Doctored Vows - Chapter 20

If anyone tells you flying first class is the epitome of wealth, they’re lying. First class is everything you think your heart desires until you’re spoiled by a private jet.

Ivanov Industries’ private jet is massive. It has rows of plush leather recliners, a marble kitchen full to the brim with snacks and expensive bottles of champagne, and a bedroom that could have been put to good use if Maksim hadn’t offered for Zoya to fly back with us.

She heard me orgasm multiple times through a wall. I don’t want to subject her to more torture since the jet’s walls are thinner than the hotel’s.

Furthermore, Maksim has been a little preoccupied for the past six hours. He made sure Zoya and I had everything we needed for our flight and gave me the same forehead kiss he did this morning when he slipped out of me after sleeping inside me all night, but he’s being different. I wouldn’t exactly say cold, but something is definitely occupying his time.

As the jet taxis toward a private hangar, Zoya shifts my focus away from the door Maksim disappeared behind hours ago to her. “I honestly didn’t think your husband could get any hotter.” When paper crinkles in her hand, my mouth falls open. She has the terms Maksim and I agreed to before we wed in her hand. “Cock warming…” She moans in a way I wish never to hear again. “That’s like top tier in the alpha stakes.”

By snatching our contract out of her hand, I act as if I am not as equally turned on by the slight alteration Maksim made to his one term. “Where did you get this? You’re such a snoop.”

“I am not. It was sitting out for the world to see.”

I glare at her, calling her a liar without words.

It buckles her lie in less than thirty seconds. “It was in the breast pocket of Maksim’s suit jacket. Since that’s where all men file their important documents, it was pretty much begging for me to take a look at it.” She waits for me to tuck away that little tidbit of information before she twists her torso to face me. “You’ve got to admit, it is pretty hot that he wants to be up in your business as often as possible.”

“It’s not solely about sex,” I try to defend. “It’s about connection and⁠—”

“Your naughty bits being stuffed to the brim as often as possible?”

She laughs like a hyena when I smash a pillow in her face but doesn’t attempt to apologize to the air hostess, who startled at the derogative tone, lumping the task onto me.

“I’m so sorry⁠—”

“She stole the man you so desperately want you’re still hopeful you can sink your hooks into him even now.” Zoya lifts my hand, sending rainbow hues bouncing across the dark wood grain the jet is fitted with. “This isn’t a I-might-take-you-for-a-ride-when-my-wife-isn’t-looking ring. This is the real deal. The ring you give your wife when you’re so fucking obsessed with her you don’t just want to sleep next to her every night—you want to sleep inside her too.”

The air hostess scoffs, pffts, and glowers at us before her shock is replaced with anger. “If I wanted him, I could have had him.”

Jealousy rears its ugly head, but before I can act on it, a voice that could only sound gruffer if he were coming sounds from behind my shoulder. “Get the fuck off my plane.”

“Mr. Ivanov.” The air hostess breathes out heavily. “I was just coming to wake you⁠—”

“Get. The. Fuck. Off. My. Plane.” As the air hostess hurries for the exit, Maksim locks his eyes with a gentleman over her shoulder. “And you can go with her.”

“Maksim, Maria was out of line but unaware of your recent nuptials.”

His use of Maksim’s first name indicates he knows him more than a standard staff member, but that doesn’t lessen Maksim’s frustration. “She may not have, but you did.” The male air hostess tries to interrupt, but Maksim continues talking before he can. “Yet you sat back and watched her belittle my wife.” Even Zoya almost faints from how he growls “my wife.”

With how much tension is firing in the air, I am shocked when the man backs down with an apology. “You are right. I am sorry.” He drifts his eyes to me. “I apologize for any discomfort caused, Mrs. Ivanov.”

I barely dip my chin when he sinks into the plane’s galley and disappears from view.

The hostility is rife, so of course Zoya tries to barge through it. “If you ever grow tired of him, toss him my way. There’s no such thing as sloppy seconds when it comes to men.” She kisses my forehead like Maksim did at the start of our flight, hopeful it will hide her grin about my narrowed glance before she thanks Maksim for letting her tag along.

“Are you not traveling with us?” My pleading eyes say what my mouth can’t. Don’t force me to face Gigi’s wrath alone.

“Gigi is going to love him,” she says, proving she has mind-reading capabilities. “And I’ve got some matters I need to wrap up before commencing my new job on Monday.” She locks eyes with Maksim. “Ten, right?”

He jerks up his chin before telling her he will forward a job offer to her inbox later today.

