Shotgun Wedding: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (4 page)

G
ray's car
is as big and dangerous-looking as he is. Gray left the church like his ass was on fire, which—given my mood—I wished I could make happen. I wouldn't mind seeing a few, flickering flames bite him in the behind. I'm not talking total-body conflagration, here. Just a nice little singe he'd feel in the morning.

Of course, while I was imagining all this I also happened to be checking out his ass. Easy to do, since with his stride I had to basically run to keep up. It was an annoyingly perfect specimen of the male ass. It could be in a flipping museum.

He glanced behind at me, once. "You keeping up?" he said.

I considered giving him the finger.

Once he turned away from me, I did.

I was probably projecting all my anger and rage that I felt for my father, and the entire Brooklyn Russian
mafia
, on one man.

But he was
here
, unlike my father. He was convenient. And he was being a major douchenozzle.

Gray hadn't even walked around to open the car door for me, which I normally don't expect men to do—but Jesus. We were just
married
, for Heaven's sake. And he was illegally parked right in front of a church!

But no, the arrogant bastard just clicked the locks open and left me to fend for myself. Which was what I'd been doing almost my entire life, really, but somehow it hurt.

My father's complete betrayal stung. My forced marriage was insanity-inducing. But it was the combination of Gray's sudden reappearance—of him being so close! Right by me! My flipping husband!—and yet, the keening loss: knowing that "my" Gray was gone, and this complete stranger had taken his place.

A mean, surly, incomprehensible, bossy…hot…stranger.

No, I did not just think that.

He's not hot.

He's hot
…but his personality is for the dogs, I decide.

Gray drives a black SUV with tinted windows, and after I wrench open the passenger door, I realize it's about ten feet to step up and into the dang car. I'm grabbing onto the door and the seat and doing a few little hops to get some air, when I feel two large seat warmers settle on my ample ass.

Wait. Those aren't seat warmers.

Or hot potatoes.

They are Gray's hands. He's
cupping my ass
, holy Mother of… I'd never in all my life wished I'd worked out more than I did at this moment.

But it only lasts a second. He effortlessly lifts me and suddenly I'm in the passenger-side seat. The car is large and steel-gray inside, and there's not a speck of dirt or fast-food wrappers or
anything
littering the floors.

"I'm supposed to work at O'Malley's tonight. If you don't mind giving me a ride," I mumble, refusing to look at Gray because I'm an emotional mess and fear I might cry if I do. "Or, I can just take the subway."

He doesn't answer, just reaches into the car and across my body, his heavy arm brushing against my stomach and chest. I gasp and meet his unfathomable eyes. For a moment I think he's going to—what? Touch me? Kiss me? Hug me and tell me it will be all right?

Instead, I realize he's pulled the seatbelt down and across my body. He buckles me in like I'm a child.

"There," he says, adjusting it and giving a little nod, like all's right with the world. I stare at him, hoping that my eyes having suddenly gained the ability to shoot death-rays.

Unfortunately, they have not. Gray just looks at my blandly before slamming the door in my face.

He gets in the driver's side and we take off, peeling away from the church with a shriek of tires.

I still can't look over at him, so instead I watch the streets, full of people even on a Thursday night. We're heading deeper into Brooklyn, toward O'Malley's. Everyone outside looks so happy, so busy, so…normal.

Holy fucking shit, I'm married.

"We'll stop at your place and pick up anything you need," Gray says.

I stop fighting it and turn to my left. His profile is beautiful, chiseled. He looks like a model in his suit, though my eyes are drawn to the black edges of his tattoos, rising above his shirt.

"I don't need anything for work," I say. I glance down at my jeans, tennis shoes and white T-shirt. I normally work in the office or help out in the kitchens, so it's not like I need to look cute. Plus, it's a shitty neighborhood bar. No one cares what anyone looks like.

Gray gives me a look I can't interpret. "I didn't mean for work, I meant anything you'd want to take to my place."

"Your place?" What the hell is he talking about? He wants me to spend the night with him? As if!

He nods slowly, his eyes back on the traffic. "We're married now. My place." He shrugs—
do his cheeks slightly redden?
"Our place."

I feel bad, suddenly. I've been taking all my emotions out on him, when really, what did Gray do? Try to help me out of a fucked-up situation. And try to help my fuck-up father. It's not his fault that he's not madly in love with me.

It's not his fault that he can fuck anyone he wants, at any time.

