Bad Apple (Part 1) (7 page)

Irina

Looking deep into his eyes is like seeing the sunrise from a mountaintop. I feel overwhelmed. I also feel owned as he leans over me with his beautiful, tattooed chest and melds his skin to mine, reminding me of the utter pleasure and bone-deep satisfaction still coursing through me.

Then there is the fear and fury.

We’re married. Married, for God’s sake! After only knowing each other a week, he’s looking at me as if I’m his forever, no arguments.

“Stop regretting this, Irina!” he yells suddenly, pushing away with a curse that blisters my ears.

“I, well what do you want me to do?” I yell back, coming to my feet in a rush, my hand movements jerky as I wrap the sheets around me and stand gaping as he paces naked in front of the bed. “Yesterday I had my whole life turned upside down, and today I wake up to find out I’m married to a Russian billionaire who has no qualms about trampling all over me to get what he wants!”

What does he want form me? I don’t understand any of this—why he looked at me and wanted me. Why he couldn’t just be my friend.

Nik and Tatiana surfed the web for hours showing me pictures of his exes, or should I say bed partners, and I have no idea how he can go from being attracted to blonde, skinny socialites to wanting me.

Liza, my only true friend in the caring department, poured milk all over Nik’s laptop at one point and threatened to beat them to death with her cleaver.

The point is, I know what his type is and I am so not it.

“Because you make it so difficult to do it any other way, Irina.” He charges back, stopping an arm’s length away from me.

His chest is rising and falling and I’m almost distracted by the tattoo glaring at me from his left pec.

“You put up walls the moment I talked to you and made up your mind that you wouldn’t even give me a chance. You’ve done nothing but shove your friendship in my face all week, and then you go and drape yourself all over another man, offering him what is mine,” he rages, pacing away again, this time pulling at the long hair on his head.

His is completely unkempt and adorably messy as he keeps pacing and throwing Russian growls my way, stopping only to give me an odd look before continuing.

“Misha, this is ridiculous. We can’t be married to each other. We’re not at all suited,” I try again.

Gone is my glow and any feelings of tenderness when all the man does is sneer and fall into the chair in the corner, his disregard for his nakedness and the erection I have been trying not to look at setting my teeth on edge.

“We are, and we suit just fine, Irina. We are very alike, you and I. We love our family and friends and we work hard to make a good life for those around us.”

Yes, but at what cost?

“Is this because your mama likes me?”

That gets me a laugh and I stamp my foot until he shakes his head and looks up at me.

“No. This is because you have what I want, Irina, and I always get what I want. Ask anyone who has ever done business with me. Now stop trying to annoy me with nonsense and let’s talk about how we’re going to fix your business. Vadim has found two decent locations, my preferred one just down the block on the corner of our street.”

“What?”

“I have found you a new shop—”

“I don’t need a new shop. I like the old one just fine and—”

“And Vadim called earlier when you were comatose and let me know that the place is overrun. If you wish to salvage your dreams, you will have to relocate,” he cuts in impatiently.

I know the place he’s talking about. Heck, I looked at it first and every day since I’ve opened shop. It’s great, but totally out of my price range. Add to that the fact that I have all my money tied up in a building I have only just paid off and I am screwed.

The news deflates my sails and I fall to the side of the bed with a moan. What the hell has happened to my life? A week ago I was riding high on family, success, and thoughts of spending my time with a bottle of wine and ice cream.

I need a pity party right now. One that’ll blow my socks off.

What I get instead is a man who refuses to listen as he sweeps me up and carries me to the bathroom, his lips twitching when I complain about putting his back out.

“Angel, you are a feather compared to some of the things I lifted when I worked construction to earn starting capital. And your body is fucking sexy, never doubt that. Or should I demonstrate again how hard you make me?”

“No, we need to talk—” I start, squeaking when he just lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me hard, his wet, hot tongue spearing into my mouth without pause—licking, sucking, and devouring till I melt all over him and cling to his neck, my nails digging into his scalp.

“Talk is so overrated, angel. Now we take a bath to relieve the ache, and then I take you to fix things, huh?”

I find myself unable to argue when he lowers me to the tiled floor in my tiny bathroom and flips the water on, his lazy stretch afterward making my eyes zero in on his erection.

God, the man is huge. And sexy with that
V
at his hips. I allow myself a look now that I’ve been outvoted, and I want to cream myself when my eyes hit his chest and the ink on his left pec and shoulder.

“Oh my.”

It’s the Reaper, a ghastly, deadly looking visage all in black staring back at me, but somehow I don’t feel disgusted or threatened by the thing. Instead I feel rampant for the feel of that chest and his strength over me again.

But first I want to see it all. So I do. I lean down and take in his ink and shake my head at the lettering beneath the scythe, the words written in Russian.

“What does it say?”

“The dead don’t lie,” he says heavily, his chest rising and falling heavily as I trail my fingers up and around his shoulder, my body going around his back.

This one is a beauty, something I didn’t even note before in the kitchen thanks to his ass. It’s a portrait stretching from his shoulder blades to just above his hips.

What shocks me about it is not the detail, though God knows whoever did this tattoo is a true artist, and I’m also not shocked that the face staring back at me is of a hauntingly beautiful woman. I am shocked to see a name and two dates printed beneath.

Jesus.

“Who’s Mina?” I ask even though I know the answer is not going to be good.

His back is tense, the muscles jerking away when I raise a hand to touch them, wanting for some morbid reason to lay my hands on something I shouldn’t.