She smiles like she has the world at her feet before she gallops down the jet’s stairs.

I don’t wait a second before stating the obvious. “You hired Zoya?”

Again, he lifts his chin. His reply is so nonchalant it seems as if it is only a big deal for me. “Does that bother you?”

“No,” I immediately answer. “I just…” With words eluding me, I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “It makes me wish we still had hours left in the air.” When I stray my eyes to the back of the plane, Maksim’s eyes follow their route. “The bedroom has a bed, right?”

“It does,” he answers as the front of his pants tighten. “And enough aviation fuel to get us halfway across the globe.” My skin flushes with heat when he smirks. “But I think my wife”—he growls my title again as if he’s aware of how wild it makes me—“would rather be ravished in an empty hangar than thirty thousand feet in the air.”

He doesn’t wait for me to confirm his assumption. He thanks the pilots for a smooth flight before he shows them the way out.

I’m naked and sprawled across the queen bed in his private jet not even thirty seconds later.

It is dark by the time we enter the apartment building where I reside with my grandparents. Although not quite dark enough to mistake the look of surprise on the doorman’s face when Maksim guides me through the main doors of the building instead of down the cracked walkway I usually take.

The shocked looks continue when we enter the elevator, and the attendant is told to take us to the penthouse suite.

I already feel like I’m dreaming, and Maksim makes my beliefs worse. “I had originally purchased the penthouse for us, but better ventilation could be installed on the top floor. Your grandfather will be more comfortable there.”

“Thank you.” My praise is not enough, but it is all I have to offer him right now. Once my grandmother is no longer eyeballing me, I will find a more sufficient way to thank him.

“Darling, you look so refreshed.” She tugs me out of the elevator that opens directly into the penthouse apartment before wrapping me up in one of her famously warm hugs. “I’ve missed you. You haven’t been away this long since…” She inches back, adjusts the collar of my shirt, and then brushes off her reply like she wasn’t about to say my last absence was when I sat in the morgue with my badly battered and mutilated mother’s body.

She was no longer there—I like to pretend her soul left her body seconds into her assault—but I promised my father I would stay with her, so I remained at her side until she was placed in her final resting place.

With haunted memories holding my responses hostage, it takes Maksim coughing to remind me I’ve yet to offer an introduction.

“Gigi, this is Maksim Iv⁠—”

“I knew you’d be back.” She greets Maksim like they’re long-lost friends.

Their hug doesn’t last as long as the one we shared, but she speaks to him freely in Russian, making me envious of her fluency. I’d give anything to know what they’re discussing. I catch portions of their conversation but nothing that makes any sense. Something about needing sleep and hoping I will never find out.

Maksim laughs during her last sentence before promising her that will be highly unlikely. “A man knows ways to encourage his wife to sleep.” I’m grateful he’s returned to using English so I can keep up, but he needs to keep the desires of my lust-driven heart out of the conversation when he’s talking with family. “She slept like a baby for almost three hours in the plane.”

He fails to mention I slept so long because he forced so many orgasms out of me I either collapsed from exhaustion or died—thank god.

“Wife?” Gigi questions, forever only hearing what’s important.

A tingle spreads across my chest, and my stomach clenches before I sheepishly nod.

You can’t miss the size of the diamond on my hand, but I raise it in the air as if you can.

Gigi gasps before stumbling back.

I prepare my ears to be slaughtered, and although they’re hammered by hundreds of words spoken in seconds, they don’t follow the path I’m anticipating. She isn’t upset I married without a single family member present. She’s delighted.

What the?

“Come.” She waves us into the apartment she’s made homely with the trinkets she’s collected over the years. “We must update Grampies. He’s been waiting for this for some time.” She cranks her neck to Maksim. “He knew it would be only a matter of time before someone snatched up his beautiful granddaughter. He just didn’t want it to be one of those козы she works with.”

“Capre? Più che altro dei codardi,” Maksim answers as his hand flattens against my back instead of hovering above it. I don’t know if he’s gauging my response to him being multilingual or ensuring I don’t stumble like my grandmother did when he spoke in her native tongue. “Codardi che stanno per ricevere una lezione.”

My grandmother peers at me and then back at Maksim before she spits out, “Good. Anche dopo anni di studio, la trattano ancora come facevano con sua madre. Come spazzatura.”

The only part of her reply I understand is mother, and it is enough to spring tears to my eyes, much less what Maksim replies, “That is done with now.” He isn’t looking at my grandmother. He is staring straight at me and speaking in a language I understand. “No one will ever hurt her again.”

