Chapter 14

I'm not in the mood for this asshole. When I called into the bathroom, I was more worried that Mila had run away, not that some dickhead had used her to make a point. Especially after what I've recently done and the actual violence I inflicted, I'm ready to dismantle him.

Mila hesitates. In the corner of my vision—I'm staring at the man, waiting for him to move—she shifts from foot to foot. I wonder if part of her wants to tell me to beat him to a pulp. The thing is, I would. She's spent too much of her life living in fear. She doesn't deserve this.

"He's not worth it," she says after a pause. "Come on. Let's not let him ruin the day."

I nod, stepping forward and almost crushing him against the wall. The coward flinches away, refusing to meet my gaze, showing his true colors every second.

"Walk behind me," I tell Mila. "Just in case he gets any not-so-smart ideas."

Mila leaves the bathroom, keeping me between the cleaner and herself. Once she's safe, I tell the man, "You're fucking lucky."

Then I back out of the room, keeping my gaze on him. He's the sort of lowlife to sucker punch a man when he turns his back. I can tell. Outside, I take Mila's hand and walk toward the bike. The bag of groceries is still on the seat where I left it.

"I told him my boyfriend wouldn't be happy," Mila murmurs, picking up the helmet.

She looks so beautiful with her messy hair from the ride here. The leather jacket makes her look cozy, like a gift in leather, ready for me to unwrap.

"You said that?" I ask, a genuine smile touching my lips, not a smirk. Actual happiness that makes me forget about all the dark stuff.

"Is that okay?" she asks.

I answer her with a kiss.

"Nowhere," I tell her when she asks where we're going.

She laughs, squeezing my hand as we walk along one of the quieter Red Rock Canyon trails. "Nowhere … really?"

I grin. "We came here when we were kids, Dimitri and me." I help her navigate some tricky, gravelly terrain, and then we rejoin the main path. "We'd wrestle in the dust and get better at fighting. It was difficult to get any real training with other people. They didn't want to hurt us the second they discovered who we were."

"You can't blame them," she says quietly.

"I know," I say, sighing. "Luckily, Dimitri's tough as hell, so I always had a good training partner."

"So did he," Mila says supportively.

I smile down at her as we crest upon a small hill. Then I look over at her to see her reaction. The desert and the rocky landscape spread out before us, and then Las Vegas—the city sparkling like a beacon.

"Whoa," she murmurs. "It actually looks beautiful from this far away."

I laugh.

She giggles, laughing just because I did, and looks up at me. I wrap my arms around her from behind, leaning down to put my cheek next to hers, savoring the warm skin-on-skin contact as we look at Las Vegas.

"What's funny?" she asks.

"You said ‘actually,' and you're right. It can be so depressing in the city, especially in the daytime. Soulless, but from way out here …"

"There's no grime. It's clean; it's like code."

I squeeze her tighter, then kiss her softly on the cheek. She embraces me when my lips touch her skin and leans up for a kiss. I meet her halfway, making a deep, husky noise when our lips make contact, the desire and the heat threatening to melt me. I've managed to hold back because she was holding back, but when she moans and presses closer to me, my manhood grows rock-solid.

"It's so quiet around here," she murmurs between kisses.

"It's not even eight a.m.," I tell her.

"We should head back soon …" She raises her eyebrow, making it half a question.

I smooth my hand down her body, loving the way she shivers at my touch. She's taken the leather jacket off, letting me see the shape of her body beneath the loose-fitting shirt. Every inch of her makes me swell with demanding, possessive, hungry need.

"I know," I tell her, but I've got no intention of heading anywhere except deeper into this need, this hunger, this certainty. As I lean down for another kiss, I can't believe I ever thought I could go through my life alone and spend the rest of my days without this heat or closeness.

She makes the sweetest noise when I kiss her, wrapping her arms tightly around me as though she wants to keep me as close to her as possible. I lean down, sliding my hand around her ass, savoring her curviness as she shifts against me, letting me feel her thickness. I love how shapely she is, with her gorgeously voluptuous ass and her wide hips.

