Cruel Paradise - A Mafia Romance Chapter 136

Her chest is heaving from her impassioned words. It’s bringing the color back into her cheeks.

Fucking hell, is she glorious.

She looks me dead in the eye. “I know I’ve fallen short but I still believe that raising them is a privilege. I may not be a great mother, but I’m gonna try my hardest to become better. I’m never gonna stop trying.”

“Are you crazy?”

Her mouth clamps shut. She leans away, eyes round with shock.

“For fuck’s sake, Emma: you are the best mother I have ever seen. You have everything stacked against you but you make those kids think the world was made for them and them alone. You struggle so they don’t and you’d jump off a bridge before you let them see you quit or show fear. You give them so much love, so much hope, so much reason to believe that the future holds nothing but happiness for them.”

Her eyes grow wider the more I talk. And even then, I keep talking. “Why do you think I picked you? Before I met you, I didn’t even want a child. Then I saw you with those kids and I thought, if I was ever gonna have a kid, this is the woman I want to have one with.”

She blinks and a fat tear rolls down her cheek. “Ruslan,” she breathes softly, “do you really mean that?”

“Every fucking word.”

She bites her lip. Still uncertain. As if saying with her body, Prove it.

So I don’t hesitate. I slide into the bed beside her and wrap my arms around her. This is for the baby. I’m being gentle to manage her stress. I’m being whatever she needs me to be until this baby is born.

If I pick at that logic too much, it’s gonna unravel fast. So I focus on her slow breathing and her citrus and honey scent.

She’s still crying, her tears soaking through the front of my shirt. I hate seeing her like this. It’s worse knowing that I contributed to it. As penance, I will hold her for as long as she needs me to.

It’s a self-serving penance, though. I know it; she knows it.

Pretty sure the damn doorknob knows it, too.

“Don’t cry, Emma.”

“I want to believe you. But too many people have told me that I’m a shitty mother now for me not to believe it.”

I grit my teeth. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. That shit I said about you, with Josh… it was uncalled for. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

She twists to the side so that she can look up at me. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.”

I snort. “Don’t get used to it.”

She actually smiles. It’s tentative and it’s watery, but it’s real. And it does something to me.

“I wouldn’t dare…” She plays with the buttons of my shirt, pressing her body harder against me. She’s wriggling a little too much now for my liking. It’s giving my cock all kinds of ideas.

The top button of my shirt is open, so she slides her hand through the opening. Her fingers are warm and needy, just like the rest of her. My cock is still wet from the last time we fucked but you’d think, given how full my balls are right now, that I’d been celibate for months.

“Kiska…”

“Hm?” She’s practically grinding on my leg. And given my position, it’s entirely obvious how hard I am. Her hand glides over my chest, down towards my erection.

I could stop her. I should stop her.

But I don’t.

“Was this the plan all along, my needy little kiska?” I growl. “Is that why you’re grinding all over me? Was the last time not enough for you?”

You’d think that would stop her. But she meets my gaze boldly. “It bothered me for a split second yesterday, when you called me your whore.” She palms my cock and starts rubbing slowly. “But I realized today: you can call me anything you want—as long as you also call me yours.”

Fuck me.

My lips crash against hers. I push her back against the bed and get on top.

I’ll worry about the consequences of my complete lack of discipline tomorrow. For right now, I want to claim her. I want to own her. I want to consume her.

For all her betrayal, all her deception and all the lies, there’s no denying it anymore: the woman belongs to me.

One betrayal’s not gonna change that.

28

EMMA

I wake up to an empty bed rich with his scent.

I’m not sure how to feel right now. My body is sore in the best possible way. I feel calmer than I have in weeks.

But I don’t trust this feeling.

Last night comes back to me in short, vivid bursts. The moment he pushed inside me, his thick girth filling me up with one hard thrust. The moment our palms met, chests met, foreheads met, like we were zippered together, sharing air and a heartbeat. Eyes flashing. Sweat between us, salty and pure.

Too many moments like that.

I want more of them and I want less at the same time. How much longer can this strange back-and-forth go on between us? How long can we stand on quicksand and expect not to be sucked beneath the surface?

I wipe the sleep from my eyes and roll over. That’s when I notice the piece of paper pinned beneath my phone on the bedside table.

He left me a note?

I jump for it as though it’s about to disappear at any moment. Definitely Ruslan’s handwriting. Hungrily, I lap up his words, hoping for something personal.

The note contains the name and number of one of his lawyers, Isabel Costa, as well as the name and number of a child therapist, Alicia Young.

I sit back in bed, the note still clutched between my fingers. One is to help me keep custody of the children. The other is to make sure that they’re happy and healthy. I suppose in a way, it is personal; it is sweet.

Maybe this is his way of showing me how much he cares. If not for me, then at least for the children.

Although last night went a long way in showing me that whatever we shared before everything went to shit is not totally gone.

Maybe I gave up too fast. After he accused me of betraying him, I just stopped trying to convince him otherwise. That was just pride on my part. If he was so sure that I was a backstabbing bitch, then I figured I would just let him think that. Was I really going to degrade myself by begging him to hear my side of the story when it was clear he didn’t want to?

But now, it feels silly and juvenile. Of course I should have forced him to hear my side of the story. I should have screamed it at his back if I had to! Anything to make him hear me. It isn’t about us; it’s about the child we’re going to be raising together. That child deserves some semblance of peace and normalcy.

So do the other three.