BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) (26 page)

Misha

The day is almost over, I think as I drag myself from the car and wave off the driver with a weary sigh. Just the night hours to get through while I spend another sleepless night sniffing Irina’s pillow and aching for her softness beside me in bed.

I can do this, though. I can stay away from her and keep the no-contact rule in place, no matter how badly I long for the sound of her tinkling laughter and husky, sleepy voice.

“Evening, Mr. Novac,” Harry, the doorman, calls as I stride towards my private elevator, my mind occupied with nothing but ignoring my need for my woman.

“Evening, Harry.”

The man is all smiles as I punch in the code to take me up. What the fuck is he smiling at me for? Doesn’t he know life sucks ass?

I dread walking inside when I unlock the door and drag myself in before slamming it with a curse. Dammit.

“Godammit! I want to just kill them all.”

“Okay. But do you think we could eat the lasagna I just cooked first? I’d like to go on a killing spree
without
my stomach growling. That’s just crass.”

I whip around at the sound of that giggling voice and fall to my knees when Irina comes waltzing out of the kitchen, a huge grin on her face.

My hands are on her without any guidance and I’m shoving my face into her belly, something I have longed to do but never did since she told me she’s bearing my seed.

“Angel, what the hell are you doing here?” I rasp, kissing her with a shudder.

It feels so good, so right, as I surge up and take her face that I want to kick my own ass for ever thinking I could stop myself from loving her.

“Well, I got sick and tired of my own bullshit.”

“Language, Irina.”

That makes her giggle and she leans up to stroke my face gently, smiling when I nuzzle into her like a cat looking for its mate.

“I love you.
I love you
. I do. Completely. Without reservations. With everything that I am, I love you. I’ve been a brat. Hush, Misha, and stop scowling. It’s true. I took one look at you the first time I met you and immediately dismissed you because I thought you were too much for me.”

“No, baby—”

“Hush, please,” she says, making me smile. “I’ve been really juvenile since we’ve been together because to me, you’re this bright, shining, unattainable guy while I’m just me. It’s not that I don’t think I’m pretty or smart or anything. It’s just that in my experience, men as hot as you go for models or, if not looks, then freaking rocket scientists who have that whole hot nerd thing going on.”

That makes me laugh and start plotting a few role-playing scenarios that make my dick hard on command. Oh yeah, I can see it now…a white lab coat over some of those little bra and panty sets I bought her. Maybe a bun and some glasses…

Fuck yeah.

“Stop it, perv! I’m being soulful here,” she chides, her mouth tilting as she reads my lusty thoughts. “I just, I haven’t had the greatest track record. Guys seem to want me in the beginning. They come on all hot and heavy at first, but then they just seem to lose interest, probably because I wouldn’t have sex with them.”

“Don’t worry about other men. You belong to me. Always. No other man will ever touch you, and you’re fucking lucky I didn’t have to hunt someone down if he’d taken such a precious gift and dishonored you by leaving.”

She blushes but smiles.

“Oh shush already. What I’m trying to say is that I was running on some pretty big issues and I didn’t believe it could work. That’s on me, because you sure as heck did everything you could to prove to me that we’re the real deal. I should have stayed when I saw you kissing that snake and picked her ugly troll head bald instead of just throwing it in. I should have kicked your ass when I heard you talking to her on the phone instead of throwing myself a pity party, band and all, and just giving up. Again.”

“Angel, I understand why—”

“You shouldn’t. That’s the real issue here, Misha. I’ve been such an idiot that instead of fighting for you, I ran away, proving to you that your heart isn’t safe with me. No wonder you don’t love me yet. I wouldn’t love me, either, if I thought I was a flight risk if the wind so much as changed. So here I am. All yours.”

You better believe it, angel. You’ve been mine from day one.

Her hands stop stroking and cup my face, bringing my eyes to hers, those golden gems that are shining with so much love and promise, I feel my breath catch.

“I promise, Misha Novac, to never run again. As your wife and the woman who loves you with every breath and beat of her heart, I swear to you that I will never leave, no matter what happens. I want you to know that my love does not come with conditions, that it will be constant, that
I
will be constant, no matter good times or bad. You are it for me. My one. I want to fall asleep with you all over me, even if we get all gross and sweaty because I like having every part of you on me. I want to eat breakfast with you and fight about how controlling you are, because even if it drives me nuts, I like knowing that you care enough to be that controlling ass.”

