Page 19 of The Bratva’s Arranged Virgin Bride (Fokin Bratva #8)

More memories came rushing back, and I giggled harder. “That couple from Montana who were arguing with you about how they were sure our landscape was from the nineteenth century. They could tell by the luster of the paint.”

He snorted, taking up the brush again to start adding more lines to my profile. “Yes, they just took a class, and were absolutely positive that the painting that was just finished the week before was over two hundred years old.”

I dipped a fresh brush into some sky blue I had mixed up from that morning and began swirling it around his outline. “How much did they end up paying? Eight grand?”

“Eight and a half,” he corrected. “And thought they were getting a steal.”

We cracked up, our hands bumping together and causing a smear of the rich, tawny brown and my blue.

Somehow, it worked, and we kept going. God, we had fun back then, too much fun.

A twinge of guilt made me stop and look at what we started.

Just a few brushstrokes inspired me in a way I hadn’t felt in ages, and the guilt disappeared like it never existed.

He leaned across me, his chin brushing the top of my head to add a few dabs that created cheekbones in his outline of my face.

With a low rumble in his throat, he rubbed the freshly laid paint with his thumb, removing a trace.

I thought it looked fine before, but now it was better. He knew what he was doing.

I changed colors, adding some faint gray, like a mist in the blue.

After a few moments of standing glued to each other’s sides and frantically adding colors and lines, he stopped and put down his brush, taking my face in his hands.

His eyes were intense, darker than a moonless midnight sky.

A line of concentration split his eyebrows as he turned my face to the side to study my profile.

“I want to get your nose just right,” he said.

Then he turned me back to face him, and the grip on my jaw loosened.

His fingers trailed down my cheeks, along the sides of my throat.

The intensity in his eyes was still there, but it had changed.

I recognized that look, because I’d seen it before.

Right before we threw ourselves at each other in the kitchen.

My arms felt heavy, and my brush fell from my hand, rustling against the drop cloth under our feet.

I swayed toward him, my hands rising to press against his chest, rock hard and hot under my palms. I could feel his heart thudding through the crisp white dress shirt that was now streaked with blue and gray from my fingers.

“Your shirt,” I managed to say.

“Don’t care,” he said, his head lowering.

My head tipped back. Every part of me yearned for him to touch me, but his hands were still against the sides of my neck. His mouth was still too far away from mine. I licked my lips, and he groaned. Why wasn’t he kissing me? Yanking me to that muscular body of his and gripping me tight?

The only thought in my head couldn’t even be called a thought, more a feral need. Something I had no words for, but had to have.

“Please,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

His mouth was on mine within a heartbeat. His fingers plunged into my hair, tugging the ponytail out and tipping my head further back. His tongue was in my open, eager mouth, his other hand sliding down my shoulder, raising goosebumps along my bare, sunburned arms to grip my waist.

My body slammed against his as he flattened his palm against my back.

I could feel his heart against mine, wild birds trapped and trying to escape.

My nipples hardened, and my legs felt like liquid.

I was only held up by his hand in my hair, the other easing down my backside.

The fabric of my dress bunched in his fist as he pulled it up.

The cool evening breeze coming in through the open window tickled my bare legs. He pushed his tongue deeper, dragging me so close to him I could hardly breathe. But I didn’t need to breathe when his hand finally touched the bare skin at the back of my thigh. I only needed more of that.

“Kolya,” I gasped as he dragged his mouth away.

Small kisses trailed down the side of my neck, and I let my head loll back. My dress was pushed up around my waist, and he worked his fingers under the bottom edge of my panties, feather-light against my heat.

“Soft,” he muttered, pushing my panties aside with a growl. “Hot.”

“Kolya,” I said again. Neither of us could complete a sentence, and neither of us made any sense. Just moans and gasps and pleas.

I wrapped my leg around his hip to grind against the hard shaft that throbbed against my middle. His fingers teased me mercilessly, not giving me what I wanted, needed, so, so badly.

“Kolya,” I said fiercely, shoving away from him with the flat of my hands against his chest.

He shook his head. “I can’t stop this time, little girl.”

I tried to shake his shoulders. He was as sturdy as a boulder, as fearsome as a wolf staring down at me. “I don’t want you to,” I panted. “I want—”

He kissed me again, lifting me up and carrying me over to where I’d left a loveseat and a thick, woolly rug when I cleared most of the room for my art supplies. Wrapping both legs around him now, I ground against his washboard abs and that steel rod pulsing beneath his pants.

Deciding the loveseat was too small, he laid me out on the rug and shoved my dress up my thighs.

Gripping my legs, he flung them over his shoulders and dove between them.

A growl rose up from the wads of my white linen dress, a pressure against the sodden fabric of my panties that had me crying out. For more.

“You’re so damn wet,” he murmured.

With a jerk of his wrist, my panties were torn and shoved aside.

He pushed my legs further toward my chest, pushing his tongue deep inside me.

I shivered from how good it felt, and then froze when he found my swollen nub.

