"I gave them the night off," he smiles at me devilishly. "I wanted to make you a late-night supper. You'd be surprised at how forceful I had to be. Especially with Magda."
"She didn't trust you in her kitchen?"
He nods at a stool and I take a seat. "She's not going to say it out loud, of course."
"Of course not." My lips twitch. "You, about to be the mightyPakhan?I'm sure her survival instinct is well-honed by now."
His hand works the knife with dizzying speed, the muscles in his forearms flexing under his skin.
"Why did you kick them out?" I ask, blurting it out with no thought, which is becoming more of a problem every day. "Are you worried they'll hear my screams on our wedding night?"
He fixes me with the filthiest possible grin. "No. I'm worried they'll hear mine."
I howl with laughter, and then everything feels good again, even if it's just for now. "Can I help with dinner?"
He pushes a plate of cabbage over to me. "Chop this, would you? Fairly thin sliced." He offers me the razor-sharp butcher's knifeproperly, handle first. As I reach to take it, my diamond ring flashes in the light from the overhead pendant, nearly blinding me, it's heavy on my hand.
"You're looking at that ring like it's a barnacle you're not sure if you can scrape off," he says wryly, continuing to chop the pile of beef in front of him.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you would've welded it to my finger, if you thought you could get away with it." He raises a haughty brow at that and I shake my head. "I'mkidding.Every time I look at it though… You could see this rock from space. My hand is almost unrecognizable."
He puts his blade down, picking up my hand. "I see the same long, graceful fingers," he says. "The same cuts on your index finger and your thumb. Please tell me those aren't from your own scalpel or I'm going to lose a lot of confidence in you."
"Ironically, no, though that happens," I laugh. "I cut them on a tin can that I was trying to recycle."
"That'll teach you to give a shit about the environment," he says, going back to his work.
"What about you?" I ask. "How didyoumanage to achieve butcher level skills? You're working that cleaver like a maestro."
For some reason, he finds this amusing, laughing quietly.
"What?"
"Nothing in particular," he chuckles. "I was just thinking about my last visit to a professional butcher's shop." I smile at his odd moment of humor as we finish making dinner.
***
There is no question. I'm going to sleep with this man tonight. He knows it. I know it. Iwantto.
Even so, as he leads me into the study after dinner and there's already a blaze going in the fireplace and a big soft rug in front of it, I raise my eyebrow at him. "That confident you were going to get lucky on your wedding night?"
"Well," he smiles modestly. "You must admit that theshchi -the cabbage soup - was excellent and the beefshashlikwas sublime. I have noticed that a good meal seems to weaken your defenses."
"Already, you know me too well," I admit. "Though I think you're also forgetting your deadly skill with forearm porn."
"Forearmwhat?"Dmitri laughs.
Trailing my fingers along the bare skin below his rolled-up sleeves, I say, "Forearm porn. All muscled and veiny… Your ink. The fact that you seem to be able to keep a tan even though I haven't seen you out of a suit once?"
"I see." His grin is just one level below a smirk but it's still hot. "I appreciate any opportunity to weaken your defenses, so by all means…" He unbuttons his shirt, his gaze never leaving mine. "Keep watching."
The conceited bastard.
"I'm not looking," I say, keeping my gaze directly on his icy blue one. My eyes - those traitorous assholes - drop anyway, looking at the strong column of his throat, his pectorals, as his calloused fingers unbutton that expensive dress shirt. His sculpted abdominals ripple as he pulls his shirt off. And my slutty lower half throws away any attempt at self-respect, my undies are instantly drenched.
Dmitri is insanely hot, but certainly not untouched. His broad shoulders are littered with scars and there's something that looks alarmingly like a scar from a stabbing on the left side of his ribcage. Two round indentations that I'm fairly certain are bullet wounds rest above his hipbone.
"You know, for someone so high up in your family's 'corporation,'" I say, making the little quotation marks with my fingers, "It seems like you get hurt a lot."
