Page 34 of Paved in Hate

“I’m sorry,” she quickly says, looking everywhere but at me. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Coming several times will do that to you.”

She lets out an embarrassed groan and starts to move off me, but I grab her thigh, holding her in place.

“Why are you embarrassed?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m embarrassed because I’ve never done anything like that, and I’m embarrassed because I still don’t know what to make of you.” She gestures between the two of us. “This is really weird, Vitaly.”

“Tell me about it,” I say with a laugh.

“I’ve never even been on a date before.” She shakes her head and looks over her shoulder at me. “And now I’m married.”

I reach up and run my hand through the hair I can’t seem to get enough of. “You must’ve had guys hitting on you all the time. Why didn’t they ask you out?”

She gives a harsh laugh. “Because my brothers would’ve killed them. They didn’t want anyone to know I existed. I’ve been hidden away my entire life, and no one hit on me. No one was even allowed to acknowledge my existence. Konstantin made sure of that.”

“How’d he do that?” I ask, trying to get a better picture of the monster we’re going up against.

“Some low-level enforcer made the mistake of giving me a polite smile one day, so Konstantin made an example out of him.”

“He killed him?”

“No, he didn’t kill him, but the poor man will never be the same.” When she looks back at me, I can see the pain in her eyes and without even needing to think about it, I’m pulling her back down and into my arms.

“It wasn’t your fault.” I run my hands through her hair and hold her tightly with my other arm. She doesn’t cry, but I feel the shiver run through her body.

“It feels like it’s my fault. It feels like it’s all my fault.”

I hold her for a few more minutes, but then her stomach growls, reminding me that the supper she was supposed to eat is still sitting on my nightstand.

“Come on, you need to eat something,ptichka.”

She gets up and walks to the bathroom, stepping gingerly on her sore feet while I try and figure out how I’m going to handle all this. I’m attracted to her, and I desperately want to sink my cock into her, but I’m also worried about her. I don’t like how scared she gets when she’s talking about her brothers, and I hate thinking about her growing up all alone with nothing but sadistic rapists watching over her.

When she peeks her head out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I’m still just as confused about how to handle this marriage.

“Can I shower with my feet like this?”

Fuck, now I’m going to be confused and hard. I’m starting to think that’s just going to be my normal state of being from now on—just a guy walking around with raging hard-on and a very confused look on his face.

Fucking perfect.

Chapter7

Katya

“Ptichka, I swear to god if you fuck up those bandages again, I’m going to tie you to the damn bed.”

I watch Vitaly rise and walk towards the bathroom, looking every bit the dangerous Bratva boss that he is. I’m not scared of him like I was, though. I keep waiting for a flash of anger to hit those whiskey-brown eyes or some glimpse of the rage that he’s trying to hide from me, but I’m not seeing it. He gets mad, like he is now at the idea of me hurting myself further, but it’s a different kind of anger than what I’m used to. It’s not the kind that will end in me or someone else getting hurt.

“I didn’t ruin my bandages,” I tell him, taking a step back when he opens the bathroom door and comes in. “I just want to know if I can shower.”

“No, you can’t.”

“What am I supposed to do then?”

He nods at the huge clawfoot bathtub in the corner. “A bath with your feet sticking out.”

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