Caring for the Bratva (Steamy Standalone Instalove)

This place is so insanely huge, but eventually, I’m standing outside the door…

The door Dom almost kissed me outside of this morning.

It seems crazy to me that I only met this man hours ago, when my thoughts have been so flooded with him it feels like it’s been an eternity of angst and wondering and wanting. I pause outside the door, Lucky stopping and tilting his head up at me as though asking me what the holdup is.

I smile and reach down, stroking him behind the ear, trying to take some solace from the way his eyes crease and his tongue lolls contentedly from his mouth.

I take a bolstering breath and then push the door open. Lucky darts past my legs, sprinting over to his toys and picking up a rope, snarling happily as he tosses it up into the air and then leaps up, catching it and giving it a good shake.

Dominik stands at the window with his back to me.

He’s changed into a shirt and steel-colored pants.

His shirt is rolled up at the sleeves, showing me his hard muscled forearms, twitching the closer I get.

Tension moves through him when he turns to face me, his dark eyes flitting up and down me as his jaw tighten.

“Are you okay?” I murmur. “I’m sorry about before, you know… not being ready.”

The thought that I’m making him angry bounces through me with a combination of regret and rage, because what right does he have to be angry with me for not fucking him when we only just met?

But that’s a lie, I realize with a sinking feeling in my belly.

It’s not that he’s presuming to claim me when we met earlier today.

It’s that I want him to claim me but I’m not sure I’m up to the task. I’m not sure I can give him everything he needs, and the thought makes me want to scream in despair, to batter my fists against his chest.

“Just take me,” I imagine myself screaming. “Just throw me down and ravage me.”

“I’m not angry with you, Dreamer,” he says, sighing huskily. “It’s just you look so goddamn sexy right now. And I can’t stop thinking about how you looked in the shower.”

I move closer to him, inhaling his musky scent, letting it fill me up until it’s like I could burst with it.

“Nobody’s ever seen me naked before,” I murmur.

His eyes widen a fraction, but I’m too consumed with self-consciousness to tell if it’s with desire, shock, or disgust, and the uncertainty is freaking painful, whirring achingly around inside me.

“Good,” he growls a moment later. “I’m glad I got to be the first… the only, I should say, because if another man saw you like that I’d snap his goddamn neck.”

I let out a whimper, staring up into his grim set features.

“Now tell me,” he snarls, stepping forward and placing his hands on my shoulders.

He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close, our bodies fusing together, his eyes staring down at me, into me as though he can see through my façade and right into my soul.

“Tell you?”

He smirks, chuckling. “Don’t play coy with me, Dreamer. I know how badly your fertile young body needed mine back there. I could feel how hungry you were for it. But you said you couldn’t. Why?”

Fertile young body clashes in my mind, throwing up images of us as a family, of children filling this house with laughter and joy.

I should find these thoughts absurd, but surely that’s what he means by saying that?

What the heck else could he mean?

I bite my lip, not wanting to share these thoughts just in case I’m wrong, just in case, it provokes him to push me away from the warmth of his body. He’s like a boulder, so solid and reassuring as he crushes me into him, as though he’d never let anything bad happen to me.

“Daniella,” he whispers, moving his hands through my hair. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, whatever happened, you can tell me.”

“No,” I mutter. “It’s not what happened. It’s more what hasn’t happened.”

I swallow a big ball of anxiety, leaning back in his embrace, confident he won’t let me fall.

“I’m a virgin, Dom,” I say. And then my words won’t stop. They keep rushing out as though I’ve busted a leak inside of me. “I’m twenty freaking years old and earlier, with you, that’s the first sexual experience I’ve had. Ever. So when you said my body wanted it, you’re right, okay? I want to be this strong confident woman. I want to give you what you want, but the truth is I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, and—”

Suddenly his lips are on mine, crashing firmly against me, as our bodies melt into each other.

I drag my fingernails up his back, through his hair, moaning as our mouths explode in a torrent of starlight. He groans and presses against my lower back as if he can’t stand there being any space between us.