Page 16 of Captive Vows (The Dubinin Bratva #1)

LUKA

I almost lost control. If I hadn’t reached for the last reservoir of patience, I wouldn’t have been able to hold myself back. With her mewling in need for me, her lips so eager and hungry against mine, I was lost to doing what I did best.

Taking what I wanted.

I never asked.

I didn’t beg.

Playing games was a waste of time, too.

But with Gabriella, I was suckered into a spiral of need so intense that I nearly lost sight of why I wanted to resist her. She felt too good. She tasted so fucking fine.

From one kiss, she’d reduced me to a needy, desperate man.

And that transfer of power wasn’t something I could handle. Not with her. Not when I still felt too torn and undecided about how she could actually stay in my life or fit as my woman.

Even though she kissed me back, I noticed her inexperience. While she was eager to push against me and mutually seek out that friction of rubbing her body with mine, she lacked the finesse and confidence of how to go about it like a real woman.

Because she’s a virgin.

I had to remind myself of that single fact. When she uttered my name, so needy and breathlessly, it tore me out of the sensual haze of kissing her and holding her. That broke the spell, and with that clarity, I had to remember her value.

She was a virgin.

If I took her, I wouldn’t get as much for her if I sold her to another. That was the only thing that forced me to walk away and not take her for myself.

Yet, today, as I headed out to lunch with a few men, she was on my mind. I couldn’t stop dwelling and obsessing about whether I would be able to give her up now.

After a fucking kiss, I was stuck on her.

How the hell could I sell her or dispose of her now with only that sample to sate my curiosity?

“Uncle?” Ivan glanced at me from across the table.

“Yeah.” I shook my head, wishing that would clear my distracting thoughts of Gabriella from my mind as well. I didn’t need to glance around at my two nephews and son to see that they’d noticed how distant I seemed. I had to get my head in the game and stop thinking about her.

“We got a call from the house,” Ivan said, arching one brow. “Someone tried to corner Gabriella near the kitchen.”

I swore, pissed that these new recruits were all a risk like that.

New blood was necessary. Men died. Soldiers and guards were lost. But for fuck’s sake, wasn’t any new man on the staff loyal anymore?

We rooted out the moles and threats. I personally double-checked the men in the house. But some slipped through.

“Allen said the situation is handled.” He cleared his throat. “She, uh, punched one.”

Emil chuckled darkly. Alexsei rolled his eyes.

“But he had to shoot another.”

I furrowed my brow, hating that time was running out until this meeting would begin. Behind them, the people we were here to speak with entered the restaurant. “Is she all right?”

“Shaken,” Ivan said, “but seeming to handle it. She’s in her studio.”

I nodded, expecting her to retreat to her “domain”. That studio was her place, her sanctuary, and I was glad I could provide it to her while she acclimated to the Mafia life in my home. For now.

Fuck. Why can’t I make up my mind about her?

All through the meeting, my thoughts wandered. I stayed on task and appeared to be fully engaged with the discussion. But I was distracted. Veering back to thinking about her and wondering if she was okay from this latest scare, I debated how I could go forward.

Sell her.

Or keep her.

Resist her.

Or fuck her.

When the meeting concluded, I was in a hurry to get back to my home and check that she was all right. Seeing her would be the final proof to know that she wasn’t traumatized again.

Emil rode with me, perhaps sensing that I wasn’t being myself. Then when we were stuck in traffic, he came right out and asked.

“You fuck her yet?”

I cringed, giving him a hard look. “Do you always keep my fucking sex life in mind?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No. Hell no. Trust me, it’s the least of my concerns.”

“Then why the hell are you asking me something like that?”

“Because you’re distracted. We covered for you at that meeting.”

Dammit.

“And if you’re distracted, it’s got to be her.”

I rubbed my face, sighing heavily. “I almost lost my control with her.”

He watched me, studying me and likely trying to interpret the meaning of my words.

That line could refer to me losing my control to take her or kill her, I supposed.

