Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
She gives a watery laugh. “Are you really in love, or do you just feel responsible for me? Because I know you, too, Adrian. You function from guilt.”
My stomach jumps a little with the heave of that very emotion. “I do feel guilty, yes.” I massage the back of her neck with my fingers. “But I want something from you, Kat. More than forgiveness.”
“What do you want?” she whispers.
“You,” I murmur back. “I want you. I want you underneath me, making those enthusiastic sounds before you come.” My lips are against her ear, so the words are for her alone. “I want you on your knees with that pouty little mouth around my cock. I want you over my lap getting your pretty ass turned pink.”
She squirms on my lap, her belly shaking with soft laughter.
“But it’s not just sex. I want you, Kit-Kat. I want–fuck, I need–to be your center. The axis you spin around. The place where there is no wobble.”
“Adrian,” she whispers.
“I want to be around when you’re filling up every room with your big personality.”
“Are you calling me extra?” she demands with mock offense.
“You are definitely extra.”
She holds my gaze. “What happens when you change your mind?”
My sweet Kateryna–so wounded by her father’s abandonment. I will teach her to rely on me. I’ll be her rock. “I won’t change my mind. Nothing you do or say will ever make me leave. You know why, malyshka?” I take on a teasing tone.
“Why?”
The corners of my lips tug upward. “Because I know how to handle you when you misbehave.”
Her thighs squeeze together, and she wiggles again.
“I’m going to take good care of you, Kat. I promise.”
“I’m going to take good care of you, too.” She turns on her sex kitten eyes, and now I’m the one who needs to readjust in his seat.
The cab pulls up in front of my hotel, and we get out. “Wanna go start?” I ask, taking her hand.
“Start what?”
“Taking good care of each other.”
She smiles back at me with that easy trust. “I think we’ve already been doing that.”
15
Kat
“Okay, so it’s Ravil, Lucy, and their baby, Benjamin, and then Maxim and Sasha, and Oleg and Story on the top floor.”
Adrian nods. We're driving from the airport after taking a first-class flight to Chicago. I used my money to buy the tickets because I now have the five million dollars Adrian extorted out of my father.
I plan to give it to Nadia to compensate for the horrors my dad inflicted on her, but it was nice to use my debit card for a posh flight and pull a stack of cash out of the ATM.
We had to wait two days in Adrian’s hotel for one of his bratva brothers in England to break into my apartment and get my passport, so I wouldn’t have to ride to Chicago on a freight ship. They were also kind enough to pack all my personal belongings and ship them to America.
Adrian asked if I wanted him to fly back there with me, so we could do it ourselves, but I didn’t. I’m ready to just shut the door on my old life.
My past means nothing. My father is dead to me. I had no real friends in Liverpool. I will miss the pottery studio, but Adrian promises there will be wheels and classes in Chicago. It’s a big city.
“Sasha has a big personality, too, so you two will either love or hate each other,” Adrian tells me.
My belly lurches. “You don’t think she’ll like me?”
Adrian’s lips tug. “I didn’t say that. She’s a lot like you–she likes everyone. But she’s also an actor, and she loves to be the center of attention.”
I pout. “I don’t have to be the center of attention.”
Adrian’s relaxed in his seat–more relaxed than I’ve seen him, sending me amused glances as I work out my nervous energy. “Let me ask you this, malyshka–are you going to be prancing around the Kremlin in school-girl outfits?”
The Kremlin, I’ve learned, is the nickname for his building because it mostly houses Russians and Russian-owned businesses.
“How else will I signal that I'm feeling naughty?”
Adrian's smile is indulgent. “You know that means a lot of guys are going to get punched out by me, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they're going to look at you, and it's going to piss me off, so I'm going to have to bash heads in.”
I laugh, delighted by his future jealousy. “Maybe I'll just wear the outfits for you, then,” I tell him.
His eyes glitter with appreciation. “Would you do that for me?”
“If you told me to.” I twirl the end of one of my braids. “It could be a rule.”
Adrian shifts to adjust himself, and my nipples tighten knowing he’s turned on. “It’s a rule,” he says gruffly.
He hasn’t been forceful with me in the way I love in the past two days. I think the bruises on my face disturb him too much. Most of the time before we flew to America was spent with him holding ice packs to my cheek and making sure my every need was taken care of. It was damn sweet. Even the sex was sweet, which was nice, but not necessarily my thing.