“Really? Prove it.” His hand slips under the waistband of my pants.
I gasp as his cold fingers touch my skin.
“Gustav!”
“Your husband,” he corrects. “Prove to yourself you don’t want me, mishka.”
He doesn’t rush. His fingers move slow, dragging over the sensitive parts of me like he’s memorizing them.
My breath stutters. I arch without meaning to. My body moves for him even when my mind screams that I should resist, that this isn’t the time, that I should be furious or afraid.
But he touches me like I’m something he already burned the world down to keep.
A shaky sound escapes me. Embarrassing. Needy. He hears it like a private prayer.
“Peighton...” His voice is wrecked, deep, trembling with a hunger he’s trying and failing to leash. His lips brush my ear. “You can’t run from me.”
His fingers slide deeper. My hips jerk. Shame heats my face. I’m hurt, bloodied, terrified — and I’m wet for him anyway.
Because it’s him. My first. The man who took a piece of me and apparently hasn’t given it back.
“I don’t want—” I start, but my voice breaks when he circles my clit just right. My hand shoots to his wrist, not to stop him, but to steady myself. His breath hits my neck, hot and desperate.
“You ran,” he growls softly. “And still, your body begs for me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. A sob catches in my throat. I don’t know if it’s from pain or want. Maybe both.
He presses his forehead to the back of my shoulder, panting quietly, like he’s the one on the edge of coming undone.
“Do you feel what you do to me?” His hips roll forward, and his hard shaft rubs against my ass. Slow. Controlled. Maddening. “I should punish you. I should drag you home and lock every door.”
His fingers work me faster, firmer, until my back arches.
“But I’m not going to,” he whispers. “Not tonight. Tonight I touch you like this... because I can’t stop myself. Because you’ve forgotten what marriage means to me.”
My climax rises sharp and sudden, terror and relief tangling in my veins, twisting into something filthy and sweet.
“Gustav—” My voice cracks, breaking on his name.
“Let go,” he commands. “Right here. Right now. For me.”
The words hit me harder than his touch. I fall apart with a cry that sounds too much like surrender.
He groans, long and guttural, as if my pleasure drags him under with me. His forehead presses to my spine. His free hand fists in my shirt like he’s clinging to life itself.
When the last tremor leaves my body, he pulls his fingers out slowly, reverently, and brings them to his mouth. He closes his eyes as he tastes me.
“I will never let you leave me again,” he murmurs, almost tender.
Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out the gift-wrapped box.
“Micha said Christmas is important to you. Fine. Here.”
As I’m still catching my breath, I rip the paper with slow hands.
My heart trips.
Inside is a necklace. A silver locket with our wedding photo inside.
