Page 26 of The Bratva's Plus-Size Bride

“Okay, but just this one pair.”

My obnoxious little sister rolls her eyes and grabs a stack of boxes. “Shut up, we’re getting all of them. Don’t you know how to treat yourself?”

I pass Anya my card as she walks by. She plucks it out of my hand without so much as a thank you because she’s a spoiled brat, but I let it slide.

Ella shifts from side to side, the silver chains jingling softly against her ankles with her movements. “Thank you,” she says, pink creeping across her cheeks.

Anya is distracted, chatting with the clerk at the check-out counter, so I dare a little boldness. I crook my finger to beckon Ella closer.

“It’s really for me.” I drag my finger slowly up her leg, from ankle to mid, inner thigh, until I hear her sharp inhale. “Because you look so fucking good in them.”

“Anton,” she protests, pushing my hand away and stepping back just as Anya returns.My name sounds so good on her lips. I want to hear it over and over, preferably moaned into my ear while she’s arching beneath me, but I’ll take it right now, too.

“Alright,” Anya says, handing me back my card. “The damage is done. They’re going to bring these out to the car for us. Are you going to wear those out, El?”

“Yes,” I cut in, replying before Ella could. “She is.”

“O-okay,” says Anya, looking back and forth between the two of us in confusion. “Weird, but I’m not judging. Should we head back to the hotel?”

We agree to head back and pile into the spacious backseat of the car, a tower of boxes in the trunk behind us. Anya squeezes into the middle between me and Ella because she’s a pain in the ass and starts chattering, keeping up a constant stream the entire ride back to the hotel.

“Why don’t you stay with us tonight?” I offer to Anya. She might take up more of Ella’s attention than I’d like, but she also has the effect of loosening her up, helping her relax and enjoy herself, and that’s a reward of its own. “You can meet back up with your friends tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Anya tilts her head to the side, considering. “Okay! We’ll get dinner and then make a girls’ night of it. Sleepover in my room with way too much junk food and a scary movie?”

Well, shit. I didn’t consider that Ella might bunk with Anya instead of me, and if I backpedal now, it’ll be obvious that something is up. I sigh when Ella agrees. We have dinner by the pool, and I get to enjoy the sight of Ella in a bathing suit before the girls head off for their sleepover, leaving me to walk back to my room alone.

It feels too big and empty without her in it, so I put on some music and pour myself a glass of whiskey, passing the hours with a book I’ve been meaning to read. Half past midnight, there’s a knock at the door. I put my book down and check the peephole, always wary, but it’s Ella standing out there, worrying at her lower lip.

Chapter 14 - Ella

This was probably a bad idea. I’m full of sour candy and a little spooked from the movie I just watched with Anya—before she passed out three-quarters through it with a bag of gummy worms on her stomach. Hopefully, she won’t even notice I’m gone. I don’t really know what got into me, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Anton.

He spoiled me earlier, buying me all of those shoes I definitely couldn’t afford on my own, and I feel like I didn’t thank him properly because Anya was so casual about the whole thing. He regularly blows thousands of dollars on shoes without a second thought. Which, maybe he does. His life is so unlike my own that I can’t really imagine it, but hotels like this and shopping sprees give me a little glimpse.

I hear him move on the other side of the door, the lock clicks and it swings open, revealing him in nothing but a pair of joggers. Bare chest. Mussed hair. Sleepy eyes. He looks like every girl’s morning-after dream.

“What happened to the sleepover?” He holds the door for me to come in.

There’s music playing over the stereo system, some rock band I’m not familiar with, and I enjoy this glimpse into how he spends his free time. There’s work Anton, there’s partying Anton, but this feels more private, more like how he might be at home.

“Anya passed out partway through the movie, so I thought I’d stop by to see if you were still awake.” Then I realize this might give him the wrong idea. A late-night call to his hotel room kind of screams booty call. “I just wanted to thank youfor what you did earlier, buying me those shoes. It was way too much, especially for my boss.”

I hover in the kitchen, not sure if I should stay or go. Maybe it’s better if I walk back to Anya’s room right now.

“Because that’s all I am to you. Your boss,” he repeats my words back at me, and I realize how flimsy they sound. He’s so much more than my boss, no matter how hard I try to keep the wall between us.

“It’s all you should be,” I say, backing up against the counter just to put some more space between us. “It’s too complicated if we’re anything more than that. This job is important to me. I don’t have the kind of money you have. I can’t afford to risk a job like this, one that could make or break my future, over some attraction.”

His joggers are slung low across his hips, and that ridge line taper vanishing between the waistband is so distracting. There’s no safe place for my eyes to land, really, not when there’s that muscled stomach and bare chest just above. And above that? The look he’s giving me, like he wants to devour me, is definitely not safe. So I stare at the tiled floor like my body isn’t completely aware of him, regardless.

He’s a crackling fire. All heat and comfort and I want to bask in it. But there’s always the chance I’ll get burned.

“This is more than just attraction, Ella.” His feet pad closer, all I can see of him. “We’re more than that.”

I can’t think of that right now. Can’t entertain the possibility that this is more than just animalistic desire, my body craving his because that is a rabbit hole too deep to crawl back out of. Maybe, just maybe, I can lower the wall enough for us to be, if not friends-with-benefits, at least coworkers-with-benefits. Is that a thing? Probably not, and probably for a good reason,but my mind is scrambling to think of a single good one when my body wants nothing more than his.

My breath hitches when he reaches me, toe to toe, and finally, I have no choice but to look up and meet his eyes. Heat rushes to my skin as desire floods my veins. Every part of me responds to every part of him, and I’m so, so tired of being the good girl. The responsible one. The one who always works hard and thinks about nothing but surviving. I just want him.

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