When he finally sank into me, the world narrowed to the point of a needle. It was a sharp, sudden ache, followed by an overwhelming fullness that made me cry out. He stilled immediately, his eyes searching mine for permission, for a sign to stop. But I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, needing the weight of him to anchor me to this new reality.
The rhythm that followed was slow and unhurried, the sting of unfamiliarity making way for a sweet pleasure. He moved with a quiet, devastating power, his eyes never leavingmine. It was a slow burn, an agonizing ascent that stripped away every defense I had left. I wasn’t just a bride or a victim; I was his, and he was mine, bound together in the quiet dark by a contract that had nothing to do with paper and everything to do with blood and breath.
When the end came, it was a tidal wave that crashed over us both. I clung to him, my voice breaking as I whispered his name into the hollow of his neck. He buried his face in my hair, his body shuddering with a release that felt like an exorcism.
Afterward, the room was silent except for the ragged sound of our breathing. Alexei didn’t move away. He pulled me into his chest, his large arm wrapping around me, tucking my head under his chin. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. The way he held me said everything. I felt the weight of his ring on my finger, a reminder of the world waiting outside the door.
What I didn’t know, however, was if this was about possession or protection to him.
But I fell asleep in his arms, anyway.
Chapter Eight
Alexei’s POV
I’d always been an early riser. It came from years of discipline carved into my bones like names etched in marble. Five-thirty, no matter the season. No matter how late I’d been awake the night before, negotiating shipments or cleaning up problems that required my particular brand of precision. The ritual was sacred: rise, dress, coffee black as sin, then into the world before most men have opened their eyes.
But this morning, I didn’t move. I simply didn’t want to.
Pale gold light spilled through the gap in the curtains, falling across Mila’s hair where it tangled against my chest in shades of chestnut and copper. Her breath was soft and even, warm against my collarbone. One of her hands rested on my ribs, fingers curled loosely into the sheet like she was holding on to something even in sleep. Her lashes fluttered—some dream playing behind her closed lids—and I found myself wondering what she saw there. Wondering if I was in it.
The thought unsettled me more than it should.
I’d had lovers before. Dozens, if I was being honest with myself, though I rarely bothered with honesty when it came to the women with whom I’d been intimate. They were transactions, most of them. Elegant exchanges of pleasure, choreographed carefully so that neither party expected more than skin and sweat and the cold side of the mattress by morning. I knew how to give them enough to make them sigh my name, and I knew exactly when to pull back before they started looking at me like I was something more than what I was.
A shrewd man in expensive suits. A man who built empires on violence.
But Mila…
My jaw tightened as I watch the rise and fall of her body. The way the morning light caught on the curve of her shoulder where the sheet had slipped down. Last night shouldn’t have happened the way it did. It was only the third night of our marriage—a marriage born of necessity and strategy, not affection. I’d planned to keep my distance. To treat her with the cold courtesy I’ve perfected over the years, the kind that keeps people at arm’s length while still appearing civilized.
She wasn’t supposed to matter.
And yet she did.
The realization sat in my chest, heavy and immovable. Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me at the engagement party, after the gunfire and the blood, when everyone else had been screaming or crying and she’d just stood there with her hands shaking and her eyes clear, watching me like she was trying to solve me.
Or maybe it was later, in the living room, when she’d finally spoken. Not to beg me for reassurance or explanations, but to ask—quietly, almost clinically—who the men that attacked us came for.
If that had been the first crack in my control, last night must have been the fault line splitting wide open.
Right from the moment I set my eyes on her, I’d told myself it was just desire—that sharp, chemical pull that had been building between us. But when I’d finally let myself touch her, when she’d opened for me with that devastating trust in her eyes despite everything she knew about me, it had felt like something far more dangerous.
It had felt like being seen.
I shifted carefully, not wanting to wake her, and extracted myself from the warmth of the bed with the same precision I applied to everything else in my life. The floor was cool beneath my feet as I moved across the room, silent out of habit. I dressedin the half-light: charcoal trousers, crisp white shirt, the familiar weight of cufflinks sliding through buttonholes with practiced ease. Each movement was automatic, a ritual that grounded me back into the man I was supposed to be.
Not the man who had held Mila like she was something precious. Not the man who had whispered her name against her throat like a prayer. But the man who managed the European shipping wing of the Lobanov empire. The man who made problems disappear and didn’t allow himself to be compromised by soft skin and even softer sighs.
I fastened my watch—Swiss, understated, worth more than most people make in a year—and glimpsed my reflection in the mirror above the dresser. Dark auburn hair still slightly mussed from sleep, hazel eyes sharp even in the dim light. The tattoos that mapped my shoulders and ribs were hidden beneath expensive fabric, as always. Violence wrapped in silk.
When I glanced back at the bed, Mila had shifted onto her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. She looked impossibly young like this. Impossibly gentle. Everything I was not.
Before the tightness in my chest could spread any further, I turned away and left the room without a sound.
**********
At my warehouse, everything was already awake and moving.
