Page 35 of His Contract Queen

I tilt my head then, my lips brushing the warm, vulnerable place just beneath her jaw. I press a slow, open-mouthed kiss over her pulse point, feeling it jump against my tongue and tighten my teeth around it in a quiet claim—a promise, a threat, maybe. I’m not sure which anymore, maybe both.

She sighs contently under me.

A sudden truth descends over me, cracking through the sex-soaked haze.

For the first time since she walked into my life, I don’t know what I will do if Malyshko forces me to give her up.

10

ALEKSANDR

Iwake slowly, dragged from sleep by a dull, unfamiliar soreness threaded through my muscles, pulling at places I haven’t strained in far too long. It’s a deep, satisfying ache. The kind earned through exertion I haven’t allowed myself to indulge in for years.

For a moment, I don’t move.

I simply lie there, staring up at a ceiling that isn’t mine, letting my senses crawl their way back to awareness. Afternoon light slips past her curtains and washes the room in a golden gold that feels almost obscene given what happened here.

The air is still faintly scented with sex and her.

A scent I never planned to get used to, yet has already filled something in me I didn’t know had ever been empty to begin with. My hand curls reflexively around the sheets as I turn my head toward the other side of the bed.

She’s still asleep beside me. Her hair is scattered in a dark halo across the pillow under her cheek. Her lips are parted slightly,breath soft and even as she rests. Without the fire in her eyes, she looks almost angelic.

Dangerous in a completely different way.

A quiet huff escapes me as I drag a hand down my face, amusement and disbelief waring inside my chest. A woman half my age, and she’s managed to exhaust me so thoroughly that the idea of getting up feels like a chore. If the men in the Pact could see me now—someone who once went nearly seventy-two hours without sleep in the middle of a territorial war—brought down by one morning spent in bed with his wife, they’d never let me hear the end of it.

The irony is not lost on me.

Had this been reckless? Absolutely.

Overly indulgent? Without question.

A violation of every boundary and rule I’d set for myself where she was concerned? Yes to all of them.

But regret?

Not even remotely.

If anything, the memories alone drag a slow, satisfied smile across my mouth. The way she buckled beneath me, clung to me as she said my name like it wasn’t a threat to wield against me but a plea formore, more, more. It has been a very long time since I allowed myself something so… primal.

So undeniablymine.

Last night changed the terrain between us, I know that with bone-deep certainty. Whatever this marriage was meant to be—a political mechanism to use her for my own benefit, a leashto keep her father in line—the ink on that paper that had been meant to bind her to me in name only isn’t that anymore.

It’s real now.

If she were to look at me with even a fraction of the desperation she did when I was buried inside her this morning, I know with humiliating clarity I would fold completely to whatever she wanted no matter the demand or cost it would take to give it to her.

I linger beside her a few more minutes, using the time to memorize the soft curve of her shoulder beneath the sheet and the faint marks I left on her neck. She shifts slightly in her sleep, her knees drawing up slightly from the soreness between her legs.

I let out a slow breath. I want her so goddamn badly.

Reluctantly, I force myself out of bed instead of moving closer to her.

The cool air hits my skin and snaps some discipline back into me. I gather my clothes from where they were strewn across the floor, moving with the quiet practice. As much as I want to give in to the baser instinct screaming at me to climb back into bed with her and wake her up with my face between her legs, the sun tells me I’ve slept far past my usual schedule.

By now, both of my lieutenants have likely already begun our usual work. If this were any other day, I’d send word to them to handle our operations in my absence. They’ve been trained for that extensively, to the point of running our Bratva at the possibility of my death, imprisonment, or temporary disappearance.