Chapter 4
DIMITRI
I hear my name on her lips—breathy and desperate and completely undone—and something savage roars through me.
Mine.
The word echoes in my head with every thrust. She’s mine. Legally, physically, completely mine. Her body arches beneath me, trembling, making sounds that drive me absolutely insane with little gasps and whimpers that shouldn’t affect me the way they do.
This was supposed to be a standard consummation and nothing more. It should have been boring.
It’s not.
It’s the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced, and that fact enrages me almost as much as it intoxicates me.
She responds to me in ways that should be impossible given that I’m her enemy, that she’s clearly scared out of her fucking mind, and that this entire situation is fucked beyond repair.
But her body doesn’t lie. It arches into my touch, trembles under my hands, and her pussy clenches around me like she was made for this.
Made for me.
And when she comes apart and cries out my name, darkness and satisfaction surges through me. The power of it. The knowledge that I can make her respond like this despite the hatred and the fear and the circumstances that brought us here.
It’s intoxicating in a way that scares the shit out of me.
I tell myself it means nothing. It’s just biology, the physical response, her body betraying her the way bodies do. Simple mechanics, chemical reactions, nerve endings firing, etc.
But the way she surrenders to me (fighting it every second but surrendering anyway) speaks to something dark and primal deep within me.
I want to break her. I want to make her admit she wants this. That she wants me. I want to hear her beg for it.
And I hate myself for wanting that. I hate that this is affecting me at all when it should be nothing more than a formality.
When I finally let myself finish, it’s with a growl that sounds more animal than human. I bury my face in her neck to hide whatever expression is threatening to break through my carefully maintained control, breathing hard against her skin.
For a heartbeat, pressed against her with both of us breathing hard and shaking, I want to stay.
The urge is so strong it confuses me.
Then reality crashes back in. I remember who she is. What she is. An Ashford. The enemy. The daughter of the man whose family murdered my brother.
This meant nothing. It has to mean nothing.
I pull away immediately, rolling to the side. The sudden loss of her warmth and softness feels wrong. We lie there in the massive bed, not touching, both breathing hard, and the silence is overwhelming.
I can feel her confusion radiating off her in waves and can sense her trying to process what just happened. She’s trying to understand why her body responded the way it did to a man who hates her.
Good. Let her be confused. Let her wonder. Let her lie there and think about how her body betrayed her, how she responded to the man who’s supposed to be her enemy.
Maybe that’s a punishment all its own.
But the thought doesn’t satisfy me the way it should. Instead, that uncomfortable tightness is back in my chest—the same one that’s been there since I saw her at the ceremony and watched her walk down that aisle looking scared and beautiful and so goddamn young.
I force myself up and start dressing. My hands are steadier than I expect as I pull on my pants and button my shirt. It’s muscle memory, automatic movements that require no thought.
I don’t look at her, because if I do—if I see her flushed and thoroughly fucked in the bed, her hair spread across the pillows—I might do something unforgivably weak.
Like go back to her.
“Are you leaving?”
Her voice is small and uncertain and it makes me pause with my hand on my shirt, half-dressed.
I should say yes and walk out without explanation or apology. It needs to be made crystal clear that this was a transaction and nothing more.
Instead, I hear myself say coldly, “I told you. Once was enough to make it binding.”
I know these words are cruel, but it’s meant to hurt and create distance between us. She needs to be reminded of what this really is.
A business arrangement. A hostage situation. Revenge.
Nothing more. I will never be the husband she wants.
When I reach the door, I force myself not to look back even though something in me desperately wants to. My hand grips the doorknob hard enough that my knuckles go white.
Then I’m through it and pulling it closed behind me, and I can finally breathe again.
I end up in my office with a bottle of scotch that was supposed to last the month.
It’s one thirty in the morning. The house is silent except for the occasional creak of old wood settling and the sound of my security team making their rounds outside. I should sleep, or at least try to rest before the mountain of business waiting for me tomorrow.
Instead, I pour another glass and stare at the dark window, seeing my own reflection staring back.
I can still smell her on me. Despite the distance, her scent clings to my skin. It’s flowers, maybe, or vanilla. Whatever perfume or shampoo she uses, it’s fucking maddening.
I should shower and wash away every trace of her.
