here at the house, perhaps we should return to the banya for a longer lesson in discipline.”

  Delighted that she’d pushed him too far, she giggled as he pulled her into his lap and nudged the hair away from her eyes. Instead of offering a stern scolding, he unbuttoned the top of her blouse and kissed her in the middle of that dark street, a long, hard invasive attack, holding her in place at the nape of her neck. His exquisite taste was all hers, and she closed her eyes to appreciate each long second, each touch of his lips that softly rubbed against hers, and each moment that they remained joined together.

  When he pulled away, she forced her eyes to open, and his smile warmed her heart. “You’re still bossy,” she said, a little drowsy. “Just because you’re a good kisser doesn’t excuse all of that attitude.”

  “What do you expect? I’m still a Russian.” He rose and held out his hand. “Come into the house, little girl. I have a very strong desire to take care of your saucy attitude.”

  With her clit pulsing in anticipation, she took his hand to follow him through the front door, and he locked it behind them. In the living room, he turned on the lamp next to the couch. “Close the curtains while I get my ropes. Did you leave them in the closet after you cleaned everything out of it?”

  “On the shelf under your grandfather’s gun box. I polished the box, by the way, with a high quality product. I think it turned out very well.” She’d long since been informed about the significance of the antique. Standing by the window, she put her hand on the curtain pull as a slow-moving, nondescript white sedan caught her attention. With tinted windows, the car hesitated in front of the house as though it were looking for an address, pulling to the wrong side of the road to approach his front lawn and making her nervous for no justifiable reason. “Pavel,” she said warily. “Are you expecting any—”

  The long steel rifle emerged from the backseat and the rapid fire of gunshots preceded the shattering of glass from the front window. She’d instinctively turned away from the squealing tires and the sharp shrouds of glass, but Pavel was by her side, roughly pushing her to the floor and covering her with his body.

  “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she responded, willing herself to believe it. Falling apart now would only weaken their position, and she needed to remain strong until she could evaluate the threat. She tried to sit up, but he pushed her back to the floor.

  “Stay down, dammit,” he said, moving his hand to cover the bright red blood staining his shoulder.

  “Oh, my God!” she shouted in a panic, her stomach clenching against her rising adrenaline. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re hurt?”

  “Relax,” he said, but his face was pale. “It just looks bad because—”

  “It looks bad because it is bad,” she interrupted. “You’ve been shot, for God’s sake, Pavel. Get off of me so I can call an ambulance.”

  “Stop,” he thundered with a whisper. “For once in your life you’re
going to fucking listen to me without any sass. Do you understand?”

  She nodded with a frown, but he grabbed her by the chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to meet his steely gaze until she reluctantly spoke. “Da, ser.”

  Rolling to his side, he pulled his keys from his pocket and used his foot to grab the carved gun box that he’d dropped on the floor, but he couldn’t manage the tiny lock with one arm. He handed her the key ring and snapped, “Open the box and give me the Glock. It’s the big one that I carry every day.”

  She knew nothing about guns, but its cold steel was heavier than it looked. With a shudder, she gave it to him, more than willing to abdicate herself from the responsibility of holding life and death in her hands. He moved the slide to load the chamber and pointed it at the front door, his steady aim directly contradicting the bloodstain on his shoulder. “Now we can make some calls,” he said, taking a deeper breath. “Take the cell phone out of my pocket and call Liam.”

  Her fingers were trembling as Pavel gave her the number, but gratefully, Liam answered on the first ring. “It’s me, Liam,” she whimpered, but she was immediately angry with herself for sounding weak. Lowering her tone, she said, “Pavel’s been shot. They shot through the front window, and he needs your help.”

  “Fuck,” said Liam. “How bad is it?”

  “Give me the phone,” demanded Pavel, and she held the phone to his ear so he could continue to keep his gun steady. “Liam, I’m fine, but I need you to make some calls. Start with Toliver and Malkovich and tell them to get out here and bring anybody they can find. And tell them to get another team over to Staten Island too. I can’t believe that even Turgenev would hurt children, but I’m not taking any chances.”

  Without saying goodbye, he nodded for her to end the call. “Give them fifteen minutes and both houses will be surrounded by guns, but I seem to bleed a lot on this rug since you’ve come to America.”