My pussy spasmed, greedy, still clenching from the first orgasm when the next one started to build. I fought it—wanted to last, wanted to savor—but he didn’t give me the option. He stroked deep and hard, the fingers of his other hand pressing into my face, holding my jaw so I had to look at him, had to see the possessive fury in his eyes.
“Mine,” he said as I felt him unload in me.
“Yours,” I whimpered, and came again, the aftershocks so violent my vision spattered white, my knees finally giving out. He held me up, fucked me through it, his cock swelling as heemptied himself in me with a low groan so hungry and broken I almost came a third time just from hearing it.
We stayed like that for a minute—his body draped over mine, his chest shuddering at my back, his hand still locked around my wrists. Beyond the sweat and effort and heat, I felt the edge of something else: want. Love. The ache of being seen and needed and owned by a man who would destroy the world with his bare hands if I asked.
After, he drew out slowly, catching me as I sagged, and scooped me into his arms with a tenderness so at odds with what he’d just done to me that I almost cried from the whiplash. He carried me to the worn leather club chair.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Every part of you.”
My heart pounded.
Family.
I felt it deep inside, in each person who made up the being I was.
“I love you too.”
Chapter 19
Nikolai
EPILOGUE
I fixed the knot on my tie for the third time. My hands shook—not the controlled tremor during operations when adrenaline sharpened everything to tactical clarity. This was different. The silk kept sliding through my fingers, mocking the fact that these same hands could field-strip a Glock in the dark.
Married.
Six months ago I'd stood in a cathedral and violated sacred protocols to save Sophie. Turned a formal Council into a bloodbath. I'd do it again. Would burn everything to ash if it meant keeping her safe.
But today wasn't about destruction. Today was about building something permanent.
The mirror showed me grey eyes, sharp features that marked me as Mikhail's grandson. But something fundamental had shifted. The Ice King who'd calculated seventeen moves ahead, who'd kept everyone at careful distance—that man was gone.Died in the cathedral, maybe. Or earlier, the moment I'd seen Sophie at the auction and known she was mine.
The anxiety in my gut wasn't cold, surgical fear. Wasn't the kind that made me count exits and catalog threats. This was warmer. Brighter. Like standing at the edge of something vast and terrifying and absolutely right.
Joy. I was anxious because I was happy. Because in an hour I'd stand in the solarium with family watching, and Sophie would walk down an aisle to me. That prospect—the sheer exposure of it—was more terrifying than any firefight.
Eleven AM on a Saturday in April. Six months almost to the day since the cathedral. The compound was quiet, that particular stillness before something important. Down the hall, Sophie was getting ready. I could feel her presence like a magnetic pull.
Clara Volkov was with her, helping Sophie prepare. A year ago I'd been a strategist who saw relationships as transactions, marriages as political moves. Now I was standing here, hands shaking, heart racing, because I got to marry the woman I loved.
The door opened. Kostya filled the frame, massive shoulders barely fitting through. He wore a black suit—probably the first time I'd seen him in formal wear since Mikhail's retirement ceremony. He looked profoundly uncomfortable.
"You look like you're heading to an execution, brother," he rumbled.
I met his eyes in the mirror. "Feel like it too."
"Cold feet?" He moved into the room, settling against the wall with his arms crossed.
"No. The opposite. I'm terrified because I want this so much. Because losing her would destroy me. You think that makes me weak?"
Kostya was quiet for a moment, his dark eyes assessing. "That's not weakness, Kolya. That's the bravist thing I've seen you do."
Coming from Kostya—who'd killed more men than either of us could count—the words carried weight.
"The past six months—" I finally got the tie right. "It's been a bloodbath of political realignment. Absorbing the Belyaev operations. Solidifying the Volkov alliance."
