Page 40 of Shielded Secrets

I nodded. I was getting close to the belief that I loved her. “I do.”

He shrugged. “Then marry her.”

I narrowed my eyes. “So I could order her to spy at that office?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have to then,” Vik said. “She be personally vested in the security of the family then and she would want to help, right?”

She would, but asking her to marry me would seem like an afterthought with the suggestion that she spy for us so recent.

I wished I could marry her this instant, but only if I knew it was what she really wanted. If I were to push the matter and she agreed, I’d live the rest of my life assuming she’d only saidI dobecause she felt like she had to. A marriage out of obligation wasn’t the future I wanted with her. I wanted the whole deal, the real deal, because that was what my affection for her felt like—real and true. Like she wasTheOne, the only woman I’d want to grow old with.

I sighed. “I’ll talk to her again. I’ll see what her biggest worries are about this assignment and I’ll go from there.”

“Thank you,” Oleg said, getting up to leave since he apparently considered this meeting concluded. “If she can get me a little more intel about the Bensons, then we might be that much closer to understanding what happened to Sonya.”

And Amelia?He always seemed to focus on finding his niece, not his sister-in-law, and I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed that before.

Hmm.

Now wasn’t the time to concentrate on what I thought was a cold case. My priority had to be getting Kelly to help us out and hope it wouldn’t turn her off from wanting to make her dreams a reality with me someday.

17

KELLY

While it was kind of sneaky for Rurik to threaten to withhold sex from me just to get me to go to the stores with Eva and Irina, I was amused by how well it worked.

I’d gone from being a curious virgin, limited to infrequent orgasms by my hand, to a sex addict. I doubted that anyone other than Rurik could have morphed me like this, though. He was so hard and tall, a huge, bulky man of muscles and taut skin I liked to lick and taste. He was skilled with his mouth and tongue, making me cream so much for him that I was embarrassed. According to him, you weren’t really doing it right if it wasn’t messy. I had nothing to compare him to, and I didn’t want anything to compare him to, but I swore to all that was holy that his dick was perfection. Long and thick, but so damn tasty. I never realized how thrilling it could be to suck a man off. It didn’t matter how recently I’d gone down on him to give him head. I wanted to do it again. And again. And?—

“Just what are you thinking about over there?” Eva asked as we left the first store where she’d talked me into getting everythingthat captured my attention. Our tastes were different, but she acquiesced to what I liked.

If I was blushing before, I was flaming red now. Being caught red-handed while thinking about sex was humiliating.

“Ooh.” Irina giggled next to her as we went to the next store. One of the Baranov guards was taking our bags out to the car. At first, I balked at the concept of having someone else carry my things around. But they assured me that was what they were hired to do, and I didn’t want to prevent them from doing their jobs, did I?

“She’s thinking about fucking her man,” Irina teased.

I sighed, looking straight ahead. “Uh.”

“Were you?” Eva asked.

I shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

“It’s hard not to at first,” Eva said.”

“What do you mean,at first?” Irina smirked. “You and Lev aren’t some old married couple yet.”

“I mean when it first happens. We go from being a virgin to being…”

“An addict,” I finished for her.

We all laughed, and somehow, talking about something as simple but complicated as sex acted as a level to my mood. I gave up on resisting the fact that they’d forced me to shop. It felt like I’d given in, but I couldn’t argue that I had needed clothes and essentials like shower stuff. Rurik had ripped all my panties, too.

They shared how they’d adjusted from virginity to having someone to fulfill their needs whenever and however they wanted. When Irina spilled all about how she and Vik had sex for the first time in the library, I was flabbergasted and stunned speechless.

Over shopping and getting iced coffees, we had real girl time. I’d never lowered my guard to let others in like this, and it almost felt as transformative as sleeping with Rurik and practically living with him did. Letting Rurik show me how to let go and give him the chance to help me rely on him was one thing, but these friendships rounded me out even more.

Later, after we’d gone to all the stores where they thought I’d need to get things, we headed to the dress shop. Eva was convinced that Irina and I would be her bridesmaids, and neither of us told her otherwise. I couldn’t be sure what would be happening in my life by then, but I felt confident that I would still be with Rurik. I was nowhere near done spending time with him and sharing a bed with him. If my time with him would be contingent on whether I spied for Oleg, then I couldn’t make a call about that yet.

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