Page 10 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

His hand is splayed against the side of his face, eyes half-closed, as though he’s deep in contemplation. His silver hair is messy now, as though he’s been running his fingers through it, and there’s an empty glass sitting next to him, as if he has been drinking for a while already. I wonder if I should just leave him to it, but then I shift slightly and the floor creaks beneath me, and his head snaps up at once.

“What is it?” His voice is curt, almost irritated, as if I’ve interrupted something important.

I consider just excusing myself, apologizing for distracting him, but then I remember that I’ll be stuck in this wedding dress all night if I don’t.

I take a step forward, raising my eyebrows at him. “I need someone to get me out of this dress.”

He stares at me for a moment. “Speak to one of the household staff,” he replies, his voice cool, unmoved. “They’ll be able to help you.”

I sigh. “There’s nobody else awake in this place,” I point out. “And I don’t want to sleep in this thing.”

“You can’t get it off yourself?”

“If I could, I already would have,” I retort. I turn around, gesturing to the hooks on the back. “See? I can’t reach all of them. It’s not designed for me to be able to take it off without…help.” I trail off, realizing how pointed it sounds. And just how alone we are right now.

He eyes me for a second, as though considering whether or not he believes me, and then rises to his feet. “Turn.”

I do as I’m told at once, turning to face the door. I feel him move in behind me, the sudden warmth of his presence flooding through every inch of me at once. My breath hitches as I feel his fingers against the nape of my neck, brushing aside the hair that has gathered there, and he begins to carefully unhook each of the ties that holds the dress together.

I can’t see his fingers moving, but I can tell they are deft and quick. He makes light work of the hooks at the top, pulling them apart, and I feel the warmth of his breath on the back of my neck.

My pulse races. Does he feel it too? This weight hanging over us, the promise of what is meant to happen on a night like this one?

There’s so much more I want to ask him, like if he has ever been married before, if he was married to Andreo’s mother—what happened to her if that’s true, why they split, how long it has been. But I doubt he would give me a straight answer to any of that, and maybe it’s better to just let the quiet surround us right now rather than trying to speak it into action.

His hands seem to slow as he works his way down my back, almost reluctant. I’m not sure if it’s because he has no interest in seeing me out of this dress, or because he has too much interest in it.

I glance back over my shoulder as his hand stills at my waist, and I narrow my eyes in his direction. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, a beat of silence playing out between us, and then he continues his way down, unhooking the pins that lead down to my back so the dress gapes open over my waist. I take a deep breath, the first time I feel I’ve been able breathe to all day, and it falls over my shoulders. I reach up to clutch it vainly in place, though it has already exposed more than I intended.

Beneath, I’m wearing this gorgeous white lingerie which I had picked out weeks ago and never wore until today. I’ve never really been a lacy underthings kind of girl, but matching the white dress to this perfect silk-and-lace bra and panty set only felt right.

I had imagined Andreo tearing them off of me this evening, since he was never interested in anything other than my naked body and what it could do for him, but now, with the dress hanging half off me, I can feel Antonio’s eyes on me, tracing out the shape of me beneath what I’m wearing.

“I think…I think that should be it now,” I murmur, breaking the quiet between us at last.

His hands are still resting against me, fingers on my skin, just beneath the strap of my bra. He lets out a slight grunt of agreement, but he makes no move to pull back.

And, oh God, I can feel it—a rise of desire within me, even in the midst of all of this madness, something I can’t and won’t and don’t want to hide from. Something that feels as though it has lit up a part of me I’ve tried to leave untouched.

In all the pain and hurt of being abandoned at the altar like that, this man stepped in to take me as his wife, and right now, there’s nothing I crave more than the chance to show him just what it means to me.

Can he feel it too? Fuck, he must be able to. There’s no way he could ignore what’s between us right now. His thumb grazes across my spine, the barest touch, but enough to make my heart pound faster.

He still doesn’t pull back. Seems to have no intention of doing such a thing at all, actually, and I don’t want him to, not now, not now that we’ve come so close to one another. I dare myself to look back at him again, and this time, I can see that something has darkened in his eyes, a heat that wasn’t there before. A want. A need.

I shrug my shoulders, letting the dress tumble down a little further so it sits in the crook of my elbows. I’m undressing right in front of him, and he’s making no move to stop me, watching me as though this show is personally for him. Right now, it might as well be.

My breathing stutters as I let the dress fall further and further down my body, exposing me, until it pools at my feet and I step out of it.

When I turn to him again, I can see the want in his eyes, pulsing somewhere inside of him like there’s no room for anything else. His gaze sweeps down my body, standing there in front of him in this perfect, untouched lingerie.

His wife, on our wedding night.

I lean back against the door, making sure it’s shut, not moving my gaze from him for a moment. “It’s our wedding night, Antonio,” I whisper to him.