I need to get a grip. I need to be smart about things. Use my head and not my stupid, messed-up heart.

I need to make Gray think I'm on his side, right? Because what's he done besides save me from a brothel, save my father's life, and buckle my seatbelt?

He broke my heart
.

Old news. I gotta get over that.

"Gray," I say, my voice suddenly so gentle that he looks over at me. We stare at each other a moment before he turns back to weave through traffic. "You don't need to do that. I mean, I'm not expecting that we actually even
see
each other except at work. I won't want to disrupt your world more than I already have."

Gray's right hand—the only hand on the wheel—tightens. I play with the rough edge of my thumbnail, then look back at him. He hasn't said a word, but his jaw is still clenched tightly. His burnished hair looks like dark ale in the fading twilight.

"I would never—I would never expect you to actually think you had to treat me like a wife. I know you don't feel anything remotely like that with me."

I stop as he makes a strange, strangled sound. But he still doesn't say anything.

The more nervous I get, the more I keep talking. "I mean, I can totally stay at my place. I'll tell everyone whatever you want me to say, but we'll just lay low and, I don't know, whenever you think Viktor's forgotten about us, we'll just get an annulment."
And then I'll get the hell out of Brooklyn. I hear California's nice. Maybe Spain. Japan? Canada. I can drive to Canada and they have great doughnuts, right?

Anywhere but here
.

He still doesn't say anything. Or look at me.

"I just would never want to hurt or constrain you in any way." I think of his words in the church. "And I definitely don't expect you to pretend to be faithful. You can…fuck anyone. At any time."

I have to imagine, with a body and a face like Gray's, he's got women crawling all over him. I ignore the sudden stab of jealousy at the thought. I have
no claim
on him. Besides, you know, an actual marriage license.

Just that.

Jesus take the wheel.

Because—what the hell is he doing!?

"Gray! Look out!" I shriek as the car suddenly veers right, across three lanes of traffic, and he slams on the breaks as we come to an abrupt stop. Cars all around us are blaring their horns, and one man pulls to a stop next to us. He begins shouting until Gray turns and stares at him. The man puts his hands up in surrender and gets the hell out of here.

Which is exactly what I should be doing.

"What the hell!" I shout,

"Listen to me,
koshka
," Gray growls. I think I remember that word; he might've called me that when I was a teenager—
koshka,
cat, his little Kat.

But I'm not paying attention to any Russian grammar memories at the moment because, holy shit: Gray's body, and his anger, seems to expand and fill the entire car. He's
radiating
such a red-hot intensity I'm surprised I'm getting sunburned. And it's all directed at me.

"I told your father,
I protect what's mine
. I am a man of my word. I just made a vow—in front of God—that we would be man and wife."

"What are you saying?" I can't begin to believe that he would take this—us—seriously. "Even if we were friends as kids, we haven't seen each other in seven years. You never called, you never wrote!
You left me
!" I cry, then gasp and cover my mouth with my hands.

"I didn't mean to say that," I mumble. I'm sure my pale skin is burning red. "I didn't mean to say any of that. But it doesn’t matter. This entire situation is insane and I no you don't want me or any of my crazy business in your life—"

"Katya."

Gray's voice silences me, and I look over at him. His eyes are in shadow, the streetlights just highlighting his immense arms, the strong edge of his jaw.

"Katya, I'm already in your business. Viktor's crew
owns
your business. And you have no idea what I do or don't want in my life."

"But this—" I begin to speak, and Gray reaches out and puts one long, calloused finger against my lips. I gasp, my lips parting. He doesn't move his finger for a moment, and when I look back at him, I feel his entire being change. There's something in the air between us, something charged. Something heated.

This can't be happening.

I have to be imagining this.

"Get out of the car," Gray orders.

I glance out my window. "Oh my God, we're at my apartment. How did you know where I live?"

There's immediate shame that he's seen my shitty apartment building. And that's
before
he's seen the mess inside. But how did he know where to drive to? I can't imagine he and my father run friendly terms, but maybe dear old dad told him.

"Gray, how did you know where I live?"

He doesn't answer. He just opens his car door, and before I know it, he's around the SUV and opening my door. He takes my hand, which almost disappears in his giant, slightly calloused one.

I'm scared to touch him. I'm scared of this vibrating intensity in my chest, in my stomach, in my head…okay, between my legs. Everywhere. I can't still have a crush on Gray. Not now. Not after today, not after all this time.

