AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s such a waste.
“I may not enjoy people, but I am good at them.”
I frown, and his dark eyes drop to it. “How is one good at people?”
“I am very good at reading people. It’s easier for someone like me to be the face of the Volkov family, than a man like my brother, Ilya.”
“And what is he like?”
Kirill laughs, a quick, abrupt sound that ends the same way. “He’s different.”
“Do you not get along?” Why am I asking? Why do I care?
I hate that I care.
“We get along fine. He’s a good, but dangerous man.”
He kidnapped me, I want to say, but don’t. Instead, I ask, “What is he like?”
He peers down at me for a long moment. Then, his deep voice cuts through the cold like a blade. “I saw my first murder at eight. It was a clean kill, simple even, considering the kills that would follow in the years after. A bullet to the head, and the man dropped.” He chuffs a laugh. “But I was shaken.”
“Of course, you were, Kirill.” I am horrified.
“No.” He wipes his thumb over his bottom lip as he lowers himself to the seat of the snowmobile. “I was a wreck, Ruby. Sweat clung to my skin, and my teeth chattered. I was hot and cold. My vision blurred, and I thought I’d be sick.”
I can’t help myself, dropping to my knees in front of him, I place my gloved hands on his thighs, willing his faraway eyes to mine. “You were a boy. Any boy would have reacted just the same as you.”
“Not Ilya.” I stiffen at his words, appalled. “He was six, even younger than me. And he stood beside me, unfazed by the end of that man’s life. No—” He laughs again. “He wasn’t unfazed. He was bored. Unaffected. He may as well have watched the man fall asleep, for how much it affected him. I had nightmares for months afterward, but not Ilya. No, he was learning the art of butchering a human—self-taught—while I was masking my weakness with jokes and grins.” His eyes hold mine, and he grows painfully serious. “I was the older brother. It was my birthright, and my burden, to bear the weight Ilya carries today. For that, I will forever be less of a man.”
I’m so confused. “What do you mean?”
“I am my father’s firstborn son, and I am his greatest disappointment. It should have been me who bore the weight of the Bratva. Instead, I am the one who charms the corrupt into investing their blood money into my family’s bank, making us more money. I am a tool in Ilya’s pocket. A man too soft to rule the kingdom he was born to rule.” His bottom lip quivers, his emotion so extreme. My heart aches. “I am a failure.”
I can’t take this. I don’t have the expertise to unravel all the fucked-up-ness that my husband has revealed to me just now, but I do know that he’s hurting. Somewhere within the hard man I’ve come to know, is a sore, scared, scarred little boy, who had a soft and beautiful center that was poisoned by evil and darkness.
Pushing up into his lap, I spread my legs around his hips, catching his face between my hands. His dark eyes land on mine, searching, and pleading for things I don’t know if he will ever find, but I suddenly hope he will find them all within me. This man stole me from my life. He made me a prisoner. And yet—I think I’ve fallen in love with him somewhere along this bumpy, tragic journey.
Because now, all I want to do is take away his pain. I want to pull every bit of it inside of me so that he may know just a moment of reprieve.
I whisper, “You are a man.” I watch as he swallows hard. “You are my man.”
His eyes shutter closed, as though he’s savouring the words I never thought I would ever say. I don’t know where the bravery comes from, but I drop my head to his. My lips touch his, cool from winter’s kiss. They don’t stay that way long. And the kiss doesn’t remain in my control for long, either.
With a dark rumble deep in his throat, Kirill takes over. His lips are firm as they devour mine, and before I know it, he’s standing to flip me onto my back on the seat of the snowmobile. My shoulder blades connect with the handlebars, my back cradled by the small dash as the man feasts on my mouth, my jaw, the tender skin below my ear. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear the fall of my zipper. Cold hands spear into my suit, palming my breasts.
Everything about this moment, from the dimming sky ablaze with the heavenly fires of a setting sun, to the crisp cold, to the hot man above me, feels surreal and feral. My instincts are basic in this moment as I seek the warmth of his kiss, the fire of his touch, the consuming cocoon of his weight.
“Fucking hell, you’re beautiful,” he growls into my neck, nipping tender flesh.
I cry out into the silent forest as I rock my hips for a friction I desperately need, and don’t have. With a dark chuckle, he drives a knee gently into my core, giving me that pressure I ache for. I don’t know how the man does it. How he bends and twists me into a knot of need with such ease. And I don’t have the headspace for it right now as my mind drifts again and again, back to that unfortunate boy who has grown into the man above me. Who has crafted the hard shell he wears over his soft center, as a means to protect himself. To become the thing that he isn’t in order to survive.
My heart weeps for the man he could have been, even as it breaks for the man that he is.
“Christ,” he bites out between hot kisses. “You need to come.”
“Yes.” I’m shameless. But, God—I do need to come.
I also want him to come.
