Page 83 of Iron Cross

I placed one thigh-high stocking bunched at her toe, and she stepped in, placing a sweet hand on my shoulder for balance. The satisfaction I felt in her using me was… overwhelming. Satisfying. Sweeter than the intimacy we had just shared.

Marital bliss, if it was possible for me to find, existed in these spaces. In gentle touches, and thoughtless gestures.

“It’s the Bratva,” she said, her lips parted. “Are they your allies now? Or are they still a danger to us?”

My clever wife. She said “us”. We were a unit.

Maybe my raven-haired love was using this to placate me. Maybe she was assuaging my heart, like placing a warm salve on my wounds. But I would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Jericho Vasiliev? Yes, he’s as slippery as they come, but Aoibheann is the same as she always was,” I said. “She has power over him that none of us understand.”

“Maybe she cast a spell on him,” she said with a lovely smirk.

“I forgot about that,” I said, coming to my feet and planting a kiss on her lips. “I had forgotten how funny you could be.”

She blushed as I placed my lips softly against her cheek.

“I missed you, sweet Kira,” I said, grazing my lips over hers. “My Muse.”

As I lifted the second stocking up her elegant, full thighs, I placed a gentle kiss there, before taking the blade from the nearby drawer, still in its flat sheath, and tucking it into the elastic lace.

“Keep a blade on you at all times,” I said, relishing my place on my knees before her. “For your safety and for the sake of your status in the house. Until we can put a mark on your palm, let my blade be a symbol of my dedication for you.”

I kissed the blade tucked into her stocking, and she sweetly shuddered.

“You watched me draw you, didn’t you?” she said, lips parting, as she took in a labored breath. “You talked to me as if… you made me talk about you when…”

I hadn’t wanted to pry, but I couldn’t help myself. As Aaron Jackson I had asked her about her ‘husband’, and she had said she loved me. She had said it in words and in her paintings. That was why I would dispatch my men to bring back every bit of art in her kiosk. Each canvas was a confession that she loved me as I did her.

“Would you have told me otherwise?” I asked, curiously. “Would you have admitted your feelings to me, if I had asked myself? As I am. Not as… Aaron.”

She didn’t answer.

“Aaron,” she said with a chuckle. “How did I not see it? Erin means Ireland, doesn't it? Aaron is the masculine form, of sorts.”

“Aye, you caught me,” I said with a light chuckle. “I will make amends and beg for your forgiveness. But first, we must greet our guests.”

I grabbed her hand and began to pull her to the door.

She resisted, planting her feet and leaning away.

“My love,” I said, as soothingly as I could, “you are the lady of the house now. This is how it must be.”

I held her hand too tight. I kept her too close. I touched her as much as I could as we descended the stairs together, down to the main foyer, where Ginny and Malinda were already offering the guests some tea.

Aoibheann’s green eyes ascended the stairs to Kira, and she reached out one arm to my wife, as if to yank her from my hold. The other hand was on her rounded belly, where her own family had begun. Jericho saw her, then reached out an arm, barring her from coming closer, putting himself between me and his wife.

He didn’t trust me. We might have a truce, but he did not trust me one bit.

I didn’t trust him either. The man was too suave to be anything but a fucking weasel.

“To what do we owe the pleasure, Mr. Vasiliev?” I asked from the top of the stairs, holding Kira’s hand in mine.

“I am here to meet the elusive Mrs. Green,” he said, his eyes on my wife - and that made me want to punch his throat. What right did he have to look at my darling?

“Kira,” Aoibheann’s soft voice called.

In an instant, Kira was running down the stairs, with me in tow, as she threw her free arm around Aoibheann, while I held on to the other.

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