Dancing for the Badman (Russian Bratva Book 3) (18 page)

“I may need a paternity test. She is clearly not my child,” he grumbles.

I could be offended by his words, but instead I laugh. She is his one hundred percent; not only biologically, but in looks and personality as well.

“She’s yours, Kirill, and you know it. I don’t cook Russian food. I don’t know how. Besides, we live in California. How can you not like Mexican food?” I ask as I take a pan out of the drawer and start to prepare the meat.

“Tomorrow I’m making Kiska a real Russian meal. No more pizzas and taco bullshit,” he grunts. As much as I want to laugh, I don’t. It’s too sweet.

To my bewilderment, Kirill stays with me in the kitchen while I cook dinner. He questions the entire process—not that it is a hard concept, but it’s nice having him with me.

I notice how every few minutes his eyes drift to the backyard, and I know that he’s keeping an eye on our girl. It warms my heart. He is truly taking to this fatherhood thing so much easier than I thought he would. He already adores Kiska, and I’m so grateful.

I place the casserole in the oven and turn around to watch him pour a glass of wine. Wordlessly, he hands me the glass as he takes his own and he nods to the backdoor.

“You have a while for that atrocity to cook don’t you?”

“Yeah, Kirill, I have about thirty minutes,” I laugh.

“Then we’ll relax outside, look out at the view, and watch our daughter be a little fish,” he offers.

I like that idea. This version of him, the less angry version, I like. He seems more laid back and I don’t know why that is, but I’ll take it. He’s calmer today, as if there is a weight that has been lifted from his shoulders.

Maybe he’s choosing to let go of some of his bitterness toward me.
I can only hope
. Though his punishment is still nagging at me in the back of my mind. I’m a little—
no, a lot
scared.

Kirill sits down on a lounger, and as I walk past him to sit on the other, he grabs me and pulls me down. I’m not a very graceful person, so I almost spill my wine and I yell out as I fall. I can feel his chest shaking behind me as he laughs at me.

“Tati, lie back and relax, yeah?” he says between his chuckles.

I narrow my eyes and do as he asks, because he’s being playful and it’s been so long since I’ve seen this side of him. I certainly didn’t think I would ever see it again the way he’s been this past week. I sigh when the hand not holding his wine glass wraps around me and rests on my belly.

Kirill’s fingers gently stroke my belly over my shirt. Then, slowly, they ease beneath the waistband of my shorts. Not indecently, just where my waistband rests against my skin. He strokes me gently, lightly and seductively—without even trying.

I can feel my body heating up with each stroke of his rough fingers. I want him to go down further, touch me everywhere, but my daughter’s just a few feet away and it’s so wrong. He needs to stop touching me. I wrap my hand around his wrist to halt his movements.

“What’s the matter, Tati?” he murmurs against my ear. My panties have to be drenched, I know that they are. I squeeze my legs together before I speak.

“You need to stop,” I grind out through gritted teeth.

“Tatyana, I’ll do what I want,” he announces. “Now, drink your wine and relax, yeah?”

I take a sip of wine and remove my hand from his wrist as he begins stroking just below my belly button again. It feels so fucking wrong, even though he isn’t touching me anywhere inappropriately. The problem is, I want him to. I want him to throw me down and fuck me with all of his might.

I can’t handle him—not that I ever could
.

Kirill has always been lightyears ahead of me, in brains, willpower, strength, and seduction. And he is seducing me right now. He’s doing it all on purpose. I know this is just the beginning of my punishment, and by tonight I’ll probably be so frustrated I’ll be in tears. Not to mention my red ass.

An hour later, the taco casserole is consumed and Kiska is getting ready to settle into bed with her e-reader for the night as I clean up the mess in the kitchen. Kirill hasn’t left my side, and as odd as I find it—it also feels
nice
, as if we are a normal family, like this is how we are supposed to be.

“How many other men have you fucked, Tati?” Kirill asks out of nowhere.

The pan I’m washing slips out of my hands and I fumble to catch it before it clatters in the beautiful copper sink. I don’t look over at him
. I can’t
. How can he ask me this? After ten years, how can he ask me a question like this? It is as if everything this afternoon, my happiness and the normalcy, has suddenly vanished into thin air.

“How many women have you slept with, Kirill?” I ask, returning his question.

“I’m curious is all. Don’t get your hackles up.” He shrugs as if his question is no big deal.

“Why is this suddenly important?” I ask as I finish drying the last dish.

I set it down before grabbing my glass of wine and finishing the remnants in one, long gulp.

“It is. To me, it is important; you don’t get the pleasure of knowing why,” he shrugs. His non-answer irritates me, but I concede and tell him anyway, knowing that he won’t stop until I do.

“Four,” I admit.

I feel shame. Kirill was my first lover. I thought that he would be my only lover, but life didn’t happen that way. Throughout the years, I have been in other men’s beds. No man I have ever felt more than a physical attraction for. No man that I would ever introduce to Kiska. Just men that I had fun with every so often. And in all honesty, it wasn’t very often. My life was being a mother. Everything else has always taken a backseat to that.

“And these men, did they mean something to you?” he asks, lifting his brow.

“Are you asking if I ever immersed them into my life, into Kiska’s life?” I ask, not beating around the bush. Whatever he wants to know, he can just ask me.

“Yes, I’m asking that, and I’m asking you if they meant something to you,” he repeats his words, frustrating me.

