“I can’t—I already—”
“You can.” I lean down, bite gently at her throat. “Your body knows what it wants. Even if your mind still fights it.”
She whimpers, hips starting to move with mine again, meeting each thrust. I release her wrists, and she immediately tangles her hands in my hair, pulling me down for a kiss that’s all desperate need and surrender.
I’m close. So fucking close. I need her with me. Need to feel her fall apart again, proof that she’s mine, that this is real.
I shift my weight, change the angle slightly, and feel her entire body go rigid.
“There—” she chokes out. “Right there, don’t stop.”
I don’t. Just maintain that exact angle, that exact depth, driving into her with steady precision while my thumb works her clit. Her second orgasm builds faster than the first, tension coiling tight.
“Come for me,” I growl against her ear.
She shatters with a broken cry, her cunt clamping down so hard it borders on pain. The pulsing, the heat, the way sheclings to me like I’m the only thing keeping her grounded—it’s too much.
I bury myself as deep as I can go and come with a groan I can’t suppress. Fill her completely, marking her from the inside, staking a claim that goes beyond rational thought.
For several heartbeats, we just stay like that. Connected. Breathing hard. Her body still trembling with aftershocks around me.
When I finally pull out, I roll us carefully so she’s draped across my chest. She makes a small sound of protest at the loss but curls into me immediately, exhausted.
I stroke her hair, her back, anywhere I can reach. Grounding myself in the reality of her skin against mine, her heartbeat steady against my ribs, her breath warm on my chest.
“If you’re pregnant,” I say quietly after long minutes. “That child is ours.”
“You said at the dinner. The conversation about heirs—”
“I know what I said. I know what you heard.” I tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “It wasn’t the whole truth. Wasn’t even the main truth.”
“Then what is?”
I should tell her everything. About the manipulation. About her family. About how wrong I was.
The words stick.
“The truth is I can’t let you go,” I say instead. “That’s not strategy. Not about heirs or bloodlines. I just can’t function knowing you’re out there, beyond my reach. Beyond my protection.”
“That’s still possession.”
“I know.” I don’t deny it. “It’s honest possession. I want you here not because you’re useful.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to die escaping you either.”
Instead of replying, I just pull her tighter.
Chapter Twenty-Three - Elena
The nausea that hits in waves, especially in the morning. The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch. The way certain smells make my stomach turn violently. The tenderness in my breasts that wasn’t there before.
It could all be stress. Trauma from the kidnapping. My body reacting to captivity and forced marriage and everything that’s happened in the past months.
Except I know it isn’t. Petrov sowed the seed of doubt, and I know better than to stay in denial.
