Page 87 of Bratva Sacrifice

My back arches as he pushes inside me, and then I’m fighting to get closer, to seal our bodies together. That familiar heat races up my spine. I want to move—but his hands hold my hips, and I can’t. I’m pinned atop him, impaled.

“I’m no longer pakhan,” he says, and I’m gratified that the words are difficult for him to speak, as if he can’t draw quite enough air. “But there are other titles I think I will try.” He presses his lips against my damp throat. “Husband. Father.” He groans as I clench around him.

“I’m not going to marry you so you can get a green card,” I tell him.

A strangled laugh. “Nyet. This is unnecessary.” This time when he fists a hand in my hair, I let him kiss me. “Aleksandr Sokolov is naturalized American citizen,” he says against my lips.

Of course he is.

“You will marry me because I love you,” he says, and finally he lets me move. God, it feels so good. Water sloshes; my head tips back. I hear myself make some ragged little sound—a sigh, a moan. “And you love me, koshechka. Yes?”

I’ve never said it. Not once. It was a piece of me I withheld deliberately. Something he couldn’t take. Something that could only be given.

“I think you must,” he says. “I think a woman who did not love would be stupid to let her lover come inside her like this. You want me to make you pregnant, koshechka? Or is it a safe day for you?”

My whole body shudders. Why is that so hot? I slam the heel of my palm against his shoulder. “You tell me, creep. You’re the one who’s been spying on me!” Truthfully, I haven’t been paying much attention to my period lately.

The grin that slashes across his face is a bit feral, a bit unhinged. But then, he’s both of those things. “Nyet,” he says. “It’s not a safe day for you. Perhaps it has already happened.” His palm covers my belly. “Maybe my baby is already in there. I want that, koshechka. I want to make you pregnant, to bind you to me in this way.”

It’s not a lie. I can feel him swelling inside me. Just the thought arouses him even more.

“If this is not something you want, you should tell me now.” The words are guttural; he thumbs my clit. “Or I will fill you with my come, koshechka. And then you will never escape me. I will make you mine in every way.”

He says it like it’s a threat. But it’s really a promise.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.” I let him pull me down for a kiss, and I murmur into his mouth, “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

His groan overwhelms me. I quake with the force of my climax, and I feel him coming with me—inside me. His arms crush me. His mouth devours mine. An intensity unlike anything else; an intensity I don’t know how I could ever live without. His forehead touches mine, and we breathe together, coming down from the high slowly.

His green eyes find mine. “This is forever, koshechka.”

Now, finally, I believe it.

Epilogue

Catherine

Anechka.” Sashulya’s voice comes from over my left shoulder. I’m drowsing in the sun, lying out on a beach chair. It’s summer. The ocean breeze wafts over my skin. “Don’t wander too far, zaychik.”

Little hare. It’s a nickname that sounds strange in English, but so sweet in Russian.

Anna—our four-year-old daughter—plunks her fists on her tiny hips. “Papa, I want to catch sand crabs!” Her pink ruffled swimsuit is covered in the sand Sashulya buried her in just a half an hour ago at her own insistence. She’s got this attitude that is just plain his. A domineering little tyrant of a child. Bossy. Opinionated. Demanding.

All things Sashulya shamelessly encourages.

Sashulya’s shadow briefly blocks out the sun as he takes a seat beside me. “No crabs,” he calls back. “It’s almost time for lunch.”

“Papa.”

“Anechka.”

Without even looking, I know she’s got that little pout she likes to employ. Usually it works. But today Sashulya wins out, and Anna comes hurrying back, where she positions herself at my side.

“Mama,” she says, and she blinks those green eyes up at me, so like her father’s. “I’m not hungry. Can I catch sand crabs?”

Sashulya muffles a laugh in his palm. She’s learning too quickly how to pit her parents against each other.

“After lunch, baby.” I smooth her tangled hair away from her face and tap her nose, which she wrinkles at me. I gave birth to such a daddy’s girl.