41

My friends are listening, and I get uneasy, thinking this might not be something I should air in front of them.
Maxim appears amused, though. He gives an easy shrug. “Because if they say something disrespectful to you, I have to kill them.”
My friends ooh over his comment. I guess it is sort of swoon-worthy. Especially if you don’t know he probably means literally kill.
I’m saved from responding by the arrival of our cocktail waitress-or I should say his because she is definitely all about him.
She sets a shot glass of tequila in front of each of us, along with a small plate of lime wedges and the salt shaker.
Maxim reaches for the salt shaker, beating me to it. “Body shots. I pick the location.”
I blink at him. I know what body shots are. I’ve done them before with stupid college boys. But never with the hot, virile man beside me. The guy I’m married to. The man my friends and the liquor I’ve already consumed has lowered my inhibitions with.
I hesitate, waiting to see where he’ll put the salt, but he chooses an innocuous place-the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He licks it and sprinkles on the salt, then holds the lime in his teeth.
All the while, my friends watch, waiting to do their shots for the entertainment at hand to unfold.
He brings his hand to my lips. I lick, pound my shot and bite into the lime between his lips as my friends whoop and holler.
“Are you sharing, girl? Because I might want to lick some of that, too,” Kimberly says with a wink.
I know she’s kidding-probably swaying it to nudge me into having sex with Maxim, but I can’t deny the smack of jealousy that hits me square in the chest. It’s that, along with my newly-recognized exhibitionism, that makes me grab a lime and the salt shaker. “Come and get it, big boy.” I rub the lime across the top of one of my breasts where the skin shows above the dress, then sprinkle salt on top. I shoot him a do-you-dare? look, even though I have zero doubt he does, indeed, dare.
Yes, he makes a total show out of it, and I’m the center of attention-exactly the way I like it. He moves in slowly and drags his tongue across the salt. Then he swipes again, and a third time, before dipping his tongue below the top of my dress and teasing my nipple.
“Mmm.” He comes up and holds my gaze while he downs the tequila. He doesn’t suck the lime in my teeth. Instead, he kisses the fuck out of my mouth, twisting and torquing the lime between our lips while holding the back of my head captive.
When he finally stops, I spit the lime onto the table and gasp for breath.
Kayla fans herself. “Oh my gawd. So that’s how it’s done.”
“Your turn.” Maxim winks, and my friends salt their own thumbs and down their shot.
A round of bottled waters magically appears-Maxim must’ve ordered them before the cocktail waitress left the last time.
“Let’s go dance,” I suggest, somewhat drunkenly after I’ve downed half my water.
Maxim stands to let me out. “You want me to go with you or stay here and hold the table?”
I put my hands on his chest, accidentally bumping right up against him when I lose my balance. Why was he being so dang nice to me?
Oh damn, I asked that out loud. I definitely need to dance off that tequila shot.
I go up on my tiptoes and press a sloppy kiss on his lips. “Thank you for saving our table,” I say and weave onto the floor with Kayla and Ashley. The other two stay behind with Maxim. I whirl when I get a few steps away and point between them. “No body shots on him while I’m away. He’s mine.”
Maxim’s amused smile sends cascades of warmth into my belly and down my inner thighs.
Handsome husband.
Maxim
My bride and her friends like the attention they garner on the dance floor. I’m a possessive man-extremely possessive. And when that mudak had his hands on her, I was jealous as hell. But I’m not one of those guys who needs his woman to cover up and not show off the gifts God gave her. Especially not if it gets her horny flaunting it.
The women dance and return. I push water, then order another round of cocktails, which they don’t finish. The next time they go out to dance I go with them. There are two-foot platforms people can climb onto to dance against the wall, and I lead the group back there. I hold Sasha’s hand to steady her and lift my chin toward the platform. There are people dancing on it, but I project enough authority-like I own the place, and I decide who gets to dance on the mini stages-that the people on it decide to hop down.
Sasha loves it. She climbs on and pulls her friends up. Twirling and bouncing with pleasure. She looks down at me with the heat of alcohol-induced lust and exhibitionism in her eyes. “Are you coming up?” she calls down over the music.
I shake my head. “I’m standing guard.”
Her friends love that. They whoop and ooh. I didn’t say it for effect, though. I am literally standing guard. From where I dance, I get flashes of panty beneath their short skirts, and any guy who takes that as a green light to approach is going to catch my knuckles in his gut.
There’s an art to knowing when to leave a party when alcohol is involved. You want to leave just past its peak, while everything is still perfect and fun, but you’re not too inebriated.
I watch until their exuberance starts to wilt, and then I swoop them down off the platform and outside to get some fresh air. Once they cool off, I suggest it’s time to go.
Sasha collects her big purse from the coat check, and I put her friends in the first cab waiting in front of the elite club. I walk around to the driver’s window and hand him a hundred dollar bill. “This is for their ride. If they don’t get home safely, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
Sasha smacks my arm as the cab driver bobs his head and accepts the cash.
“You can’t say that.”
“I can,” I counter. “I did.” I claim a second cab for us.
