Page 68 of Cashmere Cruelty
I shake it off. This isn’t the time to be daydreaming. Not even with his solid body an inch away from mine, warming me by proximity alone. “What do you call this, then?”
“Taking care of our child,” he snarls. All his patience is gone.
That’s okay, though. Because, newsflash: so is fucking mine.
“Ourchild,” I reply painstakingly slowly, jabbing a finger in Matvey’s ridiculously broad chest with each syllable, “is still inmybody, in case you forgot. And as long as that’s true, I’ll pick my doctor; I’ll make my appointments; and I’ll decide who gets to touch my body. I don’t care if you’re a Bratva Pacman?—”
“Pakhan,” he corrects distractedly.
“—or the second coming of Jesus himself,” I finish. “My body, my rules. Have I made myself clear?”
Matvey’s face shuts off. For a long moment, I can’t get a read on him at all: is he mad? Is he furious? Is he gonna start yelling, too?
But then, surprisingly, there’s a twitch. Just one, right at the corner of his lips.
And then he picks up my hand.
He unfurls my fingers one by one, watching me intently. He holds it like in the evenings, like the moment before he leans down to kiss it.
But this time, he doesn’t.
“Crystal,” he says, tone strangely neutral.
Then he walks out the door.
I’m left standing in the middle of the room, staring at the empty space he left behind. My cheeks are flushed crimson; I can feel it by the heat.
In my confusion, only one thought makes its way to the surface.
Was he… laughing?
21
MATVEY
I’ve never been so hard in my fucking life.
“Quite a temper, your missus,” Grisha comments off-handedly as he starts the car. “Dare I say you’ve finally found your match?”
I’m thinking the same thing, but I don’t let it show. After all, there can be nomatch. “Drive,” I order Grisha instead, nipping this conversation in the bud.
Not that that’s ever deterred him before.
“I’m just saying,” Grisha insists, turning the key as he continues talking. It’s his specialty: obeying spoken orders while defying unspoken ones. “She may have had a point. Perhaps a nice bouquet to smooth things over might be in order?”
“I won’t apologize for caring about my child,” I snap. “Now, shut up and drive.”
Grisha raises his hands in surrender and replies, ever-cheerful, “Yessir.”
April. What a fucking woman. No one, not even Petra, has ever had the guts to speak to me that way. Kitten’s got claws, alright—and they’re razor-fucking-sharp.
I shouldn’t find it funny. Hell, I shouldn’t find it hot. Being disobeyed like that? Beingquestionedlike that? I’ve killed people for less.
But April Flowers is something else.
I’ll decide who gets to touch my body.The second she said that, I wanted to test her. Wanted to put my hands on her and see how long she could go without begging. Would my baby mama still be so feisty with my fingers dancing between her legs?
I can still remember how it felt: my fingers pumping in and out of her. Her walls, so tight around me. Her voice, breaking with every thrust.