I begin to step out of the car and he puts both hands around my waist and lowers me gently to the ground like I don't weigh more than a feather. Once I'm on my feet, he takes my hand again, and leads me inside my apartment.

We walk up the crumbling concrete steps and Gray pauses at the outer security door.

"Key?" he says, his voice low. He's glaring at the broken porch light like it personally offends him.

"Don't need one." I smile brightly, like I'm delighted I live in a craptastic apartment, and push the broken security door open. I try to tug my right hand from his firm, warm grasp. He doesn't release me.

And then I realize Gray's going to see not only the crummy exterior of my low-rent apartment building. He's going to see my actual "home," which is full of unwashed dishes, clothes strewn everywhere…and a framed photo of him on the dresser in my room.

Unless I can get in there first.

H
er apartment is shit
. When she pushes open the broken security door—a ninety-year-old grandmother could've forced her way into the building—I'm already seeing red.

Then the lights aren't working, outside
and
inside the first-floor hallway. There's no elevator, and the stairs are steep with the railway falling off the wall.

"Motherfucker," I mutter, ushering her ahead of me and up the stairs.

"What?" she says, her green eyes going wide.

"Nothing," I growl. She flinches, and then I feel worse than I did when I realized what a shithole this place is. It hadn't seemed this bad on the nights I'd driven by it. It had looked decent from the outside.

But I shouldn't rage at her or scare her, because it's not her fault she lives here.

It's her dickhole of a father's. But she's not under his "protection" anymore—she's under
mine
. And that motherfucking means something.

"Your father lets you live here?" I say as she climbs the steep steps. I can't help but watch her ass as she walks; it sways in time to my hardening dick. In all the years we'd been apart, I'd held onto the picture of my little Kat as just that: little.

But from the moment she fell into my arms, so full and round and warm, I can't get the feel of her curves out of my mind. And now they're right in fucking front of me.

"Lets me?" she says, turning at the landing and starting up yet another flight of stairs. "He's never been here. He probably doesn't even know where I live now."

"Jesus, he never got any better, did he?" I say.

She turns onto the fourth-floor landing and walks down the dingy hallway to a battered-looking door. Number 407. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a keychain.

"Better? No, he didn't get better," she says. "But life got better when I left home."

I glance around the hallway and make sure I keep my face stiff and stoic. This place is awful, but it was probably a thousand times better than living with her father.

"Just let me straighten up a minute," she says suddenly, turning the knob and rushing inside like her ass is on fire.

She even tries to slam the door in my face, which is cute. Ineffectual, but cute.

I stop the door with my hand, faster than she expected, and she glances up at me, those green eyes sparkling like jewels. It suddenly hits me that we'll be fucking
living
together. Instead of watching her from afar, keeping tabs on her, she'll be in my house.

I didn't want this. I didn't want to taint her. I didn't want to ruin her life by exposing her to mine.

But she's here now. In my life. Potentially
in my bed.
I'd made myself keep my hands fucking off of her for years. But with those lips, those eyes, that ass—her spirit—how the fuck was I going to
not
fuck her?

Not claim what I felt had been mine all along?

Her innocent, law-abiding life had been ruined, dragged into this business in a way I never wanted.

So what was keeping me back now?

And, why the hell was she trying to run into her apartment without me?

I step into the apartment, watching Kat's shapely ass disappear into what I assume is her bedroom, and realize what she'd been doing.
Blyad
, my beautiful little Kat's apartment...is a fucking disaster.

And that's putting it mildly.

I'd never broken in, even though I'd considered it. I tried to keep my interest in her as removed as possible. But the guys I'd hired to watch out for her—they hadn't informed me she was living in basically a cardboard box that any sick fuck could break into with half a will and half a brain.

I'd deal with them later.

The apartment's so small, so tiny I could take three steps and be across the living room. That is, if I could take a step without breaking my neck. There's girly shit all over the floor, jeans and shoes and magazines. The "kitchen" is a typical New York, cheap-ass apartment "kitchen": three panels of linoleum, a miniature fridge, sink, and oven you couldn't even stuff a pizza box into.

The counter space is the width of my hand.

I take a deep breath and run my hands over my face. Jesus, she'd been killing herself at the restaurant, then coming home to
this
.

I take a step—two—and I'm across the living room and peering into her bedroom. She's got a small bed that takes up most of the room. It also looks like it would break if I sat on it. It would definitely collapse if we were on it, together.

