Alexandr's Cherished Submissive (43 page)

That is, if Jessica didn’t kill him first.

“I am okay,
dorogoya
. Little bruised, but okay.”

She went ashen and rushed to his side, ripping open his dress shirt with a mighty yank, and stumbled back with a pained cry. “Oh, my god, Alex! What happened to you? Who did this!?”

He eased his jacket off, knowing his bruised ribs probably looked as terrible as they felt. Not to mention the healing wound across his abdomen. If the shard of metal from the car’s engine had been just an inch or two closer, it would have cut him open like a gutted fish. “I was in car accident.”

With a trembling lower lip, she turned her tear-filled gaze on him. “A car accident?”

“Yes, a car accident.”

The tears escaped and spilled down her cheeks, and he rubbed his hand along her delicate arm, reveling in the warmth, the life of her body against his skin. Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance and rain began to beat against the skylights stretching across the room. Somewhere in the house, a door opened and closed.

A soggy Oleg appeared a moment later, his expression apologetic as he wiped the rain from his face.

“Alex, is good to have you home. Everything is secure.” His eyebrows drew down as he examined Alex’s torso then said in Russian, “You got lucky.”

“I always do.”

Shaking his head, Oleg gave Jessica a small smile. “Goodnight.”

His girl responded with a brave, but shaky, smile, but Alex hated the sorrow in her face. After his old friend left them, he tugged Jessica close again, rubbing his lips against her hair, breathing in her fresh apple scent.

She’d put on a few pounds since they’d met, and he loved how it had softened her frame, giving her subtle curves he adored. Her breasts were fuller and, if he wasn’t crazy, even more sensitive than usual. The thought of making her orgasm by suckling her nipples like he had before he left heated his body, but he tried to banish that thought. Jessica needed him to talk right now. It was her way, and even if he inwardly hated it, he would give her whatever she needed.

Her whole body trembled as she whispered, “Oh Alex, I would die if anything happened to you.”

He ran his fingertips over her creamy cheek then gently wiped away her tears. “
Dorogoya
, please do not cry. Kills me. Nothing will happen. I will not let it.”

“I hate this,” she whispered, her voice incredibly sad. “I really do.”

Instead of doing the right thing and offering her an out, he sought to bind her closer to him. “My time away was worth it. For two weeks, I am all yours. No working, only you and me.”

Light shone from her gaze, happiness easily replacing the sorrow. Not totally. There was still a tension to her frame he didn’t like, but soon enough, he’d have her relaxed and blissful. While he was away, he’d been constantly worried about her, but hadn’t dared call. Just because he was out in the open about his relationship with her didn’t mean he’d make it easy for his enemies to track her. Plus, he didn’t trust some of his father’s men right now. The whole
Bratva
was off, as if they were an enormous house resting on a foundation of one shaky brick. The feeling of foreboding still clung to him, but not as much as it did while he was in Moscow.

She took a step closer, unable to resist the pull between them while he studied her in the low lamplight. “Will you let me take care of you for the next few days? Rest and heal?”

His sweet girl, he knew she needed to do this for him, understood the urge to take away his pain in any ways she could. “Yes, but in two days we leave for surprise. You will have to satisfy yourself with caring for me for one day.”

Looking at him from beneath her eyelashes, she gave him a wicked smile. “Are we going back to that club in Paris?”

At the mention of the BDSM club they’d visited on his last break from work, his cock twitched. “Mmm, did you like that?”

“I did,” she whispered, a cute flush making her cheeks pink. “A lot.”

He’d fucked her as part of a demonstration on orgasm denial for the club. Her screams of gratification when he finally let her come had been seared into his memory as had the way she’d smiled up at him afterward with pure love. “So did I, but no, we aren’t going back there.”

“Oh.” She tried to hide her disappointment.

Easing her closer, he buried his face against her hair. “Nico and Catrin are having a private party up near the North Pole. A northern lights party.”

The women had formed a close friendship in addition to their sexual relationship, and Alex knew Catrin adored Jessica. And as Alex had happily discovered, Jessica loved to watch big, muscular, dark skinned Nico fuck the curvy little blonde. Jessica also had a taste for voyeurism and had greatly enjoyed watching Catrin suck Alex’s cock while Jessica sucked Nico’s. They hadn’t switched around for actual sex, but they’d played together in plenty of other ways that never failed to leave Alex’s sweet submissive ravenous for him when they finally came together.

