Page 38 of Axel (Belles & Bratva Beasts #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

AXEL

“Oh my god,” Ruby groans into her pillow. “Who hit my pussy with a big Bratva truck?”

“ Ex -Bratva.” I chuckle, holding her, my cock hard and ready for another collision. “Need anything?”

“You.”

“You got me.” I kiss her bruised neck with a mix of pride and guilt at the marks I’ve left on her. “Need anything else?”

“For you to hit me again.”

I laugh harder. “We hit it until dawn, and you just said you’re sore.”

“Just be tender next time.” She turns around in my grasp, her fingers tracing the tattoos on my neck. “You know, treat me like a delicate virgin.”

The mention of a virgin clenches my heart. There’s so much I still need to tell Ruby. I kiss her shoulder and brace myself for a long talk.

“Let me get us some coffee first.”

Crawling out of bed, I pluck my pants from the floor and tug them on. Of course, I never took my socks off as I open the door to Ruby’s bedroom and follow the savory aromas.

Luca Mercier’s penthouse suite in his Mykonos property leaves your jaw on the floor. White marble. Gold fixtures. Grecian blue furniture and a breathtaking view of the sparkling sea from every wraparound window.

But the sight of my brother sipping coffee and holding Zar’s hand at the dining table on the covered terrace makes me smile.

“Goddamn,” Nick shakes his head, “are you two finally done? The poor girl: it sounded like you broke her last night.”

I rub my sore dick, smiling. “No, my woman broke me, and I love it.”

“Speaking of love,” Zar asks, “how long are you staying?”

“I leave this afternoon.”

“Does firecracker know that?” He points to her room. “Because I don’t want to be here when she explodes.”

“She knows.” I turn toward the credenza with its sumptuous breakfast presented on gold platters. Flipping over two porcelain cups, I pour two coffees. “She’s my queen. She understands we’ll go to war with Turner’s men once we find him soon.”

“But she’s not your queen,” Nick warns. “Not yet. And you know we’ll always protect her, but you need to make it official.”

I drop sugar cubes into our cups. “I’m not offering her to another king.”

“How long will you disrespect her like that?” Nick challenges me, and I whip around, abandoning the coffees.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“We initiate our queens.” Nick lifts his hand holding Zar’s.

“If they’re not queens by blood, like Alena, every queen is initiated.

No matter what. No matter if we don’t want to share.

It’s our tradition. It’s out of respect, and to make Ruby the only queen not fully initiated like the others leaves her out, when she should be included and honored.

She’ll be the first king’s queen, your queen.

And she’ll be far more than Katya ever was because we all love her.

And you love her. Ruby belongs with us, so make it right and?—”

“Who’s Katya?”

The gut punch is instant. I close my eyes, sick and not wanting to confront the voice asking.

“Axel?” Ruby sounds hurt. “ Who is Katya?”

Dragging in a brave inhale, I open my eyes to confront my fiery beauty. She’s wrapped in a white silk robe, standing at the marble threshold, as I confess, “Katya was my first wife.”

The truth smacks her face, making her wince. “Your first wife ?”

“Yes, I’m divorced and was going to?—”

Ruby shakes her head before spinning around, running into her bedroom, and slamming the door behind her.

“I take it she didn’t know?” Nick mumbles, “Sorry, man.”

“It’s my fault,” I answer, charging across the living area. Gently, I knock on her locked door. “Ruby, please let me explain.”

“Explain this!” She opens the door and throws my travel duffel in my face. “You know. I’m not always a bitch.” She tilts her head, her smile lethal. “Just kidding. Go fuck yourself, liar.”

With a loud SLAM , I face her door again and drop my bag.

A bedroom door across the living area opens, and Rose pokes her head out. “Who lit Ruby’s fuse?”

I raise my hand.

She laughs. “Good luck with that.” Turning her chin, she tells someone over her shoulder, “Come have coffee and tickets to this show because when my sister blows, it’s like the Fourth of July.”

A brunette emerges from Rose’s bedroom. Together, they aim for coffee and giggle at the deep shit I’m standing in .

“Ruby, it was over four years ago.” I talk to her door. Seems to be a habit. “We were barely married a year, and I didn’t love her.”

