Doctored Vows - Chapter 35

Maksim’s eyes lift to my reflection in the vanity mirror when I say, “I should probably return to work soon. The wards are still overrun with poison victims, and I didn’t take this much time off when my mother passed, so it seems silly to take this much bereavement leave for a patient.”

He knows the real reason I don’t want to return—I’m ashamed I didn’t work out what was happening sooner since it was occurring under my nose—but he will never call me out on it. “If that’s what you want, Doc, I won’t stop you.”

Smiling, I join him in the bathroom before assisting him in placing on the tie he’s been fiddling with the past few minutes. It is black and pinstriped like his suit—the perfect ensemble for the funeral we will be attending this afternoon for a little girl whose life was taken too soon.

Once it’s tied, I flatten it down like it wasn’t starched to within an inch of its life by the dry cleaners, and then float my hand over Maksim’s heart that should be too large to fit in his chest.

He will never admit it, but I know he paid for Yulia’s funeral. The funeral home is usually reserved for the wealthy half of Myasnikov; her casket is the most expensive available, and her plot sits under a big old oak tree that will protect her from the elements no matter the season.

There’s no way Mr. and Mrs. Petrovitch could afford such an elaborate farewell. I just refuse to call Maksim out on his generosity purely because I know he too is struggling with an immense amount of guilt.

From the rumblings of his crew, it wasn’t Maksim’s men who found Yulia. It was Maksim.

He tried to get Dr. Sidorov to reverse the procedure he had conducted in an unsterile training OR at the back of the loading dock, but with Yulia’s organs already in transport to the new owners’ hometowns, nothing could be done to save her.

She was gone, but that didn’t stop Maksim from sitting with her until her parents arrived.

“Don’t tempt me, Doc,” Maksim says when I peer up at him with loved-up eyes.

I’m still grieving the unnecessary loss of an innocent child, but the way Maksim has helped me through my grief process over the past five days has made me fall in love with him more than I ever thought possible.

He held me when I cried, washed my hair when I tried to drown my sorrows in the tub, and fed me even when I swore I wasn’t hungry.

He looked after me like a husband would a wife and proved without doubt that he didn’t marry me for an alibi.

“I’m already struggling not to touch you,” Maksim admits, doubling the output of my heart. “I don’t know if I will be able to hold back if you say the words I see in your eyes.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Some of the hurt lifts when he murmurs, “Still a shit liar, Doc.”

I try to pretend his words aren’t gospel. “I wasn’t going to speak.” Now I’m honest. “I was going to kiss you since they’ll forever relay more than my words ever will.” I shrug before heading for the exit. “But if you don’t want me to do that, I guess I will wait for you out there⁠—”

He tugs me back in front of him so fast my words are forced back down my throat by the gust his pull causes, and then he cups my jaw as I’ve been dying for him to do the past few days before he seals his mouth over mine.

I melt into his embrace before I’m eventually wholly consumed by it.

Maksim knows how to kiss, and it has me suddenly knowledgeable as to why he’s withheld them from me the past five days.

He knows they’ll lead to sex, and although he’d never deny me, he knew I needed time to grieve. Not just the loss of Yulia’s life, but my mother’s and sister’s as well.

I wasn’t given the chance to grieve back then.

Maksim would never allow that to happen again.

After nibbling on his lips, I inch back before locking my lusty eyes with his. “I love you, Maksim.”

“Fuck, Doc,” he murmurs, his chest heaving like the words are almost too much for him to hear. “I’m trying to be a gentleman, and you’re making it real fucking hard.”

A confidence I never anticipated owning shines bright when I lick my lips before lowering my eyes to the crotch of his trousers. “Who said I wanted you to be a gentleman?”

“Doc…” he growls in warning, his low tone announcing just how tethered his restraint is.

“I love you.”

I inch closer.

“I need you.”

Another step.

“But I can’t tell you that with words. I need to show you.”

He lunges for me so fast my pajama bottoms don’t stand a chance against his rueful tugs.