Sasha shakes her head. She’s somewhere between tipsy and sloshed, so all her movements are exaggerated and slow. “Because you’re a man you can throw your weight around like that. There’s no way I could ever r-reenact that scene and have the cabbie take me seriously.” I catch her elbow as she wobbles on the pavement, then hand her into the back of the cab and follow her in.
“Chateau Marmont,” I tell the driver.
Sasha’s still chewing on the injustice. “I don’t think I could even get that cocktail waitress to give me decent service. And it’s my money you’re throwing around.”
“It was my own,” I correct her.
“Either way, you still have all the power. I have none.”
Getting into a philosophical discussion with her in this state is probably a bad idea, but I do, anyway. She’s right-playing alpha male is easy when you are one, but she sees herself as far more weak than she is. “Power isn’t just something divvied out by gender. And it’s definitely not something that’s bestowed on you by others. It’s a choice you make for yourself. Either you react to everyone else, or you claim your own power.”
“Right. How do you think I should’ve taken my own power when my dad called me in to tell me to marry you or lose my inheritance? Hmm? Should I have told him to go fuck himself? Is that what you would’ve done?”
She has a point.
But so do I.
“No, Sasha. But you’re married to me now, and you have a choice. You can keep pushing and prodding me-running away and making me chase-to try to get the power from me. Or you can decide you’re my equal and make your demands. Tell me what you need from me to make this work.”
She blinks at me, wide-eyed, silent for a moment. Then she says, “But I don’t want it to work.”
Her words hit me like a cement block to my head.
“What’s the alternative, caxapok? We divorce, and the money goes to Vladimir? Or we separate, and one of your father’s men either kidnaps or kills you for your fortune?”
“I did make my demands.” She smacks my arm with the back of her hand. “I asked you to let me stay in Moscow. And how did that go over for me? Hm? Oh yeah, I remember, it ended with you carrying me out to the car like a sack of potatoes!”
My lips twitch at the memory and at her feistiness. “My ability to keep you alive is possibly the sole reason your father picked me. Leaving you in Moscow wouldn’t accomplish that.”
“Okay, so I demanded my own bedroom. What did that get me?”
The taxi pulls up in front of our hotel. I pay him, and he opens Sasha’s door for her. I walk around to take her hand.
“I didn’t trust you not to run away. And with good reason, apparently.”
“Are you really just talking about sex here when you tell me to demand what I need?” Sasha asks as we step into the lobby.
I put my finger over her lips with a smile because she’s too loud, and she giggles.
“Is that it?” she asks again as I guide her down the hallway. “You want me to demand sex? My friends think I should.”
I open our room, and she looks around, just now noticing her surroundings. “Where are we?”
“Chateau Marmont.”
She turns around and opens her arms. “I’ve always wanted to stay here.”
I step closer, my hands lightly touching her waist. “And now you have.”
She totters, blinking. It’s probably wrong to try to seduce my wife when she’s been drinking, but I’ve been hard as concrete since she first threw herself at me on the dance floor.
“How would you demand it?” I prompt, sliding my hands down her hips until I get to the very short hemline of her dress. I inch it up.
“See, the thing is, I don’t think you deserve it,” she says to me.
On the other hand, her tipsiness makes this a perfect time to figure out what schemes are going on in that beautiful head of hers.
“You’re right,” I agree. “I don’t deserve it. Not after you offered yourself up so prettily before, and I didn’t accept.” As I speak, I slowly hike her dress up over her ass, then up her torso and over her head.
There. It’s out in the open. Maybe we can put this behind us once and for all.
She’s stunning in a pink bra and matching thong. Curvy, voluptuous, and perfect.
Sasha’s composure crumbles a little, probably both at being stripped and by the reminder. But being my fiery beautiful bride, she pops open her own bra, allowing her breasts to spring free and bounce. She’s double D’s all the way and fucking gorgeous with her pale skin and pink nipples. She drops the bra on the floor, lifts her chin and cups her pretty breasts proudly. “Well, this is what you missed out on, Max. And you don’t get a second chance.”
“Sasha, I wanted you then, and I want you now.” I step into her space, unbuttoning my shirt and tossing it to the floor. “If you weren’t seventeen and the pakhan’s daughter, I would’ve been on you all night, every night on that trip.” I tug off my undershirt. “Believe me.”
She sets her jaw like she doesn’t want to believe me, but I know I have her attention. I’m saying the right thing, for once.
I take a chance and lightly touch her waist. Let my fingers slip under the waistband of her thong. I don’t move it. It’s just a suggestion of what I might do. “Sugar, your father would’ve killed me. And not a nice, swift mercy killing. He would’ve cut off my balls. Cut off every finger that touched you. And then slit my throat and listened to me beg as I bled out.”
She shakes her head and rolls her pouty lips inward. Instead of retreating, though, she leans into me, her nipples brushing against my bare chest. “You didn’t just refuse me. You went and told my father.” She smacks my chest. The accusation and betrayal in her eyes slices into me. Especially when a sheen of tears coats her eyes. “You know what he did?” She tries to shove me away, but I don’t move. “He slapped my face and called me a whore.” She slaps mine.