Page 38 of Scarlet Vows (Yegorov Bratva #3)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

ALINA

I’m not sure what time it is, but I’m in a cocoon. Albert’s huffing, squeezed in between me and Ilya. He sits up as I wake, his paws on my hip.

He climbs over me, letting Ilya move so that he presses in against me. The sheet slides with Albert as he parks himself on the other side of me, and in the dark, he stares at me anxiously.

“Do you need to go for a walk?” I whisper.

There’s a pad in the laundry room, and we now have a doggy door for him. Before the events of the other night where the job Ilya did went horribly wrong, Ilya managed to have someone fit it.

Probably when I was at the shelter.

I don’t think it’s that, though. Albert’s never gone in the house; the pad’s the same one Ilya first put down. He’s a good little dog, one who’s been well trained.

I pet his soft fur, and he whines a little, flopping down, but his anxious look remains.

It’s weird being in this masculine room, one that doesn’t have a woman’s touch. I’m pretty sure the bed’s Ilya’s, the one from his little duplex, as is the furniture. I really need to redo the upstairs, make it more palatable to our modern tastes, or to mine anyway.

I’d leave Ilya’s study alone, but here, if we’re to share this, then…

Maybe we’d have my room.

My heart starts to beat hard, and everything shifts, like I’ve put one foot into two different realities.

Max and I planned on getting either a little house in Old Town or somewhere similar. We would do it up, have an office for him, and I’d find what it was I wanted to do…

And now I’m planning on doing the same with Ilya.

Moving on with Ilya.

No, it’s like I’ve just gone and done that, full speed ahead, sleeping in his bed like Max never was?—

I stop myself.

Breathe.

Once in therapy, Carol told me in my future, when I met someone else—and she emphasized when , explicitly told me when, not if—I’d have moments that felt surreal, back-slips, and phantom guilt.

Is this what that is?

For me, there was justice, I suppose, with Demyan taking down all the ones he deemed responsible for Max’s death.

But by my hand? No. Demyan doesn’t know, but Max and I did some self-defense before that. I learned to shoot, too, not that I carry a gun.

And all of that did nothing.

I hate the world that got Max killed. That puts every one of us in danger. The world Ilya loves and Demyan was born for.

When Ilya worked with Demyan instead of running his own bratva, he got shot, but this here is constant danger, constant guessing of whom to trust .

A sigh breaks free.

“What is it, malyshka ?” he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep.

I turn to face him, and Albert’s paws thump on the ground as he jumps off the bed. “I’m thinking.”

“Yes,” he says, “I can hear it from here. The room is heavy with your thinking.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Ilya,” I whisper, stroking my hand against his face in the darkness. His whiskers tickle my palm. “I don’t think I could bear losing you, too.”

I’ve known this man since I can remember. I’ve been closer to him than almost anyone. As close to him as I was with Max.

“ Malyshka , I won’t leave you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“It’s true that no one can,” he says, pulling me into him, “but I will fight the gods to stay here with you. The demons, too. I can defend myself, and I’m not easy to kill.”

Ilya takes my hand and places it against the puckered scar where he got shot.

“See?” he says. “Do you feel better?”

“No. You’re literally making me touch the place where you got shot.”

He laughs softly and kisses me, setting my mind and senses spinning, and I melt into him, kissing him back.

“I have a remedy,” he says, after breaking the kiss.

He slowly pushes me to my back, kissing his way down my body, his tongue sliding over my flesh, electrifying every place he goes.

He spends time laving my nipples, sucking and nipping until I’m mindless, my body a sea of sensations.

Every nip sends a lightning bolt of need straight to my clit, making it throb.

He continues down, over my stomach, kissing and biting my hip, and then lower, parting my thighs and biting me hard right near the top of my sensitive inner thigh. I cry out.

Ilya starts to lick all along my outer lips, sucking on them, making me crazier with each stroke of his tongue, each pull from his mouth.

He stops just shy of my clit, working his way back down to start on my inner lips.

Soon, he has an undulating rhythm going, licking, sucking, dipping his tongue into me, until finally he gives me what I want.

Fingers inside me and his mouth over my clit.

The thrust and suck are a perfect torture tool, a dreamy little foray between almost too much and almost not enough. Orgasmic pleasure lies right there in the center, but he knows what he’s doing, and he keeps me from reaching that high.

Torture.

Delicious, exquisite torture.

I pull at his hair, trying to get him to give it to me as I slide toward overload, but as he rubs against my G-spot with his fingers, his tongue does spectacular work. Only that work won’t give me what I want.

