I leaned against him and felt his cock hardening against me. Guilt simmered through me that I was so completely satisfied when he wanted more.
“Do you mind waiting?”
His fingers wrapped around my nape, and he pressed his lips against my ear. “Not at all, my love.”
The possessiveness in his voice sent a shudder of desire through me. I don’t think I’d ever stop reacting to those words.
Dmitri chuckled at my body’s response, but his eyes held a silent promise of what he'd do to me later. As he guided me into the opulent restaurant, I smiled so wide that my jaw almost ached.
I really was the luckiest girl in the world.
At least I thought that was the case… until my father’s angry red eyes met my own.
A freezing bucket of fear destroyed all the warm feelings fluttering through my body.
“You okay?” Dmitri asked, his hand brushing down the goosebumps on my arm.
I couldn’t even form words as I maintained eye contact with my father across the restaurant. Bottomless dread wasstrangling every thought in my head and suffocating my nervous system.
With a slight lurch, my father stood up from his booth. It was like I was ten years old again, and screaming at myself for not walking noiselessly through the house when my father was in one of his moods.
“Alisa,” Dmitri said, and this time I wrenched my eyes away from my father.
More than anything I wanted to tell him. To let him shoulder that anxiety and transform it into peace. But when I met my mother’s gaze I stopped myself.
From the vicious way Dmitri had sent Roman into a coma, I knew what would happen the moment he found out the truth.
With every fiber of my being, I wanted my father to pay for the way he’d treated my family over the years. But my father had let me know the contingencies he had in place if I retaliated against him.
Contingencies that included the slow death of my mother.
I swallowed unsteadily.
My father swept into my field of view. His presence stole all the air from my lungs.
“You didn’t answer my call, Alisa,” my father slurred.
Dmitri didn’t even bother to acknowledge my father, his concerned eyes were focused only on me.
I forced my voice to remain steady despite the hammering of my heart.
“I must’ve missed it. I’ve been so busy with the competition,” I said. I felt sweat building on my skin. “I promise I’ll give you a call later.”
Needing to get away, I started towards the hostess stand. Before I could move a foot, my father grabbed my arm hard enough to bruise. I tried not to react as his fingers dug deep into my skin.
“Don’t fucking touch her.” Dmitri’s voice was a growl.
He wrenched my father’s hand off me, and the force of it left my father stumbling into a metal barstool. Before my father could regain his footing, Dmitri angled his rigid body in front of my own.
Relief spiraled through me as his huge form eclipsed my vision.
“She’smydaughter, don’t tell me what to do.”
Alarm bells rang in my head when I recognized the tone of his voice. My father was minutes away from violence, and if he directed it at myself or Dmitri, I had a feeling he wouldn’t live much longer.
My father’s email detailing exactly how my mother would die if something happened to him played in my mind like a death march.
“Dad,” I said, the word feeling like sandpaper in my mouth. “Can we talk in private?”
