Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“I’m wearing panties.” This time.
His roar rumbles through my chest. “Sit, Natalya!”
“You’re being—”
“Sit!”
When his voice reverberates through me, I scamper to his side of the office before wedging myself between him and the chunky desk.
“Now, sit,” he demands again, his voice lower and not as raspy with anger.
There’s no polite way to sit in a miniskirt, so I balance on the edge of the glass before inching back. When my heated skin dragging across the gleaming surface causes a squeak to bounce around the room, I grimace.
From his seated position, Matvei drinks in the view. He stares at me long enough for my body to slick with sweat and my internal temperature to soar dangerously high before he pushes back his chair to give me some breathing room.
“You should thank your lucky stars I can’t see anything.” He grabs a remote next to his writing pad and pushes a button before murmuring, “Or should I say he should thank his lucky stars.”
My heart drops to my feet when footage of me hailing a cab outside Polina’s boutique fills the whiteboard monitor.
Matvei waits until the footage switches from the outside of the cab to the inside before he turns off the projector shooting the image onto the whiteboard and shifts his focus back to me. “Now open your legs.”
“Mat—”
“Now, Natalya.”
His growl when I spread my legs is the most delicious thing I’ve ever heard. I’m wearing panties, but they’re sheer, lacy, and leave nothing to the imagination. The back half is barely the width of a piece of string, but they’re still panties, nonetheless.
When I say that to Matvei, he counterbids. “Barely.” His impressive height when he stands makes the room even more suffocating. “But I can’t exactly punish you for wearing garments I supplied.” I realize he’s struggling not to touch me when he stuffs his hands into his pockets before asking, “What are you doing here, Natalya?”
The look he hits me with when I reply, “I need a favor,” announces I should have given this more thought. He is not a man who offers assistance without a set of strict terms associated. I was just hopeful those terms would involve my body more than my morals, so I leaped before thinking.
It dawns on me that I’m reading the situation wrong when Matvei spits out, “If this is about Tyler, he touched what isn’t his to touch, so he must be punished.”
“He protected me.”
I can't miss the honesty in his reply, even with it snapping out of his mouth like a whip. “Because he wants to sleep with you.”
“If that is the basis of the warrant on his head, then you better place half of Kronstadt on your list! Being wanted isn’t a crime, Matvei. If it were, you would have served a hundred life sentences by now.”
“It is when you’re mine!” His hand is out of his pocket and knotted through my hair in an instant. “And don’t think I don’t already have half this town on my hitlist.”
My reply comes out with a husky moan when he tugs my head back so fiercely my roots sting. “Just because you want something doesn’t mean you can have it.” As memories of my past flood my head, I push Matvei away from me and slide off the desk. “Who I spend time with is my choice. Who I sleep with is my choice.” He looks physically knocked back when I add, “I chose you, back then and now, but you’re too blinded with jealousy to acknowledge that.”
He slices my race to the door in half by shouting, “But you chose him first.”
“Who?” I ask after spinning around to face him.
The direction of his eyes answers my question.
He is staring at my empty ring finger.
“My husband.”
I realize I said my comment out loud when Matvei parrots it. “Yes, your husband. The man you pledged to love and obey until the day you die.”
With my hurt too high to control, I snap out, “The man who falsified documents before he tried to force himself onto me. Is that the man you’re referencing, Matvei? The man I was accused of murdering on our supposed wedding night?” I don’t give his shock the attention it deserves. “Because if it is, you better get your facts straight before you come at me with this bullshit again.”
I’m out the door and racing down the hallway long before my name leaves his mouth in a stern grumble, but only seconds before the first tear splashes onto my cheek.
21
NATALYA
“Get up!”
With my accoster’s voice more on edge than the one that’s been nagging me to get out of bed for the past ten minutes, I loosen my grip on my pillow and crank my neck to the person yanking away my bedding.
Taylor has left her room, and for once, she isn’t wearing pajamas. Her dress is daring, her makeup bold and risqué, and her legs are shining brighter than the disco lamp I’m trying to avoid. She looks set to run amuck, and I’m once again hating my decision to pull out of tonight’s festivities.