Breaking off the kiss, she says, "Sorry, I thought I heard someone."

I smirk. Maybe it's the last thing I should do, considering everything that's happened. I shouldn't let myself fall so effortlessly into this deep hunger. She's a virgin. I need to remember that, remind myself of it, but that could be a bad idea, too. It would mean dwelling on the fact nobody's ever touched her body like that before.

"Maybe we should go somewhere more private."

She looks around the dusty landscape. "Like where?"

"There's a small cave a few minutes that way." I nod, the end of my cock aching as it presses against my pants, my balls feeling ready to explode.

This is my brother's wife-to-be. This woman might have to marry Dimitri if we can't figure out how to save this city. I'll have to stand there, hating myself, watching, knowing this is the worst thing that could've happened to us all—my brother, his woman, Lia, my Mila, and me.

"Oh," Mila says in a small, teasing voice. "Is there now …"

"Why do I feel that's a yes?"

"You haven't asked a question."

I smirk again, leaning closer, feeling her breath whisper and tease across my face. "Do I need to ask?"

A gleam of panic touches her eyes, but then she grabs my arms and pulls herself close in the sexiest way. I can tell everything is weighing on her, too, and the past few days' events are dragging her down. But this—the kissing, the connection—lifts us up instead. She pushes her tongue into my mouth, moaning steamily, grinding her perfect body against mine.

"No," she says, breathing hard as she breaks off the kiss. "You don't have to ask me anything."

In the cave, I gently take the leather jacket from her and lay it down. She laughs and glances at the entrance, the pocket of yellow light. "Are you sure nobody will see us?" she asks, licking her lips.

My cock has been hard this entire time, my dick aching as I try to hold myself back. I take both of her hands, making me think of holding them on our wedding day. It's just another sign of how messed up this situation is. I'm fantasizing about marrying my brother's fiancée; at least, technically, she's his fiancée.

"If anybody saw you looking so damn sexy," I tell her, "it'd make what I did to that bastard look tame, Mila. Nobody gets to hear you moan. Nobody gets to feel how wet and needy you get. Nobody except for me." Suddenly, I'm breathing hard, my chest rising and falling, my head cloudy with desire. "Do you understand?"

She flinches, almost like she's afraid, but I think it goes deeper than that. It's more like she's letting herself feel the full force of what I'm saying. "Yes," she says, nodding. "Nobody else, Mikhail. I promise."

"Good," I groan, then kiss her again.

She slips her hand down my body this time, then around to my groin. I can feel the nerves in her hand until her touch strokes across the outside of my pants. Then all I can focus on is the warmth swelling in my groin, my tip burning with precome, and my underwear getting sticky.

Gently, I lower her to the ground, onto the jacket, making sure I brace her the whole time so she's comfortable. She strokes my dick even faster, making it so damn hard to keep kissing her with all the sharp breaths coming out of me, the hunger turning me savage, making me an obsessed beast.

I move to the side slightly, giving me room to grind my hand up her thigh. I want to feel her bare skin so badly, but the second she makes that whimpering, horny-as-fuck moaning noise, I can't hold myself back. I push my hand between her legs.

She gasps and closes her legs around my hand, grinding against me, moving her hips in the neediest, horniest way. I let out a groan and rub her quicker, looking down at Mila as she twitches, her mouth open. She has no idea how perfect she looks at this moment or how perfect she looks at every moment.

When I move to her pants button, she murmurs, "Mikhail …"

The raspy way she says it makes my cock twitch, and so does the note of nerves in her voice.

"Yeah?"

"You know what?" she says, suppressing another moan.

I do. I can read my woman like a line of code. She's complex and beautiful, but to me, only me, the code is readable. She wants me to keep rubbing over her pants. She's getting close to the edge but doesn't want to say it.

"Do you think you can always be shy with me?" I say teasingly as I lean down and kiss her on the cheek, my hand still on her button.

"It feels so good," she whispers.

"It'll feel even better with nothing between us. Just my hand. Just your perfect, soaked, needy virgin pussy."