Needing to do something before I maul my husband in front of my elderly grandparents, I shift my eyes in the direction I hear my grandfather’s respirator, then gasp like my lungs are as airless as his when I see his aging eyes smiling a grin his oxygen mask covers.

“Grampies.” I sprint to the man who has loved me as much as my father has.

“Missy Moo,” he breathes out slowly when a handful of tears I can’t hold back soak his gown. “The only sunshine in the world is you.”

“Before you go.”

My tears dried hours ago, replaced with laughter only ever released when your heart is so full it is about to spill over. There’s a chance of them returning when Dr. Muhamed steps out from the portable workstation at the side of my grandfather’s bed. Maksim didn’t solely contract him to safely move my grandfather. He is his new full-time caregiver.

“I thought you’d like to see these before calling it a night.” He hands me my grandfather’s latest stats and markers. “You would swear he is in the early stages of his diagnosis.”

“I wish he was.” I take in the stats that show a drastic increase in lung capacity. “His VTs and IRVs are exceptional. Are you sure these are correct?”

“Yes,” he answers, his voice choked with laughter. “I ran them twice just in case.”

I try to think with my head instead of my heart. “It’s not the surge, is it?”

Terminal lucidity, or death surge as some medical staff call it, is when terminally ill patients have abrupt and unexpected increases in alertness and energy. It often fills their family with false hope. I don’t want that to be the case, but it is a phenomenon I’m anticipating undertaking in the next six months.

“Perhaps if he were on his death bed, but he still has a long way to go, Dr. Hoffman. If this is terminal lucidity, I will hand in my license to practice medicine.” When he realizes he is filling me with the false hope a grandchild of a terminally ill patient should never receive, he adds, “But I will continue testing and keep you abreast.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

He farewells me with a smile before dipping his chin to Maksim standing behind me. I can’t see him. He is directly behind me. However, I detected his presence a second after Dr. Muhamed had requested to speak with me.

I take a moment to consider how much more energetic my grandfather was today before I spin to face Maksim. “Would it be okay if I sat with him for a little longer?”

I almost say “alone,” but Maksim’s head bob announces he is aware of my wishes before he confirms them by saying, “I will come get you in around an hour.”

He presses his lips to my forehead, breathes in my scent for barely a second, and then heads for the elevator. He announced earlier that he had purchased the two three-bedroom apartments below the penthouse. When I joked that he’d never require six bedrooms, he gave me a heated look that made me wish we were alone before he said he was transforming one into a home office so he can be close to me no matter my rostered shifts.

I’m not going to lie. I melted into a puddle when he said that.

Everything he’s done for my family has me shouting his name before he enters the elevator. “Maksim.” He stores his cell before spinning to face me. “Thank you.”

Again, my praise isn’t enough, but when they’re all you have, they are all you can give.

His sultry watch tells me I will pay my restitution with far more than words, but since I’m not worried, I mouth goodnight before tiptoeing toward the bed my grandfather is resting on.

I don’t know how much time passed before I fell asleep on the bulky leather chair beside my grandfather’s bed. It was long enough for Dr. Muhamed to conduct another set of stats on my grandfather’s oxygen levels and hum in approval, but the heaviness of my limbs and the thump of my temples make it seem as if I didn’t crawl into bed until after the sun woke up.

That can’t be the case, because even with my vision partially blocked by the spicy-scented man pulling me into his chest, I can see the large window that spans one wall of my grandfather’s room. It is pitch black outside.

“I can walk,” I murmur to Maksim as he steers me away from my grandfather and the night duty nurse who arrived to relieve Dr. Muhamed shortly after Maksim left.

A hint of the cigarette he must have consumed while we were apart filters in my nose when he replies, “You can, but I’d rather carry you.”

I lean in closer, using his pecs to hide my smile. He smells divine. He’s a little sweaty, but that can be expected since he’s carrying me down a flight of stairs instead of using the elevator.

“I didn’t know these apartments had stairs.”

“They’re all interconnected by servants’ hallways.” His love of architecture is exposed when he tells me how this building was once owned by a Russian aristocrat who built it for his first wife. “The top level was hers to do whatever she pleased with.” My groan vibrates through his chest when he says, “The other sixteen were for his mistresses. He snuck between each floor using the servants stairwell.”

“Then why not call it the mistresses’ stairwell?”

The laughter I hear in his chest isn’t released, but I see it twinkling in his eyes when he lowers them to me and says, “Because, to him, they were the same thing.”