Her door swings open again. My passport hits me in the face while she scoffs, “Way to plead your losing case, counselor. You married her but didn’t love her? Sounds like the second thing on the list of dickhead things to do to a woman. Second only to lying about it.”

“I was going to tell you … today .”

“Coincidence: I was going to tell you to fuck off … today .”

She slams the bedroom door again, and now another across the living room opens.

Cherry emerges, her hair mussed while she claps for me and the DJ follows her, laughing, “Man, you got ninety-nine problems and that bitch is all of them.”

“Call my woman a bitch,” I roar, “and I’ll crack your skull wide open and piss in it!”

“I’m not your woman!” Ruby shouts from behind her door.

“The fuck you aren’t!” I shout right back and could almost laugh at this drama.

It’s a goddamn Greek tragedy and a soap opera wrapped into one.

But like hell if I’ll let Ruby ever doubt who she belongs to.

“Get as mad as you want, Wildfire. Burn my fucking world to ash and I’ll still be here, waiting for you to cool the hell off, because you’re mine. ”

“ That’s how you handle her.” Scarlett emerges from her room. In white silk pajamas and her auburn hair in a twist, she’s elegant. She’s calm.

“Keep fighting for her,” Scarlett advises, padding with bare feet over the white marble, aiming for my audience. “Because god knows, she has a ton of fight in her, too. It takes a real man to love us.”

“Ahem.” Rose clears her throat.

“Or a real woman,” Scarlett corrects herself .

“Ruby,” I snarl, because I am a real man. A man about to really lose my shit for this woman. “Open the door and talk to me, or I’ll kick it down.”

“Kick it down and kiss your balls goodbye!”

“Wrong! Kissing my balls is your job.” Fuck it. I know how to bait her every time. “Along with fetching my coffee and cat food.”

“Uh!” Her door swings open again, her eyes wide and furious. “You better hope karma kicks you in the balls before I do.”

“Trust me.” I loom over her. “This is my karma. You’re my karma. Because I fucking love you, and you’re making me look like a goddamn fool in front of our family to fucking have you!”

Her eyes blink, unbelieving. “Did you just say you love me?”

“Yes!” My heart pounds.

“In the middle of a fight?” she scoffs.

“Yes! It’s what we do, Wildfire; love and fight and yes, finally, we fuck, too.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes, I fucking mean it,” I swear to her wide blue eyes. “I love you. I have for a long time, and if I’m a dickhead to admit I never really loved my first wife, fine. Add it to my list. But when I make you my wife? My real wife? You’ll let me love you until the day I die.”

“Did you make her your queen?” She whispers so the others don’t hear, but the pain in her voice is clear.

“I regret it,” I answer softly, muscling through her door and slamming it behind me. Stalking her way, I make her walk backward toward the bed. “I regret everything about that woman. I got caught up in who I thought I should be, not who I am. You’re who I am. You’re the woman I want to be with.”

“What happened to her? ”

“She left me.”

“Why?”

“She left me a note that said I’m a cruel man with a cold heart.”

“No, you’re not,” she murmurs, shaking her head.

“Well, I guess she was the cruel one with a cold heart. She even made fun of my feet. How she never saw them. She never saw me , Ruby, and honestly, I didn’t let her. I never really trusted her.” I reach for her, but she steps back. “But I trust you, and I’m sorry I waited to tell you.”

The back of her legs hit the bed, and she plops down, looking shocked.

“We played the hating game for so long,” I confess, “until I finally got my chance with you and I didn’t want to fuck it up. And now, I don’t give a shit about our pasts, because I’m trying to have a future with you.”

“If she was your first wife and queen, then what does that make me?”

I crawl over her, making her wriggle up the bed, so I grin and chase her until she’s trapped underneath me. Too quickly, I grab her wrists, pinning them above her head. “That makes you , Ruby Jones,” I swear to her eyes, “the first and only love of my life.”

Something softens in her eyes, searching mine, but nothing is easy with this woman. I’d never want it to be. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Want me to prove it?”

“You better.”

“My piercing?” I tell her, “I got it for you.” The surprise on her face is cute. “I have the receipts to prove it, witness testimonies, too. Six months ago, I got a pubic piercing for you. And you’re the only woman who’s ever kissed it, who’ll ever feel it.”

