Page 24 of His Prince (Unexpectedly Twisted #2)

22

MIKHAIL

“ Y ou need to tell him,” Nina hisses at me, her face set in anger. I’ve never seen her so worked up. Never in the hundred years she’s been alive.

“He doesn’t want to know.”

“He needs to know.”

“He doesn’t fucking care. About me. About them. He wants an excuse to leave. I’ll let him have it.”

She huffs and then tosses a pillow at me. It hits me on the side of the face, and I glower at her.

“Do not look at me like that, boy. You are being an idiot.”

I throw the pillow on the ground, and she stares at it.

“I was an idiot for ever thinking I should marry again.”

And even then I remember the long chats we had and how he opened up to me. Something about him called to me, even if I didn’t know what it was.

He was always honest, pure and so good.

Even if I didn’t deserve it, he was perfect .

“You are, but look who you married. And you’re throwing him away.”

“I am. He deserves better.”

She throws another pillow at me, this one with buttons on it. Something Angel bought, I’m sure, and it knocks into my nose painfully.

I stand up, and in a rage, I grip the corners and tear it in half. The stuffing spills out, buttons flying across the room. Not that Nina cares. She just folds her arms across her chest, some of the stuffing landing in her hair.

She looks ridiculous.

But I’m too angry to laugh.

“You need to tell him. Before he leaves. His father goes tomorrow, and I overheard him saying that he’s going to leave once they’re gone. You have one chance, Mikhail. Don’t be dumb.”

I stare at her as she turns on her heel and leaves me alone, my stomach clenching almost painfully.

There’s no point in talking to him.

He doesn’t want this. I just need to let him go. It’s been two days of nothing—cold shoulders, averted eyes, and sleeping alone.

I know where I stand. He’s made his mind up about me.

I’m going to let him leave and I’ll continue about my life.

All of those stolen moments will be buried with me, with us. The end of who we could have been.

I sink to the bed and stare at the wall, my vision blurring.

It’s dusty in here. I’m going to have to get on Nina about doing a better job at cleaning up.

I sniff and school my face. I won’t let him see. Not when he’s leaving.

Leaving me.

I’m avoiding him, avoiding my feelings about all of it. I don’t even say goodbye to his father or Tatum as they leave the following afternoon, just wander into the forest surrounding my house and find myself at Georgiy’s home. A small house that abuts my estate, quaint and quiet, with a stone exterior and lush wildflowers surrounding the gardens. It’s peaceful out here, so wildly different from what happens in his basement.

A rustling in the trees outside the fence has me freezing, and I peer over, but I don’t see anything, dismissing it as an animal in the woods. But then again, I have been wrong before. I’ll have one of the guards go and check it.

“What are you doing, my friend?” Georgiy asks when he opens the door to me standing there. I glance around and meet his gaze.

“What’s on your face?” he asks, and I swipe at my cheeks.

“It was raining.”

He glances up at the clear blue sky and opens the door further.

“Hm, you better come in before you get wet.”

I step inside the cozy house, inhaling the scent of incense. Something to mask the smell of death, I’m sure. And yet, I’m not bothered by it. I have so much more I need to fear.

Katarina, her ghost, and my husband.

The one who wants to leave.

Georgiy gestures for me to take a seat on his couch, and I do, lowering myself onto it, the leather squeaking as I sit. He pulls a cigarette from his shirt pocket and hands it to me. I slide it between my lips and he lights it.

“Tell me,” he says.

I inhale deeply, the smoke billowing around my face as I let it all out. “You’ve not been around.”

“I’ve been avoiding the mole rat.”

I huff a laugh, inhaling again, the nicotine settling a craving deep inside of me.

“Where is he? He’s been absent. ”

Georgiy lights up a cigarette too and leans back in his chair. “That’s for me to know and no one to find out.”

I eye him, and he glances away, unwilling to give me any details. Fine by me. Whatever Bane’s gotten himself into, he did it to himself. I’m sure he deserves it, either way.

“I see.”

“Why are you here?”

I sit with that. Why am I here? Georgiy has been with me for years, a true and loyal friend. I told him about Katarina, about seeing her in the shadows, hearing her laugh and finding her bracelet down in the tunnels below my house.

He never laughed at me when I told him this, and I’m sure he won’t now.

“He’s leaving,” I say, and Georgiy crosses a leg over his thigh.

“Ah.”

“I’m giving him his space.”

“Where is he going after he leaves?”

“Home. He’s not coming back.”

Georgiy blinks once, long and slow. “And why is that?”

“He found out about Katarina. Found a picture of her.”

“Hm.”

“I don’t know who gave it to him?—”

“I have an idea and it will be dealt with. But tell me, my friend, does he know what really happened?”

“Yes, part of it.”

“He doesn’t know all of it?”

“No.”

