Work. I need to work. Focus. Be who I’ve always been, disciplined, controlled, untouchable.
I dress with military efficiency: shirt, trousers, cufflinks locked tight. Each button fastened is a layer of armour against whatever madness last night woke in me.
I glance back at her.
She’s sprawled on her stomach, hair a dark spill over my pillow. Her thighs are parted just slightly, enough to show the evidence of what we did creaming between her swollen lips. The ache I know is inside her now, because of me.
My pulse kicks hard. So much for armour.
I turn away sharply before I ruin us both before breakfast.
Downstairs, my office is quiet and dark. I pull up my laptop, review shipping manifests, operational spreadsheets, tasks I could do with my eyes closed.
Yet all I can think of is that she is upstairs. Naked, marked and all fucking mine.
Every line of text blurs into the curve of her hips beneath my hands. Every keystroke becomes the echo of my name breathlessly falling from her lips.
I shut the laptop so hard the sound cracks through the room.
This is a problem.
The contract is clear: Fifteen months. One heir. Then her freedom.
I’ve never broken a contract in my life.
But when I picture her walking away, leaving me, leaving this house, leaving our child behind…A snarl rises in my chest, low and dangerous.
I push away from the desk and pace the slow, heavy steps of a predator trapped in a cage. My fists ache from clenching.
I don’t want this to end. Not in a year. Not ever.
She’s not just carrying my future. She’s lodged herself under my skin, in my veins, my lungs…in places I thought were dead long ago.
I drag in a rough breath as the door opens and my youngest brother, Leon, steps inside, hands in his coat pockets like he owns the place.
“Congratulations,” he says, smirking. “Our uncle will be pleased. Most of us haven’t even picked a bride yet, and you’re already ahead of schedule.”
Ahead of schedule. He has no idea how ahead.
I force a nod. “Easy enough to accomplish, a wedding and a night of fucking. Even you shouldn’t be able to mess that up.”
He laughs under his breath. “Yesterday you sounded like you were negotiating a business acquisition. Today you look like a man who didn’t get enough sleep.”
Probably because I didn’t. “There’s no time for sleeping when the Pakhan wants our heirs earth-side within the year.” I flick my eyebrows. “You do realize it takes nine months for a pregnancy to come to term.”
I don’t tell him I didn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop touching her. Couldn’t stop wanting her. Couldn’t stop imagining how she will look when she swells with my child.
Leon steps closer, drops into the chair on the opposite side of my desk. “Yes, big brother, but don’t worry about me. Math may not be my strong suit, but I fuck like an absolute pro.”
He claps a hand on the desk and stands before mimicking exactly what he means.
I roll my eyes and he laughs as he leaves, shouting about a shipment as he goes.
I exhale slowly and stare at the hallway that leads back to the private wing. Back to her.
The contract says I should leave her alone this morning. Let her rest. Let her recover. But my body, my blood, and every instinct I possess says something else entirely:
Go to her. Fill her again. Get her pregnant and keep her pregnant so she stays.