“Gee thanks.”

“I want you to call me twenty times a day, because dammit, it makes me happy just to hear your voice.”

Okay. I’ll let the language slide since my throat is too choked to speak.

“I want to have babies with you. Lots and lots of babies who you can talk to about their big sister, and not because I want to replace Minkie, because that isn’t even possible. How do you replace such a shining star? I want you to have all of that because I want you to have enough people who will love you so much, you will never doubt that you are wanted and needed. Just for yourself.”

Oh fuck, I think that was an actual tear.

“You’re amazing to me, you know. I look at you and it never ceases to shock me that you can look at me and want me. All I’m asking is that you let me love you without trying to deny it or ignore how I feel. It may be hard to know you do not love me, but it’s worse loving you when you never seem to acknowledge it, besides that one gruff
thank you
that you gave me.”

“Angel,” I rasp, not able to stand the sight of her tears.

“Shh, wait, I’m not done. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for a while and laying everything at your door when I should have been looking at things from your point of view. I know Mina hurt you and I am sorry, but I’m glad she did because she doesn’t deserve you, Mish. I do. And I know that the whole baby thing is hard for you, I understand that, but he’s here now and I love him and I promise you I will be such a good mother that this kid won’t get a fucking splinter if I can help it.”

              I pull her to me with arms that are far too tight, but I can’t seem to loosen them as I hug her to me with trembling limbs and a chest that’s so full of overwhelming emotion, it hurts.

She’s my everything, this woman—the heart that beats within me, the oxygen that sustains me. She’s swept into my life like a little hurricane of laughter and love and she’s completely shattered every defence I’ve built over the years.

I’m a mess as I try to pull her right into my body but I can’t help it. This woman has humbled me, totally broken me down to a place where I feel like the shadows are all gone, obliterated by her light.

“I love you, Irina Novac.”

“Oh, Misha, you don’t—”

“I fucking do. I love you so much, I fell to my knees when I had to give you up.”

That gets a startled squeak and I almost grin, knowing she’s thinking about me on the sidewalk of the bakery after she left me again and I couldn’t find the strength to stay upright. Leo and Vadim will needle me about that for the rest of my life, but I don’t care. That’s how strong my love is for this woman.

“Misha.”

“I tried so hard, angel. I had it all worked out perfectly. I was going to seduce you and marry you and have this perfect wife who I could compartmentalize just as I do everything else in my life. You’d give me babies and do everything I said without question while I fixed the mess Lena and Feliks have made. It was all so clear and easy. At least that’s what I thought, and fuck me, that’s what I was fighting for all this time. I didn’t want to love you or need you or anything that even resembles more than a friendly affection.”

“Mission accomplished.” She snorts, squeaking when I give her ass a soft tap.

“That’s why I kissed her. I didn’t want to say it. Hell, I tried to ignore it, but I did it because if I could do that and not feel anything, then it meant I was safe, ya know? But I felt so dirty afterwards.”

“Kissing a sewer rat will do that to you.”

“Hush, minx, let me finish. I prayed like hell that you were pregnant, dammit. I swapped your birth control pills out myself.”

“Misha!”

“I’m not sorry, either. I was hedging my bets even though I was terrified of it actually happening, and when you did leave, I prayed like a motherfucker that one of those hot sweaty sessions took because then you could never leave me.”

I laugh a little and chuck her beneath the chin till she’s looking at me, wanting her to see the power of my every word and the emotions that are there.

All for her.

“I’ve wanted you from the start. Not to win and sign a deal. My company is worth billions, Irina. I can survive one missed opportunity and anything Feliks had to throw at us.”

“Feliks?” she asks, narrow eyed.

“Later, angel. What I’m saying is that I saw you in a photo my investigators took and I fell. You were smiling at someone, and I think I just felt all that happiness you had in you and wanted some of it. I made excuses and told myself I needed you for Mathis to sign the deal but it wasn’t true. And when I couldn’t hide from that anymore, I convinced myself that I needed you to be mine because I could use you as a bargaining chip to get the shit with Maxie resolved.”

