Chapter 39
Aurora
My heart slams against my ribs as Alexei cradles me against his chest and carries me to the bed. I’m still half-dressed in the ridiculous bridal lingerie. The corset cinches my ribs, and the garters pinch my thighs. With every step, my stomach drops like I’m plummeting from a ten-story building.
This is really happening.
My wedding night…with a mobster.
He lowers me onto the mattress with a gentleness that’s far more perilous than any violence. His eyes never leave mine. Perhaps he’s waiting for me to bolt like a frightened animal.
That analogy seems close to the mark. I’m a creature caught in a trap of my own creation, my fight-or-flight response screaming through every nerve ending.
Except I don’t want to flee or fight. Not anymore.
“There are still bobby pins in your hair.”
“So many bobby pins.” I reach up without thinking. “I’m pretty sure they used fifty boxes. I feel like a pincushion.”
His chest rumbles with a throaty laugh as he starts to remove every single one. The same hands that have tortured and murdered countless people untangle my hair with a tenderness that burns my throat. He drops each pin onto the nightstand with a tiny metallic ping.
As he reaches for my neck, he brushes my collarbone. I gasp as electricity sizzles down my spine.
Alexei freezes.
“Cold.” I’m a terrible liar. We both know damn well the room is warm and his touch even warmer.
The corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. He removes the final pins, and my hair tumbles around my shoulders.
“Beautiful. So fucking beautiful.”
With his guard down, he’s a little vulnerable. Almost human. I touch his jaw, and the stubble scrapes my palm with delicious friction.
I withdraw my hand as molten heat rushes through me. “So are you.”
His eyes twinkle. I’m sure I’m not the first woman to tell him that. The smug bastard.
He hovers over me, giving me time to pull away. When our lips meet, it’s nothing like before. The kiss is tentative. No dominance, no control, just a man asking permission.
I answer by parting my lips, inviting him deeper.
He groans, and the kiss grows more urgent. When he cradles the back of my neck, I arch up to meet him, but the corset restricts my movement. These restraints on my breathing and motion should feel like another trap.
Instead, I feel like I’m flying.
I’ve spent weeks keeping him at arm’s length, even as we found ways to test the limits of the “no sex” rule. I told myself I set that boundary as a means of self-preservation.
Now, I wonder if fear motivated me. Not of him, but of how much I wanted him. Of how easy it would be to lose myself completely in this man, body and soul.
His mouth abandons mine to trail kisses down my neck.
I grip his shoulders, loving the sensation of solid muscle beneath his shirt.
This man, this predator, belongs to me now.
And I belong to him. Not just on paper or for protection or convenience or survival.
But because some broken part of me recognizes an equally broken part in him.
My anxiety transforms, morphing into an entirely different kind of tension.
The tightness low in my belly has nothing to do with danger and everything to do with need.
His hands explore my body with reverence, skimming over the satin of the corset and tracing the lines of the garters against my thighs.
Each touch ignites a new flame, until my skin burns everywhere he’s grazed and aches in all the places he hasn’t.
“Alexei.” I breathe his name against his mouth, unsure what I’m asking for.
He seems to understand anyway. His fingers find the hooks of my corset and pause. “Is this okay?”
The question undoes me. He married me as a matter of strategy but treats me like I’m precious.
“Yes.” The word catches in my throat. “More than okay.”
He releases the hooks, and with each one, my lungs inflate a little more. When the corset falls away, I’m exposed, naked in a non-physical way. He’s seeing me without the armor or barriers I’ve built to keep everyone at a safe distance.
He flattens his warm palm against my stomach. “You’re shaking.”
I am. Not from cold or fear but anticipation. “I know.”
“We can stop.” His eyes trap mine. “Nothing has to happen tonight.”
My heart squeezes.
This choice is the most valuable gift anyone has ever given me. I could say no. Pull away and retreat behind my walls.
But I really, really don’t want to.
Instead, I tug him closer, pressing my bare skin against the fabric of his shirt. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He gives me a devastating smile. Then his lips find mine again, and this time there’s no hesitation. Just hunger and heat and the sweet, sharp blade of need that cuts through all my defenses.
I’ve made so many bad choices in my life. So many wrong turns. But surrendering to Alexei—to us, to whatever we’re becoming—doesn’t feel like another mistake.
This feels like finally coming home.
His fingers trace the edges of the garter belt and slowly unhook each clasp from my stockings. Watching his massive hands perform such delicate work mesmerizes me.
This man dismantles people for a living, yet he’s removing my wedding lingerie like he’s handling a new baby chick.
Careful. Focused. Reverent.
Each brush of his fingertips along my thigh infuses me with more heat, until I can’t remember why I thought this was a bad idea.
The goosebumps pebbling my exposed skin aren’t because I’m cold. Alexei drinks in every inch with feverish intensity. I find myself arching toward him, offering more, and his sudden hiss is the most satisfying sound in the world.
“Aurora.” My name on his lips is a prayer.
Boldness seizes me, compelling my trembling fingers to reach for his shirt. I fumble with the first button, clumsy with nervous energy.
He moves to help. “Let me.”
I grab his hand. “I’ve got it.”
He stills, studying me with piercing blue eyes as I work the buttons free. The act of undressing him feels important. Like I’m claiming him just as much as he’s claiming me. I push the shirt from his shoulders, pausing for a moment to admire the expanse of tanned, scar-speckled skin.
The cross over his heart. The scars that map a history of violence. The tulip tattoo that seems too soft to be on the skin of a man so hard.
I touch every mark—the scars and tattoos—learning him with my fingertips the way he’s learning me with his eyes. When I reach the waistband of his pants, I hesitate, sudden shyness creeping in.
