“Your words were beautiful, Kon. I…I’m just…I…We–” She broke off.
My eyes dropped down to her arms. She had hidden her words beneath the sleeves of her sweater, but I could make out chase between her thumb and forefinger.
“Lost for words, my Elena?”
“Don’t do that,” she muttered. “No more charming comments or seductive hints.”
I worked my jaw, already anticipating what she was going to say next. Elena was drawing the line in the sand, stepping further away from me. She was a million miles away in her mind–now she wanted to physically create that distance.
“I see.” Her eyes flashed at my two-word answer. “We will need to decide on a custody agreement then.”
She blinked once, twice. “A what?”
“Custody agreement for Nikolai,” I explained even though she knew what I had meant. Elena was just giving me an oppotunity to take it back. “It is important for him to spend time with his…father’s side of the family.” Uncle Kostya blared through my brain.
Elena looked pissed off, but she kept her temper in check well. “When he calls you daddy, you can get your fucking weekends, Konstantin.” She pointed a finger at me. “Until then, don’t you dare challenge my authority as his parent. I am his mother, his parent. I make the decisions; not you.”
“We might need a mediator,” I said instead. “Things will never get resolved if we are alone by ourselves.”
“Don’t speak over me, Konstantin. I’m not one of your little soldiers. Hell, I’m not even Artyom. I won’t crumble beneath the weight of you, I will not kneel to the Pakhan.”
I leaned closer, breathing her in. Her breath stuttered. “You will kneel, Elena,” I told her quietly. “You will get on those knees for me, lyubimaya, and only me.”
Elena made an effort not to shudder, but the reddening of her cheeks told me all I needed to know. “Don’t be disgusting. I’m trying to have a discussion with you.”
“So you are.” I leaned back. She let out a harsh breath. “I will not miss another moment of my son’s life. You have always been free to do as you please, but this is where I draw the line.”
“I have always been free to do as I please. That is an interesting recollection,” Elena muttered. “I don’t want to talk about this. I’m here trying to extend an olive branch.”
“When can we discuss it?”
Elena didn’t want to answer honestly. Her thoughts tumbled by her eyes in a strange pattern of complexities. Snidely, she said, “I’ll pencil you in.”
“I think you should bottle your sarcasm and sell it, Elena. Make a fortune.”
She clenched her fists. I could practically see her temper threatening to rip through her skin and strangle me. “I’m trying to apologize. I don’t want to fight.” The words were spat out.
“Maybe I do.”
“Am I no longer the apple of your eye?” she mocked. “How fleeting your fancies are.”
Fleeting? I had coveted this woman before me for years. She had consumed me in every sense since I had read that article, a love letter to poisons.
“Fleeting, Elena?” I asked.
Elena’s eyes danced over my expression. She could probably see the sharpening of my mood, the growing anger I tried so hard to control. “I am extending an olive branch. Take it or leave it.”
If I hadn’t felt my temper boiling in my gut, I might’ve laughed. “An olive branch? You have insulted me, mocked me and made me late for dinner.”
“I’m not apologizing so get that out of your head,” she said sharply. “I have nothing to be sorry for. You can’t punish me for…running off.”
“You’re right, I cannot. That is unfair.” My smile was low. “But I can punish you for lying.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “You lie all the time.”
“Name once.”
“Uh…when…” She struggled to find the words. “You…you told Nikolai…he could use the stove when he was as tall as you. He’ll be able to use it when he’s thirteen. He won’t be 6’3 and thirteen.” Elena held her chin up like she had made a mic-dropping point.
“Lyubimaya,” I purred. “That is my lie? Lying to calm a toddler? I think you can do better than that.”
“Fine. My point is null. You win.” Elena said the words through gritted teeth, even if they were far from honest. She didn’t actually believe that, she was just trying to make me more complacent. “Are we fine or not? I can’t take another awkward dinner. I think Danika might cry if she has to sit through another one.”
“We’re fine.”
Elena’s shoulders dropped in relief.
“As soon as you tell me what Tatiana meant.”
She tensed once again. “You’re worse than a dog with a bone.”
“I know you told Artyom. Why was he any different?”
“Is that jealousy I hear?”
“What else would it be?” I reached out and caught a strand of her hair. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as I ran the silk through my fingers, admiring the straight mahogany style. “What did Tatiana mean, my Elena? Them or you?”
Elena’s expression tightened in a flash of pain. I could see her mind stretching and shrinking as it tried to form an answer.
She looked up at me, bright green eyes wide.
Elena moved so quick that I didn’t know she was on me until I felt her lips press against mine. Soft at first, a kiss of reunion, of distraction.
I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her body to me. She pressed up against my chest, breath moving rapidly.
Our lips moved together in time, our sync returning immediately.
Her arms came around my neck, twining in my hair.
The kiss deepened as our hands on each other tightened. Each movement grew in heat and heaviness. I could feel her entirely up against me, this body of hers fitting perfectly wrapped up in mine.
We stumbled back into my room, door slamming behind us. I shoved her up against the door, dragging my hands under her shirt where warm naked skin greeted me.
Elena gasped in my mouth as she felt my touch.
“You feel perfect,” I groaned as my hands stretched over the plane of her stomach.
In response, her hands dropped from my hair and ripped at my shirt. “Too many clothes,” she hissed. The buttons flew in a million different directions from her strength and I didn’t protest as she slid it down my arms, throwing the useless fabric away.
Her hands felt like sin as they ran down my bare back, her nails dancing over my tattoos.
I yanked up her shirt, our kiss breaking only for seconds as I tore it over her head. It wasn’t even untangled from her wrists before we were back on each other, lips clashing in such a moment of heat they could’ve bruised.
I gripped her breasts beneath her bra, running my thumbs over the hardened nipples. She groaned as I pressed down on them, testing their sensitivity.
“Kon.” Elena’s head fell back against the door, my name leaving her lips in a breathless moan of pleasure.
I grinned and dropped my mouth down to her neck, her skin tugged beneath my tongue and teeth, inspiring loud moans from Elena. I pressed my lips down from her neck to her collarbone, worshipping each inch of skin I encountered.