“Why did all the houses in this area have to be from the eighteen-fucking-hundreds?” I wonder.
“Did you say something?” she calls.
“Nyet.”
I didn’t intend on bringing her here yet. That she needed a distraction from the evening’s entertainment was a given and I knew this would intrigue her. But it’s put me in aprecarious position.
She’s likely naked in the bathroom.
Our bathroom.
With as much water as she’s running, I imagine she’s filling the cast-iron clawfoot tub.
So many urges… tamped down for too long.
I dig my thumb and forefinger into my eyes.
She’s already taken more than I thought she would tonight. By word and by deed, she’s proven that she’s ready.
But I want more.
She’s not just some fuck.
She’s my future wife.
That matters to me.
It might not to her, with the strange upbringing she’s had—half traditional that insisted she conserve her virginity for the highest bidder, half modern with all those aunts of hers filling her head with feminism.
But to this brat raised on the streets, it counts.
To the man who clawed his way up the ladder one murder at a time, it counts.
To the leader who seized New York, it counts.
Sullying her now would mean tainting the future gift I’ll be giving myself. I know this. But…
Fuck.
I stride over to the bathroom, just in time to see her stick her toe into the water.
She’s completely bare.
Bruises are already popping up on her torso, bruises that make me wishI’dkilled Harrington this morning before the meeting.
Why am I allowing her to think she can be independent again? When this is the thanks I get for it? Seeing bruises and welts pop up on that pristine skin of hers.
“Stop glowering at me.” She heaves a delighted sigh as she slides into the tub.
“You’re bruised.”
“They’ll heal.”
Because her dismissiveness annoys the shit out of me, I snarl, “I don’t want you scarred like I am.”
The water surges and falls, splashing over the rim as she sits upright. “Holy fuck! I’m so sorry—I just forgot. Are you still bleeding, Maxim?!”
“Victoria, you barely broke the skin.”
