His deadpan response set off immediate warning bells, and she sat up to turn on the light. He stood by his closet, removing the empty holster from his calf, but his light blue polo shirt was covered in a splatter of blood. Her heart froze as she jumped from the bed. “Are you hurt? Do I need to call the doctor?”
“I’m fine,” he dismissed, slipping the shirt over his head to highlight his bullet wound that hadn’t completely healed. “It’s not my blood.”
Pavel dropped his shirt and jeans to the floor and kicked them aside before going into the adjoining bathroom and turning on the shower. Standing in the doorway, she stared at the bloody pile of clothes, but quickly turned her attention to his lean, nude frame to evaluate for herself that he wasn’t injured. He looked in the mirror for a long few seconds, running his hand through his hair and grabbing a clean towel from the closet. When he moved to check the water temperature, she found her voice. “Are you sure you’re okay? What happened, Pavel?”
Startled, he turned around, his anger growing to epitomize a furor as dark and frightening as anything she’d ever seen in Damir. “Go back to fucking bed,” he roared, taking a step closer to push against her shoulder. “Do what you’re told, Zoya. We aren’t going to discuss this. I’m fine. You’re fine. There are no more threats.”
Caught off guard, she stumbled backwards but instinctively moved even further away from him, and he slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. Still stunned, she watched the steam escape under the door while she was forced to accept a truth that she didn’t want to believe. Pavel wasn’t a murderer. He was a kind and caring partner, and she’d grown to embrace their strange life together, yet the blood on his clothes and his dark, closed anger were impossible to deny.
At that moment, her serenity relied on her ability to trust his silence, a Herculean task under any circumstances and almost unimaginable in that dark bedroom with the storm still pounding against the roof. Pavel was everything that she ever needed, strong and protective, caring and demanding, yet he needed her, even if he wasn’t fully aware of that fact. Gathering his discarded clothes, she removed his wallet and keys from the pockets and took them to the laundry room to put in the washer with an abundance of detergent and the hottest water she had, hoping to get as much blood out of them as possible before she burned them in her fireplace.
He stayed in the shower for a long time before returning to the bedroom, but she’d already nestled under the covers and turned out the lights to give him the necessary space. He slipped his nude frame next to her, pulling her into his side and burying his head in her hair. Turning into his embrace, she wrapped herself around him, slipping her leg over his thigh as she had done every night that they’d been together, but his tossing and turning made clear the fact that he continued to struggle.
Determined to grant him at least a few hours of peace, she nudged him to his stomach and straddled his lower back to massage his tense frame. For twenty silent minutes, she kneaded every knotted muscle, across his shoulders and down his sides before moving to his arms and legs, and even his hands and feet. The rain continued to beat against the roof, granting her some sense of satisfaction that whatever had happened outside of their quiet home was being washed away by the storm.
When she slipped off his back, he rolled over. Sliding her inner thigh along his, she located his shaft before she teased her hand across his chest. He moved his arms behind his neck while she filled the silence with her own unspoken commands, straddling his waist to rub her pussy into his lap and stroking her hands along the ink decorating his firm chest.
Caressing his velvety smooth cock, she toyed with him until he grew even harder, nursing the glistening dew decorating his tip. She mounted his erection, adjusting to his size with a groaning satisfaction. He held her hips, but let her fuck him as she saw fit, deeper and deeper until she’d taken all of him. She built his need slowly, sliding along his length to tease the end of his cock and forcing herself back to his groin, wondering how long he would allow her to manipulate his body.
When she caressed his balls, he’d had enough. Groaning, he flipped her to her back, covering her with his frame and attacking with an endless ferocity. He sucked hard at her swollen nipples, sliding his hands across her body with a hungry need. She gave herself to him completely, her silence and abject cooperation encouraging him to do with her as he pleased. He wasn’t gentle when he entered her, a hard, punishing thrust, and he fucked her as though he was desperate to claim every part of her. He roared through his release, rubbing her clit until the swirling waves of pleasure completed her undefinable need to be his.
