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I can’t open my eyes even as Yakov kisses my throat and empties himself inside of me. Even when he rolls me onto my side and curls behind me, I can’t bear to say a word and risk breaking the spell.
So I tuck myself against his body and fall asleep in this dream.
47
YAKOV
An hour or two later, Luna stirs in my arms. Whether conscious of it or not, she grinds her ass against my crotch. That’s all it takes.
In one second, my cock is hard.
In two, it’s inside of her.
We don’t speak because we don’t need to. She curls a hand back around my neck and lifts her leg to give me better access. I grip her hips and drive into her.
It’s slow and lazy. Luna buries her face in the pillow to muffle her cries as she falls apart almost immediately. I wrap her hair around my hand, arch her back, and pour into her.
When she’s breathing normally again, I slide out of bed and come back with a wet washcloth. I clean her up, but she doesn’t open her eyes. She just reaches down, her fingers loose around my wrist, her full mouth whispering around words I can’t hear.
She’s still talking when I pull the comforter up to her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she breathes. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Luna falls asleep fast, but those words echo.
This all started because I wanted to keep Luna alive. Now, we’re here, lying naked in my bed after coming home from a date. A fucking date. The first one I’ve been on… ever.
The women I’ve been with in the past weren’t the wine-and-dine type. More the pay-to-play type. But now, instead of planning how to get Luna out of my bed in the morning, I’m tucking her in. I want her around more than I want to be alone. That hasn’t been true of anyone in a long time.
For the first time in my life, I’m out of my depths.
And happy to be here.
When my phone vibrates, I roll over and snatch it off the nightstand. Nik’s name is on the screen.
We have a problem.
When the fuck don’t we? If everything was going great, that would deserve a middle-of-the-night message. Problems are business as usual.
As a kid, I watched my father run the Bratva from the outside. Men looked at him with respect in their eyes. People feared him. He was the beginning and the end for me. Alpha and omega. I dreamed about representing that for people. About demanding that kind of respect.
Now, I’m standing where he stood and it feels like playing a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole. Fires pop up and I put them out, just in time for another one to roar to life.
Luna shifts next to me, her hand curling under her chin. Her full lips part in a soft exhale that has me wanting to wake her up and ignore my brother’s message.
I drag a hand through my hair. Everything is more complicated than I imagined it would be.
I sigh and type back, What now?
Nik’s response buzzes in a second later. You’ve been greenlit.
I sit up in bed, careful not to tug on the blankets and bother Luna. The room is still dark. The slice of road visible through my bedroom window is quiet. I can see the guard shack down by the gates, the dim glow of the security monitors shining through the window.
It’s not as if I think assassins are going to rappel down from the ceiling or burst through the window, but someone has put a price over my head. Every mercenary, enforcer, and low-level grunt looking to make a name for himself will be after me now. Anything is possible.
I ask even though I already know the answer. Who?
Akim, Nik replies. He wants you dead, brother. By any means necessary.
