Page 29 of Paved in Hate

“You think I’m upset because you’re painting a beautiful picture for my nephew?” I ask, raising a brow at her.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot, wincing when it irritates her cuts. I point at her feet, glad that she at least had enough sense to keep my socks on.

“I told you to rest.”

“I was bored.”

“I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t care,” she huffs out, turning back to the wall and giving me her back. “You were too busy spending the day with your strippers.”

The corner of my mouth lifts at her attitude. I like seeing glimpses of who she is beneath the fear that usually keeps her tongue in check.

“I had some things I needed to take care of,” I tell her, stepping closer.

She ignores me and keeps painting. When I grab her wrist, stilling the brush midstroke, she lets out a frustrated growl that goes straight to my damn dick. Ever since I left the penthouse I’ve been soft, but one angry huff out of her and I’m hard as fucking steel. It’s annoying, and it’s making me cranky.

“I want to keep working,” she argues, trying to break from my hold, but there’s no chance in hell that’s happening.

“Tough shit,ptichka.”

Wrenching the paintbrush from her hand, I drop it next to the others, but when she starts having a fit about properly storing the brushes, I hold up my hands and step back so she can store her supplies how she wants. She wraps them up how she wants them, and when she’s satisfied, she takes one last look at the wall.

“It wouldn’t take me long at all to finish up that last bird,” she starts to say, but I pick her up before she can reach down and grab another damn brush. “Wait, I need my bag.”

I look down at her, letting her know I’m not amused.

“Please, I really need it, and if you don’t grab it, I’m just going to walk back down here to get it.”

“Good to see you’re finding your voice,” I tell her, reaching down to grab the strap of her bag.

“I can walk,” she informs me as I carry her out of the room.

“Yes, but you’re not supposed to, are you?”

“Does it really matter?”

“It matters to me,” I say, surprised to find that it’s true. When Matvey had texted me to let me know that Katya had been painting for hours, standing on her sore feet, and had skipped supper, I’d immediately gotten in my car and come home. I may have been hiding out at work because I’m still not sure how to handle my new marriage, but that doesn’t mean I want her not eating and hurting herself.

Carrying her into our room, I drop her bag by the bed and continue into the bathroom, putting her back on the counter, just like earlier. When I grab a foot and start to pull the sock off, she sighs and says, “How’d it go with my brothers? Make any big plans?”

When the sock is off, my mouth tightens in a line when I see that she’s bled through her bandages.

“Goddammit, Katya,” I growl at her, setting her foot down so I can get the damn antibiotic cream and more bandages.

She gives me a wary look, but keeps her mouth shut. She’s managed to get a smudge of blue paint on the tip of her cute nose, and my urge to cup her face and memorize every inch of her with my lips and tongue is growing stronger by the second. It just adds to my irritated mood. Peeling off her bandages, I see the cuts she’s reopened because her stubborn ass couldn’t stay in bed for one damn day, and when a drop of blood slides down her skin, splattering into the sink, I raise a brow at her.

“The next time I tell you to stay in bed and rest, you better damn well do it.”

“I started to, but then Emily and the others came in. She saw my drawings and asked me about painting the nursery.” She shrugs her small shoulders. “I just got really excited, and then you never came back, and I knew I’d go crazy if I just sat up here waiting for you.”

When I dab on some medicine, she says, “Next time I’ll just crawl so my feet won’t get hurt.”

The image of her crawling in her pretty pink dress with her cotton, pink panties has a groan escaping before I can stop it.

“No crawling,” I say, refusing to elaborate on that rule by adding that I’m the only man she’s allowed to get on her hands and knees for.

She sighs and lets me doctor her feet. When I’m done, I leave the socks off because I think her feet are cute and grab a cloth, wetting it at the sink next to her.

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