“I almost…” I shook my head. Emil and I were close.

I raised him myself. Well, I raised him as a single father and the rest of the Dubinin Family as my backup.

Some people liked to say it took a village to raise a child.

That was true for a Mafia “village” as well.

While we were close as father and son, there were boundaries to some topics, like this one.

Yet, I wasn’t uncomfortable to confide in him this much.

That was how much I trusted him and valued his opinions—usually.

“So?” He shrugged.

“I can’t tell if it would be a mistake.”

“Only one way to find out.”

I shot him a dull smirk.

“Or you could just sell her now and then you won’t be tempted. If you don’t want to be tempted.”

“No.” It left my lips as a single word of a refusal, one I couldn’t take back.

I hadn’t been comfortable with the concept of letting another man have her.

Not after I’d kissed her, not once I saw how strongly she lusted for me .

“I’m no longer in the mood to sell her.” Fuck, I hated the idea of losing her at all.

But in wanting her, I was endangering her.

“It’s not like it’d be a terrible thing to have a woman to pursue,” he said with another indifferent shrug, watching the scenery slowly pass by out the window.

We were back in “my” car, the Rolls Royce I couldn’t let go of.

Tinted windows precluded the rest of the world from seeing us in here, and I enjoyed the freedom of this privacy to talk about this with my son.

“Because she’s an innocent,” he reminded me. “It’s not a matter of your having to worry about her being a trap or a spy.”

I nodded. That, unfortunately, happened far too many times to count. Whores and other women would use themselves to get intel for our enemies. Gabriella didn’t fall in that category. She knew nothing about what Miguel Lopez was up to. She seemed na?ve that he was a drug runner at all.

“She won’t trick you into anything,” Emil added.

I nodded again, easily agreeing with him. Gabriella wasn’t a threat like that. She was only a temptation. A siren. Nothing more.

“But she is not fit for this world.” That seemed like the most direct argument I could count on. Distancing her from me made the most sense when I pointed out how ill-suited she was to be with me for anything more than the short term. She couldn’t belong with me for good.

“That’s true,” he replied. “She’s too innocent.”

Gabriella was innocent in every sense of the word. Untouched as a virgin. Clean without any crimes or wrongdoing, no blood on her hands.

“She doesn’t necessarily scare easily, though.

” Raising his brows, he almost seemed amused.

“When I went to pick her up, fuck, she fought like hell. Not only protesting and fighting to get free to run, but she was also calculating. She was strategic in faking that she was unconscious from the drug to try to get away again.”

I had to smile at that. Gabriella’s fight and spirit were admirable. I enjoyed how defiant she could be. It was almost something to be proud of, that she wasn’t a fool and could operate like that under pressure.

“But she’s too soft. Too good.” I sighed. “Too…”

“Delicate?”

I narrowed my eyes. She wasn’t delicate, though. That invoked the impression of a dainty weakling.

“Too precious.”

“Fuck.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “You’re getting smitten with her already?”

I scoffed. “Smitten?” I shot him a stern look. Now he was just being ridiculous.

“Listen to yourself. You think she’s precious ?”

Ah, fuck. I regretted my choice of words.

“Yeah, I can’t see you selling her now.”

“I still could.” Reinstating distance was critical now.

I appreciated how she was a break in the monotony of my life, but the idea of her being a permanent source of pleasure wasn’t wise.

“She’s a temptation.” One I hadn’t counted on being so intrigued about.

“But nothing more.” I shrugged, feigning a disinterest I wished I could fully embrace. “Nothing more, Emil.”

It sounded less like a denial and more like a realization of the truth.

Downplaying the impact she had on me would help me in the long run. I didn’t have to feel bad for desiring her. I didn’t have to worry about wanting her and being weak for being under her spell.

After I fucked her and got her out of my system, like I could have done with any other woman on this planet, I wouldn’t be so caught up in wondering what it would be like to take her. To have her—for now.

Because it was all too clear that she wouldn’t be staying in my life forever.