Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I won’t make the same mistake twice.
I’m partway out the door when I remember what the goon with the ugly face tat said.
He groped her.
He. Groped. Polina—a bratva princess in her own right.
That isn’t just assault. It adds “sexual” in front of his infringement, and it leaves me no choice but to ensure he is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the bratva law.
6
POLINA
My hand shoots up to clamp my mouth when my entrance into my apartment has me stumbling onto a shadowed figure in the corner of the large space.
When he switches on the lamp, my heart strives to return to a safe level.
His angry scowl doubles its effort.
“Jesus Christ, Vasily, you scared me half to death.”
He leans forward until his elbows rest on his knees, his right arm extended a little further so his bandaged hand can dangle between his knees. The surgeons can’t operate until the swelling goes down, which is taking longer than expected. “I could say the same.” He licks his lips like they’re not glossed with the contents of the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the side table. “Where have you been, Polly?”
His nickname throws me off. Only a handful of people call me Polly. Two, to be precise—Yev and my father.
Not the sperm donor.
The one who raised me.
The reminder has me acting as if I must keep my on-again-off-again boyfriend in the know about all aspects of my life. It pisses me off, but users can’t act morally. “After work, I went for a drink with Nat. There’s a new brewery on Nova—”
“And after that?” he interrupts, his voice stern. “What happened after you switched off your phone so it couldn’t be traced?”
He’s tracking me?
It takes everything I have to keep my voice neutral during my reply. “I didn’t turn off my phone. The battery ran out of charge.” I twist my phone to face him before tapping on the black screen, so incredibly grateful I kept it switched off during my cab ride back from Yev’s apartment. “But I’m glad you couldn’t track me. It would ruin the surprise if you knew where I was.”
“Surprise?” He sounds like a kid who was told since birth that Santa Claus didn’t exist. “You’re planning a surprise for me?”
“Of course. It’s your birthday next week.” I toss my purse onto the entryway table hiding the knockoff watch I planned to give him for his birthday, before storing my keys on the key rack. “We’re still having dinner with your father, right?”
“That’s the plan.” He sounds hopeful while asking, “Unless you need me to change it?”
“No.” I inwardly cuss about the eagerness of my reply before icing it over with another lie. “What I have planned is for after that. We will call it dessert.”
My pulse ticks in my ears when he smiles a slick grin before he stands and moseys my way. “Dessert, hey? I like the sound of that.”
When he spins me to face the wall, then pulls me onto his crotch with his good hand, I cringe. I hate being taken from behind, and my neurosis worsens when the man’s breath reeks of alcohol.
Mistaking my shudder as excitement, Vasily buries his head into my neck, which forces more horrid thoughts to fill me. He grinds his erection against my ass while nibbling on my neck. I’m only saved from probing fingers because his hand is bandaged.
As I peel myself away from him, my voice shakes along with my legs. “Not that kind of dessert.” He groans when I mutter out a well-versed line. “You know I’m not ready for us to take that step yet.”
“We don’t need to fuck to uphold your wish to save yourself for marriage.”
Don’t look at me like that. He came to the assumption I’m a virgin on his own. He prefers that theory than believing I don’t want to sleep with him by choice.
“There are plenty of things we can do that don’t require penetration.”
When he stalks my way again, I scrub at my eyes. “I have a massive headache, and my feet are aching.” After toeing off my shoes, I move to the single-seater couch, plop on it, then massage my supposed “aching” feet. “Maybe we can watch a movie and cuddle?”
“Cuddle?” I don’t believe he meant to say that out loud, but it arrived with a frustrated groan. “I can’t. I just remembered I have that… ah… conference tonight. I can’t believe I forgot about it.” He truly believes he’s showcasing the qualities of a gentleman when he says, “It is understandable when you realize how worried I was that something terrible had happened to you. What if I wasn’t waiting for you last week? Who knows what he would have done if he had caught up to you.”
“Yev isn’t violent.” The only time he’s ever directed a bad word my way was in the bedroom, and that’s because I like things edgy when overwhelmed by need.