Page 106 of Bought By Sin

He’d worship my body every night, kissing, sucking, and nipping at my flesh like he needed to show reverence. I’d approach him and take the initiative more and more, enjoying the privilege to always know that he’d be mine, and nothing would ever cause him to leave me.

And that was my mindset before we’d marry.

On that note, I was conflicted. Selma didn’t offer my much advice about the decision to “hurry” through it all or take my time to plan a wedding.

“It’s the only time you’ll ever get hitched to a man, isn’t it?” she asked one morning when I brought my dishes to her.

The longer I adjusted to living here—not a slave but a member of the family—the better I acquiesced with her insistence that I was not a guest and I was not part of the house staff. Being waited on would never feel right, but I understood now that if I acted like I could cook or clean for myself, it was an insult to her. She valued her worth and the purpose of her job, much like I had and still would.

Just because I am getting “hitched” to Lev doesn’t mean I’m not going to work…

“Yes. One and only,” I told her.

She shrugged. “Then it really don’t matter if you rush through it or plan it some more.”

I cringed. “I don’t look forward to planning something like a wedding. I’ve never thought that I would be doing something like that. Never thought I’d meet a man and that…” A light sigh slipped from me.

I had never imagined meeting a man and getting married. That was how desolately stuck I was in my life as a slave, tossed from one Cartel of dirty, lawless losers to another.

“But now that you are…” Selma prompted, pinning me in place with the stare from her one eye. I’d finally gotten the story on that one, learning that she had her eye taken because her father had let her pay for his crimes in the literal interpretation of an eye for an eye. She, too, had suffered from a family who hadn’t wanted her and instead tried to sell her. She was captured when she was homeless, trying to steal food from one of the clubs that the Volkovs owned on the Strip, but Dmitri had taken her in and had given her a job.

“Now that I am getting married, I would rather just have it done.” I nodded once at her. “And not stress about flowers and guests and all that.”

She flicked her hand at me, dismissing the thought as she faced the sink to rinse off my plates. “Then let Elena handle it. She enjoys it.”

I cringed. “Perhaps. But she’s so close to having that baby.”

Selma scoffed. “Bah. She’s got weeks to go. Three weeks, at least.”

I shook my head. I was far from calling myself an expert on the matter of pregnancies or childbirth, but I had a hunch that the slim, quiet-mannered woman would soon be delivering her child. She looked so big, so ready to pop. And with those repeated “practice” contractions that had her wincing every so often when she and Carina went over the bare-minimum of wedding plans with me, she was potentially closer than she anticipated.

“Mila?”

Lev called out from the large living room, and I turned to see how he was doing.

A tattoo artist, one of the finest that the Bratva always had priority with, had arrived a couple of hours ago to touch up and finish the tattoo that Lev had wanted on his chest. Among all the real estate of his taut skin, he wanted a mark to commemorate our wedding. In advance.

I set my teeth on my lower lip as I entered the work area and hesitated.

“Okay, this is it,” he said from lying back on the table-like chair that had been positioned here for him to recline on. “What’s the date?”

He was fully aware of my rash idea to just elope and have a small ceremony. But he was also aware of how I was ready to compromise and just have that bigger production that the family deemed as proper, with more guests and an actual dinner and the works.

The tattoo artist smiled, shaking his head. “Once it’s inked here…”

“Don’t put pressure on me now,” I teased my fiancé as he watched me come closer and sit next to him.

“You want to become my wife next week? Or next month?” He took my hand and held it, not looking the least bit uncomfortable with the process of needles in his skin, inking an intricate heart design over his chest that would forever mark our love and the day of our wedding.

“I… do?” I answered.

“I thought you said that at the wedding,” the tattooist joked.

“What’s making you want to have it done sooner?” Lev asked, fully committed to giving me whatever I needed or wanted. Including letting me choose the actual wedding date we’d settle on, a detail he hoped to be finalized now so his tattoo commemorating the date would be accurate.

“I am not sure how I’ll cope with being the center of attention as the bride,” I reminded him.

I wasn’t going to ever be dismissed or overlooked again. I would be his wife. I would have my place here as a spy, too. But old habits died hard, and I tensed up at the idea of being the “star” or focus of any event, even my own wedding.