Page 35 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MARY

Two days after I beat Ivan Morozov’s ass, the swelling is down and the bruises on my face are totally coverable with some makeup.

Just in time, too, because we have to attend a charity event that’s so obnoxiously expensive, I determine immediately that I can take no-one seriously.

It’s long and boring, but I look exceptionally hot in this deep blue dress that shows, like, my entire fucking back.

Willa, despite the infant baby, still insisted she pick my outfit and coordinated with Anette to come to the penthouse to do my hair into an updo that’s still curly but absent of the usual frizz. Miraculous what can be done with enough products.

She also got Maxim a matching pocket square, and I’m humble enough to admit that together we look like an exceptionally handsome pair.

It’s been tense between us, probably thanks to me avoiding any and all serious conversation and alone time with him like the plague. He’s been moody, too, it’s not just me grumping about all the time, he does his part.

But here, we’ve put on the usual display, the one that tells strangers we love each other with our quiet glances, his hand on my back, our heads ducked toward each other as if sharing a secret.

“How often do you have to come to these?” I whisper after the final speaker leaves the stage to polite applause and a live jazz band.

Amusement lights his eyes and he pulls my chair closer to his and puts his mouth close to my temple. “Too often.”

“Should I pull a fire alarm? We can pretend I’m drunk off the open bar.”

When he laughs, I feel the light huff of breath on my face and have to bite my lip not to smile too wide myself.

When he’s not being overbearing, it’s easy to fall into comfortable company, private jokes, and a shared king size bed at the end of each day. We haven’t had sex since our wedding night—haven’t come close since the day in my sister’s basement. I haven’t pressed and he hasn’t asked, ever respectful.

I think he’s waiting for me to remember that this bargain has terms, but the last time was . . .intense. To say the very least. I’m not used to anything beyond a one night stand, and it makes me uneasy.

But I’ve become familiar with the feeling of Maxim’s hand on my lower back, thumb swiping back and forth absentmindedly.

I’ve slipped into complacency, too quickly getting accustomed to the smell of his skin after he sleeps, or his aftershave, or the way he looks reading before bed, these little glasses on his nose.

When we’re not arguing about my autonomy, I am comfortable with him.

That— that feeling of ease is what scares me more.

“I think we’ve given enough time and money to warrant an early escape,” he says and I could not agree more.

Samuel drove us in a short limousine tonight with Sasha as security in a second vehicle. When we slide into the back seat after rushing out of the hall, Maxim’s hand on my waist, the privacy divider between us and him is already up.

“The politicians will be sad you didn’t say goodbye,” I say.

“Maybe. But most of them were looking at you like they wished you were their date instead of mine, so I think they’ll understand.”

I laugh, but he raises an eyebrow and looks down at my body like this was not a joke at all. I cough into my fist and reset my posture.

“Can we call a truce?” Maxim asks, surprising me.

“This must be a really nice dress,” I remark.

“It is.”

My lips part, but I have no sharp quip in response to his earnestness.

“I’d like that,” I say. “A truce, I mean.”

He offers his hand for me to shake, and after a moment of looking at it, I take it in mine. It reminds me of shaking his hand in his kitchen the day after Christmas. When we set our terms to begin with.

“I suppose we need a truce to make a baby,” I say without thinking. I would close my eyes in embarrassment if I didn’t think it would look weak. For Maxim’s part, his eyes have nearly ignited, a quiet smoldering behind the blue that makes my mouth dry.

“I suppose,” he echoes. His hand is still wrapped around mine, keeping them aloft.

Maxim leans closer, and I don’t realize I’ve done the same, my face near his. He looks at my lips, and I cannot begin to read the expression on his face beyond want . I shiver remembering his hands on my body, his mouth on my neck, and have to swallow the new dryness in my throat.

“You were the most beautiful person there tonight. Every night,” he says, voice measured and low.

“I know,” I say. I lean closer, matching his slow slide toward me.

If he was just any man, I would kiss him, roam my hand over his length until he was a panting mess, and then I would have him, and I would never have him again.

But this is my husband, the only person I will ever have again, and I’ve already had him once.

I already know what those hands feel like on me, what his cock feels like, how he would make sure I was taken care of.

My breath catches as his lips ghost across mine, the barely there touch making my lips tingle.

It’s not bad, having my husband. I will need to have him, and have him a lot to make a baby. Then forever more, he and me, the man I can’t love and I.

“I think everyone who met you was charmed by you,” he whispers.

“Can I record you saying that for my family? Or better yet, you tell them yourself, we’ll pretend it’s unplanned.”

“Of course,” he says, though his eyes are on my mouth, like mine are on his. I’ve been fighting this, the desire to kiss my own husband again, but sitting here now, the reasoning behind the resolve becomes flimsier. “Marianna?—”

I seal my lips to his before he can say something too sappy and serious, and he groans into my mouth, his hands are quick to go to my waist, pulling me against his chest. I deepen the kiss, pressing my tongue into his mouth and he meets me beat for beat.

“Fuck, you’re?—”

“Shh,” I mutter as I climb onto his lap.

