Before I can even find my breath to answer, he shifts. He moves with that lethal, fluid grace that makes him so dangerous, sliding down my body until he’s positioned between my thighs.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t wait.
He grabs my knees and shoves them back toward my shoulders, pinning me open. The vulnerability should terrify me, but under his burning gaze, it feels like a revelation. He leans in, his breath hot against my inner thigh, making the hair on my arms stand up.
“Timofey,” I whimper, my fingers fisting in the sheets as I wait for the strike.
Then, his mouth finds me.
The first touch of his tongue is a firm, wet stroke that sends a bolt of pure lightning through my center. I scream, my head slamming back against the headboard, my body a live wire of sensation. He’s relentless, using his mouth with the same cold, calculated perfection he uses to handle a weapon, but there is nothing cold about the fire he’s stoking inside me. He drinks from me like a man dying of thirst, and for the first time in my life, the world outside this room—the threats, the blood, the Petrov name—is gone. There is only the pressure of his tongue and the beautiful, terrifying ruin of my own surrender.
He doesn’t give me a moment to breathe. His tongue is a rhythmic, punishing force, flat and firm as it drags over my most sensitive nerves. He knows exactly where to apply the pressure, his mouth creating a vacuum that pulls every thought from my head until I’m nothing but a collection of raw, frantic pulses.
I’m thrashing now, my heels digging into his shoulders as I try to find a way to escape the intensity, but he won’t let me go. He grips my thighs, his fingers bruising my skin, keeping me pinned for the slaughter. The world dissolves into a haze of heat and the sound of my own broken cries.
“Timofey, please—”
I don’t even know what I’m begging for anymore. Then, it happens. A violent, white-hot explosion of pleasure rips through me. My body seizes, my back arching off the bed in a silent scream as the orgasm crashes over me in wave after agonizinglybeautiful wave. I’m shattered, my muscles twitching with the aftershocks, my breath coming in shallow, panicked sobs.
I’m still coming down, my vision still blurred by the intensity of the peak, when he moves.
He doesn’t wait for the tremors to stop. He doesn’t wait for me to find my center. He looms over me, a dark silhouette of pure, unadulterated intent. He hooks my legs over his shoulders, and before I can even draw a full breath, he drives into me. The sight of him plowing me, his suit still on, is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
The sensation is overwhelming. I’m still raw, still hypersensitive from the climax, and the feeling of him filling me so completely makes my head snap back. It’s too much. It’s perfect.
“You’re mine tonight, Valeria,” he rasps, his voice a jagged edge against my ear as he begins to move, his pace hard and fast, forcing me back into the fire before I’ve even cooled from the last one.
I wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him like a lifeline as he pulls me into the storm once more. There is no strategy left, no fear, no Petrov legacy—there’s only the heavy, rhythmic thud of his heart against mine and the way he’s claiming every single piece of me I thought I’d never give away.
“Valeria, I’m so close. So, so close. Fuck. You’re so fucking tight.”
His voice is a fractured growl against the side of my neck, raw and stripped of all its usual composure. I can feel the vibration of his words deep in my bones. His muscles begin to spasm, a violent, rhythmic tension that ripples through his entire frame, and the sheer intensity of him coming apart inside me triggers a second, devastating explosion in my own body.
I shatter all over again, my vision going white as I cling to his sweat-slicked shoulders.
Timofey lets out an animalistic growl, his head falling into the crook of my neck as he finally gives in, his heart hammering against my chest like a trapped bird. We stay like that for a heartbeat—frozen in the wreckage of the fire we just started—until the world slowly begins to stop spinning.
As I start to come down from the high, an overwhelming wave of sleepiness consumes me. It’s a heavy, leaden weight that pulls at my limbs, making every muscle feel like it’s turned to water. My mind tries to signal a warning—to remind me that this wasn’t part of the agreement, that I should get up, get dressed, and put the walls back up—but my body refuses to listen.
I don’t pull away. Instead, I let my eyes flutter shut and curl instinctively into Timofey’s side. I tuck my head against his chest, breathing in the scent of salt and the lingering heat of him. Even knowing the danger, even knowing the morning will bring questions I’m not ready to answer, I can’t move.
In the heavy, silent aftermath of the storm, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, anchored by the man who was supposed to be nothing more than a contract.
Chapter 10 – Timofey
A week after the wedding, we find a rhythm. Not a comfortable one. Not even a real one. Just…something in between.
We have breakfast together every morning. It’s the only consistent thing. Same table. Same quiet. Same careful distance.
Then the rest of the day, we exist like strangers forced into the same orbit.
We share a room.
We sleep on the same bed.
But that’s all it is.
Sleep. No lingering touches. No conversations that go deeper than necessary. We move around each other like we’re both pretending the other isn’t there. Like that wedding night didn’t happen. Like it didn’t change anything.