“I still need to meet him and I can’t believe I didn’t know I have a nephew. You deserve to be beaten for that alone, you creep.”

I chuckle and plant a quick kiss on her lips when I can’t resist anymore, loving the way she seems to melt into me so naturally.

“It was you all along, I just didn’t want to face it because then I would be open and vulnerable and I fucking hate feeling that way, Ri. I let myself love once, and when it came down to it I wasn’t enough.”

“She’s a fool.”

“Perhaps. But that’s not what I mean. What I once felt for her is nothing close, not even by a long shot, to what I feel for you. It hurt my pride when she spurned me, but I got over that. Easily. What I feel for you is so much more that I know I won’t survive losing you. It’s been hell without you. I feel lost and cold when you’re not here.”

“Oh, Mish,” she sighs, kissing me tenderly before pulling away and rubbing at my messed-up hair with a smile. “I don’t want to leave again and I won’t, but we need to work on what we have. Mina is a problem for me. A big one. She wants you. She wants you and I can’t blame her for that, but in that want is some fucked-up need to destroy you, and that is what scares me the most. She knows what we have and she will do anything to break us.”

Like hell that’s happening. I’m no woman beater, and despite some very nasty, satisfying thoughts about the ways in which I can rid the world of that woman, I won’t lay a finger on her.

I have another plan, something that Papa proposed to me with so much glee, I swear that old man must lay awake at night building that savage violence he’s capable of where his enemies are concerned.

Nut houses in the States are more like retreats than the asylums of yesteryears, so instead of having her committed for what would basically amount to a lengthy spa holiday, Papa has found me the perfect place to stash Mina when the time is right.

Russia is modernizing in leaps and bounds, but we’re a superstitious hard people at the core, and there are some facilities there that make the Gulag look like a family vacation.

Papa knows someone who knows someone who will make sure that Mina will disappear and never see freedom again.

But for now, I understand what Irina is saying.

It’s a real kick in the balls that I can’t be honest with her just yet because it undermines this whole beautiful moment.

“I don’t want to talk about her right now, angel,” I purr.

“What do you want?”

Irina

“Oh. Oh. Just touch it. No, Misha. Please. Just a lick.”

I’m a puddle of goo as I lie back, my arms restrained to the headboard above me, legs slayed like a wanton as Misha Novac, my husband, lover, and tormentor continues to torture me to death.

He’s messaging my aching feet and taking his time about it, no matter how I beg or display my sex to him.

I’m dripping wet already, but all I’ve felt so far are those hands, so magical that my entire body is mush, except where I’ve been pulsing for him for the last hour.

“Hush, angel. Stop flashing that delight at me and let me care for you,” he purrs, making me tense when his eyes stay trained on my folds as he licks his lips.

That man is a tease and I would kick him in the thick skull if I didn’t need that head operational when he finally decides to stop killing me.

“You made me think you were bringing me up here for sex, you big bully,” I moan, presenting again like the hussy I am.

I’m hot all over and burning inside for him as lust and a huge injection of hormonal excess attacks my nerve endings. My nipples are so hard and tight, just the air against them is painfully erotic, and my skin…dear God, I can feel every inch of it begging for his mouth and hands.

“I did not.” He laughs, making me moan when he licks my big toe before sucking on it and releasing it with a pop.

I swear every nerve is connected to that one point of my anatomy that has the power to send me insane if he doesn’t touch it now.

“You did! You said you didn’t want to talk and you gave me the eyes,” I scream, pulling at my foot.

Misha, of course, doesn’t let go. He just chuckles and grabs it back, making me groan in delight when he digs his fingers into the arch, just right there where it hurts the most.

“These eyes?” he teases, crossing them so comically, I can’t fight the giggle that bursts free.

“No, you freak. The eyes. When you make them go all half-mast and sultry. There! Those eyes. I thought we were skipping dinner to come up here so you can touch me.”

“But I am touching you, angel,” he drawls, deliberately checking out my goods before going on with his torture.

Stupid man! He knows full well that’s not what I meant.

Oh my God! The freaking tease. He’s doing this on purpose because he wants me to say all those dirty words that I blush just thinking about.

