Page 38 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

My throat clogged at his words. The way I wanted to reach for him, stroke his hair, soothe him. But touching him like that would make him stop talking, and I sensed there was more.

“I am thinking about killing him before Christmas.” His voice came again low, far away.

“I am thinking about this a lot. But my mother… she did not like my violence. I fought in a way that left scars and broken bones and got me kicked out of private schools, and once, I pulled out my knife to go after man who is catcalling her. She often said the Rustanov parts of me scared her. So I am doing nothing before that Christmas. Just waiting while I watch her go stand on the platform for a train that will never come. And for that…”

He let out a tired, weary breath. “For that I am left on doorstep of man who already has one son and does not want other to disturb his household. It is my fault for failing to act.”

My chest tightened. I nodded, not agreeing with his reasoning, but finally understanding the twisted grief beneath it.

“And that’s why you couldn’t let go of the thing with Paul. You didn’t want him to hurt me. But you didn’t want to scare me off.”

I shook my head with the realization. “Then, I triggered you. Not just by abandoning you after what happened with Paul. But by keeping you from Bully. By not giving you the chance to be the father to him that you always wanted for yourself--that you deserved. And the thing is, I said it was because I couldn’t trust you, but really, I think… ”

My voice caught. “I think it was because I couldn’t trust in you.

When I look back on our college relationship, I was so happy, but also, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

To love someone the way I loved you—and to have him love me back just as hard—it felt like a miracle.

One that couldn’t possibly belong to me. ”

The memory of that barn came flooding back, hot and bitter. “So when I found you there, it was like, Oh yeah, obviously, he turned out to be a monster. Because deep down inside I’m still that whiny little kid who doesn’t deserve this. Of course it had to be a nightmare in disguise.”

Tears filled my eyes again, gathering until the world turned into a blur.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered through the blur, “Yom. I’m sorry for everything.

I’m sorry for keeping you from Bully. I’m sorry for getting defensive instead of owning up to how much I hurt you.

And I know… I know that doesn’t mean anything to you. Because Rustanovs don’t forgive.”

I pressed a trembling hand to his chest. “But I just want you to know I wanted what you wanted. What we talked about. A life together. A family. An Us. For six years I’ve wanted it with an ache that felt like a permanent wound.

And I just—” my breath shuddered out—“I just couldn’t bring myself to believe I deserved it.

And now we’re here. I’ve fucked it all up for us. And that’s on me.”

The tears broke free, sliding down my face. “But please,” I begged him. “If you could consider trying with me again. Stopping the Cold War. Letting us be a family… I would really, really love that.”

Yom stared back at me, his expression hard and unreadable. “You will let me out of these chains. Now.”

My heart sank. But I’d known from the beginning that this was the most likely outcome of my wild plan. “Okay… okay… but please promise me you’ll let Bully talk to Trish.”

I unseated myself and reached for the locks at his wrists. “I know you’ll be a good dad to him. Give him everything. And you have every right to move on to someone else after we’re done. Someone who will be happy to grow a family with you.”

I could feel his furious eyes burning into me as I bent to undo his ankles. “But I don’t want him to grow up like we did—thinking my disappearance was his fault. He’ll need someone to talk?—”

I broke off when, without warning, Yom surged forward and gathered me into his arms.

His hold was crushing, desperate, as he buried his face against my neck. And to my shock, his body shook with sobs. Hot tears wetting my skin. “You left me. You left me and you didn’t come back. You wouldn’t come back…”

“I’m sorry!” Tears fell from my eyes, too, and I held him back just as tightly, repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again as I stroked his dark hair.

“There will never be anyone else for me,” he ground out. His voice was broken, jagged. “There was no one else for six years while I am waiting for you to return to me, zayka. Tell me there was no one else for you.”

“No,” I whispered. “There was no one else for me either. Yom, Yom, you’re only one. The only one I ever?—”

The words had barely left my mouth before he flipped me onto my back, chains clattering away. He drove into me in a single desperate thrust, animalistic and wild, fucking me like a man unhinged.

“Is this what you wanted, zayka ?” he growled, each thrust pounding into me. “To release the monster? To obsess him, until he do anything—forgive you for anything? Make him show you he is not like dying mother?”

He stopped suddenly, grabbed my jaw, forcing me to meet his burning eyes.

“Do you understand now? There is no pretending. No bunny ears. I am black flag. I am monster. And you belong to this monster. You are mine. We will make more babies together. And we will raise them together. And no matter what you say to me in future, I am never, ever letting you go.”

I looked into the blazing eyes of the monstrous Russian who had somehow fixated on me. And all I could say was, “Thank you.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you ! The two words poured out of me in gasps, in sobs, in the frantic rhythm of my body giving way beneath his. Yes, this was what I wanted. Exactly what I wanted. To broken, to be remade, and reclaimed. “Thank you, Yom!” I wept into his shoulder. “Thank...”

The words dissolved into cries as his thrusts turned brutal, frenzied, shaking the bed, shaking me, until I couldn’t speak at all. My voice cut off, swallowed whole by a shattering orgasm that tore me open and drowned me in light, leaving nothing but surrender. And him. And me. And us…. Us !

My port… my home… my every breath had finally come back to me.