With the Irish, they kept me intentionally apart from their women. Not sure why. Maybe they were afraid I’d corrupt them.Ha.
Matvei is close. Too close. His hand presses against the small of my back, and he leans in and wordlessly kisses my shoulder. Heat skates down my skin, and I wrap my hands around his waist. The corner of his Henley lifts, and I find my hand on the bare skin of his back.
There. That’s where he was branded.
“Let me see.”
He turns and quietly lifts his shirt to bare his beautiful, muscled back, and right in the lower center part of his back—the Kopolov family brand.
I can imagine it—the pain and raw red flesh when they gave it to him, the way the skin scabbed over and flaked. I shiver. The way the new, tender layer beneath it shone when light hit it, markinghim. This is a man who literally let himself be wounded to show his allegiance.
He brought me back as a trophy, the spoils of war. And I know what he’s said, what he’s planning. Children. A shared bond that will solidify his allegiance to the family. Withme.
A shiver of fear slides through me when I think about what I can give him… and what I can’t.
How will he react?
I brush my thumb lightly over the scar. I don’t want to hurt him. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he tells me, reading my mind.
“But it hurt like a motherfucker when you got it.”I flinch at the idea of hot metal searing my flesh.
“Was the second most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.”
I swallow hard. “And the first?”
I’m glad his back’s to me when he answers because his voice is choked, and I don’t want to see the expression he makes. It might break me. “Killing my brother.”
I close my eyes when the memory of the most painful night ofmylife flashes before me.
No.That’s a closely guarded secret no one will ever know. The shame still burns my cheeks, even as I try to push the memory back down.
I was sixteen. Still under my father’s control when he finalized the deal to sell me. I didn’t know the full details at the time—only that the man who came to inspect his “purchase” was twenty years my senior, his face etched with the kind of raw cruelty that made my skin crawl. I tried to fight him when heput his hands on me. He laughed and told me I’d be broken in soon enough…
I circle the brand with my thumb.
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because my family’s been absolute shit toward the Kopolovs. I wanted to prove my allegiance.”
“Do they all have this?” He shakes his head. “No, it’s more of an old-fashioned tradition. I was the one who, you might say, brought it back.”
I want one.
I blink. What the actual fuck?
I kiss his brand. The mutilated flesh is softer than I expected. Turning, he cradles me in his arms and kisses me. The memory of the night I was attacked fades to white.
His phone buzzes.
"I have to take that."
He steps out of the closet, already answering the call, his voice dropping into something lower, more clipped. I don’t hear the words, but I hear the rise and fall of his tone. The sharp curse.
When he comes back, his face is a mask. I wonder if this is what it will always be like with him—these moments of intensity, interrupted by things I’ll never be privy to.
"If you decide to run the moment we step foot out of this house…"
I smirk. "I know, I know. You’ll come and catch me."
