Page 31 of Between Us

Her head snapped up at the sound of Roman’s voice. He was watching her attentively, his blue eyes fixed on her face.

“Nope.” Her voice came out a little high. “All good.”

Fearing he might want to press the issue, she shoved the phone into her pocket and sat down with her glass of OJ. From her peripheral, she saw that Roman was still looking at her, so she feigned ignorance as she kept her eyes on the TV screen.

A moment later, Roman pushed the empty box to the side and settled back against the couch with his beer in hand.

Alessandra let out a shaky breath, saying a silent thank you to the Heavens that her phone hadn’t been lying on the coffee table when the text came.

13

As it turned out, married life really did have its perks, and a lovely body Roman could possess every morning was just one of them.

“Fuck,” he swore harshly, his rock-hard cock pushing into his wife at a relentless pace. He could already feel the onset of an orgasm starting in his groin as the pleasure became too much. Alessandra leaned back onto her palms that were pressed behind her on the vanity, allowing him to go even deeper. Her tits bounced with each slam of his hips, and he leaned forward to take a nipple into his mouth.

She sighed with pleasure, legs tightening around his waist. One hand came up to grab his nape, holding him close. Before long, she rewarded him with a quiet cry as she tumbled over the edge, her fingers inching up and pulling on his hair almost painfully. With a hiss, he let go, coming inside of her as heat shot from his cock allthe way down to his toes.

Afterward, they showered together and got ready for a new day. Roman put on a suit, and Alessandra donned a yellow summer dress for her first driving lesson.

“You look nice,” he said, stealing a kiss when she passed him in the kitchen on her way to the coffee machine. Lately, he couldn't keep his hands off her. In the two and a half weeks since she had officially become a part of his life, he always found himself thinking about her when he wasn't home. As distracting and sometimes irritating as that was, she gave him a reason to want to come home every night, and it was a nice change from the alternative that had been his norm in the past. “Andrei will pick you up at nine.”

“Okay.” She smiled, kissing him back and bouncing on her feet as she grabbed a mug from the cupboard. She was in high spirits today, he noted with some amusement, gaze lingering on the swell of her ass.

Checking his watch, Roman realized he had about thirty minutes until he had to be at Beluga1 for the bi-weekly Bratva meeting. Needless to say, he wasn't looking forward to an hour of listening to his father drone about numbers in the form of gains and losses. If you asked him, the meeting could’ve been held only once a month. But Vitaly liked to hear himself talk a little too much, and nobody could say shit about it.

“Alessa,” he said distractedly, his mind already going over the details of a shipment he had to supervise that evening.

She turned with the still empty mug in hand. “Yeah?”

“I’ll be home late tonight.” Grabbing his suit jacket from the back of a stool, he shrugged it on. “Let Andrei know if you need to go somewhere else today.”

“You know I can always take a cab, right? I'm sure he has better things to do than drive me around the city.”

“I don't want you in a car with a stranger. Until you get your license, Andrei will drive you.”

It wasn't that he feared anything could happen to her in Bratva territory, but they didn't control the entire city of Chicago, and he didn't want her to get in a car with the wrong person. The Armenians were an unpredictable bunch, and since tensions still lingered after their failed truce with the Italians, he trusted them even less than before.

She nodded dutifully, accepting his decision without a fuss.

Taking one last sip of his coffee, he kissed her cheek and left the house.

???

“Roman.” Nikolai's hand landed on his back, followed by a chuckle. “How’s the young Italian pussy treating you?”

Roman froze where he stood, white-hot anger engulfing him instantly. He turned his head to pin the other Brigadier with a hostile glare. “Talk about her like that again and I'll smash your fucking head against this wall.”

Strike two. One more, and the man would be dead before he even realized what hit him.

The sleazy grin melted from Nikolai's face. “No need to get so riled up about it. It's all in good fun.”

“She is my wife, and youwillshow her the respect she is entitled to.”

The other man gave a curt nod, though his eyes shone with contempt. Roman walked away before hewent with his instinct and ended him on the spot. He grabbed a chair and sat down beside Stepan who was busy typing something on his phone.

“He's a douchebag,” Stepan said, not raising his eyes from the screen in front of him. Within the Bratva, he was the closest thing Roman had to a friend. Only two years older than Roman, he was quiet by nature, but a force to be reckoned with when angry.

“I know,” Roman muttered, throwing a dirty look across the room toward the reason his morning had started with a surge in his blood pressure. Nikolai shook the hand of another Brigadier, smiling and joking as if he hadn’t just pissed Roman off a second ago.

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