He finally fell asleep with her curled into his side. Her pussy was sore from his punishing attack, and his sticky seed stained her thighs, but she couldn’t leave his side to clean herself. Some place in New York, a human being would never return home to their family. Maybe there was a child left without a parent to see them grow up or a parent who would no longer have their child at a Sunday dinner. The emptiness and finality that came with any death forced her to evaluate her life in comparison to another, forever intertwining them whether she wanted it or not. But she was safe, Pavel was safe, and the three little boys on Staten Island were safe. And that was enough.
His steady breathing and the visible bullet wound scarring his shoulder exacerbated his vulnerability, but instead of reducing her to the role of a potential victim, the need to protect both of them grew even stronger. The photo of his wife had been moved to Yuri’s room, but with the small, familiar gun on the nightstand, she understood without a doubt that she would shoot anybody who broke into that house with the intent of hurting him, and she stayed awake the rest of the night with the single goal of keeping him safe.
Chapter 16
They never discussed that night; the bloody clothes disappeared according to her plan, and a new, slimmer weapon was nestled into the holster around his calf. With the expensive security system keeping an eye on every corner of their home and property, the rotating patrols of heavily armed guards occasionally stopped by for a quick cup of coffee, but other times, they drove past with nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement if she happened to see them when raking leaves out of her flowerbeds.
Her familiar routines slowly returned as well. They spent every morning lingering over a second cup of coffee in front of the ocean and long hours on the front porch with the sunset and a few cold beers to keep them company. Sometime during the last few weeks, the weather had changed to require a light sweatshirt to fight the chilly temperatures and darkness had shortened their day, altering their life in subtle ways that were easily absorbed into their ever evolving relationship.
When Pavel had asked her to prepare a meal for guests, she’d spent the previous day slow-cooking a pot of ostri, a spicy beef stew that was warming up on the back burner, and the familiar smell of khachapuri filled the house. Rising before dawn to blend together her past and her present, she’d worked the soft dough across her kitchen countertop until the mixture reached the perfect consistency, an end goal that couldn’t be taught. There was no limit to what foods and spices could be bought in an American grocery store, so she’d added fresh tarragon and mushrooms to the cheesy filling, letting it rise under a clean kitchen towel as the sun rose over the water.
Covered with blotches of sticky flour, she pulled the bread from the oven to cool and sprawled lazily on the couch in her sweatpants and baseball shirt with her bare feet hooked over the back, working on her English and the motivation to go upstairs and take a shower. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, Pavel came into the room. “Gamarjoba, my beautiful one,” he said softly.
“Hello to you, too,” she said with a laugh. “When did you learn to speak Georgian?”
“About a day ago,” he admitted, “I met a Georgian this week and wanted to surprise you, but that and goodbye are all I’ve got, so don’t get too excited. Are you planning on wearing your pajamas all day? Did you forget that we’re having company?”
She
sat up a little higher, holding her small Georgian/English dictionary. “Good night,” she said in heavily accented English. “My name is Zoya Petruskenkov, and I am twenty years old.”
Pavel smirked. “Nice, but first, no matter what that book says, most people in America don’t introduce themselves then tell you how old they are, especially women. And second, it’s ten o’clock in the morning, and you just wished me good night. Good morning implies a welcome and good night is another way to say goodbye.”
She frowned, leafing through the book to find the right page. “In science fiction books, all they have to do is put some sort of translator in people’s brains so they can understand what everybody is saying. Do you understand how hard this language is? Nothing makes any sense. The same English word describes a bear and being naked, for God’s sake.”
He gave her a quizzical look, but dismissed her with a shake of his head. “What kind of books do you read anyway?” he teased, pulling her off the couch. “Get dressed, and don’t make me ask you again. I told you that my guests would be here in the morning.”