He inhales deeply and I do the same, smoke filtering around us. “And why not? It’s relevant, no?”

“It doesn’t matter. I was weak back then. She made me weak.”

“And you don’t want him to see that in you?”

I glower at him. “You’re not a therapist. Stop pretending to be one. ”

“I am not, but I’ve heard many end-of-life confessions. I know how to pull one from an unwilling person.”

I snort and then stub my cigarette out and hold out my hand for another. He supplies it, lighting me up once more.

“It doesn’t matter either way. I’ll let him leave. He doesn’t want to be here. I’m not what he was expecting.”

“He’s too sweet for you.” My eye twitches, and Georgiy smirks. “But it’s softened you. It’s not a bad look. And it’s not weak to care.”

I huff and inhale deeply, holding the smoke in my lungs for far too long. When I exhale, I cough loudly, and Georgiy chuckles.

“Now that’s weakness.”

I stare at him, but he doesn’t back down.

“Telling the truth is never weak. Angel will understand. Don’t let him leave because you’re stubborn and mistake that for strength.”

I don’t respond, but let that sit deep inside of me.

“He won’t understand.”

“He will, more than you know. Our little husband is quite strong.”

I purse my lips and then stand, walking to the door.

“Where are you going?” he asks, but he knows the answer.

So do I.

I’m going to tell him, and he can decide if he still wants me after it’s all laid out.

I find him in the garden, his body hunched over a plant, his lips moving softly, almost as if he’s whispering to it. I wouldn’t be surprised. My little Angel loves his plants, loves what he can foster and grow. He’s a parent at heart, a man made for nurturing.

I ruined that, in some small way. I took that and crushed it.

I resent myself for ever telling myself I wanted him.

My footsteps falter, and I just stare at him, unsure if I should turn back and just let him be free .

But then, for the first time in three days, his eyes meet mine, and I almost stumble backward.

They’re hard, angry, and most of all, sad.

I want to right it, want to fix it.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” he says, his voice cracking as he swipes at his eyes. He turns to walk away, and I open my mouth to call him back, but nothing comes out, it just sticks there. I’ve never been more nervous in my entire life. And I’ve gone up against warlords and mafia men.

And here he is, my little Angel, bringing me to my knees.

Angel continues to move away, making his way to the house. I follow behind him and he picks up his pace, trying to escape me, but I don’t let him. I may be older, but I am in shape.

Mostly.

I may trip over something on the ground as I propel myself forward, but it doesn’t stop me from keeping up with him. He takes the stairs two at a time, and I continue after him, huffing and puffing until we’re in the bedroom. Alone.

He stalks into the closet without a backward glance, but I stop him, my hand on his arm.

“Wait,” I croak.

He glances at where our bodies meet, and he flinches.

“Don’t touch me,” he finally says.

“I have something I need to say.”

He stares at me, unblinking. “Fine, but make it quick. I have a lot of packing to do.”

I swallow and my hand slips from him. I open my mouth to tell him all of it, the dreadful truth, but once more it sticks in my throat.

He rolls his eyes and steps away, muttering to himself. “Stupid. I’m so fucking stupid. Why do I even try?”

He grabs a row of hangers and pushes past me, throwing the clothes on the bed before going back into the closet once more. He’s in a hurry, eager to get away, to leave this place .

So, I block him in, my arms stretching out over the opening, legs braced wide.

“I killed her,” I grind out, and he huffs in annoyance.

“I know.”

“I did it for a reason.”

“Tell it to the priests. I don’t give a fuck.”

I frown at that. “I’m telling you .”

“Well, I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t want your lame excuses. I’m over it and I’m over you.”

“You have to hear it,” I reply and then inhale deeply. “You need to hear it.”

His eyes flicker with rage and he inhales sharply.“You had months to tell me and you didn’t. You lied to me, Mikhail!”

“Because I had to! Because I was weak!”

My roar makes him freeze, and I stalk toward him, unable to keep my trembling hands to myself. They move to his shoulders and squeeze roughly.

“Don’t touch me,” he says softly, but I don’t let go. I just hold on tighter.

“She murdered them all. One by one. She took my family from me.”

Angel’s face pales, a wash of pink from his cheeks, turning him ghostly white.

“What? What do you mean?”

“She killed both my parents and my grandmother, sólnyshko. So I killed her.”

My revelation silences him. He’s staring up at me, slack-jawed, eyes as wide as saucers.

“Mikhail…”

“You hate me for it, I know. But I did it to avenge them. I did it so Ivan wouldn’t be next, so that I wouldn’t be next.”

“She—what?”

“She. Killed. Them. All three of them. My family was everything to me. And she took them from me. I couldn’t let her take what little was left.”

“I didn’t?—”

“You didn’t know. No one does. Only a select few.”

“Who?” he asks, and I swallow.

“Nina and Georgiy. And Ivan, of course.”

