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The one who could break my heart.
So, I leaned down and kissed him, letting my hands slide through his hair. In this moment, no one else existed but the two of us.
No one.
Aleksey commanded the kiss and before I knew it, I was on my back once more and he was sliding into me until he could move no further.
“Elia,” he breathed against my lips.
Whatever secret was on the verge of being revealed died on his lips as I closed mine against his. I didn’t want him to finish. I didn’t want to guess what else he might try to tell me. Because if he could say it, then it might prove that we were willing to let down our barriers.
And I wasn’t ready for that. Not by a long shot.
“Aleksey,” I said instead as his hands cupped my breasts.
My husband lifted his head, and we stared at each other, searching for lies between our stares.
“Say my name,” he finally said as he began to move. “Say it again, Elia.”
I did as he asked, crying out his name again and again under him—at times a plea, and at times a cure. But if you were to ask me for clarification, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. The two sounded the same in our throes of passion.
Much later, after we were both draped over each other, I found myself hoping that whatever this was could be sustained. We hadn’t been brought together for a future for our families. Neither of us believed that. But perhaps, just perhaps, we could weather it together in the end. If we pretended long enough and hard enough, everything might become real.
Because the hard truth was this: Aleksey was starting to become someone very important in my life. And I would do anything I could not to lose him. I would do anything I could for him not to leave my heart in pieces.
Shaking off the familiar worry, I scooted closer against my husband and allowed myself to soak in the warmth of his hard, broad body.
That was what I needed to focus on.
Because if I dared to focus on anything else, I could lose everything.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Aleksey
I looked out of the window in my office, drumming my fingers along the desktop. After a round of phone calls and meetings this morning, I was tired of looking at the scenery.
This particular office was in my penthouse, a few doors down from where I knew my wife was. Normally I didn’t like to conduct business where I was staying. But something tugged at my gut about straying too far from Elia. It wasn’t her specifically. It was the feeling that if I left, then this bubble around us would pop, and I would lose something dear to me. Something fragile.
It had been three days since I had found out about the money missing from the gambling ring, three days of silence, and three days of endless questions—each one a slightly reworded version of one already asked.
I was growing tired of the constant questions.
I wanted action.
Sighing, I rubbed a hand over my face. I wanted to prove somehow that my uncle was behind it. Although I didn’t want to accept that he might intentionally be trying to destroy the Bratva and our very livelihood from within, I believed that he wanted to prove that he could create a crisis and then step in as the one who would fix it.
If he did, it would bolster his case to be the Pakhan. Not me.
I hated thinking that way. When I was a boy, Uncle Misha had been one of my heroes. He was what my father never was: a man who gave me a semblance of a childhood. All the normal things that a boy might want, he provided. Where my father was nothing but cold business, Uncle Misha had been there to be the fun uncle.
Things changed when I turned thirteen. Once Father began to mold me into the heir I was supposed to be, Uncle Misha kept his distance. I didn’t understand it at the time. But it was clear now that all of it had been nothing but a carefully planned choreography between them.
Father had taught me to sever all relationships that I cared about. And Uncle Misha complied.
I sighed as I resumed drumming my fingers.What about Elia?Would I have to sever that relationship as well once I set out to do what my father wanted—whatever that might be?
I had no good answer. Part of me told me that I should, that I must. But another part of me dared to contemplate a different path.
