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“Pavel says Ruby is worried about you.” Dimitri takes a seat in one of the chairs facing the couch I’m currently spread on. “I am too.”
Pavel had refused to leave Ruby after she’d been taken. He’d asked for a permanent transfer from Ilya’s employ, so that he could remain indefinitely in mine. With Ruby.
I think Pavel struggles with a similar kind of guilt for all that happened. When Ilya had arrived with Ruby, she’d been unconscious and covered in blood, held tight in Elio’s arms. At first, I’d feared she was dead.
I think Pavel feared the same, because he’d fallen to his knees—and I swear the man had prayed. As for me, I’d run to her—pulling her from Elio’s arms and into mine. If it weren’t for the warmth of her flesh, the tiny puffs of breath against my throat, I might have fallen to my knees with her.
I force my gaze to my friend. My brother of choice. “Why are you worried?”
“This isn’t you. You’re moodier than usual.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re afraid for her.” His gaze is as blunt as his tone. “But what happened was—fuck, it was unexpected. No one could have predicted that.”
“We are supposed to be prepared for the unexpected.”
“No one could have known that would happen. That she wouldn’t be safe in the room with her doctor. That the man would be killed.” He leans forward, eyes drilling into mine. “Kirill, none of us could have known.”
I watch the last of the vodka swirl in my glass before I shoot it back. “I told Pavel to stay out of the room. She’s always hungry for privacy, and I wanted to give it to her. I didn’t tell him to do a sweep. I didn’t tell him to stay with her until I arrived. I?—”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not Pavel’s fault, even though I know he carries the guilt of that day, just as you carry it.” Dimitri gives a dry, bitter chuckle. “But the poor girl is paying for the guilt you both carry. She’s suffering.”
I frown. He has my attention now, and he knows it. He continues, “You don’t think she’s not working herself to the bone to make both of you, okay? Because she is. I see it every day, her bright smiles and big laughs. She’s working to be happy, working to show you both that she doesn’t hold it against you. Doesn’t blame either of you.” He sighs. “I talked with Pavel tonight, and now I’m talking to you. As your friend, your brother. Forgive yourself before she starts to blame herself for the mess you’ve become.”
With that, he stands, and moves to the door. Then he leaves me there in the semi-dark with an empty glass of vodka in a room filled with the stench of guilt.
I sit alone with the ghost of need for a woman I no longer know how to take. Everything we were haunts me.
My wife is in the bedroom waiting for me on the chaise, dressed in a sinfully sexy, strappy little number cut with red lace. Nothing about the way she looks makes me think of the vulnerable, innocent little church girl she’d been when I first made her mine.
Her red waves are mussed just enough to give her the appearance of being freshly fucked. The thought sends a bolt of something hot and possessive through me, because no one touches my woman but me.
My woman.
Fucking hell, she’s beautiful.
Her eyes are done in a smoky shadow, her lips an alluring ruby red. The tight red straps of her outfit cut into her skin just enough to make my teeth ache in my jaw with the need to nip at her flesh, to nip at the material that taunts me where it clings to her body. Her nipples pebble, visible behind the lace cups of her bra, before a thin strap spans the length between her breasts to the collar at her neck. The top is connected to the mouth-wateringly skimpy bottoms by a crisscross of straps that nip into her belly, the small of her waist. The pale cream of her legs is covered by black sheer thigh-high stockings that clip to the straps that span her hips from her red panties.
On the floor, Simba sits on the carpet at the foot of the chaise, tall and proud. A hellhound standing sentry for his queen. My innocent little wife has never looked so badass. So fucking tempting.
Hungry eyes meet mine, and then something silver flashes in her hand. A hum fills the space that has every inch of my body snapping tight. I am alert like never before. Not even in battle. Blood rushes to my already hard cock. My mouth goes dry. My hands itch to feel the hot thrum of her body under my touch. Under me.
“Wife.” My voice comes out guttural. “What are you doing?”
She moans. The sound cuts straight to my dick. I stumble forward a step, and her smoky eyes cut to mine. Her voice is husky. “I’m fucking myself, husband.”
“Jesus.” It’s a prayer for deliverance. This woman.
“Since you won’t, I thought?—”
Her words cut off with a hitched breath as I prowl toward her, hooking my hand around the strap that connects her bra to the collar. I pull her closer, watching as her breasts arc toward me, her full, red-painted lips parting, the honey-gold of her eyes striking firelight.
My dick throbs painfully behind my zipper, aching for her. To be inside her. To claim her. To release the beast and succumb to the need to possess her. To own her. To fuck her hard and raw until she’s weeping beneath me. Begging and moaning and pleading.
I tip my face toward her, indulging in the sweet scent of her throat as she lets her head fall back, her hair a tumble of burnished red in the low light cast from a single flickering flame. Dragging the tip of my nose along the length of her throat, I growl, “Are you trying to drive me mad?”
She shakes her head slowly, her half-mast eyes snaring my soul. “No.”
