Page 24 of The Bratva's Sold Bride

I rolled onto my back, bringing her on top of me, and we both lay panting for a moment, until her head fell onto my shoulder.

Sitting up, I gripped her arms and stared hard into her eyes, all the fury from the fear she’d just caused me radiating out of every pore.

“You’d rather risk your damn life than be with me?”

Chapter 15 - Olivia

My heart was racing like it never had before. I’d been in some dangerous situations, but that was a whole other level. It was so dumb, I knew it was dumb when I took off running, but I used to do track in high school, and had hiked just about every trail in the Angeles Crest with my mother before she got sick.

I was used to rough terrain but had always been on mapped trails. Dima had warned me that this could be dangerous. Still, I saw an opportunity and took it, certain I could lose him in, make it over the mountain to another village, and disappear. Finally, be on my own for the first time in my life, with no one to answer to.

Less than a minute after my break for that heady freedom, I went straight over a cliff.

My life flashed before my eyes, and there wasn’t much there. Even in despair, even not knowing what lay ahead for me, I didn’t want to die. Especially not in a crushed mess at the bottom of a ravine.

Then, just as my sweaty hand was about to lose its grip on the sandy root, Dima appeared, looking like a god of thunderous rage as he gripped my hand and risked his own damn life to save me.

My heart kept pounding, the moment I was sure we were both about to crash to our deaths, refusing to leave my mind. He’d been slipping, inches from falling, and he still hadn’t let go.

I was tangled up on top of him, his chest heaving from the exertion, and I let my head fall to his shoulder, finally accepting that we were both alive. Without a moment to enjoy that revelation, he sat up, bringing me with him to clamp his handsonto my shoulders. It looked like it took him a supreme effort not to give me a shake, which, to be fair, I would have deserved.

But it seemed like he wasn’t actually pissed off at all. The look of terror in his eyes as he raked his gaze over my face shook me almost as much as nearly plummeting to my death.

“You’d rather risk your damn life than be with me?”

His voice shook with anguish that rocked me to my core. The feel of his hands sliding down my arms to grip my waist had me tipping over another kind of cliff. Without any thought at all, just instinct, I wrapped my arms around his neck and yanked him closer.

“Dima,” I managed to choke out before our lips crashed together.

His mouth captured mine with all the pent-up fury of relief that our hearts still beat in our chests. I returned every bit of it, clinging to him and spearing my fingers through his hair. Damp with sweat, his mouth hard on mine, his hands burning up through my shirt, all I could do was grip tight and moan against his lips.

An overwhelming need coursed through me. There was no negotiating myself out of this. Not even the rocks under my knees could break through to the last bit of sanity, because it was gone, all gone. There was only Dima and every exquisite feeling he was unleashing in my body.

Sighing with rapture as he slid his hands under my shirt, I released my grip on his hair to push at his shoulders. With a chuckle against my mouth that had shockwaves running through me, he eased backward so that I lay on top of him again.

His hands moved down to grip my backside, then his fingers teased lower to stroke along the edges of my shorts.My insides felt like liquid heat as I ground against the stiff rod pushing against my belly. He groaned, smiling as he swiftly ran his hands up my sides to take my face in his hands.

“Do that again,” he commanded, his hips rising slightly beneath me.

My eyes fluttered shut at the feel of him, the sound of his voice like rich, smooth honey. The fierce lust in his eyes made me hungry in a way I never experienced, and it was all too much. Then he gripped my ass again, his fingers finding their way between my thighs. With a sigh, I let my legs open to straddle his hips.

Now his thick shaft was nestled just where he could drive me the most crazy, and with no permission from my brain, I rubbed against him. More. I needed so much more. His kisses grew deeper as I moved, both of us becoming frenzied. I nipped at his lower lip, sucking it between mine, finally breaking free with a sharp gasp to rise up.

My hands firmly planted on his strong chest; I tried to focus my gaze on his face. So freaking handsome, all chiseled and bronze. Those eyes, dark blue and putting the sky above us to shame with their intense color, just about seared a path straight through me as they dropped from my face.

His hands slid from my waist up the sides of my body to cup my breasts, and I watched with a profound sense of power as his eyes drifted shut. When his thumbs brushed over my nipples to make them rise to hard peaks, my own eyes slammed shut to take in the sensation.

“Touch me,” I moaned. “Really touch me, Dima. Please.”

A second later, my shirt was over my head, my bra straps shoved down my shoulders. With a growl of frustration, he reached around and tugged hard, snapping it off completely. Mybreasts burst free into his waiting hands, and my head dropped back at the feel of his hot palms encasing them.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Olivia,” he said.

My eyes shot open at the sound of wonder in his voice. He meant it. This god of a man really thought I was beautiful, and there was no way I didn’t believe him. I’d been called cute a thousand times, but rarely even pretty.

Never beautiful.

But Dima said it was true, and the way his hands worshiped my body, I believed him. He’d somehow achieved the miracle of not letting me be self-conscious when I was nearly naked in front of him.

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