I don’t realize I’m smiling until after her laugh is gone. And I’m annoyed at knowing there isn’t anything I can do to make her do it again. Because she hates me.
“You’re right to think that I’m your enemy, I won’t deny that. But I’m also your husband. And like it or not, this is your money too now.” My gaze lingers on her immaculate skin, my fingersdigging a little deeper into her thighs. “So you weren’t busy, then. You just didn’t want to come to me.”
“Why should I, Wolfgang? All you’ve done is humiliate me. Threaten me…”
“Is that all I’ve done, love? Was there truly nothing else?”
She looks away, her thighs pressing together more. I wonder if she realizes she’s doing it. My cock hardens at the thought of pulling her sundress up just an inch or two, hooking my fingers behind her panties, and revealing her bare cunt to me. To my watering mouth.
“You won’t even tell me anything.” She sighs.
“What do you want to know?”
“I asked you why you picked me over my sister. I asked you why Mikhail hates you so much. What you’re planning to do with me… should I go on?”
“Kiss me,” I say, taking both of us by surprise. “Kiss me and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“Wolfgang…”
A wave of heat traverses my body, from the back of my head to my chest, down to my cock. Just looking at my wife heightens all my senses, muting everything else around me. And it’s not only because she’s beautiful. It’s because it’s her. It’s because she’swearing my ring on her finger and my diamond collar, and looks at me the way she does.
I suck in a breath, groaning on the exhale without meaning to.
“I told you, Victoria, I’ll never lie to you. So if you want your answers, do it now, love, because I’m burning inside. I want that pretty mouth of yours on mine.”
Her eyes shift across my face, not quite believing me, but wanting to. She inches forward, then a little more, leaning down, planting her hands on my face, until her breath tickles my lips and my heartbeat grows.
“Fine. But don’t take this for more than what it is,” she whispers.
“I’d never dare.”
Then her lips are on mine, so fucking soft, and warm, and perfect. I stick my tongue out, pushing it against the seam of her mouth until she opens, inviting me in like the good girl she is.
Her tongue meets mine, and I grunt at how sweet she tastes. Her hands travel to my hair, her delicate fingers burying themselves in it, tugging and making a complete fucking mess of my breathing pattern. Of all that I am.
I’m about to pull her into my lap and wet my fingers with her arousal when—
“I gave you what you wanted,” she whispers, pulling back. “Now tell me what I asked.”
Her body leans away, hands leaving my hair as she takes away her lips, keeping them to herself. I sit there, eyes closed, bewildered by the way she just toyed with me. Bewildered, and amused, and needing more of what she just did, like I need air.
But I’m nothing if not a man of my word. So I open my eyes.
“It’s not pretty—my story. Are you sure you want to hear it now?”
“Yes. I want to know.”
I lean back in my chair, cracking my neck. “My mother died when I was four. Around the time Father was getting started with the business, so he was making enemies fast. But we were happy… and I was so young.” I inhale, seeing the patches of my past flash through my mind. “She died on her birthday. A bullet took her life.”
“Oh my God,” Victoria says.
“Two years later, Father married Ekaterina—Katy, as he calls her—and they had Mikhail. But tradition is…”
“The first son becomes the nextPakhan,” she says, her lips swollen a little from all the blood swarming there.
I nod once. “I was born with an unusually high IQ. It’s been an asset for the family business, and all the more reasons to take Father’s place. But Mikhail doesn’t see that. To him, I’m an abomination. I don’t even have a Russian name—and that, among other things, makes me ineligible to take Father’s place, even if it’s my birthright.”
A small pause settles between us, and it’s the first time we sit together in silence. As if some sort of mutual understanding passes through both of us.