The sexual energy between them was intense, and he couldn’t help but smile as Jessica gave that little wiggle of her hips again. She was definitely thinking naughty thoughts. She always did that small hip wiggle when she was aroused, and he pressed back, rubbing against her pitiful excuse for shorts. He could easily slide them over and shove his way inside her. Hell, he’d done it plenty of times before. Once right in front of Luka and Maks. She’d been very naughty that day, being a brat and, in general, a pain in the ass. Their sexual relationship had progressed by this point into more than dabbling in BDSM, and Jessica got off on being punished.

The more she’d baited him the more he realized what she was trying to do, even if she was ignorant of the fact that she was trying to top from the bottom. He’d warned her twice before he had her bent over the kitchen table, spanking her ass while Luka kept her arms pinned and Maks had kept her torso pressed to the table with his hands on her lower back. Together, they’d restrained her while Alex punished her, noting how quickly her pussy grew swollen and wet.

She’d been shuddering when he’d rubbed her slit and had come almost the instant he’d slid his cock into her.

His little girl was filthy, kinky, and hungry to explore.

He loved it.

He loved her.

She gentled in his arms then placed a kiss at the skin exposed by the open collar of his ruined shirt. “I missed you.”

“I missed you so much.” He couldn’t get enough of touching her, smelling her, craving her taste. “Every night I slept like shit. Every day I had to force myself to not think of you, to save all of my obsessing for the quiet moments when I could finally rest.”

“Me, too.” She took a step back then laced her hands with his. “Come on. I have some dinner I can warm up for you. Then you’ll take some pain meds, wash up, and I’ll put you to bed.”

He chuckled. “No, little girl, we won’t. You will feed me, wash me, then you will suck me dry, and I will return favor. Then I will fuck you, gently but make you come, hard.”

She stumbled a bit then looked back at him with a hungry gleam in her eyes and replied with a sassy, “Yes, Sir.”

His phone rang with the tone he’d assigned to Dimitri. Jessica knew that and called out from the kitchen, “Tell Dimitri I said hi.”

Closing his eyes, he took out his phone and answered the call in Russian. “Hello.”

“We found them,” Dimitri said in a tired voice. “They’d been shot execution style.”

Regret left a bitter taste in Alex’s mouth. “What the fuck were they doing that deep in Tepov territory?”

“Father,” Dimitri growled out, “had some intelligence that the Tepovs were behind the stolen shipment from South Korea.”

“But that makes no sense!” Alex walked deeper into his home, not wanting Jessica to worry. “The Tepovs wouldn’t have the first idea of what to do with that nanotechnology. Besides, they’re our allies and have proven it over and over again.”

“Maybe not anymore. I spoke with Yuri Tepov, and he gave me a warning that if we insult him like this by sending spies again he will have to rethink the relationship between the
Bratvas
. He knows it is our father, and he knows we are doing everything we can to do damage control, but he cannot allow such an insult to stand.”

“Shit. What about the Boldins?”

“They don’t appreciate our father’s efforts to test their hold on the western zone.”

“And the meeting?”

“Gedeon Boldin is keeping the peace with his family—for now.”

Alex let out a sigh of relief. The Boldins were the last big hurdle, besides Alex’s father, to bringing Jessica safely into his world. Gedeon had been eager to put an end to the stupid, fucking curse that had tormented their parents’ generation, and both Alex and Gedeon had vowed to never target the women and children of the other
Bratva
. They weren’t outright allies, and their dealings had been done in secret, but Alex respected Gedeon and knew the other man loved his wife and twin daughters more than anything in the world. He was as eager to make a deal as Alex was, if not more.

Focusing back on the present, Alex wandered through the old library of the manor, taking in the new odds and ends decorating the room that Jessica had placed in his absence. “Excellent. How are you holding up?”

Dimitri gave a dry laugh. “I am realizing many things in my life are not as I thought. We are still looking for who tried to take you out. Our bomb experts are analyzing the car so we should have an answer soon. You are one lucky bastard. That blast should have incinerated you.”

