Page 24 of Captive Vows (The Dubinin Bratva #1)

LUKA

I t wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

It wasn’t supposed to ever be this fucking perfect.

Gabriella had come into my life as a payment. As a punishment and payment for her father’s sins.

And now, as I helped her upright so we could go shower together, I had to admit that she’d become so much more than that.

My son and nephews were right to call me out on being distracted. If I wasn’t touching this delectable woman and making her sigh with pleasure and reward me with her smiles, I was thinking about how I could pull it off.

She had well and truly become my fucking kryptonite. I had no clue how to navigate the situation of needing her all the time this viscerally. As if my soul would be too dark and dull without her light.

“Easy,” I coaxed as she moaned. Leaning with me and getting upright, she gave me a sleepy smile. Like that little gesture took so much energy, she’d much rather stay put and pass out.

“No, come on. Let me clean you up.”

“Okay,” she agreed sleepily. Once she slung her arms around me, I could pick her up and carry her into the bathroom.

Every step I took reminded me of how sticky I was from our combined juices.

She’d come so hard, like always. I’d emptied myself into her, but now, all our cum dripped from my dick and her body.

I had to will away the temptation to push it back in with my finger.

To keep it in her.

So she’d feel me like that just a little longer. Full. Stuffed. Owned. Dominated.

“Mmm.” She moaned long and low as I started the water. Steam filled the room immediately, and together, since we were both sluggish and weak, we got into the stall.

“No, no,” she protested mildly when I started to soap her up and wash her. “I can manage. Let me take care of you.”

I wouldn’t turn that offer down. Standing close so I could catch her if she slipped or fell, I rested my brow against hers.

Mesmerized by her dark, inviting gaze, so full of strength and concern, I sighed and let her have her way with me like this.

Over and over, she scrubbed my skin, but as she went about it, it seemed like she was also taking an inventory of my wounds.

All the scrapes and gashes, the bruises and swollen contusions.

“Don’t ask,” I warned gently but seriously.

She shook her head. “I won’t. I know better.”

She truly did. In these few months she’d been with me, she had definitely passed a crash course in learning to look the other way. She excelled at minding her own business, clearly aware that many things I did were illegal and dangerous.

And she still wants me.

She still covets me.

After we showered, I carried her to bed and held her until she passed out.

It should’ve put me to sleep. Feeling her warm, naked body flush against mine was the ultimate calming variable I could count on.

Hearing her soft breaths so steady like a familiar rhythm should have been the soundtrack to lull me into resting.

But I was too awake.

I couldn’t tell if I was wired from the violence I’d endured earlier. Fighting those Cartel fuckers hadn’t been part of my plans for the night, but that was where the evening took us. Even hearing a mention of the Vipers assisting the Rivera Family was enough to make my blood boil.

More than that, though, it was this belated realization that I could be falling too quickly for Gabriella.

I dismissed the worry that I had to prolong everything and go slow with her to better savor her newness. The adventure hadn’t stopped yet, and I had a hunch that I would never tire of the pleasure of calling her mine. Of knowing she would be here, waiting for me alone.

I can’t be…

I sighed, easing away from spooning her. As if putting physical distance between us would help me fight back the nagging suspicion in my head.

I couldn’t be falling in love with her.

Love wasn’t part of this equation. It wasn’t supposed to be a possibility. After I’d loved and lost my wife, flings and affairs were all my heart could handle.

Or is that not true any longer?

I stood, wrapping a robe around myself as I stared down at her sleeping so innocently and peacefully in my bed. Her face was smooth without a single worry. Merely witnessing her lowering her guard and being so serene because of all that I gave her was the highest reward.

But is it only about giving her what she wants?

Not taking what I want?

I shook my head, annoyed with how awake I was after fighting and then fucking her like that.

Turning to let her be, I left my room and headed down to the study.

Finding my son and nephews there didn’t surprise me. They’d likely stayed to talk about all that had gone down tonight. A meeting in the study wasn’t out of the norm for them. Most times, I was there as well, double-checking reports and following up on loose threads.

