Chapter 8 #2
“A partnership with the understanding that my opinions and preferences matter as much as yours, even when they’re inconvenient or challenging.”
“I can work with that.” I reach out to touch her face, letting my thumb trace the elegant line of her cheekbone. I’m surprised she doesn’t move away. “Partnership requires trust, and trust takes time to develop.”
“Trust has to be earned through actions, not promised through words.” She still doesn’t pull away from my touch, but she doesn’t lean into it either. “Especially when those actions involve consummating a marriage neither of us wanted in the first place.”
The elephant in the room. We’re married now, which means certain expectations about tonight that I’ve only just begun to address.
The suite includes a king-sized bed that’s been prepared with rose petals and champagne in a romantic staging that assumes newlyweds are eager to celebrate their union physically.
“What do you want from tonight?” I ask, deciding that direct communication serves us better than dancing around obvious realities.
“I want to get through it without feeling like I’ve been conquered or claimed or reduced to someone’s property.
” Her answer is delivered with the straightforward honesty that seems to be her default approach to difficult conversations.
“I want to maintain some sense of agency even in circumstances I didn’t choose. ”
“I’d like the same thing.”
She eyes me warily, clearly not sure she can believe that. “If that’s true, we might discover that forced marriage doesn’t have to mean forced intimacy.” Zita steps closer, eliminating the space between us. “We might discover choosing each other is different from being chosen for each other.”
The distinction is subtle but important. We can’t change the circumstances that brought us together, but we can choose how we respond to those circumstances. We can decide whether to treat tonight as duty to be endured or opportunity to be explored.
“Choose me, then.” I frame her face with both hands, noting how her breathing has become slightly unsteady. “Not because you have to, but because you want to see what happens when we stop fighting each other and start fighting together.”
“Choose you,” Zita repeats, and there’s something almost like wonder in her voice. “Not the man I was forced to marry, but the man you actually are when you’re not performing your role as Bratva heir.”
“I don’t know who that man is yet.” The admission feels dangerous but thrilling.
“Then let’s find out together.” She rises on her toes to close the distance between us. “Let’s see who we are when we’re just two people who happened to end up married to each other.”
When she kisses me, it’s nothing like the one at the altar. This kiss is exploratory, tentative, and genuine in ways that our previous interactions haven’t been. She tastes like champagne and someone discovering her new husband might be more complex than she expected.
I respond carefully, letting her set the pace and intensity rather than imposing my own agenda. I want her. I want her bad, but she needs to want me too.
When we break apart, she looks surprised by her own response. “That wasn’t too terrible.”
As she reaches for my bowtie, giving it a tug, I give a wry smile. “Your words could go to my head if you aren’t careful.”
She gives me a smile that seems genuine while reaching for my jacket, pushing it down my shoulders until I let it fall. I undo the cummerbund. “You know what I mean. It was better than I expected.” She gets busy unbuttoning my shirt next.
“Better than duty.” I trace the delicate line of her collarbone, noting how she shivers under my touch. “Better than performance.”
“Much better.” Upon finishing with my shirt, she begins working at my belt with hands that are steadier than mine. “I should warn you that I have no intention of being passive or grateful or any of the things wives are traditionally expected to be.”
“Good.” I help her with my remaining clothes, appreciating how she watches my body with frank curiosity rather than fear or resignation. “I have no intention of treating you like anything other than an equal.”
“Prove it.” The challenge in her voice is gentler than before, but still unmistakably present.
What follows is indeed more like combat than romance, but combat between equals rather than conquest. I begin mapping her body with my hands, starting at her shoulders and working downward with deliberate slowness.
Her skin is warm and soft under my palms, but there’s strength underneath the feminine curves that speaks to someone who won’t be easily overwhelmed.
She doesn’t melt under my touch or become pliant.
Instead, she mirrors my exploration, running her hands across my chest and shoulders.
When I find a sensitive spot at the base of her throat that makes her breath catch, she immediately searches for similar places on my body, testing different pressures until she discovers what makes me tense under her touch.
“I want to learn what affects you,” she says, pressing her mouth to the hollow where my pulse beats visibly while she glides her hand over my chest, which is covered in tattoos that are meaningful to me personally and as a bratva member.
“I want to know what makes you lose that control you’re so proud of. ”
I slide my hands down her sides, noting how she arches into the contact rather than pulling away.
When I cup her breasts, she makes a soft sound of approval and drags her nails down my back with enough pressure to leave marks.
There’s nothing passive about her response, nothing that suggests she’s simply enduring my attention.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve been with before,” I say, circling my thumbs around her nipples and watching her face change with pleasure.
“How am I different?” She reaches between us to wrap her hand around my cock, and her grip is confident and sure.
“You’re demanding rather than submissive.” I have to pause to catch my breath as she explores my shaft with increasing boldness. “You’re challenging rather than accommodating.”
“I’m giving as much as I’m taking,” she says, moving her hand in a rhythm that makes my vision blur. “That’s what equals do.”