But I don’t move.
My mind keeps replaying moments I should forget. The way she trembled under my hands. The little gasp she made when I touched her. The sound of my name on her lips—not scared, not angry, but breathless and desperate and wanting.
“Dimitri.”
The memory sends desire right to my dick that I viciously suppress. This is exactly what I shouldn’t be thinking about. What I can’t afford to think about.
She’s an Ashford. Vincent Ashford’s daughter. Her uncle pulled the trigger that killed my brother. Her family is responsible for Alexei’s death, and no amount of chemistry or physical response changes that fundamental fact.
I drain my glass and pour another, welcoming the burn.
This is temporary insanity, physical attraction muddying clear thinking. It means nothing. Tomorrow, I’ll be back in control and I’ll remember why she’s here and what she represents.
Tomorrow, I’ll—
My phone buzzes. A text from Roman.
All quiet. Wedding went as planned. Both families dispersed without incident.
Right. The wedding. The marriage. The treaty that’s supposed to prevent a war.
I’m married now. To Vera Ashford. No—Vera Volkov. My wife.
The word feels foreign and wrong, like it doesn’t fit what this actually is.
I set my phone down and scroll to the wedding photo someone sent me earlier. Both of us stood stiffly next to each other while the judge droned on. She looks scared out of her mind in the photo, her face pale beneath that veil, her hands gripping her bouquet so tightly her knuckles are white.
And I look—
I look like exactly what I am. A man who just married his enemy’s daughter for revenge.
Cold. Hard. Unforgiving.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it? To make the Ashfords pay. To have leverage over Vincent. To possess something precious of theirs the way they took something precious from me.
Except now she’s upstairs, and I can still feel the ghost of her touch on my skin, and hear her voice breaking on my name, and nothing about this feels as simple as revenge anymore.
The confusion is almost worse than the rage. At least rage I understand. Rage I can use. Rage has kept me focused and driven for the past three weeks.
But this—this uncomfortable tangle of want and hatred—this I don’t know what to do with.
I remember the way she looked at me during the ceremony. Scared, yes, but there was something else beneath the fear. When I kissed her—that brief, brutal kiss meant to establish dominance—her eyes had fluttered closed for just a second before snapping open again in what looked like shock.
Shock at herself. At her own response.
And tonight, when I’d expected ice or resignation or passive acceptance, I’d found—
Fire.
Hidden beneath all that fear and vulnerability was heat. Real, undeniable heat that matched my own despite every reason it shouldn’t exist.
I down another glass and welcome the numbness starting to creep in at the edges. This is exactly why I should have maintained distance and treated it like the necessary evil it was supposed to be.
Instead, I’d let myself get pulled under and let myself forget—even for a moment—who she is and why she’s here.
It can’t happen again.
Whatever physical attraction exists between us is irrelevant. Meaningless. I married her to hurt her family, to maintain control, to prevent a war that would cost me more than I could afford to lose.
I didn’t marry her to—
I snort. To what? Want her? Care about whether she’s comfortable or confused or lying awake right now wondering what the hell just happened?
I pour another glass, but my hand pauses halfway to my lips.
Her family killed Alexei. That’s the fact that matters. That’s the truth that overrides everything else. Vincent Ashford’s brother murdered my brother, and whether Vera knew about it or not or was involved, she’s still one of them.
She’s still the enemy.
I look at the photo of Alexei on my desk. His smile. His joy. Everything that was stolen from him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to the photograph. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m doing this for you. For justice.”
But the words ring hollow even to my own ears.
Because tonight didn’t feel like justice. It felt like something else entirely.
I drain the glass and reach for the bottle again, but it’s empty. What the fuck? When did that happen?
The office is starting to spin slightly, and exhaustion is pulling at me with heavy hands. I should go to bed and sleep this off.
But I can’t go back upstairs because she’s there. I can’t risk being that close to her again or trust myself not to—
No.
I’ll sleep here. On the couch in my office. It’s safer that way.
Safer for both of us.
Because the really fucked up thing (the thing that’s keeping me awake and drinking at two in the morning) isn’t that I hate her.
It’s that I’m not sure I do.
And that confusion, that uncertainty, is more dangerous than any enemy I’ve ever faced.