“I… I wasn’t expecting to stay,” she said, pushing the hair from her face. “I thought this sounded like a business meeting, and I’d planned on spending the afternoon upstairs, you know, working on my English. Does my accent sound anything like an American when I speak?”
“Sure,” he laughed. “If you think all Americans sound like Natasha and Boris on the Bullwinkle cartoons. It’s okay to have an accent, and it’s okay to make mistakes when you’re learning a new language. When you’ve mastered this one, you’ll be trilingual, and that’s impressive.” He nudged her toward the stairs with a spank across her bottom. “And of course I’m expecting you to be at this lunch. We’re having very important visitors, and I wouldn’t dream of entertaining them without you.”
His palm sparked a tiny trickle of guilt and a lingering sting. It had been almost two weeks since she and Galena met the leather-clad tattoo artist at his downtown studio. Her first big excursion out of the house in weeks, the tat had been an impulse decision, and she still hadn’t found the courage to tell him, relying on dark bedrooms and keeping her sore ass to the mattress during the night but it was only a matter of time before he figured it out. No matter what Galena had advised, a confession was probably better than a random discovery.
“Pavel,” she started, fully prepared to blame Galena for corrupting her. “I—”
The doorbell caught her off guard, and she moved quickly to the staircase to escape to the bedroom and get cleaned up, but Pavel opened the door before she could reach the top. A tall, pencil-thin woman in her thirties with a perfect part to her straight blonde bob entered the hallway. She was followed by the two boys from the photos in his living room, but Anton entered the house last, pushing roughly past Pavel’s sons to pull her back down the stairs.
“Anton!” she cried at the same time he shouted, “Zoya!” She knelt down to greet him, as his arms wrapped around her neck and he buried his face into her shoulder. As hard as she tried to remember that he wasn’t hers, the initial responsibility to care for him had grown to something much deeper than a mere job and to hold a child that you loved unconditionally was, without a doubt, the single greatest emotion that God could grant.
“I think you’ve grown,” she said, wiping her eyes and running her hand through his hair, cut short with some sort of sticky product to spike the ends. Wearing rugged blue jeans, with black brand-name sneakers and a collared white shirt that was half tucked into his waist, he looked like a classic American boy from one of her television programs. “You’ve gotten so big, I can hardly pick you up.”
With a wide grin, he gently patted her cheeks as she stood with him in her arms. “I missed you, Zoya,” he said. “Aunt Linda said we would come to visit you, but she took too long. I don’t want to go back, okay?”
Pavel cleared his throat to reluctantly return her attention to the rest of the room. “Come on, Anton. We’ll talk about that later. Zoya, this is my cousin, Linda Collins, she’s Liam’s sister. Her husband apparently didn’t come this morning, but these are my sons, Slavic and Yuri. Linda, this is Zoya.”
Slavic was tall for a ten-year-old with the same blond hair and brown eyes as his father, but his look of suspicion, complete with crossed arms and an arched eyebrow, cemented the smaller, carbon-copy image. A sturdy eight-year-old, Yuri was shorter than his brother, but not by much, giving every indication that he would outpace all of them. His bright smile was offered without reservation, and he moved to the toys still piled in the corner of the dining room. “Come and look at these ninja turtles, Anton. I told you that we had two Donatellos.”
Without a hint of a smile, Linda Collins bore little resemblance to her affable older brother. “Good morning,” said Zoya in English, balancing Anton on her hip and tugging at Pavel’s oversized baseball shirt in a vain attempt to improve her appearance. She ran her hand through her hair, wincing a little when she pulled on a few tangles, knowing that Galena would lecture her for hours if she could see her without so much as nail polish on her oversized bare feet. “I am pleased to meet you.”
Linda raised an eyebrow, looking her over with an arrogant display of disdain. Instead of returning the pleasantry with anything remotely similar to that found in the carefully scripted English lessons, Linda turned to Pavel and spoke so rapidly that Zoya couldn’t keep up, but Pavel’s frown and Slavic’s open-mouthed expression didn’t require any translation to spark her temper. Without a seam out of line, Linda’s fitted shirt with the tiny alligator, perfectly creased khaki skirt that showed off her tan lines, and the preppy boat shoes completely pissed Zoya off.
