She remained speechless, a first, as I marched her back toward the mirror.
She almost toppled over again but braced her hands on the sides of the antique piece, glaring back at me as if she could shoot poison from her eyes if not from her mouth.
Not for the first time I wanted to tie her up.
Gag her at the very least to prolong the silence.
Perhaps even blindfold her and take my wrath out on her voluptuous body . . .
Aside from whipping her ass ruby red, such thoughts were not to be entertained.
“Head forward, Sashenka,” I ordered in a harsh tone.
“I hate it when you call me that!”
Ah. It seemed she’d found her scathing tongue again.
With my hands gripping her waist, I rumbled at her ear, “And if you so much as look at Lucky O’Sullivan today, I will buy you side-by-side plots and bury you both alive.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me.” Sneering down at her, I almost chuckled when she turned her head to face forward.
Then I startled when I realized my fingers had slid inside her dress along her waist. The softness of her skin burned my digits, and I quickly grasped both gaping sides of her dress in clenched fists.
I leaned closer again to deliver a deadly whisper. “Or I could shred this thing off you and make you miss the wedding—and Lucky—altogether.”
Her hot gasp jolted something dark and greedy within me.
“Don’t,” she pleaded so sweetly she suddenly made my balls ache. “It’s couture, you animal.”
“Hmm.” My low murmur thundered from my chest, and I scanned the back of her dress again.
The way the fragile lace panels overlaid nearly sheer material on the little confection highlighted her curvaceous figure that would turn any man’s head.
Not mine.
Taking a pace away from her, I glanced at her face in the mirrored reflection. I was surprised to see her head lowered in a demure manner so unlike her usual impudence.
Perhaps I had gotten through to her for a change, but I doubted that.
For once, at least, her dress went all the way to the tops of her knees. Da, we were both decked out for another fucking wedding at Yury’s personal dacha, this time Arkady and Lucia’s June nuptials.
As the eldest Krasnov brother, it had probably been expected that he’d marry first, but Kirill—the middle child among us—had beaten him out by tying the knot with Joanna last summer.
I didn’t imagine following in my brothers’ footsteps anytime soon.
In fact, the very idea that Arkady—a Russian from a prime syndicate—was getting hitched to Lucia Leone—a Sicilian mafia heiress—would have been unthinkable a year ago.
Same thing with Kirill losing his coolheaded ways over Jo, the girl who came from the Irish O’Sullivan crime family.
During the months since Arkady had abducted Lucia then somehow fallen in love with her—causing a war we’d won against the Italians she’d been promised to—there hadn’t been any Sicilian blowback. Which was surprising considering we’d killed two dons, including Lucia’s father.
There’d barely been any trouble for the Bratva at all.
The winter had been entirely too boring for my liking. On the other hand, I had enough fucking trouble on my hands making sure Sasha didn’t fall into bed with every sucker who crossed her path.
That included Jo’s oldest brother, Lucky O’Sullivan, who’d definitely be attending the wedding today.
Sashenka irked my very existence.
Not to mention my older brothers who continually tempted death traps. They thought as youngest I was least qualified among them in the Zolotov Bratva. The truth was, I was most hardened because I remembered nothing soft about my life at all.
“Ahem. Are you done zoning out back there or is my unrivaled beauty just so overwhelming?” Sasha glanced over her shoulder at me.
Brought back to the present and the annoying task at hand, I hastily zipped her into the dress. I tried not to think about the lilac-colored lace of her bra that my fingers brushed or the way her ass formed a perfect swell within the dress now that she was fully sheathed.
I started to step away and, for some reason, my hands trembled a little.
I always had steady hands. Had to. My preferred firearm was a sniper rifle. Nothing but frigid ice ran through my veins like the glacier blue of Sasha’s irises.
My hands did not tremble at the merest exposure to female flesh.
“Not so fast.” Turning, Sasha stopped me with a palm placed on my chest.
Before I could move from her unlikely touch, she reached for the ends