Chapter Sixteen
Liza’s POV
He stood up, his great black suit a massive shadow that momentarily eclipsed the overhead light.
His jaw was set, his gaze still distant, focused on the security measures he was running in his mind.
He had just delivered the promise of protection, the terrifying, possessive decree that I was his, and now he was leaving.
A sharp, paralyzing panic seized me. The room, which had felt safe just moments ago under the sheer force of his presence, suddenly felt vast and cold.
I pictured the guards outside, the blood on the marble, the news of the baby, all the massive, monumental weight of the day crashing down on me.
I couldn’t face the silence. I couldn’t face the terror alone.
Roman’s dark, commanding presence, the very thing that had terrified me for weeks, was now the only anchor I had. He was solid. He was dangerous, but he was my danger. He turned toward the door, taking a slow step from the bed. “Roman,” I called out, the word a desperate plea, thin and shaky.
He paused but didn’t look back right away. Ignoring the exhaustion in my limbs, my hand shot out and clamped onto the heavy wool of his suit jacket near his hip. I pulled hard, using the last of my adrenaline to haul him back toward the bed.
He stumbled, surprised, and turned to look down at me.
His eyes were dark, unreadable. I didn’t wait; I used the momentum, surging up onto my knees on the bed, and initiated a kiss.
My mouth crashed against his, hard and desperate.
It wasn’t tender or sweet. It was driven by the raw, animal need to feel his heat, his mass, his overwhelming reality.
He tasted of steel and regret, and for a glorious second, he responded, his strong hands cupping my face, taking the kiss deeper, letting the sharp desperation of my need fuel the fire between us.
I tried to pull him fully onto the bed, urging him down onto the soft duvet.
“No, Liza.”
His voice was a low rumble against my mouth as he resisted. His hands moved from my face to my shoulders, pushing me back gently but firmly.
I looked up at him, breathless, confused by the sudden, clinical halt. “What?”
“Stop,” he said, his breathing heavy. His eyes were dark and intense, but his control was back in place. He smoothed the hair from my cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch. “You need to rest. Your heart rate is still high, the nurse said. And you collapsed today.”
His words were protective, yet frustratingly clinical. He reduced the moment to logistics, to medical charts, to the safety of the child.
“I don’t need rest,” I insisted, searching his face, trying to find the man who had kissed me seconds ago. “I need you to stay.”
I forced a weak smile, summoning all the lingering power I had. I kept my vulnerability show, the fear, the isolation, the desperate need for his safety.
“We just got married, Roman. We should consummate our marriage.” I paused, letting the statement hang heavy in the air, a clear, simple need that transcended the strategies, the money, and the terror.
“I don’t want to be alone right now. And I want you to be the one to finally make me yours, not just on paper. ”
Roman’s low, velvet laugh rolled through the dim room like smoke, curling around my skin and sinking straight between my thighs. The sound was so rare, so real, it cracked the last of his iron mask. His eyes, usually glacier cold, blazed with something feral.
“Consummate our marriage,” he echoed roughly with amusement and hunger. “Only you, Liza, could make fucking sound like a bedroom merger.”
Heat flared across my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop the smile. “It’s the most accurate word I have,” I shot back, breathless.
He didn’t answer with words. He answered with his mouth, crushing mine in a kiss that scorched every thought from my head.
It was deep, filthy, consuming; his tongue stroked against mine like he was already inside me, claiming every corner.
The lingering scent of me, claiming every corner.
The lingering scent of antiseptic and gun oil vanished, replaced by dark cedar, expensive wool, and pure, lethal male.
I dragged him down, arms locked around his neck, until his heavy weight pinned me to the mattress.
Confusion still flickered; he was the monster who stole me, the Bratva king who broke worlds, but right now, none of that mattered.
His body was solid steel and heat, the only safe harbor in the storm of my life. My protector. My husband. Mine.
He tore his mouth away just long enough to rasp against my lips, “The dress. Off. Now.”
“Yes,” I whispered, already aching.