“We need to have this discussion in the bedroom,” I murmur.

He stares at me for a beat, his gaze narrowing on me before he nods. Together we walk to Kiska’s room to check on her. She’s sleeping. The day was so much for her; and this change, while it has been fairly easy, it has still surely been stressful for her.

Without a word to each other, I close Kiska’s bedroom door and walk to our bedroom, the Master Suite. Once we are both inside, I wait for Kirill to lock the door before I turn to face him. He smirks at me as if he is holding onto some big secret. I hate the smug look on his face.

“I never held more than physical attraction for all four of the men I slept with over the past decade, Kirill. I couldn’t love another man, not when I have only loved you. Is that what you wanted to hear? Yes, I fucked a couple of other men. Did I introduce them to your daughter? No. Did I feel anything for them at all? Not really. They were all very nice men, but each time when one of them wanted something more, I ended the affair.”

I don’t look away from him. I don’t know how I feel, guilty maybe? Guilt that though I shared myself with other men, I truly only wanted him. I am not going to let my guilt over that, show. I have to be strong. Kirill is looking for my weaknesses, testing me for whatever reason.

Besides, he hasn’t been celibate these past years. I’ve already met one of the women he regularly fucked. Sabina, his assistant. Just thinking about her makes me feel ill.

“You can’t blame me for asking, Tatyana. You’ve been stripping for years. Plus, I’ve been inside of you bare,” he simply states.

“And I’ve let you be bare inside of me, though you’ve not told me about your women. I’ve been tested, Kirill, and all four of those men used protection every single time. I’ve been stripping, but I have not been whoring myself out.”

“There have been many women, Tati. I too am clean; I have to have physicals for my insurance. I just had one last month. I haven’t been inside of a woman without protection since the last time I was with you ten years ago. I may be angry with you, but I would never put you in harm’s way. Not like that,” he murmurs, closing the distance between us.

I gasp when his hands wrap around my waist and pull me into him. I then stumble, pressing my breasts against his chest as I tip my head back to look him in the eyes.

“Why, why did you need to know this?” I ask in confusion, my eyes searching his for an answer. He looks cold and closed off, a contradiction from the man I had for a few hours this evening.

“I just needed to know.”

This is his explanation, the only one offered. I want to push him away and demand more from him, but when his lips touch mine, when his tongue snakes out and seeks entrance to my mouth, I lose all ability to think, let alone talk.

I open for him, as I always have, and probably always will. His tongue is warm and wet, firm and all-consuming. He takes as he always does, not giving a shit if I want to give. He suddenly rips his lips from mine and looks down on me, uncertainty swimming in his gray eyes.

“You need punishing, Tati. I want you to strip. I like your little shows,” he grunts as he walks away from me and sits on the edge of the bed.

“Music?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even. I fail.

“Not tonight. Let me see you,” he murmurs as his eyes slowly rake over my body.

I strip, slowly.

I don’t do anything fancy, but I can hear Kirill begin to breath heavier as I slowly discard each piece of clothing. When I am completely naked, I finally step out of my shoes and walk over to him. I have every intention of giving him more of a personal lap dance, but he doesn’t let me. Instead, he grabs my hips and pulls me in between his spread thighs.

“It’s time for your punishment,” he murmurs as his thumbs rub circles on my hips.

“I’ve… please don’t hurt me, Kirill,” I almost whimper. His head shoots up, his eyes resembling a storm.

“Do you think I would hurt you, Tati?” he asks.

“I—I don’t know,” I stutter.

“It’s true I’m not the same man I was all those years ago, but I’m not a monster.”

“You’ve hit me once already,” I point out.

He sighs before he rests his forehead against my belly, and then he lifts his head and looks directly into my eyes.

“I did. I don’t want to ever do that again. I’m a bastard for hurting you that way. Yes, this is about punishment; however, I’ll also give you pleasure, Tati,” he explains.

I hate that he doesn’t apologize to me, but I push that to the side and really look into those stormy eyes of his. There is so much going on there, regret and sadness, but want and need as well. I feel the same.

Staring at him this way, I wonder if we will ever,
ever
get past our problems. I want to think that time will heal all wounds, but will it? I don’t know. Will our past regrets always be between us? I think that they may. I hope not; but until he decides to completely let go, they will forever be that giant elephant in the room between us.

I loved him. I
love
him.

I am a complete fool for him—I always have been.

I have been such an idiot that I couldn’t see past his smoke. I couldn’t see that he was doing nothing more than wooing me falsely, for whatever reason.

Maybe he knew that I had zero clue about the contract and that I would fight whatever was decided for me when I was a child. Maybe he just wanted to play with me. Whatever the case, it worked. I fell head-over-heels in love with him and I’ve stayed that way for over a decade.

T
ATYANA LIES ACROSS MY
lap, her hips on one thigh and her ribs resting on the other. I take her wrists in one hand and hold them at the base of her back. I look down on her, her cheek rests against my comforter and her body is shivering in fear.

I hate that she’s scared of me. I’ve been harsh toward her, unable to truly deal with my own emotions in this situation, so I’ve taken everything out on her.

It’s true, I still want her to suffer a bit for what she did to me; but as the hours and days go by, I find that I still like her. I don’t know that I want to just abandon her later, use her and leave her. I think that perhaps I might want her to stay. I feel like the biggest sucker in the world. I should still want to manipulate her, but day-by-day, hour-by-hour I want that less and less.