Page 66 of Sexting the Bratva Beast
“Don’t panic. It’s nothing like that.”
“What is it like then?” Thoughts of Gianna and the twins in danger flash before my eyes, and my pulse races. “Whatever it is, I want to know, Andrej. How can I?—”
He shushes me with a kiss, his fingers threading through my hair and tilting my head backwards. His tongue drags down to my neck, hot and damp, and the tingling reaction between my legs is instantaneous.
Traitorous fucking pussy.
“Stop.” I shove him away from me, and his face reappears in front of mine. “Tell me.”
Before he can speak, footsteps reach us from the hallway outside the den, and the door crashes open. Ivana comes in then, carrying so many shopping bags that I can’t see her legs, only the black Doc Martens with snow clinging to the chunky soles.
She’s followed by two of Andrej’s men, also carrying bags and cardboard cartons.
They set their loads down in the middle of the room and eye up the tree in the corner critically.
“Is that everything?” Ivana asks, arms folded across her chest.
“Andrej?” I look at him for answers, and his wide grin tells me everything that I need to know. “They bought decorations?”
“You said you needed fairy lights.” He shrugs. “More times than I can count.”
But I’m already on my knees on the floor, pulling stuff from bags and boxes, squealing at every glitter-soaked purchase, oblivious to the sparkles forming a circle around me and decorating Ivana’s shoes.
“Angel hair.” I hold up a packet of shiny silver spun glass strands. “You found angel hair.”
Ivana checks out the decorations with narrowed eyes. “Andrej told me to get everything that I could find.”
There’s no emotion in her voice, but I’m too excited to pay much attention.
“Thank you. This reminds me of Christmas when I was a little girl.”
Maybe it’s the wrong thing to say because she starts backing away towards the door. The men have already slipped away, I notice now. Christmas decorations clearly don’t come under their remit. Even when the boss orders it.
I stand up, still clutching the packet of spun glass strands to my chest. “Thank you, Andrej.”
I want to say so much more, but he slides his cell phone from his pocket, checks the screen, and when his eyes meet mine, I already know that I’ve lost him to whoever is on the other end of the call.
“I’m sorry, Cartier.” He shakes his head. “I need to deal with this.”
I get it. His family’s business isn’t on hold because he’s in Russia. Life continues for everyone else, and plus there’s the little matter of Yuri Asimov and any other enemies the Ivanovs might have lurking around in the shadows outside of this winter wonderland to take care of.
Ivana goes to follow him from the room, but I stop her. “Will you stay and help?”
I blurt it out on impulse. I don’t know why. But from experience, I’ve always felt that Christmas brings out the best in most people, so perhaps this is what she needs to burn through her barriers and get her to be a little more … normal around me. I’m fed up with seeing her look the other way and leave a room whenever I enter or she sees me coming.
“I … don’t do Christmas trees.”
I suspect that she doesn’t do much for fun either, but I keep that thought safely locked away. If we’re going to have any possibility of being more than strangers, getting personal isn’t going to help.
“There aren’t any rules.” I gesture to the bags strewn across the floor. “We just hang the baubles on the tree, and anything else can go around the room.”
I start unpacking stuff and spreading it out across the floor while she watches me. She hasn’t left the room. Yet.
“There’s enough here to decorate the entire house.”
For someone who ‘doesn’t do Christmas trees’, she kept everything to a wintry color scheme of white, silver, and gold. Baubles. Tinsel. Fairy lights. Candles. Snow globes. Reindeer, and nutcrackers, and snowy-white Santa figures.
When I’m finished, half the floor is covered with decorations, and the other half shimmers with a fine layer of escaped glitter. I could squeal like a piglet, but I contain myself. I don’t want to scare her away before we’ve even begun.