Gripping handfuls of his glossy raven hair, I cried out, bucking my hips as he circled and lapped at me.

This was better than the gift, better than the compliments.

This was what I’d been craving for days, no matter how I tried to pretend otherwise.

Soon, I was shaking under the onslaught of his mouth, that expert mouth.

He only stopped when my arms were limp, falling from his hair.

He released my legs and fell on top of me.

Wrapping my arms around him, I felt his cock still pulsing against me. I was spread open, soaking wet from his mouth and my own desire. And suddenly scared half to death.

“I’m a virgin,” I whispered.

He chuckled, kissing my neck. “Do you think I don’t know that?”

I wanted to be offended, but was more relieved he didn’t care. He was older than me, so much more experienced in everything. I couldn’t take it if he dismissed me as a child and decided I wasn’t worth the bother of teaching. I writhed underneath him, already wanting more.

Slowly, so slowly, he pushed himself up and began undoing the buttons down the front of my dress.

When they were all open, he pulled me to him and eased the rumpled fabric up and over my head.

With a snap of his fingers behind my back, my lacy bra fell open.

The straps slid down my shoulders, and he whipped them across the room with the rest of my clothes.

“That’s not really fair, is it?” I asked, fighting the burst of shyness that warred with the pride I felt as his eyes roamed my body like I was a masterpiece.

With shaky hands, I started on the buttons on his shirt. After a second, he grew impatient, ripping it open and shrugging out of it. Standing up, he was out of his pants in no time.

Holy crap.

There was never any denying that Kolya was a handsome man.

He was scorching, scalding hot. But that was with his clothes on.

Standing before me, naked as a statue in an Italian fountain, he nearly made me faint.

So much smooth, tanned skin, that manly smattering of hair on his muscular chest. Those thick, corded thighs.

Muscles everywhere, so many muscles. And then…

I reached for his cock, bouncing straight out in front of him as he lowered himself back down to me on the rug. I savored his groan as I gripped the silky smooth shaft and began to stroke.

“My beautiful little bride,” he said in a choked voice. “Nat. Nataliye. You’re killing me.”

Funny, that was the last thing I wanted to do just then. I reached for his face, running my palm over the hard planes of his cheekbones and jaw. Like a beacon, I was drawn to his lips, mine parting as he leaned closer to me. The kiss was sweet, tender, deep as a bottomless well. But not for long.

Soon, I was panting for him again, for all of him. Every last inch.

“I want you so many ways,” he said against my neck, pulling my leg to wrap around him.

“I’m right here,” I told him. “Let’s get started.”

He laughed, the sound vibrating against my lips. “My fiery little girl,” he growled, guiding his cock to my slick opening. He groaned. “So damn perfect.”

I loved that he thought so, that I believed him, positive that this was the truth, if nothing else. God, it felt good. It really, really felt good as he teased me with his velvety tip. Then rammed in, smooth and hard, holding steady after my brief gasp of pain.

“More,” I told him, grabbing his head for another kiss.

“Everything,” he said.

Within minutes, I screamed, holding tight and pressing every inch of my body against his.

Sweat dripped between us, a drop rolled from his hairline down the side of his face, and I licked it away.

He laughed, pounding deeper and harder as I screamed again.

I was lost, floating and still holding on to his hard, muscular shoulders, never wanting it to end, but unsure how much more I could take before I disintegrated in this fevered passion.

He slid his hand between our slippery bodies to find my swollen nub again, driving me further than I ever dreamed possible, dragging out another shout.

He joined in this time, roaring my name like a prayer to some ancient, wild goddess.

Collapsing against me, our breath coming in ragged bursts, he groaned against my shoulder, then kissed my neck.

“Nat,” was all he said. All I needed to hear.

I could get used to this.

When we were both a little more grounded and could breathe without sounding like an overworked steam train, we sat up against the edge of the loveseat. Kolya pulled the knitted throw down and wrapped it around us. Cozy, sweet. Not any words I would have ever applied to him.

Our eyes settled on the painting we started, and both of us started to laugh, trailing off when we were still too weak to exert ourselves that much.

“You have to promise to finish it,” he said. “It’s a good start.”

I shook my head. “I suck at self-portraits. I guess I’m sort of vain because I always make myself look better than I really do, then get embarrassed and destroy it.”

“I’ll finish it, then,” he said, dropping a kiss into my rumpled hair. “Then you’ll see how beautiful you really are.”

A rush of emotion I didn’t want to feel filled my chest like I was trapped underwater and couldn’t reach the surface.

In the time we were tangled up together on that rug, I never gave a single thought to revenge, to making him suffer.

I couldn’t make myself think about it now, when those feelings were holding me in their grip.

My eyes felt dangerously prickly, especially when I tore them from our painting and found the diary, the most perfect gift I had ever received.

I jumped up on shaky legs, tearing the blanket from his shoulders and wrapping it tight around mine as if it could protect me from my own feelings. I had to get out of there. Turning, I ran before he could reach out and grab me back, before I could do something foolish like cry.

Or something truly stupid, like telling him something I couldn’t take back.