Page 84 of Bound By Debt
Evgeny turns from the man he’s speaking to, and our eyes meet as if he can feel me watching him. He smiles at me from across the room, the light in his gaze warm and soft. But the shadow remains, and I still don’t know why.
I had woken up to darkness outside the windows, having slept most of the day after my release from the hospital. Evgeny had been gone from the bed, and when I’d searched for him, I’d found him in his office again.
Except instead of the immaculate room I’d left, I stumbled into one torn apart. Lamps were shattered, books yanked from the shelves, everything on the desk swept to the floor, and curtains wrenched down to lie in a shredded heap.
I found Evgeny with his shirt hanging open, sitting on the floor and leaning heavily against the side of the desk, head down, one hand gripping a nearly empty bottle of vodka.
Nothing I said persuaded him to tell me what the hell had happened while I slept. And I had no idea what could turn the buttoned-up, severe man I knew into someone drunk and falling apart, someone who had ripped the room to shreds as if he’d turned into a wild animal in the hours we’d been apart.
Only half alert, Evgeny pulled me into his lap, one hand tangled in my hair, the other curled tight, possessive and protective, around the swell where our babies slept. He held me for what felt like hours, murmuring the words to old Russian lullabies, the vodka so strong on his breath I was afraid I’d get a contact buzz. He held me until he started snoring softly, his arms going slack, his head heavy on my shoulder.
It was all I could do, with the help of the guard trailing me, to get Evgeny up, undressed, and into his bed, especially while twenty weeks pregnant and with only one good arm. Then I stayed with him all night until he woke up, retching with his hangover.
Evgeny could be terrifying. The dark in him, the beastly, monstrous parts I’d seen, were like something out of a nightmare. But seeing him so wholly undone had frightened me even more.
To make the situation even stranger, once his hangover had abated, he had Dmitri drive us to the L.A. courthouse, surrounded by several of his men I knew had to be covertly armed.
Evgeny asked me to marry him right then, and when I said yes, we signed the marriage license in the presence of his men and a judge. Lunch followed, then Evgeny took me to Harry Winston to choose ridiculously expensive wedding bands.
Trying to wrap my head around the fact that Evgeny and I were married was like trying to wrap my head around the size of the Pacific Ocean, it was impossible. I was the wife of the CEO of a billion-dollar company. More than that, I was the wife of thepakhanof the powerful Kucherov Bratva. I was visibly his, with the ring on my finger and carrying his children, just as he was visibly mine.
Without a doubt, I knew who and what my husband was, and I knew I should have mixed feelings about the entire thing. Except I didn’t. I had not an ounce of regret or a single question. It felt right.
Evgeny has promised to tell me what happened that day in his office when the time is right. He’s protecting me, he says.
It still shakes me to think about the pain etched into his face, the look of desolation in his eyes.
But tonight, the specter is farther away, and he’s caught up in the music, the festivities, and in showing me off. He isn’t shy about his affection for me either, as his arm is often around my waist, and his kisses are many as the whiskey and shots he takes push him toward tipsy. Then the dancing begins, and he is surprisingly good when more instruments join the balalaika, even though one of my arms is still in a sling.
We’re swaying together across the floor when Evgeny bends, nuzzles my neck, and whispers “My wife” in my ear, the words he’s used all evening that still don’t feel real. His whisper slides across my skin with a hint of whiskey and desire and sends a shiver of delight through me.
The heat between us shimmers, growing through the night until we slip out, seeking what has become our bed. We barely makeit there, stumbling into the house with our mouths locked, my fingers scraping along his back before scrabbling at the buttons on his shirt. His hands find the zipper of my green satin dress when we make it to our room, and he slides it down, then lowers me onto the bed, gentle and reverent, his eyes roving my body.
He takes in every small change and sinks beside me as he kisses his way from my mouth to my neck to my breasts, which have become fuller, and down to the swell of my stomach, which he nuzzles before resting his forehead against it.
My heart swells at the sight, and I think of Ivan’s last words before we slipped out of the party.Take care of him, koshecka.
I will, I promised. And I meant it. I want this man, who has opened up to me as he has no one else, to feel as safe in my arms as I feel in his. I want to be the place he comes home to, where he can be himself.
My hand maps the tattoos on his neck and along the taut, bulging muscles of his arms, then traces the dips and valleys of the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen. I kiss the stars at each end of his collarbone, marking him forever as a member of theVory v Zakone. My kisses trail over his face to the scars that so heavily mar his skin, a permanent physical reminder of his trauma. My lips follow them down his neck, his shoulder, his arm, down his side to his hip, and over his leg, the skin twisted and bumpy and rough.
I love it because it’s part of who he is, the man I love, and I won’t let him hide it from me.
“Lie on your back,” I purr.
Evgeny lies down, his lazy, leonine smile widening. “I won’t say no to that.”
His voice is a velvet rumble, his eyes dark with desire, and his breathing hitches as I climb on top.
He moans and shivers at my touch, gripping my good arm as his hips arch up toward me, and I sink onto his iron-stiff dick, taking in every inch of him. A shiver jerks through me at the feeling, the extra blood rushing to my pussy making every nerve ending a thousand times more sensitive.
“Oh God.” The words melt off my tongue, and my eyes slip closed to take in every single sensation.
“My thoughts exactly,” Evgeny grits out through clenched teeth. He’s already moving within me, gripping my ass as he rolls his hips in a way that makes me almost incoherent.
I move slowly, rocking to match his movements, taking in every sensation as my fingers rake across his skin, the tattoos, and the unyielding muscle beneath.
Our movements grow faster until we’re both panting, crying out. I don’t hold back, and the sound of my voice ringing through the room drives Evgeny onward.