“You pierced your dick for me? ”

“Do you need a lecture on human biology?”

“Only if you want me to jump off the terrace.”

I laugh. “I didn’t pierce my dick. That would be for my pleasure.

I pierced my body, right above my dick, to please you .

Only you .” Call 911. Or whatever it is in Europe.

She’s struck speechless. “I thought about piercing my nipples for you, but you can see them through shirts, and judges don’t like that. And I heard you tell Helen?—”

“You listen to me talk to Helen?”

“It’s the best part of my day. I love it when you talk shit about me.”

“Whoops,” she murmurs. “Am I fired?”

“You should’ve been fired after your first day, when you made fun of my copy of Moby Dick .”

“You made that too easy. It was low-hanging fruit.”

“And that’s what you said about my balls the next day.”

She sighs, “You have very sexy balls.”

I press my forehead to hers. “I stalked you. I got pierced for you. I never fired you, when goddamn, you deserved it, daily. And … I’m saving my left leg for ink about you, about us.” I lift, questioning her, “I’ve proven my love for you. So what have you done for me?”

She smiles. “Not put cyanide in your espressos. Not cut the brakes on your car. Not release killer hornets into your A/C unit. Not give your number to telemarketers.” She pauses, letting tears well in her eyes.

The sweet sight of them puts a lump in my throat.

“Not fall madly in love with you, too, Axel King.”

“Liar.” I skim my lips over hers.

“I’m a big bad liar,” she confesses. “Time to punish me with your piercing.”

“ Your piercing.”

“Say it again.”

“ Your piercing. ”

“No, the L word.”

“Litigation.”

She laughs.

“Oh, love ? That word?”

She nods.

I smile from my soul. “I love you.”

“Say it again,” she whispers.

I nuzzle my nose to hers. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“What are you? A parrot?”

I laugh into our kiss, letting it melt our fight away. Remembering what she said when we awoke, I’m tender with her, as if it’s her first time— our first time, and maybe it is.

I love her, and finally, she loves me. After I worship her nipples, then fuck her with my tongue, licking up my reward, I flip her over to ride me. To go as slow or as hard as she needs, and she kills me with the only death I want; my hard cock, buried so deep in her tight, wet pussy.

Every inch of me is hers while she pins my wrists above my head, and lets me gaze up at her beauty, her breasts bouncing and driving me insane.

Grinding her delicious cunt over our piercing, she takes the pleasure I need to give her.

She’s the only one I’ve ever let feel this.

The only woman I’ve ever let take me like this.

Fuck, she’s so hot when she’s aggressive and aroused.

After she screams with her orgasm, after she makes my thighs shake as I roar, my back arching, my hips thrusting up, needing to come so deep inside her, I swear I hear Zar, Nick, and her sisters in the living room, clapping for us.

With gasping smiles on our faces, our gazes lock, and hers fills with tears, making them bite at my eyes, too .

“I love you,” she whispers so softly, my heart explodes.

I swallow. “I love you, too.”

Ruby falls on me, and I wrap around her, holding her. I have to leave soon, and I won’t let it be with more heartache—not today. I won’t ruin this moment for her, for us; our first I love yous.

I’ll tell her more later. I’ll tell her about Alena and all the secrets I hide. Life with me can be a lot to take, and I want to give her hope.

It’s what she gives me.

“It’s a little too late to ask, but are you on birth control?”

“Yes, I have an IUD,” she sighs over my chest. “If I get pregnant with my epilepsy, I’m considered high risk, so I need to be sure, to be ready?—”

“I’m ready.” I press my lips to her hair. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“I think we have a few steps we need to take before that.”

“You’re right, so the next time I see you…” I’m still inside her as she straddles me. Pressing my thumb to her lips, obediently, she sucks it. She stirs my exhausted cock like only she can while I promise, “You’ll kneel for me and watch another queen’s initiation.”

Her eyes light up.

“And if you want what you see,” I vow, “you’ll be next.”

“Really?” she sputters over my thumb.

I nod.

“You’ll share me?”

“Never,” I swear. “But I’ll honor you with an initiation. I’ll officially make you my true queen.”