Tonight, I’d needed Gabriella’s light. I’d been too addicted to the possibility of venting out my anger in her that I hadn’t stayed to talk to Emil or the others at all.

“That was fast,” Emil taunted as I entered the study. He tipped a glass of vodka back then sighed.

“Fast?” I asked with a scoff.

“Never mind,” Ivan said, lifting his hand as if he’d be the mediator here. “Never mind that.”

“No.” Emil shook his head as he cleared his throat and sat up more.

“I’m not talking about how fast he hurried upstairs to fuck her.

” He huffed a wry laugh. “I’m talking about how fast she became so important that she’d be your…

” He rolled his hand in the air abstractly, as if manually summoning a word to hit him.

“Thing?” Ivan asked.

“No, his woman,” Alexsei said.

“No.” I shook my head and took a seat. Emil poured me a drink but I didn’t rush to pick it up. “She’s not either of those anymore.”

“Then what is she?” Allen asked, coming into the room and bringing a tray of more vodka.

“My…” I sighed. “She’s mine.” I wasn’t in the mood to talk about fucking feelings and sappy emotions at the end of such a grisly and violent night.

But they would be the ones I’d trust with a conversation like this.

Maybe I needed them to put me on the spot like this to force me to admit what I was feeling about this woman I hadn’t planned to keep here for long at all.

“That’s all you need to know. She’s mine. ”

I lifted my glass and glanced up at them. All four of them stared back at me, nonplussed. Emil’s smirk of amusement peeved me. “What?”

“She’s yours?” he replied. “No shit. You’re fucking crazy about her.”

I wouldn’t necessarily use that wording, but he had a point. The way she made me feel just before I came apart inside her was an out-of-the-world experience.

“Would it be so bad if I allowed her to be mine?” I asked. In my head, I intended that to be a rhetorical question, but as I let the words leave my lips, I wanted their opinions. “Would it be such a trouble if I let her stay?”

Allen raised his brows. “I wasn’t aware that she had to have an expiration date.”

“She doesn’t,” I said. But I had taken her on the premise that she’d be the product of a transaction. An asset I could unload for the best profit.

“I don’t think it would be the end of the world if you committed to her.

” Alexsei shrugged, glancing at his phone where the camera feed showed the room of his son, Misha, back at his house.

Even when he was out on a mission with us, he’d have a link to watching over his child. “I mean, if you proposed and?—”

“No.” I barked a laugh. “What the fuck are you saying? Propose? No. No fucking way. I’m not marrying her.”

A housekeeper kept her head down as she collected the empty glasses to take out.

“I’m not fucking marrying Gabriella. Ever.” I slashed my hand through the air to make that a fact. “She’s just here for fun. For now. That’s it.”

“Why?” Alexsei set his phone down and sighed as he faced me. “Why can’t you marry her? We can’t all be bachelors forever.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m a widower.” Although, as I said that, it felt untrue. Maria had died so many years ago. “Or I was.”

No one had to remind anyone that Alexsei was the more recent widower. His loss was too tender to bring up.

“Besides,” Emil said, swatting his hand at Ivan’s upper arm. “He’s still so lovesick about his fiancée that he’ll never marry anyone else.”

Ivan scowled, cutting my son a stern glower. “Shut the fuck up.”

“It’s true,” Emil insisted of Ivan’s former lover he’d left suddenly and never gotten over.

“Hey, maybe you could try again to find her,” Alexsei suggested, “then marry her when you’re older.”

Emil laughed as he stood, then stretched, showing similar signs of a hard fight like I had when I walked into Gabriella’s studio. “Older? Don’t wait too long and be old like this one.” He set his hands on my shoulders and squeezed lightly, teasing me.

“Joke all you want,” I replied coolly, letting a smile lift my lips. “Gabriella seems to appreciate how much older I am. She has never complained about how knowledgeable I am to pleasure her.”

Emil rolled his eyes and bade us goodnight as he left on that note.

Once the others left as well, I finished my drink and returned to my bedroom. To my bed.

To my… woman.

For now.