Everything had happened so swiftly for us, but he wasn’t trying to pressure me into changing who I was at heart. He accepted me for the quiet, mild-mannered soul I was.
Eventually, I would learn to grow out of my shell more. I knew I would. I’d never want to let my husband down or be a burden. I had a hunch that the more time I spent with Nikolai and Viktor, I would learn to loosen up and still realize that these people would bow to me as Adrik’s spouse.
I was supposed to be his queen, and that was a heady concept to get used to.
“Please don’t tell me that you’re awake already,” he grumbled sleepily.
I smiled at his raspy voice. He didn’t open his eyes, clinging to the chance to sleep in some more. I stroked my hand over his face. A low growl of pleasure followed, and I smiled at the sound of satisfaction he gave me with my touch pleasing him.
“It’s not like we stayed up late,” I replied.
“We spent all of yesterday beingon,” he argued after he kissed me. “That takes a toll on anyone. Even me.”
“Pretty soon, we’ll need to figure out how to stay up late with a feeding schedule.”
Now he opened his eyes, gifting me with the warm, grounding sensation I felt when he adored me like this. When he looked at me like this, intensely and like I was the only person in the world, I felt it in my soul. Now that we’d gotten past the obstacles that stood between us before, he never hid his possession, love, and commitment to me.
“We will handle it as partners,” he said with a reassuring kiss as he settled against me and yawned. “Are you sure that you don’t regret not having a honeymoon planned?” He laid his big hand over my stomach, tracing his fingertips back and forth to caress me. It was such a possessive, protective move, and I loved to see how this big, bad man was so smitten with becoming a father.
I shook my head. He had scolded me about being too much of a people pleaser and not advocating for what I wanted. But that wasn’t the case with my rejection of a honeymoon. I hadn’t told him that I didn’t want a honeymoon just to appease him.
“There’s too much going on right now,” I reminded him. “I really feel like I’m so close to figuring out the origin of that network, or at least the money trail that proves when it started. That one shell company has to be the first one used to?—”
He narrowed his eyes, hugging me closer. “Were you talking business at the wedding reception,wife? I saw you and Sacha, and that conversation seemed like more than him telling you congratulations.”
I smiled sheepishly. “I can’t help it. I want to get to the bottom of it. Now that I have a family, a real one, and it’s already going to grow, I want to domypart in making sure that we are as safe as possible.”
“There will always be threats,” he reminded me, as if only now lecturing me about what I was signing up for as his wife.
“I know,” I replied. “But I’m not a trophy wife like so many of those women last night. I won’t be one. I’m not going to be a passive woman to keep at home.”
“You do need to take it easy with your pregnancy, though.” He kissed me softly.
“I will.” I kissed him back. “I will follow the doctor’s every order. I’ll take it easy when I need to. I’d never do anything to harm this child.”
He sighed and responded with a deeper kiss, one that suggested we might start our first morning as a married couple with him deep inside me. With him making me come so hard.
He pulled back soon, though, and gave me a smoldering look with so much love that my heart hammered faster.
This is mine. He’s mine.
“You are too good at what you do for anyone to ever dismiss you or put you in a corner.”
He couldn’t be any more perfect. His praise and hearing him say how much he needed me—not only in bed—was the kind of approval that I coveted. This right here, knowing that I could help him and do my job, mattered to me. Being productive in the investigation he’d assigned to me was just as rewarding as whatever we did here, naked and alone.
“However, I do have you in my bed right now,” he said slyly, kissing along my jawline toward my neck.
I smiled as he ran his hand lower down my body.
I spread my legs so he could play with me. “I thought it wasourbed now.”
“Oh, fuck yeah, this isourbed. I’ve got my wife inourbed, and I’m determined to start the first day of our marriage off right.”
He did.
Or rather, we did.
After I ended up straddling him and riding his dick until we both came, I slumped against him and enjoyed how closely he held me.