I’m naked from the waist down in under ten seconds and being filled by Maksim’s fat cock even quicker than that.

“Don’t even think about it.” Maksim’s grumble ruffles strands of hair sticky with enough sweat that they shouldn’t be able to move. “My cock loves being surrounded by your heat.”

I mouth his reply while he vocalizes it. “Even when we’re not doing anything.”

I pretend I’m not busting to pee by snuggling back into his chest and tickling his ribs with my fingertips. We were so impatient we almost didn’t make it out of the bathroom.

We stumbled as far as the walk-in closet before Maksim buried his head between my legs to feast on the dessert that will only ever be consumed by him.

Round two eventually saw us rumpling the bedding on our mattress. That was around two or three hours ago.

I can’t be sure of exactly how long I’ve been sheltered from my grief by Maksim’s sturdy cocoon, because I collapsed from satiated exhaustion seconds after my name tore from his throat while his cum heated the walls of my vagina.

Our impatience to become reacquainted means we’re still mostly clothed. Half of Maksim’s trousers are huddled around his shoes, and the other half are sprawled across our bed.

My pajama shirt is more of a belt than the ensemble I had hoped would entice my husband back to our bed earlier rather than later, and my lacy sleeping bra is still latched, but the cups are pulled underneath my breasts.

I stop fighting the smile I’d feel guilty showing after so many innocent lives were taken when my fingers flutter over a gritty lesion in Maksim’s lower back. You can’t fight something that no longer exists.

I’m too panicked to smile.

“What is that?”

“It’s nothing,” Maksim immediately replies before rocking his hips upward slowly, striving to coerce my curiosity to longing with his rapidly thickening cock.

“It doesn’t feel like nothing to me.”

We moan in sync when I yank him forward so fast the inches hidden by his seated position notch inside me.

Panic about how close I came to losing him smashes into me when I spot the cause of the gritty texture. Maksim’s body has a number of scars and welts from the years he protected his mother from a monster, but this scar is new.

Numerous sutures are closing a fresh wound high in his gluteus medius muscle. The edges of the skin closed together with perfect butterfly stitches is singed and has a blast-like appearance. Whatever caused the puncture wound was hot and fast moving—most likely a bullet.

I missed it during my assessment because I only removed Maksim’s shirt, and it sits around half an inch lower than the waistband of his trousers.

It also explains why Maksim only ever showered this week once I fell asleep.

Nothing but despair echoes in my tone when I ask, “What happened? Were you shot? Did someone shoot you?”

“It’s nothing.”

I never thought violence would be my go-to coping mechanism, but it takes everything I have not to bang my fists on his chest until it reddens from more than sexual exertion.

“That isn’t nothing. You were hurt. Someone shot you. That isn’t nothing!”

Anger overrides some of my fear when he throws his head back and laughs. He howls like a wolf staring at a full moon, reminding me that he is both alive and not a man who could be easily taken down.

The remembrance eases my hesitation by a smidge.

After a beat, Maksim murmurs, “You are so sexy when you’re jealous.”

“How am I jealous? I am mad.” And scared. “So very mad.”

“Still a shit fucking liar, Doc.” He rocks his hips upward, securing the devotion of my eyes before saying, “But there is a way you can guarantee no one will ever have their hands on my ass again.” Now I’m jealous. I didn’t consider the fact he couldn’t have been administered stitches where they are unless his backside was hanging out for the world to see, but I store my frustration for a better time when he says, “Come work for me.”

I sound more curious than confused when I reply, “I’m studying to become a surgeon.”

“And?”

After promising never to use clauses to encourage dialogue, I say, “What use would Ivanov Industries have with a surgeon?”

I realize this isn’t solely about the real estate mecca he’s forming when he answers, “Heaps of shit. Suturing. Medical procedures. Digging bullets out of backsides.”

I don’t pay the humor in his tone any attention. I only hear his admission that he was shot.

