Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Her smile came accompanied with another wince. “Hardwood stairs are a bitch.”
“Fuck. Fuck.” He pushed off her and pulled her up to sit in a single move. Bruises already darkened her pale skin, and there were scrapes where his thrusts had shoved her against the edges of the steps. For the first time in his life, he felt sick at the sight of someone else’s pain. “I’m sorry.” Dmitri scooped her up and stood.
“I’m not.” She let her head fall against his shoulder. Her expression looked blissed-out, not regretful or pained at all, but the only thing he could focus on was the damage he’d done to her.
Dmitri did not lose control. Not ever. And yet every time he turned around, he was doing exactly that with Keira.
He kicked the bedroom door shut behind him and bypassed the bed in favor of the tub. A hot soak wouldn’t help the scrapes, but it would ease the soreness. “Can you stand?”
“Yes, Dima, I can stand because I’m perfectly okay. It’s going to take more than a deliciously rough fucking to screw me up.”
He believed her, but that didn’t mean his actions were excused. He set her carefully on her feet and got the water running. Only then did he sit on the edge of the tub and set his hands on her hips. “Turn around.”
She rolled her eyes, but she obeyed. He sucked in a harsh breath. It was worse than he’d thought. “Keira—”
“No. Absolutely not.” She spun back to face him, her hazel eyes furious. “Tonight was good for me—all of it. Really fucking good. I need you to not ruin it with some misplaced guilt that you should be beyond. If you didn’t notice, I was screaming your name as I came for the third time on those stairs.” She glared. “And you don’t hear me losing my shit because I scratched your back to hell.”
“That’s different.” He welcomed the marks she left, the physical representation of her abandon.
But he recognized a losing battle when he saw one. As sick as her bruises left him, if he pushed this, he’d lose all the ground they’d covered tonight—and likely more. She had him cornered and she damn well knew it. He clenched his jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “Let me take care of you.”
“You have been taking care of me.” She stepped between his thighs and slid her fingers through his hair. “But I’ll make you a deal. You can hover over and mother hen me for the duration of this bath, then you’ll slap some Neosporin on my scrapes, give me a couple ibuprofen, and we’ll eat leftovers in bed. Or not in bed. I don’t give a fuck, but once the endorphins wear off, I’m going to be hungry.”
She was handling him—offering him tasks to redirect his guilt. He almost fought her on it, but what was the point? If she said she was fine, and he didn’t take her at her word, he wasn’t honoring the vision he’d painted for her. She didn’t believe him when he offered for her to be his queen in truth, and overriding her on something that she considered small—even if he didn’t—would confirm her belief that he was lying about everything else.
He dropped his forehead to rest between her breasts. “You’re not giving me much of a choice, moya koroleva.”
“I know.” She kept stroking her fingers through his hair. “But at least I’m giving you a choice at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Keira waited for Dmitri to walk out of the bathroom to climb into the tub. She was grateful he wasn’t there to see her flinch as the hot water stung her scrapes. Though she’d been telling him the truth, it didn’t change the fact that her back was a fucking mess. From the glimpse she’d snuck in the mirror, she’d be an ugly rainbow tomorrow, which meant she’d have to pick a different dress or she’d give her family a heart attack. Somehow, Keira didn’t think they’d believe her if she told them that Dmitri hadn’t been beating her—they’d just had gloriously rough sex on the stairs.
She carefully leaned against the back of the tub. Keira had never thought the day would come when Dmitri looked spooked, but he’d been a little too wide around the eyes in the last ten minutes. Giving him a task to soothe him was manipulative, but she didn’t know how to help him realize that she was really okay.
He reappeared before she had a ready answer, a book dangling from one hand. Those gray eyes studied her as if she was in danger of bleeding out the second he looked away. She bit down on the urge to tell him—again—that she was fine. The more she protested, the more convinced he’d be that she was lying to make him feel better.