Is it wrong that I like the way it sounds, him calling me his wife?
Probably.
But that doesn’t stop the feeling any more than it stopped me from practically throwing myself at him and begging him to fuck me both last night and this morning. Not my finest moments. My willpower has clearly left the building along with my pride, and I can’t even blame what happened in the shower on lemon drops.
I was stone-cold sober, and the second he intruded on my shower, naked and sexy and demanding, pressing his erection into my ass and saying all the right filthy things, I was a goner. All I could think about was getting off the way I had before.
Had to have been a one-time deal, right?
Nope. Wrong, as it turned out.
Despite his dismissive attitude, he holds still as I clean him up again. The wound is deeper than I realized last night. I do my best to disinfect it anew before gently dressing it with antibiotic ointment and then covering it with another oversized bandage.
“There you go.” I glance up to see he’s watching me, intensity crackling in his too-blue eyes like downed electric lines, powerful and dangerous. “But I still think you should see a doctor.”
“It didn’t slow me down any, did it?”
Heat rolls through me, and I move away from his magnetic presence, needing a little distance for my own safety. “What if it gets infected?”
He slides his uninjured arm around my waist and pulls me into his body. “Katya, look at me.”
I tip up my chin, obliging him. He’s unfairly sexy, the stubble on his jaw even more pronounced, a lock of wet hair falling over his brow.
“Looking,” I mutter, annoyed with him for being so handsome and equally annoyed with myself for being so easily affected by him.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
I open my mouth to deny that’s what I’m doing before I stop myself, because that so obviouslyiswhat I’m doing. And the reason for that is shocking.
I’m starting to care about him.
Starting to care about a man who kidnapped me and held me for ransom against my will, a man I was forced to marry. A cruel, callous Mafia enforcer whose reputation is as terrifying as Misha’s.
“This is new to me,” I say instead. “Marriage, a husband who disappears and then comes back with a gunshot wound…”
“A scratch. And besides, your brother is Pakhan, and your other brother is his right-hand man. You know what comes with the territory.”
Death and violence, he means. Unpredictability. I grew up in that world as a girl, but I left it behind when my father was killed and I went away with Svetlana. Yesterday was a blatant reminder, in case I’d forgotten, of what I’m in for.
I swallow and nod. “What happened yesterday?”
His expression changes, hardening in an instant as he releases me. “It’s not your concern.”
“Someone shot at you.”
“And for that reason, the less you know, the better.” He leaves the bathroom, the door open behind him, sending cool air to replace the heated steam.
Our escape from the outside world is officially over.
I leave the bathroom. “Exactly how much danger are you in?” I ask, wondering just what I’ve found myself wrapped up in.
Not that I had a choice in marrying him and getting caught up in the darkness surrounding him, but I would prefer not to be naïve. Besides, if someone is going after him, then it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they would go after me.
“Don’t ask questions I can’t answer.” He drops his towel and pulls on a fresh pair of boxer briefs, giving me a fleeting glimpse of his cock. “Leave business to me.”
So that’s how this is going to be, then. I’m the naïve wife who’s iced out of anything important, including her husband’s safety.
I pull out a pair of panties from my overnight bag and stuff my legs into them, shimmying until they’re in place under my towel. “I don’t need to be a part of your business to know if someone’s trying to kill you.”
