Page 61 of Lord of Passion

"She's still there?"

"Yeah, she and Dasha wanted to hang out here," she says. "I've introduced your sister to the simple joys of a Cheetos and microwaved popcorn mix and her world will never be the same."

I think about my twenty-thousand-dollar Minotti sofas, covered in Cheeto dust. Nuclear radiation will fade long before the glowing orange remains of my wife's favorite food.

"That sounds good," I say. "I likely won't be back before noon."

"Understood," she says, in a tone more gentle than I've heard from her. "Try not to shoot anyone with an A, a T, or an F on their shirt."

"You think that's amusing?" I ask, trying not to grin.

"Look, it's like two a.m., I am hilarious right now. Lower your standards," she says primly.

I don't want to get back to work. I'd like to talk to my wife and stretch out this rare moment of accord. But there is a foreman, my brother, and three people from the Morozov corporate side waiting to talk to me. "I'm sure that around five or six, I'll be sleep deprived to find you funny."

"You will."

"Goodnight, wife."

There's a short silence as she absorbs the word. It's loaded, I know. "Goodnight, husband," she says.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

In which it is time for a Primal Dash.

Caroline…

A week later…

I get a text on my phone. The ID comes up as Primal Dash.

"Huh?" I stare at the text. He wassooutraged when he stepped in on my night run and dragged me off in that ridiculously arrogant way. And he set this up for me?

When I married Nikandr and was paired with my ever-present besties Isaak and Rafail, I knew I'd have to give up the night runs. I was terribly sad, but there was just no feasible way to do it. Now, he wants to re-create it somehow? Nikandr's been busy.We haven't been home alone enough to even address where I should put mybooks, much less our rising sexual tension.

I sleep in the same bed with him, after that first night alone. Our marital bed, where nothing remotely marital was happening. Because Lady Luck is an asshole, there's a lot of brushfires that Nikandr is constantly being called upon to fix, leaving the penthouse with a quick apology. He comes home late, often just as the sun is rising. I'm a coward, sliding out of bed to dress in one of my Boss Woman suits and heading to the hotel for the day.

***

There was one night though, last Thursday, to be exact, when he came in around 2 am. He stripped off his beautiful navy-blue suit and dress shirt, bundled them into a trash bag and opened the bedroom door just enough to hand it to a blank-faced Vasilisa. You didn’t have to be a member of Mensa to know she was tossing that in the incinerator.

Then, he had the absolute audacity to walk out of the bathroom after his shower,naked, casually drying himself. The moon was bright that night and I could see the tattoos all over his stupidly gorgeous body.

There was a crow on his back, wings spread across his enormous shoulders. Whoever does his ink is a master, the crow's shrewd eye seemed to track me in the moonlight. His chest… flames erupted from his ribs with faces inside the fire. My gaze drifted lower over his chiseled abs, and his cock shorted out my executive functioning skills. Thick, and resting against his thigh. Yep. It was as big as I remembered. That wasn't the orgasms talking. That was all Nikandr.

We'd never done it naked. Which is a shame.

I slid out of bed, mumbled something about a pipe bursting at the Lyric and got my ass out of there. He watched me, his mouth curled up on one side in his signature half-smile. He didn't even have the common decency to put on a shirt!

***

So yeah, a brisk midnight run will be good. Clear my head. I'm walking in little circles in front of the elevator in my running shoes, leggings and a dark hoodie well before it's time to leave. Isaak is trying to pretend he doesn't see me wearing a hole in the granite flooring with my incessant pacing. Eventually, though, his shoulders slump and he checks his watch.

"Mrs. Morozova, would you like to go now?"

"Yes please! If we leave now, we can get there early and I can scope it out before theSovietnikshows up."

He looks genuinely puzzled and I'm guessing that Nikandr has not informed him and Rafail of our plans.