His fingers found the tiny pearl buttons at my spine. No frantic ripping, he undid them one by agonizing one, as if unwrapping something sacred and forbidden. Cool air kissed newly bared skin, and his knuckles grazed the line of my spine, igniting sparks that arrowed straight to my clit.
The heavy cream satin slid from my shoulders, catching on my hardened nipples before slipping down to my waist. He peeled it lower, exposing the swell of my breasts, the curve of my stomach still faintly tender from everything I’d survived.
When the gown pooled in a defeated shimmer around my hips, he paused, eyes raking over me like brands.
“Christ, Liza,” he growled. “You were a fucking vision today. Every man in that church wanted to be me. And you knew it. You walked down that aisle knowing you were already mine.”
His fingertips traced my collarbone, dipped into the hollow of my throat, then lower, ghosting just above my nipple until I arched helplessly.
“I couldn’t look away from you either,” I admitted, the confession spilling out raw and honest. “Black suit cut like a blade, your brothers at your back… You looked like a dark king coming to claim his prize. Terrifyingly beautiful.”
Something savage flashed across his face.
Then his mouth was on mine again, no more teasing, no more restraint.
The kiss turned brutal and deep, teeth nipping my lower lip, tongue fucking my mouth the way I suddenly, desperately needed him to fuck my body.
His large hands slid from my shoulders, over the aching peaks of my breasts, thumbs flicking my nipples hard enough to rip a moan from my throat, then down the curve of my waist.
He gripped my hips with bruising strength, yanking me flush against the rigid line of his cock straining behind his trousers. The hard, thick evidence of exactly what I did to him ground against my soaked core.
His hand moved from my shoulders to my hips, pulling me firmly against his solid body, leaving no doubt about his intent or passion. The soft pace was over.
The kiss turned molten, a slow, filthy slide of tongues that stripped away every last defense.
With frantic trembling fingers, we tore the ruined slip from my body, leaving me completely bare beneath him, skin prickling in the cool air, nipples tight and aching for his mouth.
Roman’s eyes raked over me, dark and feral, the feared mob boss reduced to a man barely leashed.
He shrugged off his jacket, let it fall like a dead thing, then lowered himself over me.
The hard ridges of muscle beneath his shirt pressed against my naked breast, branding me with heat.
I was still cold from shock, from blood loss, from everything, but his palms were fire as they swept down my arms, over the curve of my waist, cupping my hips like he was memorizing the shape of what now belonged to him.
“You’re freezing, Liza,” he rasped against my ear.
He didn’t rush. He never rushed now. Every touch was deliberate, maddeningly gentle, as if the child growing inside me had rewritten the rules of his hunger.
His big hands stroked warmth back into my skin, thumbs tracing the fragile line of my hip bones, skirting the soft swell of my belly with reverence that made my throat ache.
I felt the tremor in him, the iron restraint locking every muscle tight.
His cock was already steel against my thigh, thick and pulsing through the fabric of his trousers, but he held back, breath sawing in and out, jaw clenched so hard I saw the tic beneath the stubble.
This wasn’t the brutal claim I’d half braced for.
This was something worse, something devastating.
Roman Lobanov on his knees for my comfort, proving with every slow drag of his lips across my collarbone that I was more than territory now.
His mouth drifted lower, brushing the slope of one breast, tongue flicking out to taste the tight peak of my nipple.
A broken sound escaped me, hips rolling helplessly.
He groaned against my skin, the vibration shooting straight to my clit, but still, he didn’t take.
He sucked gently, reverently, then moved to the other breast, leaving it with the same torturous care while his hand slid between my thighs, parting them with heartbreaking tenderness.
Two fingers traced my soaked folds, spreading slick heat, circling my swollen clit with feather-light pressure that had me sobbing his name. He watched my face like a man possessed, drinking in every gasp, every shudder.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he growled as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ll stop. I’ll wait a fucking lifetime if I have to.”