He saves me by rising to remove them himself. When he returns, he pushes me into the mattress, nothing between us but heat and the last of our hesitations.
His weight over me should feel threatening. He’s larger and stronger than the other men I’ve been with. And much more dangerous. Instead, his weight feels like security. Like shelter from a storm I’ve spent my whole life running from.
His warm breath coasts over my neck. “You’re shaking again.”
“I’m okay.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders to pull him closer. “Promise.”
Desire flares in his gaze before his mouth finds mine. He kisses me softly, tracing his tongue over the seam of my lips until I open them.
I expected Alexei to be rough and demanding. Dominant in bed the way he is in every other aspect of life. And though I know he can be, right now, he’s patient. Tender. As if he’s reading my thoughts and understands exactly what I need.
His reverent touch draws patterns on my hip, then my belly. He breaks the kiss when his fingers dip lower and props up on one elbow to examine my reactions.
“Alexei.” His name is half plea, half demand.
He plants a kiss on my temple. “Tell me what you need.”
“You. Just you.” The most honest statement I’ve uttered in a long time.
His thumb grazes my clit, pulsing shockwaves of pleasure through my body. I find his hard length and stroke the hot flesh with gentle pressure.
With a groan, he sucks my nipple and then bites down just a little.
Lava pools between my legs.
He reads me like a book and nips again, more forceful this time. How can he read my body so well already?
He slips two fingers inside me, pumping them in and out in a steady pace. The sensation is almost too much. I tighten my grip on his dick and glide my hand up and down, wanting to torture him as much as he’s torturing me.
“Fuuuck.” As he draws out the word, a vein in his neck pops. “I need to be inside you.”
“No one’s stopping you.” I pump my hand again, but one more stroke is all he allows.
He grabs my wrist, shooting me a warning look as he nudges the head of his cock against my entrance. Anticipation accelerates my heart.
This is our moment of truth. Once we take this plunge, there’s no going back.
He enters me with excruciating leisure, his thick cock stretching me as he buries himself inch by glorious inch. I whimper and dig my nails into his shoulders, demanding more.
For several seconds, I forget to breathe.
Once fully seated, he begins thrusting in a lazy rhythm.
Pleasure lights every cell in my body on fire. “Oh my god. You feel…incredible.”
He continues thrusting, a guttural sound rumbling his chest. Trailing kisses up my neck, he pauses to whisper in my ear.
“I have no words to describe how fucking good it feels to have my cock sheathed in your tight, wet pussy.” Another thrust has me clenching around him.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this for weeks.
” His teeth graze my skin. “But incredible is a good place to start.”
Our bodies move in perfect sync. Every time I tense, he pauses until I relax while murmuring low reassurances in my ear.
He gives me time to adjust, to feel everything. His muscles flex beneath my hands as I grip his shoulders, his back. The control he’s exercising is visible in his rigid jaw and focused eyes.
He’s gentling himself for me.
After everything, I’ll admit that I was a little nervous about how our first time together might go, what he might do to me.
Or maybe my anxiety centered around what I might learn about myself. What twisted things I might discover bring me pleasure.
Before this, I’ve never trusted anyone enough to truly explore my full sexuality. I was only capable of those previous moments I shared with Alexei because he initiated.
Not this time.
If I want more, I need to ask.
I dig deep to find my courage. “I won’t break. I promise.”
His eyes blaze with desire. He rocks his hips as he pulls back, dragging over a sensitive area inside me I never knew existed. “You sure?”
My spine shivers. My brain has malfunctioned, and I can’t recall how to speak. Instead, I grab his hand and suck his finger into my mouth. The slightly salty flavor of his flesh helps center me.
He groans. “If that’s what you want.” He withdraws his finger to cradle my cheek and slams into me.
His hold on my face is the only thing preventing me from screaming.
Not just from the physical ecstasy, but also from the emotional intensity.
Of letting someone this close, of trusting someone this completely.
I’ve spent my life keeping people at a distance, afraid of losing them, afraid of being abandoned again.
But here in this bedroom, I find myself surrendering.
He drags himself out, pressing on those hidden nerves, and then thrusts with enough force to rock me on the mattress.
Again.
And again.
Panting, I hook my legs around his hips.
“Look at me.” Alexei’s voice is rough with restrained passion.
I open my eyes to find his face above mine, his gaze intense. A silent understanding—beyond words, beyond physical sensation—passes between us. Recognition, maybe. Two broken people finding the places where their jagged edges fit together perfectly.
And still, I want more.
Lifting my head is nearly impossible with how tightly my body is already curling. Shaking, I pull his hand from my face and rest it on my breast. I suck on his lower lip, then soothe the nip with my tongue.
He groans into my mouth.
His rhythm changes, becoming more insistent. One hand cradles the back of my head, protecting me even now from the headboard. The other grips my hip, angling me to take him deeper.
I’m lost in the feel of him, in the mounting pressure that threatens to consume me.
Our pace quickens as passion builds. Each snap of Alexei’s hips drives him farther inside me, chasing our shared climax.
“Aurora.” He breathes my name against my skin, over and over. “My sweet Aurora.”
His claiming pushes me over the edge. “Yes,” I moan. “Yours. ”
The climax hits with unexpected force, crashing through every barrier I’ve ever constructed. I cry out, clinging to him like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s suddenly liquid. Seconds later, he follows me, his body tensing above mine, my name torn from his chest.
In the aftermath, we lie tangled together, breathless and stunned.
I’ve had sex before but never like this. This was more than just fucking. This was being unmade and remade in the same moment. The sensation of complete exposure and absolute safety.
Whatever this unlikely, impossible connection between us is, it feels far more dangerous than any weapon or threat.
And far more precious than I ever expected.