Page 22 of Sold to My Ex's Brother
We finally reach a small garage, which is protected by a keypad and a security door. He types in the code again swiftly and pulls me inside, bundling me into the passenger seat of a sleek silver vehicle before he slides in beside me and starts the engine.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, more than a little fearful.
He doesn’t reply, pulling out of the garage and adjusting the mirror to make sure that we’re not being followed. His gaze flicks to the road ahead, and he slams his foot down on the pedal, the engine screaming out below us as we speed away from the mansion.
In the rearview mirror, I can see the smoke reaching upward, twisting in sick spirals towards the darkening sky above.
And, as I watch it fade into the distance, tears spring to my eyes.
I know it’s just the stress of everything that has happened, but, as I lean my head against the window, I wonder what the fuck I have gotten myself into. No, more than that—what the fuck my father has gotten me into.
Because I would never have even been close to this world if it wasn’t for the fact that he had owed gambling debts to Artem,debts that would cost me my life if I didn’t play my cards right. And now, here I’m in a car, speeding away from a violent attack on a mansion, next to the brother of the man who’s caused me all this pain.
And carrying his child, though he knows nothing about that part yet.
He glances at me as we drive, but he does not bother to ask if I’m okay. Guess he knows better than that, at least now.
There’s no way that I could be even close to okay, after everything that has happened. The confusion, the shock of going from the sheer, intense pleasure of his mouth between my thighs to having to run for my life while Anton’s people were massacred just a few rooms away, it’s more than I can make sense of.
We drive for a long time, until the white marks on the road begin to fade into each other and the distance between them vanishes to nothing. We’re out of the city, trees beginning to increase in thickness at the side of the road. I think of asking him where we are going again, but I doubt he would even give me an answer.
His gaze is fixed straight ahead, his hands so tight on the wheel it looks like his knuckles might burst from beneath his skin. I can’t even imagine what’s going through his head right now, watching his home get destroyed like that, the people he trusts killed right there on the driveway.
And all because of his brother. Because his damn bastard of a brother couldn’t stand the fact that I had managed to get out from his grip, even if none of this had been my choice, even if I would never have chosen for this to go as it has. I can’t believe that I have been dragged into this mess, and if I could roll back time and undo it all, I would...
But in the midst of all this, it strikes me, Anton... He made me his priority. He did not race into the house to save his men, he did not try to fight Artem or any of his people. He focused on me, on getting me to safety.
Even now, he’s made no mention of leaving me somewhere and then going back to attend to the madness that is unfolding back at his mansion.
I steal a glance at him out of the corner of my eye, and wonder, briefly, if he might somehow know about the baby. Ridiculous, of course, given that I’m barely showing and have not breathed a word of it to him, but it would explain why he was so quick to jump to my defense.
Finally, he pulls the car off the road, and we bump along a rocky path that leads deeper into the woods.
For a moment, I have no idea what is going on, but then he flicks the headlights on and they illuminate a cabin in front of us. I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I had been holding at the sight of it, realizing that we have made it to safety.
“Is this...?”
“My safehouse,” he replies, and he turns off the engine, sitting there in the car for a moment in silence. I can hear him breathing, and I stare at his hands on the wheel, wondering if I should say something, do something, as helpless as I feel in that moment. I can’t tell if he wants me out of his sight or right here at his side, and, nervously, I reach out to touch his hand lightly.
“Thank you for getting me out of there,” I tell him softly. It’s not much, given that he saved my damn life, but it’s as much as I can muster right now given everything that’s going on inside my head. He covers my hand with his, gripping hold of me tight, asthough he is reminding himself why he did all of this in the first place.
And, for just a second, it all falls away.
And we are just two people who were interrupted in the middle of a hook-up that we never got the chance to finish.
His touch, despite the circumstances, is electric on my skin, the kind of need that I cannot put into words. Is it because he is the father of my child, some deep biological connection that I’m unable to quite explain? Or is it that he has stepped up to protect me and show me how much he cares for me, when every other man in my life in recent memory has failed me...?
I don’t know which it is, but, as he turns to me, I know that he is feeling everything I’m right now. He reaches across the car, pulling me towards him, and I unbuckle my belt just in time to slip into his lap. He pushes his hands into my hair, gazing at me for a moment before he kisses me again, and I wrap my arms around him, holding him close.
I can still smell the smoke clinging to his skin, a reminder of what we came so close to succumbing to, and our tongues meet in a secret language that neither of us have quite learned how to speak out loud yet.
He pushes himself roughly against me, letting me feel how hard he is, how much he wants me, and I feel the exact same way.
We are alive, and that is all that matters right now, all that could ever matter.
I just want to lose myself to him, to forget all the stress that is hanging over my head, all the danger that I know for damn sure I’m still in. Because, in this instant, the only thing I can thinkabout is how much I want to feel him inside me once more, how badly I need him to claim me.
And claiming me, it seems, is the only thing on his mind right now. He slips his hands to the loops of my jeans and pulls them down, unzipping them as he wiggles them over my hips and thighs, just far enough to expose my panties. He grunts as he sees my body exposed like this, clearly aching for me in just the same way I ache for him, and he slips a hand between my legs, rubbing his fingers along the outside of my pussy as he gazes up at me.
