Page 75 of Conquer
But she’s the first one to spring from the mattress, padding downstairs, chattering excitedly.
“Can Ainsley sleep over here today?” she asks over a bowl of cereal. She seems oblivious to the fact that Vadim and I are perched on opposite ends of her, waiting for the second we might have to swoop in and comfort her.
The pink sundress she’s wearing exposes her arms—and the mottled bruises down the length of one. Vadim was concerned enough by them to have Milton come over in the middle of the night and examine her. Supposedly, there is no lasting damage.
She’ll be fine.
But she doesn’t even seem to notice. “Huh?” she prods after shoveling a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. She eyes Vadim questioningly until he snaps to awareness.
“Yes,ma chérie?”
“Can we go back to California soon? I want to be on a boat.”
“Of course. We can leave by the end of the week,” he ruffles her braids, but the line of his jaw betrays concern. He didn’t miss the same note in her voice that I did—the same way she’d “asked” to sleep in our bed for a week after being spooked by Maxim.
But once she finishes her food and skips off to the garden—watched over by Ena, there’s no sign of trauma at all. Which is a testament to childish fortitude because I can’t even look at the terrace door—newly replaced overnight—without flinching.
“I asked Milton for recommendations for a child psychologist,” Vadim tells me as we clear the dishes. “Once we settle on one, I’ll have her start regular sessions.” He moves toward the stairs next, and I find myself following him, too distracted by my own worries for Magda.
“What if Irina comes after us again?” It’s a fear that won’t stop nibbling, and it leads my thoughts down a dark path. Like the musing that next time, Magda won’t be the one to inject the bitch with a lethal dose of insulin.
“She won’t,” Vadim says. He sounds so damn sure of that. I start to question, but something in his gaze warns me not to. Some aspects of his world, I’m better off not knowing about.
So I turn my attention to what I’d much rather study—him. He grunts in surprise when I slink toward him and press my body against the hardness of his. We’re in the bedroom, and the row of windows makes for a fitting surface for him to push me against while ensuring we can both still see Magda frolicking about her budding garden, Ena in tow.
I stand on tiptoe and nibble along his jaw, tugging at the front of his slacks.
“Wait.” He looks pained as he grasps my wrists, halting my assault. His eyes take on that dark, wary gleam as if he’s hesitating on the verge of a decision. Sighing, he relents and releases me to reach into his pocket. “I haven’t asked you to marry me,” he states while presenting a small black box balanced on the center of his palm. “I still won’t. Not until you’re ready. But…”
He lifts the lid of the box, and I sway at the sheer opulence of what lurks beneath it. A ring—but one so delicately, beautifully crafted that I know it received the same careful attention to detail that his kinky endeavors did. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined, and my throat tightens.
“Vadim…”
“I want you to know what awaits you if you do accept,” he explains, his gaze alight with such raw emotion my heart swells, unable to contain it all.
Gently, I place my hand over his, forcing him to lower the ring. “I can’t accept this,” I tell him, hating the tension that tightens his jaw—the disappointment he can’t even try to hide.
Disappointment that turns to confusion as I sink to my knees and return my attention to the front of his slacks.
“I do believe that it ismyturn to propose.” I free his cock and promptly tease the tip of his piercing with my tongue. “Mr. Vadim Gorgoshev,” I declare in between devious tastes of him. “Will you marry me?”
I think he says yes, nearly drowned out by his groans as I take him as far into my mouth as I can.
When I draw back, he looks dazed. Like a man trapped in a dream, one he definitely doesn’t want to wake up from.
“There is one condition,” I tell him, though I’m not even sure how serious a thought it is. “I’ve always wanted a double wedding.”
He raises an eyebrow, but when I curl my fist around him and press my lips against the crown, he promptly loses his ability to argue.
And if this proposal is anything to go off of, this marriage won’t be anything like my last. My heart swells with that knowledge, and I watch him through my lashes, prepared to earn the ring I know lurks in the box still clenched in his fist. His face is the picture of awe. Rapture…
Horror.
“Damn,” he whispers a split second before my ears pick up the noise triggering his alarm—tiny footsteps skipping down the hall in our direction. I barely manage to lurch to my feet—while he wrestles himself back into his pants—before the door opens and Magda marches in.
“Mr. Ena wants you,” she says to Vadim, her button nose wrinkled in confusion as Vadim staggers to her side, still smoothing his clothing into place.
“H-He told you to tell me?”