“Who shot you?” I’m not asking because I’m a nosy Nancy. I am asking because I need the name of the person who better have been issued a death certificate by now. “Is he dead?”

With my tone taking on a serious note, so does Maksim’s expression. “I don’t know.” My pledge for revenge takes a back seat when Maksim responds in a way I never anticipated. “I was more concerned about getting back to you before you heard the rumors than getting immediate revenge.”

“Rumors?” The anger in his eyes answers my question on his behalf. “They thought they’d taken you down?”

He jerks up his chin before brushing off an attempt at his life with humor. “They could never be so lucky.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “And neither could you.”

“This isn’t funny, Maksim. I could have lost you.”

His eyes spark with so much love it makes it hard to breathe. “You didn’t.”

“But I could have.”

My teeth grit when he says, “But you didn’t.”

Frustrated, I attempt to dismount him.

He refuses to let me go. He tugs me back onto him, forcing a moan to ripple between my lips.

He gives me a minute for my head and heart to reprimand my body for how easily it gives in to him before he aligns our eyes.

“You didn’t come close to losing me, and you never will if you take Eva’s place on my team.” My confusion is only seen for two seconds before he tries to smother it.

“You thought she was just an intern?” He smirks like he thinks my lack of smarts is cute. “She is almost as brilliant as you, Doc.”

Before jealousy can engulf me, he adds, “And just as fucking stubborn. She wants to go home. She’s missing her family, and she is willing to do anything to get back to them.”

My heart pains for Maksim’s team during his following sentence. “But she goes where my team goes, and my team goes where you go. For now, that place is Myasnikov. But it doesn’t have to be for Eva if you take her place. She can go home, back to her family.”

I’m being hammered with a heap of emotions I don’t know how to handle, so I shouldn’t be surprised by my next question. “You know this is emotional blackmail, right?”

“Is it?” Maksim attempts to pull a face a man as shrewd and cocky as he can’t pull off. “I thought this was negotiating. But what would I know? Supposedly I’m not well-versed on how they’re meant to be just and fair.”

“Maksim—”

“I want you at my side, Doc.” I laugh, assuming he is joking when he says, “If I have to buy a hospital to have that, so be it. I’ll buy every fucking one in the country.” But the absolute truth in his eyes reveals he isn’t joking. This is how badly he wants to make me happy. This is how much he wants me to be a permanent part of his life.

He is willing to give me everything, but the only thing I want is him.

When I tell him that, he says, “Then accept my offer, and you will have me twenty-four-seven.”

I want to. Yes is sitting on the tip of my tongue, but if I don’t keep things even between us, I will be eaten alive. So instead, I say, “I will consider your offer after reading a properly drafted contract⁠—”

“Twice,” we say at the same time.

When I recall the last time I shared my mother’s recommendation for any legal document, my mouth falls open.

Maksim’s lips more twitch than part, and they announce that he’s been watching me for longer than we’ve been married.

His smirk merges to a sultry grin when I ask, “Exactly how long have you been watching me?”

He rolls his hips, mindful my anger never lingers for long when I’m horny, before saying, “I could tell you, but then you’d know all my deepest, darkest secrets⁠—”

“And I’m the only one that privileged.”

I giggle at Ano’s interruption—Maksim growls.

“You better have a damn good excuse for interrupting us.”

“It’s the traffic, boss. It is as unpredictable as your moods when you’re not getting any,” he answers through the double doors of our bedroom, enlarging my smile.

“Thanks for taking one for the team, Doc. I was getting so desperate for a Maksim mood lifter I was about to offer up my services. To you, not him. Nothing gets a man’s mojo back faster than a brutal bout of jealousy.”

I can’t tell what thumps louder. My clit when Maksim’s race to shut Ano up with his fists frees the last two inches of his cock hidden by his seated position, or Ano’s feet when he realizes Maksim’s threat won’t be idle this time since I couldn’t hold back my moan.

They’re both loud and desperate.