Page 10 of The Bratva Contract
That fucking dress.
Even before I glance down, her perfume hits me, smelling expensive and spicy, exactly the same scent she wore that first night we met. Seeing her for only the second time, and at our own engagement party, no less, feels insane. Then I remind myself that for centuries marriages were arranged by patriarchs and that plenty of couples didn’t lay eyes on each other until the ceremony itself.
I’m trying to block out her fragrance and force my brain to work when I slide my arm around her waist and finally look at her. She’s wearing gold. Calling it a dress feels like calling the Vatican a big church, technically correct, but wildly inadequate. I’ve seen scarves with more fabric. Shimmery, pale gold drapes from one shoulder, fastened by a narrow buckle, and stops mid-thigh. At least it’s longer than the scrap she wore to dinner the night we met, though remembering how that hem rode up over her ass isn’t helping me think. The material clings, taut over her breasts and hips, thin enough that I can make out her skin. My fingers tighten in the fabric before I can stop them.
Karina looks ravishing. And like I need to ravish her this instant. Part of me wants to march her out to the hall to scold her for dressing so inappropriately, for embarrassing her father and me. The rest of me wants to back her up against the nearest wall and take her raw, to bury my achingly hard cock balls-deep in her tight body. In a way it feels like I’m already fucking her, just looking at her in that dress. I know it’s meant for me. To provoke me to some idiotic action. Something reckless to give her an excuse to call off the engagement. Either because I make a scene treating her like a teenager pushing boundaries or because, overcome with arousal, I manhandle her before I can stop myself.
Whatever her aim, she bought that dress for me, to flaunt the temptation and warn me of the danger. I lift her hand and kiss her knuckles, hoping the polite gesture will disarm her, even though there’s nothing gentlemanly in my head right now. Baser instincts pound through me, a roar ordering me to claim her here and now. The blood in my ears nearly drowns the music as I struggle to keep my posture loose, my smile easy, anything but the look of a man dying for rough, hate-soaked sex with his fiancée.
She’s talking about pulling some stunt with the wedding and getting married at midnight. It sounds stupid and dramatic, but I’m starting to wonder about her. I know she’s intelligent, I mean she has created the best cybersecurity program on the market. It doesn’t make sense that she’d want her wedding to be an over-the-top spectacle. But the same could be said of that dress. It doesn’t match up with the image of a young, educated entrepreneur and software engineer. It’s frivolous and provocative. She’s full of contradictions and sure enough, the ache of tension starts at my temples, the headache I’m coming toassociate with her. So far, she’s been good for nothing but blue balls and a sudden tension headache.
I keep her close, her warm curves molding to my side. She toys with the button of my shirt, faking the easy familiarity we’d share if this marriage were anything but a business deal. When I sit down with Sergei to finalize the merger this week, he’d better have something spectacular on the table, because taking Karina off his hands is shaping up to be the biggest favor anyone has ever asked of me. It certainly isn’t the windfall I imagined when he pitched the idea, like some slick snake-oil salesman who managed to fool me.
I have no excuse for what happens when we announce the engagement an hour later. Sergei drones at the microphone while I suffocate on boredom, until Karina threads through the crowd, petite, curvy, wrapped in that garish scrap of a dress. I slide the ring onto her finger, a flourish she’ll savor given her flair for drama. The guests chant for a kiss, expecting a polite peck fit for a palace balcony. Instead, I devour her. The need is reckless, primal. Possession flares into fury, and fury into molten lust. Kissing her is like drowning in lava, bliss shot through with agony, because I know I have to stop.
She’s clearly rattled, yet she plays indifferent as we slow-dance. Then she slips out of the party without a word. I can’t blame her after I practically groped her in front of hundreds of guests, though I’m not sorry, either.
Two days later after that spectacle, I’m at Sergei’s country estate. He said it was his family’s olddacha, just a little country house. I know better, because his pride runs toward the ostentatious. I’m far from shocked to see the central mansion built in the Neoclassical style of the palatial Kuskovo, although about half the size. A uniformed butler conducts me to Sergei’s study, andI spend a couple of hours listening to him reminisce about the place before we get into the scope of his business. He’s even wealthier than I had anticipated and his shipping network alone will be worth its weight in platinum to my bratva.
“I got you a little something to celebrate the engagement,” he says, presenting a box of ibuprofen. “You’ll need it for the headaches she gives you, God have mercy.” He laughs at his own joke, then dissolves into a fit of coughing.
I thank him, again wondering whether he truly hates Karina. His words sound less like a father’s wry humor and more like a man’s open contempt for his own child. I fetch him water while he coughs, and he finally agrees to rest before we resume negotiations.
I wander the so-called dacha while he naps. The weather is clear, the grounds immaculate, with a formal garden giving way to sweeping fields dotted with paddocks, orangeries, and outbuildings. As I near the stable, something finally surprises me.
In the distance a rider works an Arabian stallion, its high tail giving the breed away. Crouched low, she moves as one with the animal, sending him rocketing across the paddock. They clear a jump, wheel, and canter straight toward the fence where I stand. The pair skids to a halt inches away, and I find myself staring into Karina’s exhilarated face, confident, glowing, perfectly at home in the saddle.
“I heard you’d be here today.”
“Is that why you went to hide in the stables?” I ask archly.
“The only reason I come here is to see Razboynik,” she says fondly, patting his neck.
“Bandit,” I say, “I would’ve called him madman for the way he runs.”
“There’s no madness involved. He’s energetic, but we understand each other, always have. He obeys my commands.”
“Your favorite kind of male, I presume,” I say, still astonished by how at ease she is on horseback and how grounded she seems out here.
She shrugs and tells me to meet her at the stable. By the time I arrive, she has dismounted, stripped off the tack, and begun brushing Razboynik. Instead of handing the stallion to a groomer, she tends him herself, murmuring soft Russian endearments. The massive, wild-eyed animal nuzzles her hair, and she rests her forehead against his. The open affection startles me; it’s a glimpse behind her polished armor. For the first time I wonder whether she really craves her father’s approval, or secretly loathes him as much as he seems to despise her.
Here, every brittle layer of artifice has fallen away. She’s still breathtaking, but in worn Levi’s and a button-up, with her dark hair swinging in a ponytail, she moves with unselfconscious strength. I can’t look away. For once, she isn’t infuriating me. After settling the horse, she dusts off her hands and strolls over.
“Thanks for waiting,” she says. I looked at her again, as it was my first time seeing her in normal clothes. She looks completely different from the brash and glorious diva I’ve met twice before.
“Show me around the place?” I suggest.
“You’re hardly dressed for country life,” she says, eyeing my suit.
“I’m not worried about my clothes,” I assure her.
“Fair enough,” she says.
Karina leads me to a boathouse by the lake. Inside, dust-moted sunlight filters through a single window. “Help me with this,” she says, tugging the tarp off a small green rowboat. “You can row me across.”
“I’m not dressed for it,” I remind her.
“Roll up your sleeves,” she challenges me.
