I held my breath for a second as his words sank in.
“Look in my eyes and know that is the truth.” He cupped my face, smoothing his finger along my cheek. “The truth is, I’d burn the fucking world to the ground and level anyone who tried to keep you from me, family or not.” The fierce look in his eyes had a shiver racing up and down my spine.
He was silent as he looked at me, letting his words sink in and penetrate me.
“This is all so confusing. It’s hard to wrap my head around it all.” I glanced away, unable to hold his stare for another second. He made me feel bared, my skin torn from my body, so he saw the inner workings of what made me… me. “I don’t understand any of this,” I whispered to myself.
“Yes, you do, sweetheart.” He let his hand fall back to the bed. He must have seen any confusion I had fade.
“That’s right, malehnkaya ptichka. I was the man you were arranged to marry.”
My heart stopped, then started again. It was so painful. I placed a hand against my chest to calm it, to ease the sudden sharpness.
“Gio told the guards at the house to stand down and not interfere. Not like anyone would have stopped me even if your brother hadn’t said so. I would have destroyed them if they tried to keep me from you.” Dmitry’s tone changed, lowering, becoming so cold and silent I felt it suffocate me.
“I… but why me?”
“I called your brother as soon as I was out, as soon as I was in Vermont and had made sure you were okay.” The air heated after that. “To see you in the flesh after wanting you for so fucking long.”
Although I’d just gotten off multiple times, my body sore in the best way, it heated at those words.
“I let Gio know what my intentions were. I’ll give him credit. At first he thought he could deny me what I wanted, but he and I… we have an understanding and agreement. In the end he gave me what I wanted with little fight.”
That sounded more ominous than it probably should have. Then again, in our world everything was laced with acid, deception, and violence.
Maybe he saw the confusion twirling around me. Of course, I understood him, his words making sense, but the why of it… that’s what I didn’t understand. I didn’t just want to be some notch on his bedpost, an obsession, an itch he needed to scratch before he tossed me aside.
Yes, he wanted me. That much was obviously clear by the marks on my body and his cum leaking from my pussy. But he’d been locked away for five years, admitted he wanted me for the last two of those. Celibacy could make anyone crazy. Right?
I hadn’t expected anything more than what we were doing. Even if my young, foolish heart always wanted more, I never expected a marriage.
“Why me?” My face heated as those two words spilled from me. I hadn’t meant to say them, and certainly didn’t feel like I was inadequate for being desired by Dmitry or married to him. But this was all happening so fast that I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Because, Claudia.” He moved closer and curled his tattooed hand around my throat, gently squeezing as he pulled me in close. Our lips were only inches apart when he breathed out, “Ty moyah.”
And then he kissed me hard, possessively, and fucked me nice and slow, just how I wanted it.
Just like he did.
Chapter 37
Claudia
We landed in Desolation, New York, half an hour ago. Dmitry had been quiet and contemplative on the plane ride over, but he’d also been staring at me so much thirty thousand feet in the air that it had felt like a physical touch.
A big, dark SUV had sat idling on the runway of the private airstrip. A burly-looking beast of a man with a shaved head, almost no neck, so much muscle mass he was built like a tank, and a scowl that rivaled Dmitry’s stood in front of the vehicle’s grill.
Dmitry had spoken to him in Russian, calling him Ivan, and handed off our bags. And then he’d chauffeured me away from the jet and to my future. Wherever that led.
The flight had been long, and although we hadn’t talked much, when I was awake, I’d been content to sit there and just stare at Dmitry as he worked on his phone or took phone calls, murmuring in husky Russian that caused me to clench my thighs in desire.
I’d napped off and on, but every time I’d woken, it had been to see Dmitry either resting his forearms on his thighs watching me or sitting beside me. If it was the latter, he’d have my legs over his thighs, his hand gently massaging the insole of one of my feet as he scrolled his phone.