Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I stare at her. I want to shake her to get the truth out, but I know it won’t work that way. I’ve built my entire life around control, strategy, and cold calculation, yet nothing prepared me for the raw anger that grips me, knowing there’s more to this story and she won’t tell me.
Has she betrayed me?
Why don’t you ask your wife?
I clench my teeth. “I’ve given you protection. Stability. I took your little brother into my home, Anya.”
She stares at me and opens her mouth, then clamps it shut again. “I know.” Her pretty eyes flash at me. “You weren’t the only one who’s given here.”
I grip her shoulder. “My brothers don’t believe you. Matvei thinks you’re lying. It’s too convenient. You pass out. Disappear. End up in the yard where we have no surveillance footage and no access to phone lines?”
She grits her teeth and doesn’t speak.
She’s hurt and angry—so am I. I have no space for softness, not when she’s all but admitting she’s complicit.
“You want to pretend we’re just going to bury this?” My voice is low, menacing.
Blowing out a breath, she glares at me. I’m fully awake now. “Oh, here’s an idea. Why don’t you drag me to your basement and interrogate me? Maybe that’ll work? If you think I have so much to hide, why don’t you use the tools at your disposal?” She shakes her head. “You don’t trust me. You haven’t from the beginning, have you?”
Her eyes flash with fury.
“You don’t get to judge me when you’ve done nothing but push me away,” she hisses. “You think you can control everything, even me.”
I exhale through my nose, but my body’s thrumming, my pulse racing. In one swift move, I pin her beneath me, my hands pressed on her wrists. I’m stronger than she is, and she can’t get away, but I’m the one in her fucking grip. The silence between us is charged with need and fury.
Punishment, possession, and anger twist into one, and I kiss her. I take her mouth. Ravage it. My lips meet hers as I plunder her mouth, owning her, as her hands curl into my biceps, and I ignore the way my fucking shoulder screams with pain. She kisses me back just as fiercely, meeting me blow for blow. Our breaths mingle, our tongues dance. My dick throbs, pressed up to her.
I push her legs open with my knee. "I don't know if I can trust you," I growl in her ear. My grip tightens, my muscles coiled with restraint. I’ve never wanted to hurt Anya. But I don’t trust myself. If I let go, I could break her. No matter what she’s done, no matter if she’s betrayed me—I will never lay a hand on her in anger.
"You don't trust me?" she throws back in my face. "You were the one who pretended I had no choice in marrying you when the whole time you were planning on doing it with my father. I'm not Bratva, Semyon. I wasn't raised with the expectation that I’d be forced into marriage. You should know that."
I roll onto my back and put her legs on either side of me so she straddles me. I won't hurt her, but I know exactly how to take control. I thumb her nipples until her mouth parts open. "You weren't Bratva,” I snap. "You fucking are now."
I pinch her nipples. She screams. I take my thick, aching cock out of my boxers, remove her shorts and move a small bit of fabric—the little triangle that keeps me from her—and find her pussy, hot and slick, ready for me. Conditioned, like a good girl.
I slide her onto me, lifting her hips, and she moves, seeking her own pleasure. Her beautiful eyes flash at me, her hair falling across her face. Her hands are planted on my chest. It hurts like fuck, but I don't care.
"Well, that's obvious."
I slap her ass hard until she hisses in a breath. I spank her again. And again.
"Behave yourself," I growl at her.
She arches a brow at me, her beautiful lips pursed like a bow. "No."
I lift her, put her on her back, and pin her beneath me. Gathering her wrists in one of my hands, I hold them above her head. "Little brat."
She opens her mouth to sass me again, but I take it with mine. Plundering. Claiming. Our lips clash with our wills. I glide my cock to her entrance and slam into her to the hilt. She arches her back and cries out. Her legs wrap around me, and I thrust into her again and again, my release mounting with my anger. Anya has no skin in this game—unless she's with another man. I lower my mouth to her ear. "Who the fuck is he?" I growl.