Fuck. I'm just saying it's enough to make me almost explode. I undo her button and then tug on her pants. She grabs my wrists, and for a second, I think she's going to stop me, but then she helps me slip them down.

"Not all the way," she murmurs.

I almost roar at her, You'll take it any damn way I give it, but that's just the beast inside me howling. I can't listen to it. I can't let it twist me into the demon trying to burst out of me. Fuck, fuck. I want to claim her wet pussy so badly.

Her wetness gleams in the sunlight shining from behind us. Her face is twisted with lust. Her hole, fluttering and pink, is calling to a primal part of me.

"Oh, my, God …"

I know I'll never tire of seeing Mila's body, her lust draping over every part of her. I bring my finger to her lust-swollen clit and rub her as gently as I'm able to, but when I hear the urgency in her moans, I keep going faster, with more pressure, watching her each moment. I savor the ecstasy scorching across her features.

Her hips start moving quickly. She lets out a moan that echoes around us, then bites down like she feels bad for letting her pleasure fly. That makes her moaning even sexier. It's how she tries not to moan like what we're sharing is so intense that it's borderline impossible to keep contained inside.

Finally, her pleasure sounds turn almost hollow. When I feel her orgasm coming—the way her body trembles, her moans, her everything—I rub my whole hand against her pussy. Her wetness smears all over my palm, making me want to stroke it up and down my dick, get it soaked and slippery for her.

She sits up on her elbows when it's over, looking at me with a dazed expression. "That was … crazy."

I smirk, though I can feel my lips trembling as if that deep instinct is trying to make me howl in lust. "Crazier than last time?"

She laughs, then bites her lip. "Maybe it's …"

Running away. Or the near-disaster last night. Or the impending disaster of her possible marriage to my brother.

"Everything?" I say.

"Yeah, everything," she agrees, with another cute laugh. Then she reaches over toward my manhood.

"You don't have to," I tell her, my voice dark.

She stops, letting her hand drop. "Don't you want me to?"

"It's not that," I tell her.

"What then?" she asks.

I swallow. She hasn't pulled her pants up. Her pussy is still glistening with wetness.

"I want your tight, wet slit so badly. I want to feel how warm you are. I need it. I need to fuck you raw, Mila. No condom. Nothing between us. I know what that means. I know how messed up it sounds, but it's the truth. I ache for you and …"

"And you're worried you'll just do it, take me, even if I don't want my first time to be here?" She has a small, suspicious smile on her face. "Is that it, huh?"

"It sounds insane when you say it like that."

"You'd never …"

"No, no, no," I growl. "Of course not. Not in a million years. I'd die, I'd kill, I'd torture before I let anyone hurt you."

Maybe the sudden fire in my voice sends her into my arms. She throws herself at me. I catch her, kissing her passionately as she lies on top of me.

"Tell me what I can do," she whispers. "I want you, Mikhail. I want you, but, well, you know what."

"Say it," I groan. She hesitates, and I growl, "You don't have to be ashamed. Say. It."

"I'm a virgin," she says, and my cock pulses, my balls swelling.

"Do you really want to know what I want?"

"Hmm."

"Your hot, wet?—"

"Mikhail …"

"Let me finish," I say, kissing her. "Your hot, wet … mouth."

She slides off me, biting her lip as she nods, keeping eye contact with me and driving me even crazier. She wriggles her pants back up so that she can come up to a kneeling position. "Shouldn't you stand up?" she murmurs.

I groan as I rise to my feet, my pleasure whispering through my length, so much precome leaking hotly from my tip. I'm almost relieved that she's hidden her soaked virgin treasure.

Slowly, I undo my belt and then pull my pants down. When I pull down my underwear and my cock springs free, Mila's eyes shoot open wide. For a second, it's like I can hear her thinking, What have I just agreed to?

"I can't promise to, you know, all of it," she murmurs.

"Anything with you is better than everything with somebody else," I tell her. "You don't have to doubt yourself or make excuses."

She nods, then leans forward and brings her hand to my shaft. As she strokes, I remind myself to stay alert just in case somebody does, on the off chance, stroll over here, though I doubt they would. She strokes me slowly at first, making my dick slick.