The idea of lying next to her and her soft curves gets me hard, and I shift away from her and adjust myself. No use scaring her more than she's already been frightened. There's a little purple dresser that, unlike everything else in the place, is wiped clean. Every other surface is covered with more clothes, shoes, and books.

"No closet, babe?" I say.

A pretty blush spreads across her cheeks and down her neck.

"I wasn't expecting company," she snaps. I find myself grinning.

Kat glances at me.

"What?" she says, looking more and more glum as she tries to organize her piles of shit into newer, smaller piles of shit.

"We used to tease each other all the time," I say. "I forgot how easy it is to annoy you."

Kat blushes and scowls even more. I must be more hard-up than I thought, because I find it cute as hell, whereas any other girl who'd give me attitude, well—fuck that. I don't need that shit in my life.

And here I was, inviting attitude incarnate into my house. My life.

My fucking marriage bed.

I shouldn't be thinking about that, shouldn't be thinking about Kat in my bed and anything that might go on when those two things meet. She chooses that exact moment to turn away from me, bend over, and start stuffing her stuff into a plastic grocery bag on the floor.

Her perfect, ample ass sways a little as she works. It's too much to resist.

I
should
try not to touch her.

It.

Anything.

But I spent years doing that, when she was too young. I looked out for her as best I could. I was such an ignorant kid back then, though.

I wasn't a kid anymore. And while it may be ignorant as fuck about certain things, I know myself and I know the world I live in. I didn't want to drag her into it, but she was here.

Now, being at my side was the safest place for her. I'd fucking make it so.

But it would be hard not to touch her now.

Almost as hard as she was making me.

I take a step forward, then another. I'm right behind her when she realizes I'm close, and she freezes.

I should back away.

I should follow the plan I'd had in my mind: "marry" her, lock her in my high-rise apartment till all this shit blows over, and eventually…

What?

Allow her out? Fuck her? Get her pregnant?

Move her to a private island once my
other
plans are complete, and make love all day?

That last one actually didn’t sound so bad.

But now that she was with me, near me, breathing in those quick, quivering little breaths that made me harder and harder because it's exactly how I imagined she'd sound when I made her come…

Now locking her away seems an impossibility.

I mean, I still planned on keeping her safe, keeping her contained—keeping her basically the fuck out of Brooklyn for the next few months—but keeping her in her own, separate bedroom seems suddenly insane.

I'm not thinking clearly, but suddenly I don't fucking care.

She's here. The girl is gone and this beautiful, exciting, tough but vulnerable woman remains.

It's my job to keep her safe. To make her happy.

And I'm gonna start right fucking now.

I step close, closer, until the front of my body is pressed firmly against her backside. Kat stands, not moving away from me. Not moving toward me. I know she can feel me, my heat, feel how hard I am.

I push in closer, her curves hugging me.

"Gray?" Her voice is breathless. Hesitant. Excited?

"Yeah?" I say. I curl my left arm around her and reach for the small plastic grocery bag she's stuffing clothes into. "Babes, what the hell are you doing?"

"Packing some clothing for tonight?" she says.

"In this?" I take the plastic bag from her hands. It's from a Chinese delivery joint. I know the place. It's cheap and it tastes like it.

She shrugs. She's nervous as fuck, but she's not walking away.

"You don't have any luggage? Or at least—I don't know, what the hell do women call 'em—a bag?"

She shakes her head, and I watch her long, auburn hair dance across her shoulders as she moves. "I might have some kind of bag, somewhere."

I refrain from pointing out that, if she hung up maybe one-third of the shit she owned, she could find her bag. But I don't really give a shit; tomorrow I'll buy her a new wardrobe. Whatever. What I'm upset about is how much she's been struggling, and I never even knew.

And, truth be told, I'm distracted by how her breath hitches when I sidle even closer. What can I say? I'm only human.

And damn, her ass feels good pressed against me. I'm about to go out of my mind, and I haven't even touched her with my hands, yet.

I focus on the task at hand.

"Kat, you can take anything you want from here, but you're gonna need more than just one night's worth. You're moving into my place. And that's final."

I drop the bag on the bed and turn her around to face me. She's staring right at my chest, trying to ignore how close I am to her. I don't know if she's mad, embarrassed, or intimidated.

It should occur to me that maybe she doesn't want me, not like I want her.

There was only one way to find out.

I gently take her face in my hands, tilt it up so she has to look at me, and say, "We're getting this fucking tension out of the way. Right now."

Then I lean in, press my lips against hers, and take what's always been mine.