Page 38 of Auctioned to the Russian Pakhan
“I know it’s not fair,” he continued, his voice rough with something that might have been guilt or frustration or desire. “I know you’re not actually mine to control, despite what our marriage certificate says. But when I realized you were gone, when I couldn’t find you...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“What?” she prompted, her anger beginning to fade into something else entirely.
“I felt like I was losing my mind,” he admitted. “And that scared me more than any rival family ever could.”
The vulnerability in his voice made her chest ache. This was the problem with Matvei, just when she was ready to be properly angry with him, to establish some boundaries and assert her independence, he would say something that revealed the man beneath the Bratva leader—the man who was just as lost and confused by what was happening between them as she was.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said softly, her hands coming up to rest on his chest. “But I need you to understand that I can’t be your prisoner, even if it’s a beautiful prison. I need to feel like I have choices.”
“What if I can’t promise that?” he asked, his hands tightening on her waist. “What if caring about you means I’ll always want to lock you away somewhere safe?”
“Then we’ll figure it out together,” she said. “But you have to try.”
He stared at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. Then he leaned down and kissed her, right there on the dance floor with hundreds of people around them, and she forgot why she’d been angry in the first place.
The kiss was desperate and claiming, full of all the things he couldn’t say out loud, and she found herself kissing him back with equal fervor, her hands fisting in his shirt to pull him closer. Around them, the music pounded and the lights flashed and the crowd moved, but all of that faded into irrelevance.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, she could see something had changed in his eyes. There was still possessiveness there, still that territorial gleam that made her pulse quicken, but there was something else too, a kind of wonder, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was real.
“We should go home,” he said, his voice rough with want.
“We should,” she agreed, but neither of them moved.
Instead, they stood there in the middle of the dance floor, wrapped around each other, letting the music wash over them while they tried to memorize the moment. Because somehow, despite everything that had brought them together, despite allthe complications and contradictions and impossibilities, this felt like the beginning of something real.
Chapter 14 - Matvei
The ride home from the club was charged with an electricity that made the air itself feel thick. Matvei kept his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it tighter than necessary as he navigated the late-night streets, hyperaware of Irina sitting beside him. She’d been quiet since they left, but it wasn’t the sullen silence he might have expected after their confrontation on the dance floor. This was something else entirely, something that made his pulse race and his control feel paper-thin.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked suddenly, her voice soft in the darkness of the car.
He glanced at her, taking in the way the passing streetlights played across her face, highlighting the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips. “No,” he said, and realized it was true. The jealousy from earlier had burned away, replaced by something far more dangerous. “I should be, but I’m not.”
“Good,” she said, and there was something in her tone that made him look at her more carefully. “Because I’m not angry with you either. Not anymore.”
The admission hit him like a physical blow. He’d expected her to be furious, had prepared himself for days of cold shoulders and cutting remarks. The fact that she wasn’t, that she was sitting there looking at him with something that might have been forgiveness in her eyes, made something crack open in his chest.
“Irina,” he started, but she shook her head.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t apologize or explain or justify. Just... don’t.”
He wanted to argue, wanted to make her understand that his behavior at the club had been about more than possessiveness or control. But looking at her now, seeing the way she was watching him with those ice-blue eyes that seemed to see straight through him, he found himself nodding instead.
The mansion felt different when they walked through the front door. The familiar halls and rooms seemed charged with possibility, as if the very air between them had shifted into something new and dangerous. Matvei found himself studying Irina as she moved through the space, noting the way she seemed more confident somehow, more present in her own skin.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, falling back on politeness because he didn’t trust himself with anything else. “Water, or...”
“I’m fine,” she said, turning to face him in the middle of the foyer. “The drinks at the club were strong enough.”
Right. The drinks. He’d been trying not to think about that, trying not to let himself wonder if the alcohol had played a role in the way she’d kissed him back on the dance floor, in the heat he’d seen in her eyes during the drive home.
“How fine?” he asked, the question coming out rougher than he’d intended.
She tilted her head, studying him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. “What do you mean?”
“I mean...” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with his inability to articulate what he was trying to ask. “You had several drinks tonight. I don’t want to assume anything about your judgment right now.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes, followed by something that might have been amusement. “You’re asking if I’m drunk.”
