Page 57 of Crowned

Lilia looks away quickly and shakes her head. She still doesn’t believe that I have anything real to offer her.

I put my lips against her ear. “What do you want me to do, reach into my chest, rip out my bleeding heart and show it to you? If that is what it takes, I will do it.”

11

Kirill

“Don’t. Please let me up.” Lilia plants her hands against my chest. She’s crowded between my body and Elyah’s.

I’m the only thing keeping her here, and I don’t move. “You sound so beautiful when you beg,detka. It is not just Konstantin who can turn you into a sweet little kitten. You do it for us, too.”

“Being pregnant is making me do crazy things. Can you please move?”

My gaze sweeps down her body, admiring the swell of her stomach, the dusky pink of her nipples. Her body is fascinating, and how pretty she looks resting against all of Elyah’s muscles and tattoos. I didn’t think anything would beat screwing her while she was so sweetly asleep, but the airplane hate-sex came close. This is even better.

“Why? Have you got somewhere to be?” I taunt her. She should stay right where she is in Elyah’s arms. This man won’t be satisfied with just fucking Lilia.

“It was just sex. Just scratching an inch. It won’t happen again.”

Hurt flashes across Elyah’s face. “There is no shame in needing someone or loving them.”

Lilia makes a strangled, panicked noise. She pushes me off her, grabs a cotton robe from the back of the door and hurries out of the room. A moment later we hear the bathroom door slam. Elyah and I stare at each other in frustration.

I get up and yank on my jeans. “What more do you need to say to that woman? She is impossible.”

Elyah lays back with a defeated sigh. “It is my fault. Not hers.”

“Crazy shit happens in our world,” I growl. “She’s had her revenge. She sold the diamonds. Now it’s time for her to get over it.”

I go and wait by the bathroom door, leaning against the doorframe with my hands in my pockets. As soon as Lilia opens the door, she gazes up at me in surprise.

“Why can’t you give Elyah one scrap of kindness, you cold-hearted bitch?”

Elyah is one of the reasons I’m still breathing and every wound she gives him is my fucking wound.

Lilia’s lips press together in annoyance. “Why do you think?”

I wave my hand. “Kidnapping you, terrifying you, nearly killing you, yeah, yeah.”

“Don’tyeah, yeahover everything that’s happened. What sort of crazy person would fall into any of your arms after the things you’ve done?”

I can still feel her against me as her orgasm tore through her. Lilia’s exactly that sort of crazy person, and she needs to accept it. “That man has sincere fucking feelings for you, and he always has.”

Lilia makes a disgusted face and tries to move past me. “Who are you to talk about feelings when you haven’t got any?”

I slam my hand into the wall by her head, blocking her way, and snarl through my teeth, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“What is there to know? You’re a weirdo, a pervert, and a killer. The first time I saw you, you were murdering some of my father’s friends for no reason.”

For no reason.

Is that what she thinks?

For no fucking reason.

“I’m glad you brought them up,” I say through my teeth. “If anyone tries to take you from us, I will murder them just like I did the Lugovskayas. Painful, terrifying deaths.”

“Why did you hate them so much? They were ordinary people. As ordinary as you can get in the Bratva.”

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