Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine

K irill

The farther we drove from the cabin, the quieter, and more withdrawn, she became. Now that we're home, she's climbed back into her shell.

We've been home one night, and she'd had no interest in being intimate with me. She'd denied my advance, saying that she was sore. I wouldn't put it past her, considering how I'd had her only a couple nights ago. Still, this morning as I dressed, she sat in bed with the blankets pulled high around her body, honey-colored eyes wide, watching me.

She watches me as though she's waiting for the monster to reappear. As though I'll transform simply by donning my suit. Even now, I can feel her eyes on me through the window as I walk to meet my man. He's holding a box where, inside, one orange tabby kitten, and one tortie kitten lay curled together.

Peeking inside, two sets of eyes meet mine. One amber, the other green. What the fuck have I done?

"They're small," I clip.

Sasha chuckles. "They are."

"Are they going to die?" That would displease my wife, and thus, would displease me.

Sasha frowns. "Why would they die?"

"Can they be apart from their mother?" I stare into the box, unsure. "They are very small."

"They are ten weeks old. Plenty old enough to be away from their mother."

I grunt. "Did you get the stuff?"

"I have everything," Sasha assures me.

"Good." A tiny meow sounds from the orange one, and I glare at it. Yeah, I don't know what the fuck I've done. I'm going to murder my brother—after I torture him.

I start for the house as the orange one lets out another long meow. Behind me, Sasha chuckles. "I was surprised you chose the orange one."

I turn. "Why?"

"They never shut up." He's still chuckling as he turns, and heads back to the SUV. I assume he's gone to get the crap these two need, and, feeling especially tense, I start for the house as the thing in the box lets out a longer, more insistent, meow.

The orange one gives me away as soon as I walk into the room, and my wife's eyes snap to me as she lets her Kindle drop to the couch beside her.

"What is that?"

The loudest cat known to man. I open my mouth to reply something along that line, but the orange one—always the orange one—stretches to paw at the edge of the box. He curls his little butt, digging back paws into the cardboard as though he's going to climb it, and pokes his head over the edge. Her eyes fall to it, and her mouth falls open before it forms the biggest, brightest smile.

Wow .

"Oh, my goodness, it's a kitten!" She's racing toward me—toward the box. Maybe I won't kill Ilya. I'll just torture him. "Oh, Kirill!" The way she sighs… Fuck, I won't torture him, either. "Oh, they're so sweet. Look at those faces."

She scoops the needy orange one from the box, and he curls into her chest, already rumbling in contented pleasure. The tortie just sits there, blinking wide, hopeful green eyes up at my infatuated wife.

I watch her, bewitched, as she coos to the kitten in her arms before she adjusts, and reaches into the box for the tortie. Holding both kittens, she bows her head to them as she speaks softly. I can't see her face, but there's a rattle to her voice.

When she looks up at me with glassy eyes, my heart kicks in my chest. It is astonishing how vulnerable this woman can make me feel sometimes. How stripped raw. Exposed.

"I love animals."

"You didn't have any at home." I don't know why I say it. She's never happy when I bring up the things I know about her past, because she isn't happy with how I attained the information. Yet, idiot that I am, I keep bringing it up.

"Mama was allergic." She presses her lips to the top of the tortie's head. The little girl preens under the affection, but the orange tabby, jealous, as any man would be, taps her chin with his paw. She releases a sharp little laugh before she kisses him, too. Then she gives me her eyes again. Again, it's like a hit to the chest. "I've always wanted a cat." Her lips pull into a soft smile. "Now I have two."

"Now you have two," I repeat, entirely aware of Simba, who sits tall by the couch where my wife abandoned him for the little fluffballs. He looks as unimpressed as I feel. One Doberman brown brow lifts as though to say, ‘really, man?'.

I tell him the command for friend, and the look in his eyes is begrudging acceptance, but when Ruby turns to him and calls, "Simba, come meet your—" She looks at me. "Are they boys or girls?"

"The orange one is a boy. You wouldn't know it by how much he talks, though." She rolls her eyes. "The other is a girl."

"Come meet your brother and sister." She crouches low for Simba, who gives the kittens a reluctant sniff. The orange one paws his face, and his eyes shoot to me as though to ask, ‘ You gonna allow this?' before he gives another, more interested sniff.

Ruby says to Simba, "We'll call them Rafiki and Nala."

Fuck me, but my mother is going to love this woman.