Page 22 of Sold to the Russian (Nikolai Bratva Brides #6)

Maeve had tossed and turned fifty consecutive times before she came to the conclusion that she couldn’t sleep.

Her eyes were wide and sharp as they stared at the ceiling above. Her heart felt like it was pumping more blood than normal. Her nerves were awake and alive, sending zings of electricity each time she remembered their kiss.

Every time she shut her eyelids, she was violently attacked with vivid memories of his mouth consuming hers with a devastating passion that ruined her from the inside.

Every time she turned, she could taste him again, his wine-flavored breath mixing with hers, his tongue carving strokes against hers.

Every time she shifted on the bed, she felt that burning heat between her legs again, a fire that had refused to stop burning since it ignited into a dangerous, wild thing between them.

Each time she pulled the blanket further up her chest, her heart pounded as she fought desperately against the urge to reach her hands under, flick her underwear aside, and relieve herself of that ache that seemed to fester deep in the marrow of her bones.

For God’s sake, the kiss was supposed to be for show. A performance to convince Viktor and whoever it was that was paying attention to them.

And yet here she was, burning into embers for him.

For a man she wasn’t supposed to want. A man she was supposed to hate.

The kiss had felt too real to be fake. There was nothing fake about the way he held her, the way he touched her like she truly did belong to him.

She wasn’t supposed to feel anything. She had promised herself that from the moment she was forced into this marriage.

And yet, in the car, she’d spilled pieces of herself she hadn’t even meant to acknowledge out loud.

She wasn’t supposed to show him who she really was.

She wasn’t supposed to bond so quickly with his siblings, either.

It was dangerous, and right now, she was walking on a thin line, banging her fists against the doors of attachment.

Attachment was a dangerous thing. It was a web that clung feverishly to you, a second skin, an addiction she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

The consequences of it were already starting to show.

Up until yesterday, she had been perfectly fine with following along with her father’s request. All it took was one silly interaction with his siblings, one negligent kiss from this man, and she was already starting to feel the sticky fingers of guilt settling over her skin.

It wasn’t like her father had given her any further instructions anyway.

Not that there would be any way for him to do so after Fedya shot her phone to death.

There was no timeline. Nothing. He wanted her to be a mole, to do whatever she had to in order to find out everything she could.

About what? He didn’t say. He expected her to figure it out like she always did.

Apparently, anything to help his cause in fighting the Nikolais from the shadows.

The Nikolais were an extremely powerful family, so it made sense that if they were to crumble, it would be from the inside. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she was truly cut out for whatever her father had been secretly planning for countless months with Aleksander.

Maeve sat up sharply, pressing the balls of her palms to her eyes.

She had to think, to get her head back in the game.

This was her life at stake, her first and only believable chance at freedom.

Her father always kept his promises, which she knew very well.

It was why he barely made any to her. And now she’d barely even started digging for whatever it was she needed to find, and she was already getting distracted.

She thought back to the party despite herself, from Irina’s tight hugs and pretty smiles to Viktor’s calculating yet carefree attitude, to Kostya’s charm and sweet talk.

They weren’t the heartless monsters her father made them out to be, and that made it worse.

The fact that she liked them made it even worse.

It made the betrayal she was preparing sink down on her chest like an anvil.

And then there was Fedya and her confusing feelings for him.

She wasn’t sure why her pent-up anger towards him was suddenly bleeding into a lethal attraction that was becoming difficult to contain.

There had been something different about him tonight, about the way he held her, how he made sure he was by her side every step of the way, and how he took credit for something that wasn’t even his fault.

He’d been softer tonight, gentler. Or maybe he’d always been that way, and she was just always the one to provoke him.

From the interaction among the siblings tonight, it was clear that he was the most reserved of them.

He tended to be quieter when they spoke, only occasionally sending jabs or remarks.

Though he spoke a lot to her, which was a contrast to how he behaved publicly.

She couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He’d offered her dinner after they arrived, but she had been too caught off guard by the question he had asked her earlier in the car to spend another minute around him because she couldn’t honestly answer him.

Repeatedly, Maeve told herself she hated her father.

When he did things over and over to trigger her, she was sure she hated him.

But when she thought of him as her only living relative and her only connection to her mother, she wasn’t so sure if she hated him anymore.

Come on, here she was, unsure if she hated her father or not, when she was clearly doing another of his biddings by being here, being Fedya’s wife.

It would be criminal to fall for Fedya. She couldn’t allow it; she couldn’t risk it.

So she let herself believe that the butterflies she felt in her stomach when he was near, the warmth she felt on her neck and cheeks, the rapid heartbeat, the fluttering feeling in her brain, and the way her body responded to the sinful caress of his voice were simply nothing but products of lust.

Yes. That had to be it.

Fedya was a beautiful man, unlike any she’d ever seen. He was intimidatingly tall, built just right in all the right places. He was a sinful kisser, and his touch was addictive.

Before him, Maeve couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed, let alone had sex with a man.

There was a limit to the sexual interactions she could have with men when her father had someone constantly tailing her around and reporting back to him.

The last time a man had touched her, her orgasm had been a forced result of her own fingers.

He’d passed out after one round of sex and mistaken her for another woman when he woke up the next day.