This space, this part of him, belongs to her. I know it like I know that I am his now, no matter what I say or do or feel.

The rejection of my touch hurts, and I pull my hand back quickly, swallowing the tears I feel rushing forth.

“The past,” he says stonily before whipping the water off and facing me. “Come, Irina. I need to care for you or you will hurt later.”

Hurt? I think I hurt now and I can’t even say why.

The sheet comes loose with one tug of his hands and I’m turned towards the bath without a word before I hear his gasp and those hands clamp down on my hips to keep me still.

“What the fuck is this?!”

I twist uncomfortably and wince at the black bruise riding low on my ribs and I tear up just remembering how it got there. It hurts that Luka would have pushed me away, and hurts even more that I don’t think he’d even care at this point that it left a mark.

He’d probably take satisfaction from knowing that he avenged Mama’s tears.

“Angel, Jesus, what the hell happened here?” he asks again between clenched teeth, his fingers tenderly probing at the bruise with a frown.

“I, uh, I fell?”

His head comes up swiftly and I meet the terrifyingly intense blue eyes I stared into as I climaxed.

“Never lie to me, Irina. I do not like it. Now get into that bath and tell me what happened to your back or I will not be very nice.”

“Chill out, Misha. I fell. I’m a klutz and accidents happen to me all the freaking time. Stop being such an asshole,” I mutter, grabbing my hair into a bun as he scoots me forward and slides in behind me.

I feel like a freaking whale and more exposed than I have ever been in my life, but the man reacts strongly to all attempts I make to curl into myself and hide my body, instead pulling me back into his chest and resting his hands over my belly.

His sigh of bliss wafts over my ear, even as I giggle at the way he has to bend his knees just to fit.

“I like all this softness, Irina. It’s a huge turn-on to have no bones poking into me, and your ass is perfect for cradling my cock. Now stop squirming around and trying to hide what is mine before he takes the hint and you’re walking bowlegged for a week. Now about that bruise…”

“Drop it.”

“I will. If you agree to move into the store I have bought and paid for,” he demands.

He paid…

“No! I don’t want or need you throwing money around to fix my life. I made my business a success and—”

“And now it is on the verge of ruin unless you do something about it, Irina. I have already paid for the building and started Vadi and Nikita on the path to setting it up for you. It will be ready tomorrow.”

“But, but I can’t afford it, Misha. I put everything into the other shop and I have no collateral for a loan now that it’s closed and—”

“Woman, I am your husband. I can buy you a shop without explaining—”

“No, you can’t. You can’t because I refuse to have my business overtaken by anyone, Misha. I love that shop, but I can’t afford it, and I won’t have you paying for all of my stuff. I want one thing that belongs only to me. Not my family. Not you. Nobody. It’s mine. My accomplishment,” I hiss, pulling up and struggling out of the bath to grab a towel.

It’s not that I mind his sweetness, but I’ve fought my whole life to be out from under my family’s money. You think I couldn’t have skipped the fifteen-hour workdays and the Ramen noodles for two years? That shit sucked, but I relished very single minute of it because when Sweetness started doing good business, I had only myself to pat on the back for it.

Misha comes out of the bath with a snarl, his body sending my wits scattering as he gets out and stalks my way, pinning me to the wall with a frown and ticking jaw.

“Then sell the old shop to me. It will be a trade of sorts, and I’ll recoup my outlay.”

He’s being reasonable…and he just came up with the perfect way for me to get what I need.

Irina

“This place is great, Ri! Don’t get me wrong, I loved the other shop so much with its quaintness and the way it was just tucked in between the bigger buildings like the
Stewart Little
house, but this is so much bigger,” Mrs. Pots coos when I hand her her change and the massive box of goodies she’s been coming in for twice a week, every week, for two years.

“Thanks, Pots, we likes it too.” I wink before giving the register over to Nik and heading to the back to collect another tray of just cooled croissants.

It’s been a week since I found out I was married and that I had a new shop. Since then, time has moved a mile a minute. I’m doing so much business that I’ve had to accept that bitchy chef as my assistant just to keep the place stocked for the day.

I moved in with Misha that same day without argument when he laid down the law and told me he refused to drive across the city to have sex with his own wife.

I needed time, I told him that a million times, but the man is unstoppable when he wants something. I get it, though. He turns to me at least three times during the night and does me so hard, I can’t move a limb after. He also likes to snuggle.

My family still hasn’t spoken to me and I miss having my three overprotective brothers at my back and my parents calling me twice a day, but I’m okay.

I have Misha now. He’s insatiable and keeps me completely occupied whenever I’m burned out from work. He feeds me three times a day without fail whether I’m hungry or not, makes love to me whenever and wherever he can find a hard surface and privacy, and calls me so much that my friends tease me about overprotective megalomaniacs and their obsessive behavior.

It’s all going so well that by the time I get into Delilah for the trek home, I’m feeling great and ready to make love to my man, with the lights on even!

It’s still surreal to walk through the doors of his building, greet the concierge, and take his private elevator all the way up to the penthouse, but eh, a girl can deal, I think as I skip into the foyer with a smile.

A smile that falls instantly when I come face to face with my husband kissing another woman. A woman I know. The woman who takes up almost his entire back and should be dead.

My heart stops and then starts thumping weakly as I take it all in and gasp.

I want to run. I should run. Instead I’m rooted to the spot and bloodless as he pulls away and whips his head up, his eyes meeting mine with shock.

“Angel.”

~ To be continued... ~