"You're so hard," she says as she moves quicker, the heat of her palm making me twitch.

"I've been hard since we got in here," I groan. "Just looking at you makes me rock-solid. Touching you makes me, makes me …"

I can't even speak when she brings her mouth to the head of my dick. She swirls her tongue around my tip, looking up at me with her eyebrow raised like she's asking if it's good.

I growl as I stroke my hand through her hair, resisting the impulse to push my dick harder into her mouth. She strokes my shaft as she keeps swirling her tongue like she's coaxing the come out of me and needs it inside her one way or another.

She swirls her tongue around my tip faster and faster, making urgent moaning noises like she wants me to feel as much pleasure as possible. When she pushes her mouth down a little further, I almost lose it. Most of all, though, it's how she looks at me. She looks up, her eyes almost challenging, like she's daring me not to come because she knows her power and how difficult it is not to.

I almost roar when she moves her hand even faster, slipping it up and down my length, her tongue moving at the same pace.

"Oh, fuck," I groan. "Mila."

"Hmm," she moans with my dick still in her mouth. She's nodding, trying to get me to finish. I wonder if she wants me to finish in her.

Suddenly, I can't wonder about anything. All the pleasure explodes. I hunch over, almost letting out a roar as wave after wave of pleasure bursts out of me. My shaft burns with even more intensity when I see her neck shifting as she swallows my seed and takes every last drop. I'm left panting like a beast, and then I stumble back, my head hazy.

"Don't fall," she says, with genuine concern as she wipes her mouth.

I smirk, then laugh. "I think I might." I pull up my pants. "Fuck, Mila."

She springs to her feet, her lips glistening with my release, her expression wild and excited from her own release. Walking over to me, she grips onto my front, smiling up at me. "I've never done that before," she says.

My dick starts to harden again, but I know we need to head back soon. Even if our father and Nikolai only managed to plant one guard on our estate—and even if he's in an underground cell—I don't want to push our luck. Then it's like my Mila reads my mind.

"Couldn't you just stay here forever?" she murmurs, hugging me and putting her cheek against my chest.

The word forever burns into my chest, heart, and soul. I never could've thought like this before Mila came along. These ideas would never have fit into my head.

"What?" she says.

"Forever," I repeat. "Is that just a figure of speech?"

She frowns. "If you want to have a realistic conversation?—"

"I don't," I growl.

"Then yeah … forever. The only reason it's unrealistic is, well, you know …"

Her dad. The war. The marriage.

"I'm going to fix this," I tell her. "We'll be together: Drake, you, and me. You'll see. That man won't be able to hurt you again."

She turns away the second I mention this, seeming awkward about the idea of talking about what he may have done to her and the pain he inflicted.

"We should go," I say a moment later.

When I turn my back, she says coldly, "He bullied me. He hit me sometimes, but rarely. When I was younger, he'd ground me by locking me in an underground room. Don't turn around, please."

There's desperation in her voice as she begs me not to look at her. I keep my gaze fixed ahead, and she continues, "He's just not a good man, but what can you expect from a life like this?"

"We're better, Mila," I tell her.

"Define better," she says.

"We're not saints, but we're not devils either."

When she joins me at the mouth of the cave, taking my hand, she looks up and says, "Dad hurt me, but I don't want to talk about it. Not until I know he can't hurt Drake or me again."

"Does he do the same to your brother?" I ask.

"He's never hit Drake, but he punishes him for no reason and calls him names. Dad's pretty sexist. I think the only reason fists haven't started flying is because he's a boy."

I clench my jaw, trying not to visualize the moment sweaty Nikolai Petrov laid his hands on Mila. I want to tear him to pieces, break his bones, shatter him on a fundamental level. I want to ruin the prick, but if I kill him before the time is

right …

"What are you thinking?" she asks.

"The truth?"

"Always."

"About killing your father."

She doesn't smile. She doesn't frown. She doesn't look scared or excited. She just tilts her head slightly as if she can't even process the idea, but she will.

Nobody hurts my Mila and gets away with it.