Vitali
Her lips are softer than I expected.
I didn’t think kissing her at the altar would mean anything more than what it was intended for. A symbol of us joining before a God I don’t believe in, and a family who need this as proof that any heirs that follow will be legitimate.
Only something primitive and vicious in me took over the moment she breathed against my mouth and I whispered she is mine. And as soon as I lower my mouth to hers, carefully and deliberately, every intention I had for control fractures.
The kiss is brief. Civilized. Just enough for tradition. But I feel every individual part of it like it’s a recipe for something I didn’t know I liked or wanted.
Heat. Hunger. Possession igniting like a fuse.
When I pull back, she’s still trembling, but she doesn’t look away. Her eyes are wide, uncertain, shining with something that feels dangerously close to trust.
This is the first time I’ve touched her. The first time my skin has met hers. And already I’m ruined.
We turn, facing the mostly empty chapel. No applause. No celebration. Just the weight of expectation heavy in the incense-thick air. Her hand is still in mine when Yuri approaches. He’s the only other person here besides Sophia and the priest, the only witness who matters.
Yuri grips my shoulder. “Swift,” he says under his breath, approval threading his tone. “Calculated. Exactly what this family needs.”
I give a clipped nod. He has no idea how uncalculated this is anymore.
His gaze shifts to Charlotte, assessing but not unkind. “Welcome to the family,” he tells her.
She swallows like she’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a sentence.
Sophia pulls Charlotte into a friendly hug and presses a warm kiss to her cheek, whispers something that makes Charlotte’s shoulders loosen just a touch. I file that away. Sophia softens the edges of this world in ways no one else can. My wife may need that.
My wife.
The words strike like a blow to the very foundation of who I am. She stands so close her perfume curls into my lungs, something faint and floral that wraps around the iron edges I’ve spent my life sharpening.
I escort her out into the cold. Snow falls in silent drifts, catching in her hair like stardust. She looks otherworldly. Fragile. Breakable.
I should stay away from fragile things.
I open the car door for her and she slides inside, satin whispering. Her dress looks like it was spun for a queen. On her, it’s blinding. The way it hugs her curves is devastating and enlightening all at once. It’s confusing and I don’t like feeling like I haven’t got a tight grip on my control.
Once I’m seated beside her, the door closes, sealing us into warmth and leather-scented air. She folds her hands tightly in her lap, knuckles white.
“You did well,” I say quietly.
She lets out a breath that is almost a laugh. “I didn’t faint. That’s something.”
Amusement flickers through me, alien and unwelcome, but I don’t push it away. “Fainting would have been… inconvenient.”
Her lips curve just slightly. “Terrible start to a marriage of convenience.”
Convenience. That’s what I told her this is. Temporary. A contract.
Good.
Better she believes it. Because nothing about the way I want her is convenient. It’s a problem. A risk. A red stain spreading beneath a locked door.
We drive in silence for a few minutes. She stares out the window as the mansion comes into view through pine trees and snowfall, and I study her profile. The slope of her cheek, the soft line of her mouth still pink from my kiss.
A kiss that should have meant nothing. Should have been forgotten the moment it ended. Instead, it’s stamped into me like a brand.
“I don’t know anything about you,” she murmurs suddenly.
“You know enough,” I answer. Because to me, she does. I’m the heir to this family and I need an heir of my own. What more does she need to know?
She turns to face me fully. “Actually… no. I don’t. I don’t know what you like. What you hate. What makes you laugh. What makes you rage.”
I hold her gaze, every muscle taut. “All things you’ll learn in time.”
“In time for it all to be over?” she asks, voice so small it’s nearly invisible.
The car slows at the entrance. Guards nod. Gates open.
“Vitali?” she whispers, fingers tightening on her dress.
I look at her hand. So small. So breakable. My own curls into a fist to keep from claiming more than I should right now.
“Yes, Charlotte?”
“When the baby is weaned…” She swallows. “You’ll let me go?”
A strange ache pulses through me, violent and uninvited.
“That is what the contract stipulated.” My voice is a locked door.
But inside, something screams. And I already know I won’t survive her leaving.
The car stops. I step out first, offering my hand. She takes it, trusting me to guide her.
I lead her into the family mansion, to the wing we will inhabit for the next fifteen months until the baby is weaned and the contract ends.
She quietly takes it all in and then turns to me, a blush creeping over her chest, up her neck and staining her cheeks.
I should give her time to settle in. Get used to the way the world feels beneath her feet now. But I want her beneath me, gasping, pleading, filled with me until I’m certain my child is growing inside her.
I want her claimed in every way a man can claim a woman; body, name, soul.
“This is all ours until the baby is six months old,” I say, closing the carved door behind me.
I take her hand in mine, wanting the contact, but also needing to lead her.
I made a promise to myself that I would go gently on her, ease her in at least for tonight.
But the more we stand here alone delaying the inevitable, the harder it is becoming to fight the urge to fuck her senseless right here in the foyer.
Her gaze flits to the staircase, then back to me, wide-eyed.
“Now?” she asks, voice trembling.
My control is a thread stretched thinner than glass.
“Yes,” I say. “Now.”
Her breath stops entirely.
I take a step closer, close enough to feel her warmth, to see her pupils dilate.
“And if you’re afraid, remember this…” I lower my head until my lips almost graze her ear. “You’re mine now, and I take care of what’s mine.”
She shivers. A perfect, delicious quiver that leaves goosebumps skating over her skin.
I brush a knuckle down her jaw, the barest touch, and her lips part like a prayer.
The thread snaps.
“Get ready,” I murmur, my voice scraped raw with desperate, hungry need. “I’ll be through in ten minutes.”
I turn away before I forget every promise of restraint I made to myself.
Because the contract may say fifteen months…but the obsession that is already in my blood? It has no expiration date.