“No,” I choked out, nails digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. “Don’t you dare stop. Don’t you dare leave me cold again.”
The last shard of my armor shattered. I was done pretending I didn’t need this, didn’t need him.
My hands clawed at his shirt, yanking the silk free from his waistband, desperate to feel skin on skin.
Buttons scattered. I dragged the fabric open, palms sliding over the scarred, inked heat of his chest, the brutal beauty of a body forged in violence now trembling for me.
His scent flooded me. I wanted to draw in it. I wanted to forget my father’s betrayal, the blood, the fear, everything but the weight of Roman’s body and the thick cock straining against my thigh.
I arched up, thighs failing wider, slick pussy grinding shamelessly against the ridge of the erection still trapped in his trousers.
I moved against him, slow and deliberate, dragging my wet heat along his length, letting him feel exactly how ready I was.
My hands fisted in his hair, pulling his mouth back to mine in a messy, desperate kiss as I rolled my hips again, harder, urging him past the slow, frustrating restraint. I was ready. I was willing. I was his.
I rolled my hips against him, a slow, shameless grind that dragged the slick heat of my pussy along the rigid length still trapped in his trousers. Enough. I was done with restraint. My nails raked down his back, hard enough to score skin through cotton, and I bit his lower lip in raw demand.
Roman’s control snapped like a wire pulled too tight.
A guttural Russian curse tore from his throat as he reared up, ripping his shirt open.
Buttons pinged across the room, and the sight of his chest (inked, scarred, heavy) stole the last of my breath.
He shoved his pants down just far enough to free his cock, thick, flushed, already leaking at the tip.
One brutal yank and my thighs were spread wide, knees hooked over his forearms, opening me completely.
“Look at you,” he snarled, dragging himself through my soaked folds, coating himself in me. “Dripping for the devil’s cock.”
I couldn’t even form words, but only a broken moan as he thrust into me in one merciless stroke.
The stretch burned, perfect and punishing, and I arched off the bed with a cry that was half sob, half prayer.
He didn’t pause, didn’t give me time to adjust. He fucked me like a man possessed, deep grinding strokes that slammed against my cervix and dragged over every sensitive spot inside me until my vision blurred.
“Yes, fuck, Roman–“
His hand clamped over my throat, not squeezing, just holding me pinned, owning me, while the other slid between us to circle my clit with ruthless precision. Every thrust rocked the bed, frame groaning in protest. The monitors beeped faster, matching the frantic hammer of my pulse.
I clawed at his shoulders, his back, anywhere I could reach, marking the way he was marking me. My legs locked around his waist, heels digging into the flexing muscle of his ass, urging him deeper, harder, until the pleasure coiled so tight I thought I’d shatter.
“Come,” he growled against my ear, teeth scraping the lobe. “Come on my cock while I fill you up, while I take what’s already mine.”
The words detonated inside me. My orgasm ripped through me like a blade, white hot, violent, my pussy clamping down on him in pulsing waves. I screamed his name, back bowing, tears streaking into my hair as the terror and adrenaline of the day poured out of me in a single, devastating release.
Roman followed with a savage roar, hips slamming deep on last time. I felt every pulse as he spilled inside me, thick and endless, branding me from the inside out. His body shuddered over mine, sweat-slick skin sliding against mine, breath ragged against my neck.
Only when the last tremor left us did he ease his weight, careful even now of the life between us.
He didn’t pull out. Instead, he rolled us gently, still buried deep, until I was draped over his chest, his cock softening inside me but never leaving.
One heavy arm locked around my waist, the other tangling in my hair, anchoring me to him.
“Safe,” he rasped, the single word rough with possession and something dangerously close to reverence.
I burrowed into the furnace of his body, cheek pressed to the thunder of his heart, legs tangled with his. The room spun down to nothing but the slowing rhythm of our breathing and the warm, wet place where we were still joined.
Exhaustion crashed over me like a tide, dragging me under. For the first time since St. Petersburg, the noise in my head went quiet. We slept in each other’s arms.