Marianna gasps, arching her back closer to me.
“Perfect,” I breathe against her skin. Not to be forgotten, I pinch the other nipple over the bra until she makes a tiny, breathy moan that will sustain my fantasies into old age. She’s completely overwhelming my senses, I might come in my pants just from touching her, from having her in my mouth like this.
“Take off your clothes.” Marianna pulls my hair until I turn my eyes to her.
“Say please,” I tell her, even with her perfect nipple still between my teeth.
She flushes at the command, her neck even more red, and I store that piece of information for later. I think my little wife likes to be told what to do and hates that she does.
“Maxim—”
I suck her nipple harder into my mouth then release it with a crudepop. I crawl back over her so my face is directly above hers. “Say it.”
“Please, take off your clothes,” she says, though she doesn’t look happy about it.
I lean back on my knees, still straddling her hips, and unbutton my shirt. She stares at my chest as I do, then as I pull it off, her eyes roam over my shoulders and arms. She tugs up the blank muscle shirt, too, and I do as she bids, pulling the material over my head, and tossing it to the ground.
Marianna wriggles out from under me until she can sit up. I remain completely still as she lightly scrapes her finger nails down my bare chest, my throat, my shoulder, down my bicep, and then my forearm. I wonder what she thinks of the scars that mar my skin, dozens of thin, steady slices from my father’s blade. Her fingertips trace them, then circle the bullet scar on my side.
Using her index finger, she traces over the edge of one of my tattoos, and I wonder if she likes them. My skin is as covered in bumps as hers was, and when she slides her fingers above the top of my waist band, I tense and shiver.
She reaches for my belt and starts to remove it, but if she does that, I will make an absolute embarrassment of myself, so I grip her wrist tight to stop her. Her hands are strong, but they look small in mine.
“You’re like a bear,” she says on a breath. I raise my eyebrows and she blushes like it was an observation she didn’t mean to share. “With the chest hair and the hands, I—it’s a lot.”
I think this is a compliment, if her red face and roving eyes are anything to go by. There is no comparison for her, so I call her what she is. “And you are a brat.”
Amusement lights in her eyes and she wriggles in my grasp until she’s sitting on her knees too. My eyes pinball between her bare thighs and cleavage, I think this is the single greatest garment to have been created in the history of clothing.
“Are you going to unhand me?” Her cheeks are still pushed into a smile, dark eyes bright.
“I don’t know that I can trust you not to use them to make a fool of me,” I tell her honestly, which only pleases her more. Slowly, I do let her hands go, and she bites her lip, keeping her hands in her lap and not attacking my belt like she had before.
I unbuckle the leather belt, unfasten the button of my slacks, and stand to strip them down my legs. She watches every movement while I watch her.
Her eyes are wide, tracing up my legs and torso, as if she’s committing what she sees to memory. I would be self-conscious beneath her stare, but there is no judgement there, only curiosity and perhaps lust. Marianna crawls toward me on the bed. I meet her at the edge of the bed, and tuck her curly hair behind both of her ears before holding either side of her face and kissing her again, tenderly this time. Less feverish, but every bit as consuming.
“Like that,” Marianna says, pulling away from me before kissing me again.
Right. Pretending, I remind myself.
Pretending she is what I want in a wife—this inhumanly beautiful creature who cares for her family more than herself.
With my hands behind her back, I push her until she’s once again laid out beneath me. I take the chance to stroke a hand up her bare leg, which is as muscular as the skin is smooth. When I reach her hip, I lift her skirt, only to stop when I find panties assilky as the slip. I pull back and stare like a fucking devil at the panties, pure white and high waisted, ruining me completely.
I curse again, Russian or English I’m not certain. I kneel between her legs and press her knees open until they are spread wide.
“As a wedding present, I’d like you to make me come,” she tells me, all confidence, though the lilt to her voice belies her nerves.
“You will come first on your husband’s tongue, and then you will come on your husband’s cock, do you understand?”
Her cheeks flame crimson, but she still quirks an eyebrow at me. “We’ll see.”
Taking her words for the challenge they are, I pull her toward me and hook my fingers beneath the band of her underwear before pulling them down her legs, off her ankles, and toss them to where my pants lie discarded. Later I will put them in my pocket and she will never see them again.
“You look like you’re thinking perverted thoughts,” she muses.
“As you so kindly reminded me, you are my wife, after all.” I waste no time dipping my fingers between her legs, then go preternaturally still at the supreme wetness I find there. “Marianna.”