So yes, maybe she was suffering from an intense form of sexual starvation. And it was only natural that her body would react to him like this. It wasn’t like it was an easy feat to be confined to a small place with a sexy man after all.

She’d very much like him to fuck her, yes.

She wanted him to bury his face between her thighs and fuck her with his tongue.

She wanted him to pin her wrists against the headboard and fuck her until she couldn’t walk.

She wanted him in the bathroom, against the shower cubicle from behind.

She wanted to ride his face on that kitchen counter.

So what?

It didn’t change the fact that he was the enemy (though it felt intensely good to finally admit her sexual desires for him). It was ironic, though, since she’d been calling him a psychopath a few days ago, and now she wanted the hands of that very psychopath on her.

She rolled off the bed, her jaw clenching in determination as she tiptoed towards the door.

She wasn’t sure of her first line of action, but sitting around and thinking about the many ways Fedya could please her contributed nothing to her mission as a mole.

She had to get up and start from somewhere.

She’d searched through the few drawers in the room before and found them empty.

So she decided to start from the man himself.

She slipped out of the room quietly into the dim hallway, only lit by a silver beam of light from the moon outside. The couch sat facing the hearth that had burnt out now, leaving only a trail of smoke in its wake. Fedya lay stretched out on it, one arm slung over his chest, still fully clothed.

His face was devoid of any frown or glare lines; his skin was smooth, and his features relaxed as he slept.

Maeve tried not to dwell on the sight of his lips or the memory of them curving around hers a few hours ago.

What mattered was that he was asleep and that his phone had to be somewhere close by.

She moved slowly, holding her breath tightly as she glanced at the coffee table.

His car keys were on the table—she could grab them and escape with his car.

But Fedya was smarter than that. The keypad on the door only responded to his fingerprints, so there was no way she could get out of the house without his involvement.

Looking past the keys, she checked under the blanket tossed over the couch, but there was nothing there either.

“Damn it,” she muttered loosely under her breath as she returned her gaze to the man sleeping peacefully on the couch.

If she couldn’t find it anywhere, then it had to be on him.

She hovered beside him like a ghost, scanning his figure for any indicative sign that he had his phone on him.

She looked around his pockets for any noticeable bulge, but both of his pockets were slightly bulged, and she couldn’t tell if it was because of air, the way he was lying down, or because his phone was in one of them.

Her stomach twisted as she bit her lip, looking him over again. He hadn’t stirred once.

She crouched low beside him and reached carefully towards his hip.

Her fingers brushed the edge of his shirt, and she slipped her hand lower towards the pocket.

She didn’t make it any further because his head snapped up, and she gasped as he grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward, toppling her balance so fast she landed with a yelp.

Right on top of him.

Just her lucky fucking night.

Oxygen rushed out of her lungs as her thighs straddled his waist beneath her silk night gown, her palms landing hard against his solid chest. And then her muscles stiffened because she realized now that he was awake, that he’d been awake the entire time.

Her heart hammered in her chest as her brain scrambled for a reasonable excuse as to why she was hovering around him in the dead of the night.

Fedya’s eyes locked onto hers, appearing like two coals under the dim lighting of the living room. He was calm, his voice the same, but something glittered in those eyes of his, something sharp and dark, something that reminded her of how smart he was.

“Looking for something?” he asked, his voice low, rough from either sleep or restraint. Maeve noticed he wasn’t touching her, even though she was on top of him. His hands had hardened into fists but never lifted to touch her.

She forced herself to stay composed even though she was so nervous that she feared she’d throw up all over him and ruin his shirt. She took a deep breath and said, “I came to invite you in. I was starting to feel bad about having the bed all to myself. It is your house after all.”

That was clearly not the plan, but it was the best excuse she could come up with at that moment. And she could read the clear skepticism in his eyes.

He shifted slowly beneath her, tilting his head like he was looking for a lie. She wasn’t the best liar, but she really hoped he wouldn’t see through her tonight.

“Just hours ago, you couldn’t get far enough away from me.”

“I changed my mind.”

His hips moved subtly, adjusting his position, and Maeve resisted a hiss of pleasure.

“Why?”

“Because I can,” she said firmly, looking him in the eye now. “Besides, you’ve been sleeping on the couch for a while, and I’m not a devil. I have a heart, and I’m asking you to join me inside.”

He watched her carefully, unmoving beneath her. She didn’t squirm, didn’t fidget, and was even more proud of herself for keeping it together.

Finally, he released her wrist. “Alright,” he said, almost lazily. “Go ahead.”

Maeve blinked. Her body was still straddling his, the heat of his torso radiating through the silky material of her gown. “What?”

“You said you wanted me to join you in the room.” His mouth tilted in the shadow of a smirk. “Go first. I’ll be right behind you.”

Maeve licked her lips and nodded, not missing the way his eyes followed the brief movement of her tongue. She climbed off him, careful not to show how rattled she felt. She rose to her feet and straightened her nightgown.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said evenly, holding his stare for a second longer than necessary before walking back towards the room.

She didn’t look over her shoulder, but as the door closed behind her, she clutched her chest with her hands like she could will the pounding of her heart away. That was close, a terrifyingly close one.

Christ, she needed to be more careful around him. This was going to be much harder than she thought.