We packed our luggage and Viktor loaded it into the back seat. Then, like a perfect gentleman, he helped me into the passenger side and we pulled out onto the road as the sun went down. The stars were bright overhead and I rolled back the skylight so I could see them as we drove. It was the perfect night, almost sixty degrees Fahrenheit without a single cloud in the sky.
“Do you like being outdoors?” I asked.
He glanced at me and slid his hand over my knee, gripping my thigh. His palm was warm and rough against my skin. Beneath the silk that barely covered my legs, my pussy gave a quick throb.
“I do,” he said. “I hunt a lot in the fall and winter.”
I turned, surprised. “Really?”
“Yes, I consider it the most ethical way to eat meat. Did you think I couldn’t get my hands dirty?” There was an amused note to his voice.
“Oh no, I’m sure you know how to get your hands plenty dirty,” I said, flicking my eyelashes at him.
He flexed his fingers, tracing his index a little further up my thigh. “Be good now.”
Heat flushed up my neck. My God, his touch was like fire against my skin tonight.
“I just can’t imagine it, that’s all,” I said.
“Perhaps I’ll take you,” he said lightly. “I have a friend who owns a ranch out in Colorado and we hunt elk in season. You’d like it out west…lots of space. I prefer to spend winters out there over going back to Russia.”
“Are we ever going to Russia?”
“I don’t plan to for a while. I thought it would be better for you if we spent the first few years of our marriage in the States. It’s not good to go through too many big changes at once.”
“Thank you,” I said, surprised once again by his thoughtfulness.
He glanced at me, the streetlights reflecting in his pale gaze. “I’m on your side, Sienna.”
A lump rose in my throat and I shook my head, blinking rapidly. It took me a moment to get my bearings and change the subject. Tonight was about letting go and feeling alive, feeling the rush that would surely come with letting this man have his way with me.
“Where are we going?” I asked quietly.
“To one of the best hotels in Charleston,” he said. “Only the most expensive for you, baby.”
“Are we eating dinner there?”
He nodded. “I’d rather there be a short distance between our meal and getting you upstairs and out of that dress.”
“Have you been thinking about tonight?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Only every few seconds for the last week,” he said. “I’m not complicated. Give me a good meal and my wife on her back with her legs open and I’m in heaven. You, on the other hand, I can never figure out.”
I turned in my seat to look at him. “Why am I so hard to figure out?”
His jaw worked and those pale eyes flicked over me. “Because you’re beautiful and sexy, but you don’t want any of the things mafia princesses usually do. You fight me, then you give in. Or perhaps you fight the urges of your body until I tempt you enough to give in. But even when I hold you in my hands, pin your little body beneath mine, I look in your eyes and you’re a million miles away.”
I stared at him.
“Somewhere, out there, past the marsh,” he mused. “And the way you watch the birds outside your window. Like you want to be one of them.”
A lump formed in my throat. “I didn’t know you saw all that.”
“I’m your husband,” he said. “I see everything about you.”
Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive. I curled up against the seat and slipped my fingers into his, holding his big, lean hand as we drove on through the night. It was almost seven when we pulled up in front of one of the largest, oldest hotels I’d ever seen. It looked like something from a movie with its huge pillars and white stone.
The front gates opened and Viktor pulled the car around, handing the keys to the valet before opening my door and helping me out. There were other people going in and out of the hotel and they cast glances our way. My stomach fluttered as a group of men stared at me and Viktor slipped his hand around my waist, pulling me close in a possessive gesture.