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“We have so much time, Cora. A lifetime.” He brings my knuckles to his lips and presses a long kiss there. “We are going to make it through all of this. We are going to live our lives together and start a family. And we aren’t going to pass any of this bullshit family drama down to them. We’re going to give them the lives we never had: parents who are there for them and a dad who is head over heels obsessed with their mom.”
Those pesky tears are burning in my eyes again, and I swipe them away. “That sounds like a good plan.”
“That’s the only kind I make.”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “So cocky.”
“If you want cocky, I can show you cocky,” he growls.
In a second, he’s on top of me, his mouth on my neck and threatening to venture lower.
I thread my hands through his hair. “Don’t get me wrong: I want you to stay right where you are, but… don’t you have a meeting today?”
He growls, the vibration rumbling through my chest. “A meeting I’m already late for, yeah.”
My disappointment is immeasurable, but I slowly push him back and sit up. “I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a distraction for you.”
“You aren’t a distraction, Cora.” He strokes his long finger under my chin. “You’re my woman. My reason.”
I turn my face and kiss the center of his palm. “Keep talking like that and I’ll change my mind and beg you to stay.”
“They should see that.”
My eyes go wide. “They should see the two of us in bed?”
“Fuck no. That sight is all mine.” Possession flares in his eyes. “But they should see who you are to me. Come with me to the meeting.”
“Really? You want me there?”
“I want you with me,” he says. “Always.” He strokes his chin as he thinks about it. “But let’s save that for another day. I’m fucking famished and I don’t want to go to this meeting anyway. So here’s what’s going to happen: right now, I’m going to fuck you to within an inch of your life. We’re going to shower and get ready to leave, then I’m going to get horny and do it all over again. Then, when you’re sweaty and wrecked and you smell like me, I’m taking you to get the best burger you’ll ever have in your life.”
* * *
Let no one say that Ivan Pushkin is not a man of his word.
He does indeed fuck me to within an inch of my life. He does indeed carry my still-trembling body to the shower, rinse me off with the gentlest touch I’ve ever felt, then carry me right back to bed and devour me until I’m a melted puddle of goo on the sheets. Then, with a smile on his lips, he dresses me in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt and walks me out the door, down the stairs, and into his Range Rover.
We pull up outside the most rundown-looking burger joint I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Are we getting hamburgers or hepatitis?” I ask nervously.
He rolls his eyes. “Back home in the mansion for one day and you’re already a snob.”
I thwack him on the arm. “I’m not a snob!” Gesturing at myself, I add, “Would a snob be about to waltz into this place like the most slovenly peasant who ever lived?”
Ivan’s eyebrow perks up and his tongue darts out. “You look pretty good to me,solnishka…”
I push him away and recoil to the far side of the car, even as a smile plays across my lips. “Nuh-uh. No way. Hands to yourself, mister. You made me come way too many times already this morning. If I let you at it again, you’re going to break me permanently.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he growls.
Laughing, he lunges toward me. I shriek and jump out of the car as fast as I can, his hand pawing over my hip but not quite close enough to reel me back toward him.
I hit the pavement and dance away. I’m still looking back at the vehicle when I collide with something solid and warm. The impact makes my head spin and I stumble backward, dizzy. It’s only when my vision clears and I realize what—or rather,whom—I just slammed into that every trace of laughter vanishes.
Because Mikhail Sokolov is staring down at me.
46
