Painted Scars: Chapter 10

A light touch of a finger between my legs wakes me up. A kiss lands at the back of my neck, then another, a little lower. Roman’s big body presses into me from behind, his arm coming around my stomach, plastering me to his hard, muscled chest. His hand slides to my pussy and starts circling my clit with one finger. When he slowly enters my core, I gasp, grab Roman’s forearm, and start riding his finger. But he removes his hand. I turn around so I’m lying on my side, facing him, throw one leg over his hip, and reach for his cock.

“Patience.” He wraps an arm around my ribcage and raises me to sit on his stomach. Placing his hands behind my knees, he urges me up his body until I’m sitting on his breastbone.

“Roman?” I look down at him in surprise.

“You are not comfortable lying on your back. So, we improvise.”

His hands trail up my thighs until he’s gripping my butt cheeks, and he ushers my body forward until his mouth is positioned just a few inches from my core.

“Hands on the headboard,” he says, “and hold tight.”

His mouth crashes into my pussy before I even have time to process his orders. I grab the board, my eyes rolling back into my head as he licks me, destroying me a little more with each swipe of his tongue. My mind is already half muddled, but when he sucks on my clit, it burns out completely.

I’m still shaking from the aftershocks when he lowers me down onto his chest. It takes me a few moments to come back to reality. I look up at him to find him watching me with a smug smile. Devious and dangerous, that’s what he is. And he knows it.

I move lower until I feel his hard cock and rise to position myself over it. “Hands on the headboard, Roman.”

His eyebrows raise, but he takes ahold of two of the wooden slats above his head. I smile, slowly start lowering myself onto his shaft, only to stop midway and lean down to kiss his inked chest. Then I lick it. Roman inhales deeply but doesn’t move, keeping his hands on the board. I wish I could tease him longer, but my core literally aches to have all of him inside, so I slide down slowly and close my eyes. Bliss.

“Do. Not. Move.” I whisper and start rotating my hips.

While I ride him, Roman’s hands grip the slats tighter, the muscles in his forearms straining. He wants to move, to thrust upward inside me. I see his desire and control in the intensity of his stare. There is something in his gaze, the way he’s so focused on staying still because I asked him to, that does me in. Roman Petrov is not a man who yields to anyone, but here he is, giving me the reins. A moan escapes my mouth as I come. Roman eventually loses his composure, and grabbing me around the waist, he starts pounding into me until I shatter.

As we lay with our limbs tangled, I trace my finger along the black lines on his inked chest. The designs are mostly tribal, similar to those in the full sleeve on his arm. What I failed to notice previously are the multiple scars scattered across his chest. I place my hand on one of the three on his right side. They appear more recent, breaking the flow of the black patterns.

“Those are from the car bomb,” he says, caressing my back.

I move my hand to the left and touch the long thin scar above his hip.

“A knife fight on my sixteenth birthday. A discussion about politics that went too far.”

Next, I pick a round scar on the left side of his stomach and circle my finger around it.

“Gunshot. Disagreement with Mendoza. He’s the equivalent of a pakhan to the Mexicans, and things were a bit complicated back then. It was more than ten years ago.”

I look up at him. “Ten? When did you take over from the previous pakhan?”

“Twelve years ago. When my father died, I took his place. I was twenty-three.”

“How is that possible? You were so young.”

“I started working with my father when I was fifteen. People supported me.” He shrugs as if it’s nothing. “It was a much better option than to have internal war. Those are bad for business.”

My eyes drift down to his chest, comprehension settling in as to how extremely different his world is from mine.

“What happened to Mikhail?” I ask.

Roman is silent for a few moments and then takes a deep breath and squeezes me to him.

“My father happened.”

“Dear God. He . . . did that to him? Why?”

“It’s a long story, malysh. A long and terrible story, and definitely not something I want to talk about in our bed. You’ll have nightmares.”

“That bad?”

“No. It’s much worse than you could imagine, Nina.”

My alarm goes off at seven. I look down at Nina who is sleeping on my chest and shake my head. I remember moving her down onto the pillows last night, but she decided to climb on me again at some point.

Trying my best not to wake her, I transfer her onto the sheets again and pull a cover over her naked body. We had sex three times last night, so she will probably sleep in.

After placing a kiss on her shoulder peeking from under the blanket, I get the crutches from where I leaned them on the nightstand, and start getting ready for my appointment with Warren.

Somewhere in the middle of the session, Warren grabs the cane, which has been lying on the chair in the corner for a week, and brings it to me.