When I lift her and carry her to the bed, she doesn’t resist, but she doesn’t become passive either. She wraps her arms around my neck and captures my mouth in a kiss that’s hungry and demanding. I lay her back against the pillows, and she immediately pulls me down to cover her body with mine.
“I want to taste you,” I say against her throat, pressing kisses down her collarbone toward her breasts.
“Yes.” She threads her fingers through my hair, guiding me where she wants my mouth. “Then I get to return the favor.”
I take my time exploring her with my tongue and teeth, starting with her breasts before trailing my mouth farther down her body to learn what makes her gasp and arch beneath me.
She’s responsive and vocal, telling me what she likes and showing me with her movements what drives her wild.
When I move lower, settling between her thighs, she watches me with eyes that are dark with desire but still sharp with intelligence.
“I bet you taste incredible,” I tell her before putting my mouth on her mound and swiping my tongue along her slit. Her tangy, slightly salty, and sweet flavor blooms on my tongue like a fine wine.
Her response is immediate and intense. She arches her back off the bed as I work her clit with focused attention. She fists her hands in the sheets and then in my hair, holding me exactly where she wants me while she moves against my mouth with increasing urgency.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers, and her voice is rough with need. “Right there.”
I focus on the spot just under the hood of her clit, which seems to be her most sensitive place.
Alternating between licking, flicking, and sucking, I continue until she comes apart beneath my tongue, trembling with the force of her release.
When she finally relaxes, she immediately reaches for me, pulling me up her body with hands that shake slightly from the aftermath.
“My turn,” she says, rolling us over with surprising strength until she’s straddling my hips.
She takes her time exploring me the way I explored her, mapping every inch of my chest, pausing to focus on my tattoos for several moments, before moving down to my abdomen. She uses her mouth and hands, always moving and keeping me stimulated.
When she moves lower and takes my cock between her lips, the sight of it disappearing into her mouth, followed by the moist, heated sensation of her tightening her cheeks around my length, is almost overwhelming.
She works me with the same focused attention I gave her, learning my responses and using that knowledge to drive me to the edge of sanity.
“Zita, you need to stop,” I warn when she brings me dangerously close to losing control by flicking her tongue along the V on the underside of my cockhead.
“Okay. Don’t come yet.” She releases me and moves back up to position herself above me. “I want to feel you inside me when you do.”
She grasps the base of my cock and lowers her pussy onto me slowly, taking me inch by inch while we both adjust to the intensity of being joined.
The sensation is incredible, but what affects me more is the way she watches my face as though she’s noting every reaction and storing it away for future reference.
“You feel perfect.” I grip her hips as she begins to move.
“So do you.” She sets a rhythm that’s designed to drive us both crazy, alternating between slow, deep movements and quick, shallow ones that make us both gasp.
When I can’t take the controlled pace anymore, I roll us over and pin her beneath me, driving into her with increasing urgency. She meets every thrust with equal force, wrapping her legs around my waist and demanding more intensity with her movements and her voice.
“Harder,” she says against my ear. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
I give her exactly what she’s asking for, and she responds with passionate engagement that makes this feel like mutual claiming rather than one-sided possession. When her release builds, I feel it in the way her body tightens around me as her breathing becomes ragged and desperate.
“Let go.” I reach between us to touch her where we’re joined. “I want to watch you fall apart.”
She does exactly that, coming with my name on her lips and her inner walls clenching around my cock in waves that trigger my own release.
I bury my shaft deeply inside her wet heat and come with a hoarse cry while she holds me against her with arms that tremble from the intensity of what we’ve shared.
In the aftermath, we lie tangled together without speaking, both of us processing what just happened between us. The physical connection was intense enough to surprise us both, but more than that, it felt genuine in ways our previous interactions haven’t managed.
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed,” I say while appreciating how she fits against my side as if she belongs there.
“It wasn’t like I expected.” She puts her hand over my left pec, partially covering the bratva star on that side. “I thought it would feel like surrender or conquest. Instead, it felt like…”
“Partnership,” I finish when she struggles.
“Partnership,” she repeats, and there’s something almost like wonder in her voice.
We lie in comfortable silence while our breathing returns to normal and our heart rates slow to something approaching calm. “What happens now?” she asks eventually.
“We should figure out how to build something real from circumstances that started artificially.” I press a kiss to her temple, and she doesn’t pull away from the affectionate gesture.
“I hope our partnership can grow into something that benefits both of us instead of just serving our families’ interests. ”
She sounds uncertain when she asks, “What if it can’t? What’ll we do if we discover we’re too different or too damaged by this arrangement to create anything genuine?”
I hesitate. “I suppose we’ll have to find ways to make the best of what we have.” I pull the sheet over both of us, creating a cocoon of warmth and temporary privacy. “After tonight, I think we might surprise ourselves with what we’re capable of building together though.”
“I hope you’re right,” she says with cautious hope.
As I drift toward sleep with my new wife in my arms, the battle between us hasn’t ended. It’s evolved into something more complex and potentially more rewarding. If we can make it work, we could have a partnership where both sides can win instead of one having to surrender to the other.