Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Ignoring my question, Alina picks up a pot of grechka and ladles some of the brown grain into her bowl before topping it with fruit and drizzling everything with honey.
Her attitude is undoubtedly meant to annoy me, but it amuses me instead. My Alinyonok is so predictable, a true creature of habit. Even though we’ve barely spent any time together, I know her likes and dislikes as well as I do my own. I know which brand of shampoo she favors and how she drinks her tea, who her friends are and what movies are her favorites. For years, I’ve watched her and devoured reports about her, knowing that one day, we’d end up exactly where we are: together, sharing a meal before our wedding.
Of course, I didn’t know I’d have to execute a military-grade assault on her brother’s compound to get us here, but oh well. Such is life.
Larson’s tall, lean frame appears in my view. As usual, he’s clad in his white-and-blue captain’s uniform and walks with the brisk, sure stride of a man who’s spent most of his life at sea. In his youth, he served in the U.S. Navy, but fate eventually brought him to Russia and into my service.
“The sunblock you requested, sir,” he says, handing me the bottle. He turns to Alina and tips his cap in greeting. “Miss Molotova, good morning.”
She gives him a polite smile. “Captain Larson.”
Her manner is much cooler with him than it was with Vika. She’s clearly taken my warning to heart.
“Thank you,” I tell Larson as I open the bottle and squeeze out a generous amount of sunblock into my palm. “By the way, our wedding will take place this morning, in about an hour. You will be officiating. Do what you need to prepare.”
His eyes widen slightly, but he says without missing a beat, “It will be my honor, sir.”
He leaves, and I turn my attention to Alina.
“Your shoulders are burning.” I stand up and come around the table. “You need to be careful here. The sun can be brutal if your skin is not used to it.”
She blinks up at me. “Oh, I’m fine. I don’t—”
“Lift your hair. I don’t want to get any sunblock on it.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Lift. Your. Hair.”
She gives me a mutinous look but obeys, gathering her thick black hair with both hands and holding it a few inches above her neck as I set the bottle down and spread the cream evenly between my palms. Though it’s only been a few hours since I touched her all over, my heartbeat speeds up and my cock hardens as I bring my hands to her shoulders and feel her warm, silky skin. She sits stiffly as I rub the cream over her shoulders and upper back, making sure to cover every inch. When the sunblock on my hands runs out, I squeeze out more and apply it to her arms and the backs of her hands.
Her pretty, elegant hands with their glossy red nails. My hands, big and rough, dark from the sun, look like a beast’s paws in comparison.
“That’s enough. That’s plenty,” she says in a choked voice as I go for the bottle again, but I ignore her objections.
That porcelain skin of hers is not going to burn on my watch.
Her throat moves with a swallow as I squeeze out a dollop of sunblock into my palm and pat it gently onto her face. “You’re messing up my makeup,” she whispers, looking up at me through impossibly long lashes as I carefully rub the cream around her full, skillfully painted red lips.
She means it as a criticism, but I smile. I am messing up her makeup—and I like it. There’s something perversely satisfying in ruining her perfection, in denting the artifice that covers her true beauty.
Maybe I should take away her makeup altogether. She won’t like it, but I will. It will be the next best thing to having her walk around naked.
Her dress has a high neck, so her chest isn’t exposed—much to my regret. Her legs, however… I crouch in front of her and apply the cream to the tops of her feet, working around the straps of her high-heeled sandals before smoothing my palms over the sleek muscles of her calves and the graceful bones of her knees. At first, she’s stiff and rigid, but as I move my hands to her thighs, I feel her quiver, her breath catching audibly. My own hands are only semi-steady. Lust is riding me hard, fogging my brain and quickening my breath, stiffening my cock to the point of pain.
I want her. I want to pull apart those long, silky legs and bury my head between them, to make her scream my name as she comes, then bend her over the table and feel her wet heat clasping me, welcoming me into her body the way she’ll one day welcome me into her mind and heart.