CHAPTER 14
Naomi
I sat beside Gavril as the car started to wind its way down the interstate, heading back to the mansion. I was pleasantly full from dinner, and he had been right; the filet had practically melted in my mouth with each bite.
But the filet wasn’t the only star in the room tonight. No. The bigger one had been my husband and what he did. All throughout dinner, we had been watched by the restaurant, presumably because everyone was waiting for Gavril to do something else they had never seen before.
Truthfully speaking, I did too. I had seen a familiar flash in his eyes after he dispatched that man. For a brief, terrifying moment, I was convinced he was about to bend me over the table and take me there.
And I would have loved it.
He hadn’t, of course. Instead, he had been unfailingly polite to me and the waitstaff, even waving off the owner’s offer of a free meal because of his troubles.
It was like he had done a complete one-eighty in a day, and now I didn’t know who I was dealing with that was sitting right beside me.
Our thighs were touching, but Gavril’s hands were elsewhere, one on his other thigh and the other resting just above my shoulder on the back of the seat, so close that I could have him touch me if I wanted to. He hadn’t said two words to me since we had gotten into the car, and I was dying to know what was going through his mind.
What he thought was going through mine.
So I did the unthinkable. I slid over until my head was resting against his chest, his steady heartbeat drumming against my cheek.
“What are you doing?” he said in a low voice, making no move to push me away.
I pressed my hand against his silk shirt, finding myself far more comfortable pressed up against him than I should be. “I’m resting my head. Is that okay?”
He didn’t respond, but his arm slipped from the seat to around my shoulder and he held me there as if to say that it was okay.
I snuggled against him, breathing in the subtle spice of his cologne, the same intoxicating smell that lingered on my sheets once he stepped out of them. It was wild and strong, like he was. I felt my body thrum and shifted closer to him, fully aware of the wetness slowly creeping forth between my legs.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For tonight.”
“Which part?”
A smile curved my lips. “Both. The dinner and what you did.”
I didn’t dare lift my head, not wanting to see his face if he was going to reject my thank you. His measures were a bit extreme, but he had done it for me. That had to mean something about our relationship.
Was I growing on him?
I didn’t know, but he’d made me feel safe in that moment. He’d made me feel protected—a feeling that hadn’t been part of my vocabulary for quite some time.
He’d shown me that he wasn’t the sort of man to just let things go, and he had chosen to handle it in the old-fashioned way of brute force.
It was simultaneously amazing and incredibly attractive.
Still, part of the problem was that I had thought Jon had been there. It wasn’t the first time I had thought I had seen him, picking him out in crowds or at the mall, even on one of the sets that I had been working on at the time.
Each time it felt like my privacy was being violated, like he could walk up to me and I would go back to the scared girl from that night and every night after until Ilsa saved me. She’d forced me to go to a therapist, to get professional help after what had happened, and while I had thought I would find it completely embarrassing, it hadn’t been.
It had been the best thing I had ever done for myself. At the therapist’s coaxing, I had grown into a more confident woman, nearly untouchable until Gavril had come into my life.
Now, well, I wasn’t so sure I could handle anything thrown at me, but then again, did it even really matter?
I had Gavril, my own dark knight in shining armor.
I felt a primal need to thank him somehow, and words just didn’t feel like enough.
So I lifted my head and caught his hooded gaze looking down at me. What had those eyes seen? What brutality had his hands dealt with? I had seen his body, though fleetingly, and it was covered in scars and tattoos.
Gavril had gone through something horrible in his lifetime.
“What?” he asked roughly, as if he was guarding every word that came out of his mouth.
“You know I mean it,” I said softly, wishing I could speak to him in English instead of Russian—as Naomi instead of Sveta.
While it was just the two of us in the back seat, there was still a guard in the passenger side and a driver, both separated by a dark sheet of glass that I imagined wasn’t soundproof. If they heard me talking in English, then there was a good chance the gig would be up, and I would be dead.
He raised his hand, pushing the hair out of my face. “I know.”
Two words that could shatter my heart. I didn’t like how that felt. I didn’t like how I had gone from thinking about throwing myself off a balcony in order to get away from him to snuggling with him in the back of a car.
My mind couldn’t process it.
So I pressed my lips to his, feeling his start of surprise before his hand was winding around the back of my neck and holding me against his lips. His kiss wasn’t as brutal as others had been, though it wasn’t long before he was taking control of our kiss. His tongue entered my mouth, as if trying to memorize every corner and recess. I was lost in the kiss, my lips parting and allowing him deeper access.
A quiet moan fluttered forward from my lips, and heat slowly started to pool in my gut. But this time, it was hotter and brighter than it had been in the past. Something was shifting between us, something that I couldn’t put my finger on it. But it made me want to climb onto his lap, to tease his cock out and impale myself so that he would fill me.
I was a wanton for him and him alone. Fuck how or what we were doing. He awoke something deep inside that I didn’t even know existed.
I shifted myself over onto his lap and he allowed me to do so, his long fingers stroking the indentions on my hips as he grasped them lightly. I felt his hard length between my thighs, the material of his pants chafing my sensitive thighs.
This was far more intimate than anything we had done so far, more of me initiating something than him just fucking me for a point.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but it felt right.
Breaking the kiss, I leaned back slightly to see his face, my harsh breathing intermingling with Gavril’s. I traced the high forehead with my eyes, down to the sloping, arrogant nose and the dark lashes that framed his hard but impressive eyes. His sensual mouth was wet with our kiss, and I traced the lower lip, feeling the fullness against the pad of my finger. I couldn’t believe he was letting me do this, touch him like I was. I fully expected him to stop me, to take control, but he wasn’t.
I didn’t know this side of Gavril.
In the darkness of the car, he looked even more dangerous, the shadows dancing over his high cheekbones dusted with dark hair. He reminded me of a viper poised to strike at any moment, and for some reason, that excited me.
“Gorgeous,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper.