Cruel Paradise (Oryolov Bratva Book 1)

This is the first time she’s let me in.

And instead of being wary, like I probably should be, I just feel grateful. I’m glad she’s finally opening up to me. I’m glad she’s pulling down her walls and letting me see inside.

Even though all it does is make me greedy for more.

“I’m sorry—I just threw up all over you. Emotionally speaking.”

She blushes hard and the need to kiss her is so bad that I don’t bother denying myself. Her lips shiver against mine, soft and feather-light.

“I just… I don’t really have anyone I can talk to,” she admits when I pull away. “My parents are barely human, my best friend has her own shit to deal with, and my sister died on me…” Her eyes flutter up. “I really appreciate you listening to all my drama. But please feel free to tell me to shut up at any time.”

“You’re allowed to grieve your sister. You’re allowed to miss her. You’re even allowed to be angry with her.”

Her eyebrows rise a notch. “How did you—”

“Because I’ve been there. I’ve grieved my own losses. I still am. Grief isn’t something that just goes away on its own. It doesn’t come with an expiration date.”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. I can understand her hesitation. I haven’t exactly encouraged these kinds of vulnerable conversations in the history of our relationship. But now that we’re here, it doesn’t feel quite as threatening as I would’ve guessed.

“It’s okay. You can ask me.”

Her gaze softens. “Who did you lose?”

When was the last time I chose to talk about them? When was the last time I willingly thought about them? Their memories live in a dark, locked box in my heart and that’s where I thought they’d always stay. But as soon as Emma asks the question, the lid of that box goes flying open and I’m talking before I even realize it.

“My mother and my brother.”

“Both?” she gasps.

“At the same time. Car accident.”

She shivers from head to toe. “No…” When she grabs my hand, warm droplets of soapy water splash onto my face. “That’s how I lost Sienna.”

I happen to know exactly how her sister died. It was all in the file that Kirill handed me months ago when I requested an in-depth background check on Emma. But I still want her to tell me. Facts on a sheet of paper—single-car collision, one death, young female pedestrian—don’t do it justice.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I rasp.

Emotions are warring on her face. The things that are hard to say fighting against the things that need to be said. Her lips move without making sound for a while.

“She was on a pedestrian crossing and… and…” Her eyelids close and she grips my hand a little tighter. When her eyes open again, they’re full of tears. “And there was a truck. It was orange, I remember that. An orange pick-up truck barreling around the corner towards us.” A tear glides down her cheek. “I heard the screech of tires and I froze. And Sienna, sh-she pushed me out of the way.” Her fingers are trembling. “She joked once that, when she said she’d die for me, she didn’t mean it literally. But she did. She literally died to save me.”

“Emma.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “You and I have a lot in common.”

“What do you mean?”

“The car accident my mother and brother were involved in… I was the one who was supposed to be driving. It should have been me in the driver’s seat of the car that day. Not Leonid.”

She slides a little closer to me, her hand falling against the curve of my neck. “You blame yourself?”

“Don’t you?”

She bites her bottom lip. “Every single day.”

“Like I said—we have a lot in common.”

She laughs miserably. “I wish it had been something fun. Like being double-jointed or matching birthmarks or something.” Her hand never leaves my neck. The water is getting cold at this point and the soap suds are almost gone, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m sorry it’s this instead,” she whispers. “But I’m glad you told me.”

The craziest thing isn’t that I did in fact tell her, although that’s insane in its own right. It’s that telling her felt good. Cathartic. Healing.

“Is that how you inherited the, um… family business or whatever you call it.”

I nod. “I was seventeen at the time. Far too young to take control of either Bane or the Bratva. I just assumed that, after my father, my uncle Vadim would take over. It made sense. He was the one who held the whole operation together after the accident. But in the end, my father chose me. To this day, I still don’t know why.”

The furrow between her brows deepens. “Your dad seems… quiet.”

“The accident destroyed him. He might as well have died in that car with my mother and Leonid.”

“Sometimes, I think the same thing about Ben,” Emma confesses. “That stupid orange truck killed everything human about him, too. I suppose it’s the price you pay for loving someone that deeply.”

The bath salts feel like they’re burning my skin all of a sudden. But it’s got nothing to do with the water; it’s got everything to do with Emma’s words.

It’s the price you pay for loving someone that deeply.

It’s a price I swore to myself that I would never pay.

“Ruslan?” Her voice pierces through a dozen different thoughts raging around inside my head. Those beautiful aqua eyes are deep with emotion. Emotion she’s carrying for both of us now. Her loss as well as mine.

I want her.

I want her more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman in my life.

And while that terrifies me, it terrifies me less than letting her go. Because now that I’ve had a taste of Emma—her beauty, her playfulness, her compassion, her vulnerability—I know that I want to be the one to take care of her. I want to be the one to give her what she needs. I want to be her savior and her protector.

It’s a heady feeling. Strange and unfamiliar. I’ve never wanted to be responsible for someone like this before.

Is this what Fyodor felt when he first met Mama?

“Hey.” Emma cups my face and pulls herself into the circle of my arms. “Come back to me.”

I focus on her face—that delicate button nose, the swell of her cheeks, those luscious lips—and I feel a sense of calm that I haven’t felt since before Leonid died. That was the last time I was blanketed in any kind of comfort, any sense of security.

And since the lines are blurring slowly, I decide to make them clear.

This is not love.

It can’t be.

“What happened to my father… I never want to lose myself that way, Emma. I can’t afford to.”

She gulps. “I understand.”

I’m not so sure she does, so I hold her a little tighter and continue. “I can’t give myself to you completely. Whatever this is between us—you will only get parts.”

I’m aware of how selfish the offer is. It’s wholly one-sided. And yet she doesn’t scowl or scoff. She runs her fingers along my jaw, her eyes trailing along after them.

“I’ll take any piece of you I can get, Ruslan.”

When she kisses me, my entire body curls around her. The water is cold but our bodies heat it right back up. She’s the one who straddles me, grinding herself right against my cock. It takes only seconds before I’m hard and desperate to bury myself inside her.

I’m not sure that’s what she wants, though. At least not until her hand curls around my length and squeezes gently. I raise her hips and pull her down on it. She whimpers, her back arching away from me so that I have a full view of her gorgeous breasts. I knead them while she rides me slowly, waves lapping at her thighs. The sex is slow today. It’s considerate and passionate, each moment punctuated by everything we’ve just shared with each other. All the little parts of ourselves we have allowed the other to see.

I kiss her breasts, her neck, her lips. I run my hands over her slick body, losing myself in her beauty, and when we come, we come together.

We’ve had sex so many different times, in so many different ways. But this time stands out. This time feels different.

Everything feels different.