She stood a little taller, setting Anton on the floor. “What did she say, Pavel?” she asked suspiciously as Anton ran to the dining room to join Yuri.
“She… uh… said that she’s very pleased to meet you, too,” responded Pavel, not meeting her eye. Slavic started to speak, and Pavel cut him off in a no-nonsense tone. “Go play with your brother, Slavic.” He waited until the boy obeyed before mumbling, “We don’t need any more translators around here.”
“If she’s going to be nasty,” said Zoya, waving her hand, “you can’t expect me to sit around and pretend that I’m fine with all of this. I might be speaking another language, but I’m not stupid.”
“I don’t even understand what that means,” said Pavel with a sigh. “She’s fine. You’re fine. I’ve invited her to stay for lunch before driving all the way back to Staten Island, so be nice. The boys don’t have school on Monday, so they’ll be here for a few days. Go get cleaned up. It will make you… I don’t know… less grumpy or something.”
Surrounded by this skanky woman and three little boys wasn’t the place to take her stand with Pavel, but she only obeyed him after shooting him a nasty frown on her way up the stairs.
If a death glare could truly kill a man, he’d have been knocked out cold on the floor of his own entrance hall from the dual impact of two angry females, making him realize that the impromptu plans to surprise Zoya with a visit from Anton might not have been the best idea. Both strong women, they’d been caught off guard by the other, and their unveiled hostility transcended any language barriers.
He’d managed to get Zoya upstairs, but Linda followed him into the kitchen. “What were you thinking, Pavel?” she snapped. “Since when do you have some sleepover girlfriend in your bedroom when the boys are here? Is she staying all weekend?”
A quick glance toward the dining room assured him that all three boys were oblivious to the adult conversation. The night he’d come home covered in a stranger’s blood was another reminder of a world where men created their own laws and justice system, and Zoya’s lack of nagging and questions had been a welcome respite. If he’d had any doubts as to her commitment to Anton, it was resolved during their reunion, making him question his decision to separate them, but nothing made him doubt himself more than listening to Linda lecture him in his own kitchen.
&
nbsp; “Seriously, Pavel,” she said without waiting for him to answer. “Can’t you keep these women away from them? They’re at a very vulnerable age and don’t need all of these mixed messages.”
“I don’t know what mixed messages you’re talking about.” he said with a grumble. “Zoya is an important person in my life, and I’m encouraging her to spend time with them.” He considered telling her that they were legally married, but to explain that confusing mix to an American was much more than he was willing to tackle on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
“Maybe I should just pick them up tomorrow night,” she said, crossing her arms and staring into the dining room. “They don’t need to spend all day Monday with her if you’re going to go to work. I don’t know anything about her. Where does she come from? Is she reliable?”
He prepared to defend Zoya when his temper reminded him that he wasn’t talking to their mother. “I’ve already told you that I’ll bring the boys back to your house on Monday evening, but don’t forget that they are my sons, not yours. I’ll decide what’s best for them, and if you aren’t comfortable with that, I don’t need to bring them back to you at all.”
As expected, Linda paled. Taking a deep breath, she sniffled to hold back her tears. “You’re right, Pavel. I’m sorry. It’s just that they mean a lot to me. You know that.”
He nodded, easily dismissing any lingering guilt for upsetting her. She and Steven had married right out of high school and for almost fifteen years, they’d suffered from one failed pregnancy after another before she’d refused to visit another specialist. Having the boys in her life did mean a great deal to her, but they were his sons, and he would remain the ultimate authority on their upbringing.
“Come and have some iced tea,” he said diplomatically. “There is no reason to get upset. Zoya will be down in a few minutes, and she’ll set up lunch for us. We’ll have a fine time, and you’ll feel better when you get to know her.”
Sold To The Russian Page 16