“Let’s try this for a little bit,” he says.

Slowly, I get down from the massage table and stand, supporting my weight with my left leg and gripping the side of the table with my right hand.

“We’ll start slow,” he says. “Just a couple of steps for now.”

I take a deep breath, hold the cane with my left hand and release the mad grip I have on the table. My first attempt is bad. The moment I raise my left leg to step forward, the searing pain shoots through my right knee so I almost stumble.

“Divide the weight between the cane and the leg. And try a smaller step this time.”

It still hurts like a bitch, but it’s slightly better. I manage a total of four steps before the pain becomes unbearable and I have to sit down. It’s pathetic and I feel the need to hit something.

“That was good, Mr. Petrov,” Warren says.

I raise my eyebrows at him. “If that was good, what’s bad?”

“It’s perfectly normal. You are putting almost all your weight on your injured leg for the first time in four months. Just the fact you can do that is very promising. I think you should switch to using forearm crutches from now on.”

My body goes still. “I don’t like those.”

“Why? They require some practice but are much more convenient to use.”

“Because they look . . . permanent.” There. I said it. My greatest fear at the moment—that my knee is so fucked up, I’ll end up walking on crutches for the rest of my life. A cane, I can live with. But I don’t think I could bear crutches.

“They won’t be permanent, Mr. Petrov. However, they are a much better choice for transitioning to the cane than the underarm crutches you’ve been using so far.”

“Alright,” I sigh. “When will I be able to ditch the wheelchair altogether?”

“It depends. Your progress is much better than expected, and with enough practice, you should be able to pull up using only the forearm crutches in a few weeks. But you should keep the wheelchair. You’ll need it when we start practicing with the cane more extensively. Those sessions will put significant strain on your knee, and it would be better to use the chair in the following hour or two.”

“Just get me to the bloody cane, Warren. I don’t care what it takes, just get me there.”

“I will, Mr. Petrov. Now, let’s try those forearm crutches, shall we?”

The therapy session didn’t go well. One look at Roman’s face when he got back told me enough, and he barely said a word the whole morning.

I take the empty bowl I used for my cereal and go into the kitchen to put it into the sink. After filling up Brando’s dish, I come to stand next to Roman.

“I was thinking,” I say casually, watching him squeeze an orange, “maybe I could join you tomorrow when you’re working out.”

When Roman doesn’t meet with his therapist, he spends two hours working out, and if he does have therapy, he exercises for at least an hour afterward. The man was seriously obsessed.

“Sure.” He shrugs and starts pouring juice into the glasses. “What do you want to do? Treadmill?”

“I was thinking weightlifting.”

His hand stills in the middle of pouring the juice, and he looks down at me with an incredulous look on the face, focusing on my nonexistent arm muscles. “Weightlifting?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.” He bursts out laughing, and while I school my features to look offended, I’m smiling inside. His laughter is much better than his scowling face.

“What? It’s popular. My Instagram feed is full of chicks with gym selfies. They say it does wonders for the butt muscles. Maybe I could take some pictures or even videos and upload them as well. I like those stretchy neon outfits and—”

In the next moment, I find myself sitting on the counter in front of Roman, who is holding my chin between his fingers and staring daggers at me. “No selfies in stretchy clothes.”

“Oh, don’t be such a grump. Everyone is posting those.”

“My wife is not everyone.”

Damn. It melts my insides every time he calls me that. And I secretly love his jealous streak. It’s so cute. I lean in and straighten the collar of his shirt, then run my fingers through his still slightly wet hair.

“You are one disturbingly sexy man, Roman.”

He breaks eye contact, looking down into his glass of juice. “Even with the crutches?”

Yup, that therapy session definitely didn’t go well.

“Even with the crutches, Roman.” I kiss him, and make sure to bite his lower lip, just a little. “What did Warren say?”

“That I’m doing fucking great.” Based on the way he’s gritting his teeth, and that the knuckles on his hands are white from how hard he grips the crutches, their opinions defer quite a bit. “I have to go. I’ll be back by dinner.” He places a kiss on my forehead and leaves.

He’s hurting. And it makes my chest hurt as well.

I sit on the counter for a long time after he’s gone, looking down at the floor.

“Perfect,” I mumble to myself. “Just perfect.”

The head of the Russian criminal syndicate. A drug dealer. A killer. And I managed to fall in love with him. Someone please just lock me up in a mental institution, because that’s apparently where I belong.