Diomid
She is still in my arms.
The first thought that enters my mind is slow and reverent, like a prayer I was never taught but somehow always knew how to speak.
Her body is molded against mine beneath the tangled sheets.
A soft warmth pressed to my chest, one leg hooked lazily over mine, her breath brushing the center of my ribs with every exhale.
I’ve woken with women before. Beautiful women. Willing women. And I’ve left their beds the moment the heat cooled, eager to slip out before sunrise made things real in a way that didn’t feel right to me.
Never like this. Never with the instinct to hold on and not let go.
Never with the certainty that if she tried to leave, I would wrap the sheets around her and pull her under me until she remembered where she belonged.
Her hair spills over the pillow and part of my arm like dark silk, chaotic and wild, as though even sleep refuses to tame her. I move a hand slowly, brushing a stray strand away from her lips. She doesn’t stir. Her face relaxes further into the quiet I’ve shown her.
Peace looks good on her.
Too good for the life she was forced to survive.
Golden morning light filters through the curtains, soft at first but growing stronger, daring to illuminate the marks I left on her neck. The small bites along her shoulder and the faint red trail my mouth made across her throat. Proof of my claim, as far as I’m concerned.
The sight tightens something low in me. Desire, yes, but something deeper too. Something potent and ancient that has nothing to do with lust and everything to do with possession.
Elizabeth shifts, her fingers curling lightly against my chest, and I swear the foundation of this house could crumble and I would still stay perfectly still just to feel her sleep another minute longer in my arms.
This isn’t temporary. This isn’t a mistake. This is the moment everything in my life pivots.
I kiss the top of her head, a quiet press of lips to hair that tastes like lemons and the lingering sweetness of last night’s cake. A domestic scent hiding a deadly truth. A truth only we share.
She killed a man who deserved to die.
I would have killed Piotr myself one day. She simply beat me to it. And now the woman who destroyed a monster sleeps against the heart that has chosen her as its fate.
My fate.
I tighten my arm around her, protective, unyielding. I will build a kingdom around this bed if I have to. I will burn down anyone who tries to take her from me. Even those who share my blood.
Especially them.
She stirs again, this time with a soft hum deep in her throat. Her nose brushes against my skin as she shifts, her lips grazing lightly over my chest in a touch that sets every nerve in me alight.
Her voice is a whisper against my skin. “You’re staring.”
“I’m memorizing,” I answer.
Her eyes flutter open, still heavy with sleep, and for a moment she seems disoriented by contentment. As though waking up safe feels unfamiliar. Undeserved.
Her hand lifts, fingertips tracing one of the tattoos along my collarbone, following it like she’s learning new geography. “This doesn’t feel real,” she murmurs.
“It iss real,” I assure her, catching her chin so she has to see the certainty in my eyes. “And it only gets more real from here.”
She swallows, doubt flickering across her features, a ghost of old fear. “You don’t even know everything about me.”
“I know the parts that matter,” I say. “And the rest, you’ll tell me when you’re ready. Or I’ll learn by watching you.” My thumb strokes her lower lip. “I’m a very observant man.”
Her pulse jumps beneath my fingers.
“Are you attached to this house?” I ask.
She considers my question for a long moment, before lightly shrugging her bare shoulder.
“I used to be. But now it’s a bleak place.
The place where my mom died. Where my dad turned his back on me.
” She shakes her head as she wills the sadness away.
“I still have a few things that belonged to my mom and my grandmother. I’m attached to those. ”
“Okay. In that case, I’m taking you away from here,” I tell her, voice low but absolute. “Today. You don’t spend another night in this mausoleum pretending you’re not alone.”
Her breath catches. “Where would we go?”
“My home,” I say simply. “Where you’ll be protected. Where I can keep you close and mostly naked.” I pinch her ass playfully to punctuate my point and she giggles. “Where anyone who looks at you with the wrong intention won’t leave alive.”
She exhales shakily, something like relief breaking through her hesitation. “And my father…?”
“Your father made his choices,” I say, voice like tempered steel. “You’re making yours.”
I let my hand rest over her heart, feeling its beautiful, defiant rhythm under the slope of her beautiful breast.
“You’re with me now,” I say. “And I’m going to make that the safest truth you’ve ever known.”
She looks up at me with those winter-blue eyes, still soft from sleep, still unsure if she’s allowed to want anything just because it feels good. I can feel the question trembling in her, the need to give something back after everything I’ve taken, everything I’ve given.
When her hand slides down my stomach, slow and careful, like she’s afraid I’ll stop her, my entire body locks tight.
“Elizabeth,” I warn, voice already shredded, but she only shakes her head, hair spilling over her shoulders like ink.
“I want to,” she whispers. “Let me.”
She shifts lower, knees settling between my thighs, and the sight of her there nearly undoes me before she even touches me.
Her fingers wrap around my cock, tentative at first, testing the weight and heat, and I have to clench my jaw to keep from thrusting into her grip.
She strokes once, twice, studying me like I’m something sacred and dangerous all at once, and then she leans down and presses the softest kiss to the tip.
The sound that rips out of me is inhuman.
Her tongue follows, a shy little flick that turns bold when I groan her name like a dying man. She takes me deeper, lips stretching around me, and the wet heat of her mouth is so perfect my vision blurs.
My hands fist in the sheets because if I touch her right now I’ll lose the last thread of control I’m clinging to. She finds a rhythm and every swirl of her tongue brands itself into my nervous system. I’m shaking. I’m actually fucking shaking.
“Christ, Elizabeth… just like that… yes…” I let out a long groan when the words won’t form.
She hums around me, curious and pleased by the way my hips jerk, and the vibration shoots straight up my spine.
I force my eyes open because I need to watch, need to burn this moment into my brain forever: my lethal, beautiful woman on her knees for me, cheeks hollowed, lashes wet, learning the taste of me like it’s a privilege.
When she takes me deeper still, the head bumping against the soft palate of her mouth and sliding back towards her throat, the pleasure is so sharp it borders on pain.
I’m gone.
My hand finally moves, fingers sliding into her hair, anchoring me to her because I need to feel her while she wrecks me. She looks up through those dark lashes, eyes locked on mine, and the trust there, the raw, open devotion, snaps something primal loose inside my chest.
“Mine,” I rasp, the word torn out of me. “Your mouth, your cunt, every part of your perfect body, mine.”
She moans around me, the sound muffled and desperate, and it’s too much.
I try to warn her, try to pull back, but she refuses to let go, sucking harder, swallowing me down until I’m coming with a broken shout, hips bucking, vision whiting out.
She takes everything, every pulse, every drop, like she was born to ruin me this way and survive it.
When the world comes back, I haul her up my body and crush her to my chest, heart hammering so hard I’m sure she feels it.
My arms lock around her, possessive and trembling, and I bury my face in her neck because I can’t look at her yet or I’ll beg, I’ll beg her never to leave this bed, never to leave me.
She’s shaking too, adrenaline and triumph and something softer, and I kiss her throat, her jaw, her swollen lips, tasting myself on her tongue and growling at how perfect it is.
“You just killed me,” I mutter against her mouth, voice wrecked. “And I’ll die happy every single time you do that.”
She laughs, breathless and shy, and I feel the sound in my bones. I roll us so she’s under me again, caging her in, staring down at the woman who owns me now whether she knows it or not.
“I wasn’t joking,” I tell her, deadly serious. “Pack whatever you want from this house. Ten minutes. Then you’re coming home with me and you’re never sleeping anywhere but my bed again.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t argue. She just nods, small and trusting, and the last piece of the man I used to be clicks permanently out of place.
Elizabeth Ashomicht just became the center of my universe.