“Ah…” I reply, my one word long. “The aristocrat part of your statement threw me off the scent. If you had said he was Bratva, I would have clicked on quicker.”

“Because…?” He leaves his question open for me to answer how I see fit.

“Because that’s the norm in the Bratva. The men cheat, lie, and steal, and the women⁠—”

“Are worshipped like gods,” he interrupts, his tone stern.

“Not in any of the stories I’ve read.”

“Because they were fictional.” He nods his head to a man standing guard at the end of the hall, dismissing him from his watch before he enters an apartment on our right. “It is far different in real life.” His next set of words are barely whispers. “Well, they will be.”

I try to respond to his murmured comment but lose the chance to do anything but gawp when we enter the opulent apartment. There’s hardly any difference from the penthouse, except the room sizes are halved, and the furniture appears more modern since it isn’t decorated with ornaments my grandmother should have thrown away in her forties.

“Maksim, this place is…” I almost say too much. Too expensive. Too worthy. But I settle on, “It’s beautiful.” As quickly as my praise leaves my mouth, guilt smacks into me. “But we don’t need to stay here. My grandparents’ apartment downstairs is⁠—”

“A rat-infested dump.”

“There are no rats. The building supervisor had exterminators come in every three months as per our rental agreement.”

My lips twitch when he murmurs, “You’re still a shit liar, Doc,” but I refuse to smile. He’s right. My grandparents’ old apartment is a rat-infested dump full of germs and mold, and God knows what else, but it was also home.

As we enter the main bedroom, Maksim toes off his shoes before making a beeline for the bed. “We will shower in the morning. I’m fucking beat.” When an unexpected groan rolls up my chest, I pray for light to break through the drapes covering the floor-to-roof window. “Don’t worry. You’ll be taken care of first. I have no intention to sleep until you’ve screamed my name at least twice.”

He tosses me onto the mattress like he counted the steps from the door of our room to the bed before he hooks my ankle and drags me down until my ass dangles near the edge.

“Jesus… Christ…” I push out between big breaths when his mouth lands on my pussy with the accuracy of a missile.

“Making you go without panties was a shit move on my behalf,” he murmurs against my clit, stimulating it more with his raspy tone. “I sat through a meeting with my dick pressed against my zipper.”

He’s devouring me like I’m the most delicious dessert he’s ever tasted, yet jealousy still sneaks through the cracks. “Were there any women in attendance at your meeting?”

“Doc…” He pauses like he needs a minute to fully absorb my jealousy before he sucks, licks, and toys with my clit until nothing but the thrill of the chase is on my mind. “I fuckin’ love when you get jealous.”

“I’d have no reason to get jealous if you gave me a straight answer.”

You have no idea how hard it is to talk. Every word I speak is forced through trembling thighs and moans loud enough to wake the dead. Maksim doesn’t get angry when questioned. He gets hungry—and the only feast he wants to consume is me.

“You said you’d come back in an hour. You were gone for”—I stray my eyes to the clock on a remote that looks like it could land a jumbo jet—“three hours.”

Three hours? Who the hell has a meeting for three hours at this time of night?

Before I can demand answers, Maksim says between licks, “It took longer than planned, but believe me, you were on my mind the entire time.”

Pleasure hums through me, but it won’t stop my interrogation. “Who… were… you… with?”

“Mm,” Maksim moans against my clit, almost causing me to unravel. “I can taste myself in you.” He stabs his tongue inside me, then does a long lick before saying with a moan, “I bet you’ll be able to taste yourself on my cock too.” He looks at me over the swell of my breasts, our eyes locking since they’ve adjusted to the dark conditions. “Do you want to check, Doc? Or can I return to the only dessert I’ll ever select on any menu handed to me?”

His reply appeases my worry, but I wouldn’t be me if I gave in without a little bit of sassiness. “What if it is one of those hole-in-the-wall joints that don’t hand out menus?”

He backhands my clit, sending a fiery warmth across my midsection. “They don’t have any desserts this tasty.” His mouth is back on me in an instant, and I’m steamrolling toward release.

“Oh god…”

“Close,” Maksim murmurs against my clit. “But we can do better than that.”

He slips two fingers inside me and curls them at the end, milking me in rhythm to the flicks he does to my clit.

I grind against him, desperate for more friction.

My bucks drive him wild. He fucks me with his mouth faster, stretching the sensation making me a shaky, sticky mess.

Every nerve ending tingles as a long, breathy moan ripples through my lips. “Maksim… Oh… please.”

