CHAPTER 19
Gavril
I caressed Naomi’s stomach, reminding myself of the child that was growing inside. She had asked me what she might’ve thought to be an innocent question. But to me, it was a hell of a lot more complicated than she realized. There had been a time with Katya that I would have left willingly.
I believed that my mother knew it, which was why she was so against our relationship. Had Katya not tried to kill me that night, I might have truly given up everything to be with her.
Maybe it was a fucking blessing in disguise, what Katya did. It would have been difficult to regain control after walking away from it all, especially from my mother. She would have seen me as a failure, not that she didn’t see me that way now.
And now. I was looking at Naomi before me, not Sveta.
I was looking at the woman who carried my child, who held my future in her hands whether she believed it or not.
How could I not imagine my life with her outside of the Bratva? How could I not look at her and see a future where I didn’t have to worry about losing her or our future children?
It was a dream. A thought, nothing more.
Just like I had told her.
But I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t want to lose our child. The last thing I could do right now was follow through with ridding myself of Naomi after the child was born. She hadn’t run away screaming as I bared my soul—the darkest part of me.
If that wasn’t a sign of her ability to handle what lay ahead, then I didn’t know what was.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said softly, brushing a stray lock off my forehead with her fingers. “To tell me what you are thinking.”
“I’m thinking,” I started. “That I don’t want this to end between us.”
It was the closest I would come to the truth when it came to Naomi, to her and to me as well.
Her expression softened, and she framed my face with her hands. “Will you let me help you forget?”
I wanted to forget all the shit, from Katya to the Krasnaya brigadiers to the asshole that had terrified my wife.
Naomi must have seen the answer in my eyes. She gave me a gentle smile, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to mine. I closed my eyes, letting her take the lead as the entire fucking world melted away from her kiss.
Her lips weren’t demanding. Instead, they sought to taste every inch of mine. When her tongue ran over the seam of my lips, I opened my mouth. Hungrily, Naomi swept inside. Usually, I wasn’t one to let a woman lead in the bedroom.
Katya had scarred me in more ways than one. But Naomi wasn’t Katya, and I wasn’t that stupid, ignorant eighteen-year-old.
Her tongue tangled with mine and I reached up to frame her face with my hands as well, deepening the kiss. I couldn’t get enough of Naomi’s touch, her smell, and the way her body fit so perfectly against mine.
She made me feel like I could be someone good for her.
Someone that gave a damn about her, worthy of whatever feelings she had for me.
She pulled away first, gasping as she did so.
“Off,” she said, pushing at my coat. “I want it all off.”
Unfolding myself from the sofa, I stripped off my coat, my cock heavy with need. I wanted to bury myself inside her so fucking deep that she couldn’t tell where she ended and I began. I only felt alive when I was in her, fucking her while she screamed my name.
Removing my cufflinks, I placed them on the table next to the sofa before I started unbuttoning my shirt, giving her a teasing glimpse of my skin underneath. When she bit her lower lip, I nearly came right then and there.
“Fuck,” I breathed, my fingers fumbling with the buttons now. “What you do to me.”
Naomi smiled as she rose from the sofa, her hands pushing the shirt off my shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. “You are taking far too long, Gavril,” she said as she reached for my belt buckle. “I said I wanted it off.”
“Then take it off,” I growled, my skin searing where her nimble fingers touched. “I’m yours to play with.”
A wicked smile crossed her face. “My favorite thing to do.”
I grinned then. I liked being her favorite. I was her only now.
She pulled my pants over my hips and my cock sprang out, angry and ready for her. Naomi’s eyes feasted on my member and I groaned. “You keep looking at it like that,” I murmured. “And this will be over before we get started.”
“We can’t have that, can we?” she replied, her hands sliding over my shoulders. With each touch, I could feel her tracing my numerous scars, a testament to a lifetime of violence.
Naomi didn’t flinch as she touched them. Instead, her lips parted and before I realized what she was doing, her lips pressed against one in particular. My hands filtered into her hair and I groaned, letting her place chaste kisses down my chest. “You are so beautiful,” she said against my skin. “Beautiful but deadly.”
She had gotten the deadly part right at least. My fucking hands had killed many, and Naomi would be shocked into silence if I started to count the bodies that had been at my feet over the years.
Or would she?