I tried to pull him fully onto the bed, urging him down onto the soft duvet.
“No, Liza.”
His voice was a low rumble against my mouth as he resisted. His hands moved from my face to my shoulders, pushing me back gently but firmly.
I looked up at him, breathless, confused by the sudden, clinical halt. “What?”
“Stop,” he said, his breathing heavy. His eyes were dark and intense, but his control was back in place. He smoothed the hair from my cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch. “You need to rest. Your heart rate is still high, the nurse said. And you collapsed today.”
His words were protective, yet frustratingly clinical. He reduced the moment to logistics, to medical charts, to the safety of the child.
“I don’t need rest,” I insisted, searching his face, trying to find the man who had kissed me seconds ago. “I need you to stay.”
I forced a weak smile, summoning all the lingering power I had. I kept my vulnerability show, the fear, the isolation, the desperate need for his safety.
“We just got married, Roman. We should consummate our marriage.” I paused, letting the statement hang heavy in the air, a clear, simple need that transcended the strategies, the money, and the terror. “I don’t want to be alone right now. And I want you to be the one to finally make me yours, not just on paper.”
Roman’s low, velvet laugh rolled through the dim room like smoke, curling around my skin and sinking straight between my thighs. The sound was so rare, so real, it cracked the lastof his iron mask. His eyes, usually glacier cold, blazed with something feral.
“Consummate our marriage,” he echoed roughly with amusement and hunger. “Only you, Liza, could make fucking sound like a bedroom merger.”
Heat flared across my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop the smile. “It’s the most accurate word I have,” I shot back, breathless.
He didn’t answer with words. He answered with his mouth, crushing mine in a kiss that scorched every thought from my head. It was deep, filthy, consuming; his tongue stroked against mine like he was already inside me, claiming every corner. The lingering scent of me, claiming every corner. The lingering scent of antiseptic and gun oil vanished, replaced by dark cedar, expensive wool, and pure, lethal male.
I dragged him down, arms locked around his neck, until his heavy weight pinned me to the mattress. Confusion still flickered; he was the monster who stole me, the Bratva king who broke worlds, but right now, none of that mattered. His body was solid steel and heat, the only safe harbor in the storm of my life. My protector. My husband. Mine.
He tore his mouth away just long enough to rasp against my lips, “The dress. Off. Now.”
“Yes,” I whispered, already aching.
His fingers found the tiny pearl buttons at my spine. No frantic ripping, he undid them one by agonizing one, as if unwrapping something sacred and forbidden. Cool air kissed newly bared skin, and his knuckles grazed the line of my spine, igniting sparks that arrowed straight to my clit.
The heavy cream satin slid from my shoulders, catching on my hardened nipples before slipping down to my waist. He peeled it lower, exposing the swell of my breasts, the curve of my stomach still faintly tender from everything I’d survived. Whenthe gown pooled in a defeated shimmer around my hips, he paused, eyes raking over me like brands.
“Christ, Liza,” he growled. “You were a fucking vision today. Every man in that church wanted to be me. And you knew it. You walked down that aisle knowing you were already mine.”
His fingertips traced my collarbone, dipped into the hollow of my throat, then lower, ghosting just above my nipple until I arched helplessly.
“I couldn’t look away from you either,” I admitted, the confession spilling out raw and honest. “Black suit cut like a blade, your brothers at your back… You looked like a dark king coming to claim his prize. Terrifyingly beautiful.”
Something savage flashed across his face. Then his mouth was on mine again, no more teasing, no more restraint. The kiss turned brutal and deep, teeth nipping my lower lip, tongue fucking my mouth the way I suddenly, desperately needed him to fuck my body. His large hands slid from my shoulders, over the aching peaks of my breasts, thumbs flicking my nipples hard enough to rip a moan from my throat, then down the curve of my waist.
He gripped my hips with bruising strength, yanking me flush against the rigid line of his cock straining behind his trousers. The hard, thick evidence of exactly what I did to him ground against my soaked core.
His hand moved from my shoulders to my hips, pulling me firmly against his solid body, leaving no doubt about his intent or passion. The soft pace was over.
The kiss turned molten, a slow, filthy slide of tongues that stripped away every last defense. With frantic trembling fingers, we tore the ruined slip from my body, leaving me completely bare beneath him, skin prickling in the cool air, nipples tight and aching for his mouth. Roman’s eyes raked over me, dark and feral, the feared mob boss reduced to a man barely leashed.
He shrugged off his jacket, let it fall like a dead thing, then lowered himself over me. The hard ridges of muscle beneath his shirt pressed against my naked breast, branding me with heat. I was still cold from shock, from blood loss, from everything, but his palms were fire as they swept down my arms, over the curve of my waist, cupping my hips like he was memorizing the shape of what now belonged to him.
“You’re freezing, Liza,” he rasped against my ear. He didn’t rush. He never rushed now. Every touch was deliberate, maddeningly gentle, as if the child growing inside me had rewritten the rules of his hunger. His big hands stroked warmth back into my skin, thumbs tracing the fragile line of my hip bones, skirting the soft swell of my belly with reverence that made my throat ache.
I felt the tremor in him, the iron restraint locking every muscle tight. His cock was already steel against my thigh, thick and pulsing through the fabric of his trousers, but he held back, breath sawing in and out, jaw clenched so hard I saw the tic beneath the stubble. This wasn’t the brutal claim I’d half braced for. This was something worse, something devastating. Roman Lobanov on his knees for my comfort, proving with every slow drag of his lips across my collarbone that I was more than territory now.
His mouth drifted lower, brushing the slope of one breast, tongue flicking out to taste the tight peak of my nipple. A broken sound escaped me, hips rolling helplessly. He groaned against my skin, the vibration shooting straight to my clit, but still, he didn’t take. He sucked gently, reverently, then moved to the other breast, leaving it with the same torturous care while his hand slid between my thighs, parting them with heartbreaking tenderness.
Two fingers traced my soaked folds, spreading slick heat, circling my swollen clit with feather-light pressure that had mesobbing his name. He watched my face like a man possessed, drinking in every gasp, every shudder.