“Closer.”

He eats me harder and faster, feasting on my pussy like it is the only meal he has consumed today. I know that isn’t the case. We shared a late breakfast in bed before he ordered enough takeout to feed an army. My grandmother is adamant she won’t need to cook for a week.

“Fuck, Maksim,” I hiss out with a scream when the sensation becomes too much. I’m blinded by lust, hot all over. I’m so horny I am feral with need. “Make me come. Please. I need you to make me come.”

“Better. So much better.”

He hits my G-spot and clit at the same time with an intense amount of pressure. I break into pieces, moaning and clawing as stars flicker above me. I can’t breathe or speak. I can’t do anything but fall into a bliss so chaotic and draining that my limbs feel as heavy as my eyelids.

Running water sounds into the room a second before a warm cloth is placed between my legs.

“Shh,” Maksim murmurs when I stir.

He washes me with a tenderness I’m still not anticipating before he strips out of his clothes and slips beneath the sheets. I melt into a gooey puddle when he gathers me in his arms until his torso heats my back, and his cock rests between my butt cheeks—his rock-hard cock.

I want to return the favor, but I’m the most exhausted I’ve ever been. Maksim and I barely slept last night, and my next shift at the hospital is only five hours away. A lack of sleep is more dangerous than drinking on the clock. I can’t risk my patients’ lives no matter how much I wish to stay in the lusty bubble Maksim placed me in days ago.

When Maksim positions me so my upper leg is slightly bent and his cock’s head notches at the opening of my pussy, I groan before saying words I hope never to speak again. “I can’t. I’m⁠—”

“Sleep, baby.”

Baby? That’s new.

“I’m not going to keep you awake. I just want to be inside you while you sleep.”

I want him to be proven a liar when his slow and tortuous entrance does crazy things to me. There’s something sexy about a rough brute of a man going slow. It is almost as wicked as when he loses control.

“Doc,” Maksim growls out in warning when my hips naturally roll. “You need to sleep. It wasn’t the first item on your terms, but it is the only thing guaranteeing I can maintain number one.”

My first term, and the focus of a majority of our contract, is that I continue my surgical residency.

When my silence announces I can’t think of a way for both of our terms to be met, Maksim slowly withdraws.

“No,” I shout a little too loudly considering the hour. I clamp around him, thickening him more. “I just need a little time to adjust. I’m so… full.” When I feel Maksim’s lips rise, I rib him with my elbow. “It wouldn’t be an issue if you’d let me help you.”

His cock flexes before he replies, “It would still be an issue. Even when I was being lied to, I got hard anytime your name was mentioned.” He laughs as if he is joking. I know he isn’t. His jaw tightened so fast I heard its crack.

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“I know,” he replies before he firms his grip like he knows I’m going to move. “But they did, and I need you to remember that when you return to work tomorrow.” I’d give anything to roll over and face him head-on when the angst in his voice becomes too raw to bear. “They made costly mistakes, but instead of owning them, they tried to cover them up with lies.”

I let his words sink in before steering him in a direction he has every right to explore. “There are steps you can take. It won’t change what happened or lower the anguish, but it could stop it from happening to anyone else.” I peer back at him the best I can from my little spoon position. “I know people you can speak with. They usually work pro-bono, but I’m sure they won’t say no to a client who can afford to pay.”

He takes my comment as intended—playfully. I hate the tension in the air, even more so since my employer is responsible, so I’ll do anything to ease it.

After watching me for several heart-thumping seconds, Maksim says, “I’ve already spoken with someone. She gave me some advice on how to move forward from this.”

I never thought I’d be a woman constantly stricken down with jealousy, but Maksim’s arrival in my life is proving a liar out of me. “I’m glad she was able to help you.”

I swear I only scoot half an inch away, but when Maksim tugs me back, I learn it is closer to nine inches.

Nine.

Glorious.

Inches.

And that doesn’t include the parts of his cock hidden by his sturdy thighs.

When Maksim hears the moan I can’t hold back, he presses his lips to my ear while lowering his hand between my legs. “Since term one of our agreement is important to you, it is important to me. But be warned…” He waits long enough for the tension to turn excruciating before he finishes his reply. “This will be the only time I will fuck the jealousy out of you in under an hour. Every other time⁠—”

“It won’t occur again.”

He acts as if I didn’t speak. “Every other time, you’ll be on your knees longer than that.”

Before I can conjure up a single scenario to force him to make true on his threat, he twangs my clit with his thumb, stealing my devotion from anything but him.