Page 51 of Forced Mafia Bride
I tipped her chin up with a flick of my thumb and took her lips with mine.
Chapter 21 – Rosalyn
“The name of the song is ‘Carry You Home’ by Alex Warren.” I put the phone down and looked up at him. “And Hannah was right; it isn’t a country song. The singer dedicated it to his wife. How romantic.”
The corner of his lips made the smallest curve in a smirk, but he didn’t glance away from his phone. He kept tap, tap, tapping away. “You get a new phone, andthatis the first thing you decide to check.”
I shrugged, folding my arms. “I guess.”
Dismissively, he scoffed, returning his full attention to whatever business he had to attend to, and pulled out his iPad from the messenger bag on the passenger seat beside him.
Shyly, I ogled him, sweeping my eyes from the snug fit of his bold Matcha green cashmere sweater to the black skinny jeans framing his lean, muscled thighs and then the suede glow of his black Timberlands. He looked delectable, and it almost hurt to look at how beautifully perfect this man was, so I looked out the window instead. Regardless, his image was permanently plastered in my mind, especially after last night.
The fitness of his sculpted body, like an Adonis. Chiseled torso, toned thighs, and a long stretch of ripped biceps and abs. Everywhere I’d touched was hard and male and aggressive.
My mind worked backward, recounting the memory in slow motion from the moment he’d kissed me, lifted me in his strong arms, and pinned my back on the bed. My senses came alive, and my body relaxed in his arms as if he were a second part of me.
Last night was almost as magical as the fairytales I’d read. He was gentle, gentler than I ever thought to give him credit for. His kisses were as sweet as grapes, and when he touched me,it stirred an awakening, like a deep hunger driving through my core. I was free from the haunting nightmares of the past. No thoughts about Ronan or plans to escape the daily tortures. All that was gone.
For one night, I had no cares or worries.
Just burning desire for the man who held me like he needed me.
Every thrust, every sigh and groan, every trickle of sweat down his back and my forehead brought us closer. I thought I’d seen more depths of him in that moment than I had in the months since we’d met.
He'd been slow, then fast. Flipping me on top to ride him with the speed of a cheetah. Legs spread. Nails dug into my thighs. Pleasure in his eyes. Heavy breaths and interwoven fingers. Midnight-blue butterflies and fireworks.
After the fourth round,and insisting that I couldn’t handle another,he’d curled up behind me, wrapping me in a spoon, and I’d asked him about the tattoo, an odd choice for a man with a cold heart and iron fist. And when he finally agreed to tell me, I wished I never asked.
“I was younger,” he’d said, planting a warm kiss on the back of my ear. “That was the first time I witnessed a kill.”
I’d tried really hard not to be distracted by his erection pressing into the base of my spine and focused on what he was saying.
“A kill?”
Another kiss to my neck. “Murder.”
I’d grown stiff as a stick in his hands. Not because hearing it was new—I mean, Ronan was my brother—but it was a reminder of the life we’d both been born into. The things he had to do,to go throughto be a verified member of the Bratva. None of theirdealingswere ideal. Heck, their modus operandi wouldhave never passed the test of morality. However, it didn’t make life sound any better.
His uncle, Timur’s father, had killed a teenage girl in front of them. In front of her parents.
I’d seen my father die in front of me. I was more than familiar with the unbearable grief that came with losing a loved one.
Niko said they were made to witness it, some form of passage for them. An early orientation of how to conducttheirbusiness. But every night after that, for a couple more years, he’d see midnight blue butterflies choking on dried thorns in a vast field. That was the inspiration for the design on his arm.
His voice has been hard, cold, and calculating.
He’d called it stupid, a reckless, childish display of misplaced emotion.
But I thought it meant he cared.
I’d never considered him a man of emotions, but last night, something lingered under his passiveness, and the weight of his words sat on my shoulders, pressing in like a silent burden until we both fell asleep.
This morning came with surprises heaped on surprises: a new phone, a car key, bags and bags of Haute Couture and ready-to-wear clothes, boxes of Christian Louboutin heels, and, of course, a plane ticket.
Twoplane tickets.
I’d dropped every other thing, snatched one of the tickets from his grasp, and gaped.