I need him to stop with the niceties, the praise, the hints that he cares for me at all—he needs to remember that this is sex, a loveless marriage, an arrangement, nothing more.

I straddle his waist, my dress bunching at my hips as I roll my front flush against his.

His hands are roaming and his kisses feverish, no ounce of his usual composure present. He is so effortlessly undone by want, I wonder if he’s like this with all of his lovers. I selfishly hope he isn’t.

His hands stop on my ass, squeezing as he moves my hips over the hard ridge in his pants. Both of us exhaling as he does.

“You’re not real.”

“Careful,” I warn, groaning as I grind again on him. “You’re starting to sound like you like me.”

“I do.” He bites my lower lip hard enough that I know it’ll be plump for the rest of the evening. “You’re pretty.”

I help him undo his belt and pants, pulling his cock free while he tugs my dress further up my hips until my satin thong is exposed.

He groans something in Russian at the sight, and slides two fingers over the damp center, startling a gasp out of me. He pulls the fabric to the side and wastes no time pushing those two fingers into me and pumping twice. “Are you always this way? So wet and ready for me?”

“Yes,” I say before I can even think to lie or withhold that truth. Maxim hums at the admission and sucks the fingers into his mouth, licking them clean. I can only watch the movement, limbs useless.

“Unbelievable.”

I flush further, heat spreading over my whole chest now. I am losing control rapidly, beginning to wonder if I ever had any to begin with.

I swallow, steadying myself somewhat, and line myself up over his dick. His hands are so wide on my hips, hot like a brand on my exposed back. The tip of him presses barely into me, and then I halt my movement. He pants, his brows lowering in confusion at my sudden stillness.

“You’re getting too attached,” I say. “I have to remind you that we’re just pretending.”

Maxim shakes his head, my words not fazing him.

He slides the thin strap of my dress down my arm until one of my breasts is exposed to him and he presses open mouth kisses all over it.

I grip his hair and pull before he can suck my nipple into his mouth, all too aware that doing so would make me forget what I need to tell him.

He whines in protest, but meets my eyes. His hips thrust lightly beneath me, but I sit higher to keep him from sinking further in.

“I can never love you,” I say. I intend the reminder to be a gentle one, but I’m so horny and feverish for him, my hips rolling on their own accord that I sound more intense and angry than I meant to. “I don’t want you getting hurt forgetting this.”

His face changes, mouth closing, that vein in his wide jaw twitching as his eyes narrow. If he’s hurt, I can’t let myself worry about it. It’s better if I redraw this line in the sand, remind him of my promise.

“I know,” he says. “And while it’s so considerate of you to care about my feelings, may I remind you that you are my wife. I have the papers to prove it, nothing pretend about it. ”

Bastard . I tug his hair harder, pulling his head back and kneeling above him to look down at his mouth. “I need you to say it, Maxim. Tell me you’ll never love me.”

“I never agreed to that.” My mask must slip for just a moment because he smirks, as if he’s the one in control here, the one gripping my hair forcing my gaze to his. “You can pretend all you’d like, but if I want to love my wife, I will.”

“Even if she’ll never return your affections?”

One of his big hands snakes around my back until his arm is wrapped entirely around me.

With one move, one single thrust, he flexes his hips up and pulls me onto his full length, making me yelp and moan.

My eyes close when I mean for them to be staring sternly at him.

It brings our mouths practically together, him breathing into mine.

“Up to me to decide,” he says.

He keeps a steady, intense pace, thrusting into me from below while I hold onto his shoulder and hair for dear life, both of us breathing heavily against the other’s mouth.

“My wife is difficult,” he says, and I want to talk back, say she mustn’t be so bad if his erection is any indicator, but I can only get out these breathy moans. “She is stubborn, and ruthless, and so fucking reckless sometimes it drives me insane.”

“Yeah?” I ask, but it sounds much more like I’m spurning him to continue. The car drives on, but it must be shaking from the intense fucking happening in the back. Maybe limos are made for such activities.

“She’s too young for me, and never fucking listens.”

The car hits a bump and jostles us, landing him even deeper within me, and we both groan.

“She doesn’t sound lovable,” I say. “Doesn’t even sound tolerable.”

“She’s exceptional,” he says, and the strain in his voice tells me he’s as close as I am, my pleasure ratcheting up with every shake of his hips, the bite of pain from the tightness of his grip.

I couldn’t help it if I wanted to, I worry I’ll never be able to help it, this way he makes me feel when we’re together like this.

“And I will love her if I love her,” he says, and then presses his lips to mine, claiming and consuming me as he fucks me over the edge until I’m gasping and keening right into his mouth, my pussy clenching around him as he finishes too.

It’s ludicrous, the way it feels so good, like it’s never been before, never for me, maybe never for two people on this earth. It wrings me out, and minutes later, we’re both still breathing heavy, my forehead resting on his shoulder as his hand trails light lines up and down my back.

“Take it back,” I say, when I finally can. “Take it back. What you said.”

Maxim’s chest rumbles with a laugh, shaking my head slightly. “ Malyshka .”

“Take it back,” I say again, weaker.

He slides my dress strap back up my arm and over my shoulder. My skin feels electrified.

“I won’t. But you can pretend.”