“I am.” The need to see Jessica, to breathe in her scent, to bask in the light of her smile filled him. “Is there anything else?”

“Petty things, but I will take care of them along with our lieutenants. Go. Enjoy your woman. I will see you in two days in that godforsaken, frozen hellhole.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh. “You will love it. Thank you, brother, I owe you.”

“You’ll do the same for me when I find a woman like Jessica.” It saddened Alex to hear his normally jovial younger brother sounding so…adult. “May it happen to me sooner than later. I envy what you have.”

“Someday, my brother, you will fall in love with a good woman, and I will rejoice when it happens.”

After talking for a few more minutes, he hung up the phone and made his way through the quiet manor to the kitchen. His accident had happened six days ago, and the worst of the pain from his bruised ribs had eased, but he was still not feeling his best when he entered the warm space, his gaze adjusting to the brighter lighting reflecting off the white marble counters and dark wood cabinets. All his aches and pains were swept away by the sight of Jessica moving swiftly through their specially installed, American style kitchen, grabbing the leaf green plates she’d chosen and heaping what looked like one of her casseroles onto the two plates. The smell of that food was something he’d come to associate with Jessica cooking in the kitchen, and he understood now what the American term ‘comfort food’ meant.

She smiled when she noticed him standing there, and he noticed her eyes were red from crying, and her cheeks were blotchy. Instead of saying something about it, he decided to give them both a break and keep things light. He was happy to be home, and he was going to leave his troubles at the front door for as long as he could. His time with Jessica had become his reason for living, and he planned on enjoying it.

“Meal you made looks good. What is?”

“My mom’s Tater Tot surprise.”

He raised a brow, having no idea what a Tater Tot was, and took the glasses of milk she’d poured for them, making his way to the rough wood table that sat in front of the windows looking out over the back gardens. Brightly colored pots decorated the cedar deck, illuminated by some artfully arranged and hidden lights. Beyond the edges of his manicured back lawn lay the darkness of the forest, and he wondered who was patrolling out there tonight. Jessica took care of the plants on the deck, but she left the rest of the half-acre garden to their staff.

He’d tried to give her a full-time chef and housekeeper, but she’d balked at the idea, eventually compromising to have a chef cook for them on the weekends and a maid service come in three times a week to clean the public areas of their nine thousand square foot home. It was a little big with just the two of them living in the main house, but they had plenty of company. Between the bodyguards, visiting friends, family, and business associates, there were always a number of people about. Jessica liked it that way, so he was more than happy to keep her surrounded by the people she enjoyed spending time with.

Oleg was at his home a little ways down the road with his family, close enough that it was only a ten-minute walk. When Alex decided to settle down in Ireland, Oleg had agreed to come along as long as he could bring his wife and daughters. Since Oleg’s wife got along well with Jessica and their charming girls adored his fiancé, he was more than happy to agree. Alex had come home to the sound of feminine giggles filling the house more than once when Jessica played with the girls, doing things like braiding hair and painting nails.

She would make a good mother.

It made him want to see her swollen with his child in the worst way.

Jessica cleared her throat. “So what’s the Northern Lights party?”

He took a bite of the cheesy potato and ham mixture then washed it down with milk before answering. “Is surprise, but you will like. Will need new wardrobe.”

“Alex, I don’t need any more clothes! I already have more than I can wear in a lifetime.”

He waved her complaint away. “You do not have gear warm enough for going as far north as we will be.”

This intrigued her, and he couldn’t help but smile as the excitement sparkling in her eyes grew brighter. “Where are we going?”

“Is near North Pole, best place for viewing the Aurora Borealis. You will have fun. Is big party, many of my friends will be there.”

Suddenly, she stilled. “Will there be more of your ex-girlfriends there, trying to trample me to get to you?”

He winced, remembering the scene in Paris when one of his ex-mistresses had made a public play for him with Jessica standing right there at a gallery opening they’d attended. The woman had latched onto his arm, her hands rubbing his bicep. At the moment, he hadn’t really been paying attention, too busy listening to Nico talk about an experimental vaccine he was working on, and if he was honest, he was used to having women paw at him. It was only when Jessica hissed for the other woman to get her damn hands off Alex before she cut them off that he paid attention to the woman clinging to him.