"You think I'm only offering because I was told to?"
His silence is answer enough.
"I was trained to be ready for tonight," I say. "I was taught what to expect and how to behave. But that's not the same as being told to. No one is making me lie here, Anton. I'm choosing to."
Something shifts in his expression. Subtle. Like a crack forming in ice.
"You don't know me," he says.
"No. But I'm here. And so are you. And we can either spend our wedding night lying in the dark resenting each other, or..." I pause. Swallow. "Or we can start somewhere."
He stares at me for what feels like a lifetime before his hand moves. His fingers brush my cheek, and I stop breathing. His touch is careful. Almost tentative. Completely at odds with the hard, cold man who stood beside me at the altar this afternoon.
"You're shaking," he murmurs. "Are you afraid of me?"
"A little."
He pulls his hand back. I catch it before he can.
"A little afraid," I say. "Not enough to stop."
His eyes drop to my mouth. Then lower. To the lace edge of my nightgown where it meets my skin. He swallows, and I watch his throat work as something warm shifts low in my belly.
"Are you sure, Kira?" he asks.
The sound of my name in his voice does something to me. Something I wasn't expecting. It's the first time he's said it directly to me. Not to Artem, not to the priest. To me.
"Yes," I whisper.
He watches me for one more breath, then his hand comes back to my face, and this time there's nothing tentative about it. He cups my jaw, tilts my head up, and kisses me.
It's not soft or sweet or barely even a touch like the one we shared after our vows were said. It's controlled, the way everything about him is controlled, but I can feel what's underneath it. The heat. The hunger.
I open for him. I don't know what I'm doing, not really, but I know how to follow his lead, and when his tongue slides against mine, I make a sound that I've never heard myself make before.
His hand tightens on my jaw.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His breathing is ragged now. His eyes dark. That careful control is fraying at the edges, and I can see the effort it takes him to hold it together.
"You've never done this," he says. Not a question.
"No."
Something crosses his face. Something possessive and raw that makes my pulse spike.
"Tell me if it's too much," he says.
Then his mouth is on my neck, and I stop thinking.
He's careful. More careful than I expected. His hands move over me slowly, learning the shape of me through the thin satin, and every place he touches lights up like a live wire. My hip. My waist. The curve of my ribs. He finds the hem of my nightgown and slides his hand underneath, and when his palm meets my bare skin, we both go still.
"Kira." My name again. Rough. Wrecked.
"Please don't stop," I whisper.
He doesn't stop.
He peels the nightgown up and over my head, and I let him, lifting my arms, and then I'm lying beneath him in nothing but the moonlight from the window. He looks at me like he is committing me to memory, and the intensity of it makes me want to cover myself and arch toward him at the same time.