“That feels good.” I say, deciding to see how far we can take this before I crack.

Because we all know it’s going to be me who cracks in the long run. The arrogant ass is too good at this to lose to a novice like me.

“It does?” he asks suspiciously, making me fight as my lips threaten to twitch.

“Hmmm, yes. When you touch me right there. Ah, yes, I can feel it in…” I moan and writhe again, opening my other leg wider and bending it at the knee to give him a much better view.

His hands still abruptly and I peek at him from below my lashes, loving the way his eyes seem to go all lazy and heated as he gazes between my legs and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, releasing it slowly…seductively.

“Where do you feel it, angel?” he rasps.

I whimper, clenching my sheath as bolts of heat shoot to my groin.

“Hmmm, right there, Mish. Inside,” I purr, licking my lips in a slow drag that’s meant to tease. “I can feel it inside me. I’m so empty, Misha. I can feel how tight I am when I clench against the ache inside.”

He drops my foot in a flash and I almost purr my delight when he prowls towards me on his hands and his knees, his face hard, his eyes filled with lust.

“More.”

“I dream of you. The way my skin screams in joy when you put your big hands all over me. I dream of your mouth on my nipples, sucking me to orgasm the way you love to do when you want to drive me mad with need. I dream of your mouth, right there where I ache for you, sucking and licking at me till I can’t think past the need to have you inside me. That feels so good, when you’re filling me—deep, hard, completely—because I love being so connected to you that you’re all I feel. When you’re in me I feel whole. What do you feel?” I purr, wanting him to tell me because it drives me crazy to hear how he needs me.

Misha growls and comes up over me, the length of his sex repeatedly slipping through my slit, spreading me all over himself before lining up at my opening and pausing there.

“I love the way your skin is so soft, it feels like I’m touching the softest silk. It’s addictive, perfect, and you always smell so good, my angel, like sugar and woman. I lick and suck your nipples to the point of madness because I am crazed for the sweet little nubs. It makes my dick hard as hell when I take some of your soft breast in, too, and leave my mark there.”

I like that, too, do that
, I plead silently as he hovers over me, his mouth full and open for my kiss.

“You’re perfection everywhere, but this…” He slides himself through my sex again, the head of his dick slipping over my clit. “This is my home. It’s wet here, and warm and feels like I’m pushing into heaven.”

He makes those words a reality and starts sliding home slowly as I moan beneath him.

“It’s not just about the sex, though,” he pants, pulling out and going back in just as leisurely. “I feel like I can truly have all of you when I’m inside you. You’re so wet, I glide in, but so tight I feel you along every inch of me.”

Ah, it feels so good. It’s slow and sweet but I feel the intensity of it as if he’s pounding into me.

“You feel me, angel? Only me. Tell me it will only ever be me,” he growls, twisting his hips to hit me high, in a spot that has my eyes crossing as my sex ripples and pulses with impending climax.

“Yes. Oh, right there, Misha. Feels so good.”

“Say it. Only me.”

He does it again and I mewl, stretching, pushing closer, my clit screaming in ecstasy as he grinds his pelvis into me.

“Only you,” I vow, arching into every slow thrust with a moan.

“That’s right, angel. Me. Just me and you. Forever.”

The pace is slow and loving as he continues to love me.

“Please, Mish, harder.”

“No.”

“Yes. I need you, Misha. Need all of you so bad. Harder, Misha. You won’t hurt me,” I plead, ignoring his grunts when I start hammering my hips up to get me where I need to be.

We’re both a mess—a glorious, tangled sweaty mess when his leash slips and he grabs my hips, pushing in so hard, I fight a scream and clench down, chasing the orgasm with desperate need.

“So good. So tight and mine, angel. Fuck,” he yells when my body just implodes around him, sucking at him in hard, ecstatic waves as I climax with a scream.

That’s all it takes, all he needs before he’s gone, taking me with a brutal need that is beautiful to witness.

When he comes not long after, he yells out my name, his love for me, and fills me like he never has before.

It’s perfect. Raw.

“Don’t think I missed that, angel,” he wheezes, nipping at me neck. “Little tease.”

“Your tease.”

“Yes. All mine.”