He nods and my fingers fall from him, landing at my sides. I don’t know what to say. I have nothing left to say. But I wish I did know. I wish I had the words to make my Angel understand. To stop him looking at me like I’m a stranger.

“What about the guards?”

“They know nothing. It was before their time. I hired new guards after what happened because I couldn’t trust the old ones anymore.”

“Why did she do it?” he asks, and I stare at him, my beautiful Angel.

“She hated us. All of us. My father ruined her family, and so she sought to ruin us. And she did. She took everything from us. From me. I had no idea when I married her. I stupidly believed that she loved me, as I loved her. But I was mistaken. All along, every damned day, she was planning this. To ruin us.”

“How? How did they die?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do, Mikhail. I want to know everything.”

I run a hand down my face, my pulse racing. I don’t know if I want to relive it, to see my past laid so blatantly in front of him. But I must. If I don’t, he may leave.

“My father died first. It was an unexpected heart attack. I didn’t think much of it at the time since my grandfather had died years earlier of a heart problem and my father was older, smoked and drank a lot. But I would come to find out she poisoned him with hemlock root, put it in his morning coffee.”

“That bitch,” he mutters, and I sigh as he leans in closer to me. “Sorry, go on. ”

“My mother was next. A few months later she started having unexplained seizures, would pass out and not wake up. And then one night, she died in her sleep. Come to find out Katarina injected her with insulin while she slept.”

“Mikhail—”

I interrupt him, needing to finish this now that I started. I have to bare all of my soul to Angel, if we have any hope of getting through this.

“At the time we didn’t know what was going on. A curse, my grandmother said. Only she didn’t realize the curse was my wife, the woman who had claimed to love me.”

“Oh my god.”

“Then it was just my grandmother left. Thankfully Ivan was in Russia at the time, so she didn’t have access to him. She was brutal, but lazy and impatient, not taking the time with poison. She killed my grandmother in the garden, strangled her. I found them…saw her while she was doing it…” My voice cracks as I remember it. My babushka on the ground, lips blue, eyes wide and unseeing. “Katarina tried to beg for her life, tried to use my love for her as leverage, but I didn’t listen, Angel. I took her life willingly. I took it.”

“As you should have,” he whispers. “You did the right thing. I would have done the same.”

“And yet, here I am, losing you because of it. I’ve never regretted what I did. If I had the chance to do it again, I would. But losing you because of it? I’d regret that very much.”

“I’m not lost, not yet,” he says, his body moving closer to mine, a whisper away, a breath. His hands move to my face and he holds me still, his gaze meeting mine. “I’m still here.”

“I’m so sorry, sólnyshko. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I’m still here,” he repeats, “because you were right to kill her. Family comes first, and you had every right to defend yours.”

And then his lips meet mine.

Sensation explodes through me, the taste of him, the feel of his mouth moving against mine. All my fucking life and this is what I was missing.

I groan loudly, my body pressing forward, my hands tightening on him. A soft mewl escapes his throat and something in me snaps. My hands slide through his hair and tug roughly, arching him slightly to the right, his face and mouth at a perfect angle, and I invade. My tongue pushes into him and the sweetness of his very essence is almost my undoing.

I’m too rough, I know it, but I can’t control it, can’t keep any of it inside anymore. I thrust my hips forward, grinding against him, my mouth never leaving his, and he just accepts it. He pushes back, our hard cocks grinding together as we lick our way into each other’s mouths. He’s tasting me for the first time. And he loves it.

He loves kissing me.

The knowledge of it pushes me further into him. My hands drag down his back to his ass, and I pick him up, his legs wrapping around my waist as I set him on the dresser in the closet. Our mouths never part, our tongues tangling almost savagely, our teeth clanking in desperation.

We only separate for me to rip his shirt over his head. And then, we come crashing back together, moaning and grinding, hands everywhere—feeling, scratching, clinging. And yet, we’re not close enough.

I need more. I need inside of him.

“Mikhail,” he gasps when I pick him up and bring him into the bedroom, the two of us falling onto the mattress together. We’re only parted for a minute, but I see him, his flushed cheeks, his hooded eyes, his puffy lips.

I attack once more, an animal in rut, sucking on his bottom lip as my hips thrust up, unable to keep the feral sounds from escaping my throat. And he doesn’t hold back either—we’re wrecked, completely consumed by one another. We hear and feel nothing but the sounds our bodies are making .

His hands have slid down the back of my pants, grabbing onto my bare ass, and I grunt at the feel of him touching me. I want him to always touch me.

I never want him to let me go.

Weak, I know, but at this moment, I don’t care.

Our bodies continue to move, a sensual cant as we work ourselves into a frenzy, but neither of us wants to stop to peel our clothes off. So we slowly work them off as we go, as much as we can without leaving the other. My shirt is up around my neck, pants halfway down my ass, cock out. And Angel is squirming beneath me, trying to push his shorts down with the force of the mattress.

