King's Ransom (Ruthless Doms 3)

Demyan and Larissa fly back to Moscow tomorrow, and Tomas and Caroline to Boston the following day. And I wonder… what does his brotherhood think of me?

Before Moscow I was his captive. His prisoner. Before that, his housekeeper.

What am I now?

So, I do what I always do. I clean his house and fold his clothes and arrange his bed—our bed?—so it’s neat and welcoming. And I wait. I sit on the steps, wearing a ratty old pair of jeans, scuffed flats, and a sweater, because it’s air-conditioned and chilly in here. And I wait.

The sun’s already set by the time he comes to me. He opens the door, steps in, then gives a start when he sees me sitting on the steps.

“You alright?” he asks.

I only shrug, because I’m not super sure how to answer his question.

He kicks off his shoes and hangs up his keys, then steps over to the stairs.

“Taara,” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

But I can’t speak. If I do, I’m afraid I’ll cry again, and I’m so, so tired of crying. I finally take a deep breath and let it out, take another one, and finally get the courage to speak. So I walk downstairs, and head for the couch. I fold myself in the corner and think about what I want to say before I speak. Finally, I take in a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly, while I turn to him.

“So… I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?”

He leans against the doorframe and arches a brow at me, and holy hell is he hot. God, he’s so fucking hot it hurts, all muscles and tats and badass leaning all casual against the rail.

I swallow. “Am I still your prisoner?”

His eyes gentle, then. He uncrosses his arms and walks toward me, then sits beside me. He takes my hand in his. “No, baby,” he says. “Hell, no. You’re not my prisoner. When we had the meetings of the brotherhoods, we made that as clear as possible. You are not our captive. Demyan even showed footage of the work you did.”

My nose tingles as it does when I’m about to cry, but I rub it with the back of my hand. Where does that leave me? Where does that leave us?

“Really?”

“Really.”

I clear my throat. The next question is harder. But I’m a woman of the Bratva now, and Bratva women are brave.

“Thank you. So now I’m your… housekeeper?”

“My housekeeper,” he repeats, his voice taut and his eyes narrowed on me. I watch as his nostrils flare. “Housekeeper?”

Okay, so maybe not the right response.

“What… well, what am I?” I ask, feeling my own anger at his rejection boiling up. I look down at the floor, because his eyes are beautiful and I’m going to cry. “I mean… where do I stand with you?”

“Baby. Look at me.”

So, I do. Even though it kills me, I do. I lift my eyes to his questioningly.

“You’re mine, Taara,” he says, in a low whisper. “Don’t you know that?”

I shake my head. “How can I?” I whisper back. “You’ve pulled away from me. How am I to know what I am to you? It isn’t...it isn’t something I can take for granted.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I couldn’t, Taara. Being involved with a man like me puts you in danger.”

“But you’ll protect me,” I say. I swallow hard, take a deep breath, and square my shoulders. “And if I’m yours, I’ve got the power of the Bratva to protect me as well.”

He’s so close to me now I could touch more than his hand, and I’m waffling between shoving that barrel of a chest away from me, and wanting to touch him.

“You do,” he says, reaching for me. I don’t push him away. His voice softens when he draws me close. “You do, babygirl.”

Babygirl.

It’s the sun breaking through clouds after a storm. The sound of songbirds tweeting after a long winter.

The sweetest, most tender word I didn’t know I needed to hear until he said it.

I close my eyes. I take a breath. I gather my courage, and ask him, “Then why don’t you treat me like your babygirl anymore?”

With one hand on my back holding me to him, he runs his fingers through my hair. “You were mourning the loss of your mother,” he says, and for some reason that makes me angry.

“So?” I ask, and this time I do push him away. “What does that have to do with anything? Are you crazy? You make literally no sense, you know that?”

“Taara,” he growls.

“What?” I ask, trying to get away from him. “Hey, you’re no innocent in this,” he says. “You pulled away from me, too.”

“You pulled first,” I say petulantly, and that makes him laugh. The sound of his laughter makes something inside me melt, and a warm tingling suffuses my limbs. He smiles at me, and that easily, I smile back.