“It’s not the same,” she quickly says. “You were trying to protect me by making sure I got the tattoo. It’s not the same thing at all.”
“I’m still sorry.” I run my eyes over her, wondering if I’ll ever stop feeling so protective of her.
My arm is resting on her lap, and when she drags her fingers along my forearm it sends a small spark of pleasure all through me. There’s something about her touch that drives me wild. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever known. I already crave it, and I know that craving is only going to grow stronger with every minute I spend with her.
“I really like your tattoos,” she says, giving me a shy smile. Her fingers trace the wolf tattoo on my right forearm, and when she gets to her name, she stills. “This one looks newer than the others. What does it say?”
“This one is very special to me,” I tell her.
She traces the Cyrillic letters. “Is this an H?”
“No, it’s an N in Russian.”
When she realizes there are two Ns with a letter she doesn’t know between them and an A at the end, she widens her eyes and looks up at me. I smile and say, “It’s my wife’s name.”
“When did you have it done?”
“I asked Nikolai to do it after he’d finished with yours.”
“But you barely knew me then.”
“I knew enough,zolotse.”
She blushes, and I can’t resist running a finger along her flushed cheek. How any man could hurt her is beyond me. I’ve killed more people than I can even remember at this point, and I would never be able to hurt her. I know I told her earlier that I’d like to kiss her hard enough to make her healing lip bleed, but to me that’s not the same thing. I would only enjoy it if she were as desperate and feral about it as I would be. Her pleasure and desire and raw, primal need for me is what would fuel that sort of bloodlust. I would never get off on her fear or any pain that wasn’t laced with her sexual pleasure.
The look on her face reminds me of when I’d kissed her on the balcony. It’s a mix of desire and fear. She wants me, but she’s also scared of wanting me. My heart breaks a little every time I see that kind of fear in her eyes. I can’t imagine what she must’ve gone through, having her virginity ripped from her in the cruelest way. It must’ve been so damn painful. No wonder she’s terrified of sex.
“I can’t wait until all the fear I see in your eyes is replaced with pleasure. I want to see your face lit up with ecstasy.”
She blushes deeper and averts her eyes, but not before I see the flash of want in them. That look is enough. It tells me all I need to know, so I don’t push it any more. She’ll slowly open herself up to me, and I can be as patient as she needs me to be.
“Do you want to go and get your things from your parents’ house?”
She looks up at the change in subject. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to go back there. I don’t know if I want to ever see them again.”
“I understand, but if you want your things, I can have them brought here. We can go together, or I can go alone, whichever is easiest for you.”
She thinks and absentmindedly runs her fingers over the tattoo of her name. “I’ll go with you,” she finally decides, but then she quickly cuts her eyes to mine. “You won’t leave me alone with them?”
“Never,zolotse, not even for a second.”
“Okay then. It would be nice to have my clothes and books.”
“If you’d rather not go, we can just order you some new stuff.”
“Thank you, but I’d like to have my things. I was going to move out this summer and find an apartment. I just wanted to wait for the semester to end first. It seemed silly to waste money on rent when my parents lived so close to campus and were rarely home anyway, but I’d had all I could take. I was ready to leave, but then all this happened.”
“You won’t ever have to live there again.” I pull her closer and kiss her top lip, resisting the urge to give it a good suck and spend the next several minutes memorizing and exploring every inch of her mouth. “Time for me to meet the in-laws,” I say with a grin.
She points to her dad’s name on the list. “You’re going to do it today, aren’t you?”
“I see no point in waiting.”
“No, I guess there isn’t one.”
She watches me fold the list and put it in my pocket. “Come on, baby. I’ll have Andrei and Ilya pick up some boxes and then meet us there in one of the trucks so we’ll have extra room to haul your stuff back.”
I set her down, even though I’d rather just carry her everywhere. She’s so much shorter than me, and there’s no denying how right she feels when she’s in my arms. I kiss the top of her head and tell her to grab some shoes while I go find the guys to tell them the plans for the day. Most of the other men left after Igor’s death, but a few are still hanging out when I go outside to find Ilya and Andrei. None of them meet my eyes. Fear of me is still running through them, but that’s a good thing. I know they trust and respect me, but it’s good for them to fear me every once in a while, especially when it comes to any of them laying a hand on my wife. I’ll kill every fucking one of them for daring to touch what’s mine, and now they know it.