He just taunts and teases. Builds me toward that peak.

It’s too much. I try to get away, everything so heightened that it’s borderline actual torture. He holds my hip down with his free hand, head buried between my thighs, and he keeps at this pace.

I whimper and moan. It all falls on deaf ears.

And then he starts to twist and change. The too much becomes too little, and then I’m chasing it. I can feel that orgasm right there, hovering, if only I could get him to do this harder, faster.

He doesn’t.

His pace doesn’t change. The stroke of his tongue, the sucking of my sensitive clit stays the same. Incredibly, I heat up, and it’s there, coming, the intense pleasure, the wildness of bliss .

I come hard, exploding into a million pieces, my pussy spasming, clenching down on his fingers. My clit throbs in beats of joy until finally I float back together again, the orgasm fading away.

And in that moment, I’m in love with him.

It’s the orgasm speaking.

Right?

He pulls his fingers free and then kisses me, and I taste myself on his lips and tongue. In the darkness, he licks and sucks his fingers.

“You are so fucking delicious, Alina. Feel better?”

His erection presses into me. I reach for it, but he takes my hand and kisses my palm.

“That was all for you. Now go to sleep. We’ll take care of me in the morning.”

“But—”

“You blew me and let me fuck you hard last night. So this is for you.”

I frown. “And we went to bed and had more sex, and you also went down on me then.”

“Are we keeping score?”

“Maybe.”

He kisses me again. “That was just for you. Go to sleep.”

From his bed on the floor, Albert whines, and I snuggle in next to Ilya, who holds me close. Incredibly, I fall into a dreamless sleep.

I yawn and roll over, coming awake in stages.

Albert stands over me, barks once, and jumps off the bed, scampering off. I’m pretty sure I can hear him thump down the stairs. He’s good at going up, not so good at going down, and it makes me giggle .

Light streams in, and it must be like 10:00 a.m.

I roll over, grab my phone from Ilya’s nightstand, and nearly freak out. “Holy fuck!”

It’s one in the afternoon.

I’ve never slept this late in my life.

God, what am I becoming? A sloth?

I scramble out of bed and grab a T-shirt of Ilya’s, pulling it on and rushing up to my room, where I jump in the shower and wash off the night’s fun.

What I need to do is go to the shelter and take Albert for a visit. I think Eva will like that, and Albert may like to see some of his friends. It’s definitely been long enough that he won’t think I’m leaving him there.

Maybe Isla wants to join us.

My brain’s fracturing into hundreds of thoughts, and I need coffee. So I pull on jeans and the volunteer T-shirt, pull my hair back into a ponytail, and run down the stairs.

Albert’s finished his food from his bowl and waits for me, his tail thumping, his adorable face excited, like he knows we’re going out.

Or maybe he just wants me to go outside with him.

I get my coffee and scoop him up, taking him into the back garden where he wriggles to get down. I set him down, and he runs off, sniffing and exploring all the places he’s explored before. He also proudly marks his territory.

I sit on a chair near the herb garden and call Ilya.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I gently chastise him the moment he picks up.

“Because it was six in the morning when I left.” He chuckles. “You just got up now?”

“Maybe.”

“Well,” he says with another laugh, “you must’ve needed the rest. I wore you out, malyshka .”

I can hear the note in his voice, the one that’s asking if everything is okay, if we’re okay, if he’s pushing me or not. It’s the same one he’s used when I’ve been upset and pretended things were okay.

Difference is, I think, apart from my small freak-out in the early hours before he went down on me, I am okay. I’m really okay.

“You can wear me out any day or night,” I tell him.

“I can?” Delight rings through his voice.

“Yes.” I grip the phone tightly, like I’m trying to pour paragraphs into that one word. “When will you be home?”

“Are you cooking tonight?”

I could, and I would, but that fridge is full. “If you like, but we have a lot of leftovers.”

“More pelmeni? I’m in.” He sighs. “But I don’t know when I’ll be home. Today’s a busy day. I’ve got a lot to sort out, so it won’t be for a while.”

“Translation, you might be late?”

“It comes with the job,” he says in Russian.

I smile. “Don’t work too hard. I’ll be here, waiting.”

“Good.”

When I hang up, I go inside and make a coffee right as Svetlana hurries in.

“Do you want lunch?” she asks.

“No, thanks, just the coffee. The house is yours for a few hours.”

I go back into the garden and text Isla to see if she wants to meet me at the shelter.

Then I text Eva to let her know I’ll be in to help out, this time with Albert.

Eva

Albert!!

She makes me smile .