Last night comes back in fragments. The way she looked at me with her mouth parted like she was shocked by what she wanted. The way she tried to keep control, and how it slipped anyway. The way my name sounded in her voice when she stopped pretending she did not need me. The memory makes my throat go tight with satisfaction, and something darker beneath it, something that purrs like a predator that has tasted blood.
I am not romantic.
I am not gentle.
But in this quiet, with her curled against me, I feel something close to reverence. Not for her innocence, because she does not have any left after last night. Not for her purity, because purity burned away the moment I touched her. For her presence. For the way she exists in my space like she was built for it.
I glance at her hand, the ring catching the morning light in a brief, sharp glint.
Mine.
And while I would like to spend the entire day looking at her, I know I need to start the day, so I can come back into this bed tonight and repeat all of the actions of yesterday, if she’s not too sore to take me. I slide out of bed carefully, lifting her leg from mine and tucking the sheet around her. She stirs, brows drawing together, lips parting like she is about to wake, but she just turns her back to me and curls into herself.
The sight hits me harder than it should. I turn away before I can indulge it.
I pull on sweatpants, leave my shirt behind, and move into the hallway barefoot. The house feels colder outside the bedroom. My skin is still warm, still marked by the memory of her hands, and I move through the corridor with the faintest edge of smugness sitting in my chest.
I am married to the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life.
This deal with my father couldn't have gone any more perfectly than this. An alliance sealed, yes, but also a woman in my bed who makes my blood run hot, who fits against me like she was designed for it, who looks at me like I am both threat and salvation. Yeah, I couldn’t have prayed for better.
I take the stairs down and swing into the kitchen with an extra skip in my step. The scent of coffee and toasted bread hanging in the air lets me know that Gabriel is already awake.
"Morning Gabe," I whistle, swinging open the fridge.
Gabriel sits at the long table with a mug in his hand and his phone facedown beside it. He looks up the moment I enter, and his gaze flicks over me with the quick, assessing sweep of a manwho has known me his entire life and can read what I do not say as easily as he reads a book.
His eyes narrow slightly, then soften into something that could almost be amusement.
"Fuck you're happy," he says.
I hum pulling out the coffee creamer as I move to the counter and start to pour myself coffee. I mix in some of the creamer into the coffee, and raise it to my lips with a slight smile on my face.
"I am married."
I take a sip and let it burn my tongue, grounding me, but even the burn feels good this morning. Everything feels good.
Gabriel's mouth twitches. "A political marriage."
"Don't start," I reply, but there is no edge to it. "I just had a good night."
"I don't want to ruin your good mood," he says, and something in his tone makes the coffee turn bitter on my tongue. He leans back against his chair and crosses his legs so his left ankle rests on his knee, but the casual posture is a lie. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, the way his jaw is locked tight.
"How could you do that?" I ask, watching him over the rim of my mug. He's too calm. Gabriel is never this calm unless he's about to detonate something.
"Very easily. We run a mob," Gabriel says, but the joke falls flat, hollow.
My hand tightens on the mug. "Funny," I state, placing my coffee down on the counter with more force than necessary. Theceramic clinks against stone, loud in the suddenly tense kitchen. "Spit it out."
Gabriel exhales slowly through his nose, a controlled release of air that sounds like he is bracing himself—or bracing me. "I don't want to burst your bubble."
The happiness that was sitting warm in my chest thirty seconds ago evaporates like steam. "You already did," I snarl, and I hear my voice change, going cold and flat, all the lightness draining out of it in an instant.
My jaw tightens. The air in the kitchen feels suddenly thin, like someone has sucked the oxygen out and replaced it with something heavier, something that presses down on my lungs and makes it hard to draw breath.
"Say it," I tell him, and my voice comes out deadly calm. Controlled. The same way it sounds when I am deciding whether to kill someone or let them live.
Gabriel's eyes hold mine without flinching, without softening, without giving me any escape from what is coming. For a long moment he just stares at me, and I can see him weighing his words, calculating how much damage they will do.