If I had it my way, I’d never have him wear clothes again.

I want him naked. Always.

I peel my lips away, breathing as if I’ve run a mile, and he chases me with a whine, leaning up, trying to kiss me again. But I stop him, peeling us out of our clothes until we’re both completely naked only to fall on him again.

“Ya hochu potselovat’ tebya,” I whisper, and Angel sighs, smashing his mouth to mine once more. He has no idea what I said but gives me what I wanted anyways. He always knows what I want, what I need, even before I know myself.

We writhe on the bed, unable to stop our frantic movements, our desperate kisses. Neither of us wants this to end. I don’t ever want this to stop. Because what if it does and he still leaves? The thought is jarring enough to pull me from this lusty haze for just a moment.

I slowly pull away from his mouth, seeing it spit-slick and red, and feel a flutter in my chest at how beautiful he is.

“What is it?” he asks, his hands sliding up my back and cupping my cheeks.

“Will you stay? Stay with me?” I ask softly, and Angel blinks, as if coming out of a fog. He’s processing it, digesting it. It’s an eternity before he nods, a tilt of his chin, but it’s enough.

“Yes, my love. I’ll stay. ”

I let out a relieved exhale and kiss him fiercely, dragging my mouth down his cheek to his jaw and neck. I suck on his pale skin, leaving marks everywhere, biting and bruising, feeling him sway and arch beneath me.

I continue to move down his body, desperate for more of him, for a taste of who my Angel is. I stop at his nipples and suck on them, drawing them into my mouth and biting down, his back arching off the bed as I toy with them until they’re red and puckered. And then I move on, dragging my teeth down his body, tongue slipping into his bellybutton and across the V of his hips. While I go, I leave marks, a treasure map of who he belongs to.

Anyone who sees him will know he belongs to someone.

Me. He belongs to me.

When I reach his cock, I don’t even hesitate, don’t think about how I’ve never done this. I just know that I want it. I slide my tongue along his hard length and lap at its leaking head.

Angel cries out at the sensation, his fingers threading through my hair.

“I’m going to taste every part of you,” I say, and he moans helplessly as I suck on him. The first dick I’ve ever had in my mouth and it’s perfect.

Of course it is. It’s him.

I lap and suck, dragging my teeth over his sensitive cock, making him gasp and sigh before moving to his balls, pulling them into my mouth and rolling them across my tongue. He’s wild now, thrashing on the mattress, his eyes drifting shut in bliss as I lift his hips and bring his ass right to my face. I spread his cheeks with my thumbs and delve inside, licking up his crack and toying with his hole.

He’s sobbing now, begging. My name is heavy on his lips, his chest heaving as I thrust inside of him, eating his ass, marking him inside and out.

He’ll never have another. Only me.

His cock is leaking profusely now, long lines of precum sliding down his shaft and I pause to lick them up before moving back to his hole, teasing, thrusting until he’s yanking my head up, words unable to be pulled from his lips.

“I’m—I—if you keep—I’m going to come.”

I smirk, proud of myself, and then slowly kiss my way back up his body, lingering above his lips.

“You want me to fuck you then?”

“Yes, please. Please.”

Without hesitation, I grab the lube, and as I kiss him slowly, I work him open, his body already loose and slackened from my tongue. By the time my slick cock pushes into him, he’s nearly sobbing in relief, his body clinging to mine, his tongue sliding into my mouth, our lips moving against each other. Gently, slowly.

We make love.

A slow climb of two people writhing together. Our bodies damp with sweat, with lust as I fuck inside of him, his hole so accommodating, so open. Just like him. I feel my chest swell with something. Something I haven’t felt in ages, in what feels like forever. Perhaps I’ve never felt it. Until him.

Angel arches up and I kiss my way down his neck, sucking on his Adam’s apple, leaving another mark there as I continue to work my cock in and out of his tight channel.

“I’m so close,” he whispers, his voice broken. “So close.”

“Then come, my little Angel. I want to feel you lose yourself around me.”

He gasps, slams his mouth onto mine and I feel it, the pulsing of his release against our abdomens, the vise-like grip his hole has on my dick.

In a matter of seconds, I’m losing control as well, thrusting into him wildly, my mouth never leaving his. A roar escapes my throat, and he swallows it as I fill him completely. I can feel it, my cum settling inside of him, leaking out. There’s so much of it, so much of me in him. And the entire time, we just kiss, our mouths never breaking contact .

I fall onto my side and pull him with me, our bodies still connected, our lips lazily licking and sucking.

And neither of us says a word, our eyes growing heavy from emotions, from the weight of what this means.

So we just let ourselves lie there in the silence. When we’re ready, we’ll figure out what this is.