Vitali
Work has never felt like this before.
I’ve always excelled at every task. Cold logic. Getting shit done without letting anything touch me.
But it’s been thirteen hours since I left Charlotte and I feel feral. She is at home. Pregnant. Soft. Alone. And I am here trying to focus on shit that I wish didn’t need my attention.
Iosif, my cousin who is also bound to making an heir on a deadline, drones on about port diversions and transit schedules.
Anyone else would pay close attention, but every slide of the presentation might as well be static.
Because all I can think about is whether she’s eaten enough.
Slept enough. Whether she misses me as much as I fucking miss her.
Avros elbows me, grinning like a shithead. “You’re good, right? Didn’t leave your little maid-wife needy and desperate?”
My fist is already swinging before my brain engages.
The crack of knuckles into his mouth is satisfying in a way I’m not proud of. He reels back, hand flying to his lip, eyes wide in shock.
“What the fuck, Vitali?”
Iosif sighs at the interruption. Yury doesn’t even flinch. He just sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“You’re going to break the contract if you keep this up.”
My glare snaps to him. “What contract?”
“The one that ends when this baby is six months old,” Yuri says calmly. “The one that requires you to pay her and let her go.”
My pulse slams so hard I feel it everywhere, skin, teeth, spine. My head throbs with a stabbing pain that I’m unfamiliar with.
I have to let her go. Give her up. Set her free.
No.
“No one is taking her from me,” I say, too sharp, too fast.
Yury’s eyes narrow. “That’s not what you agreed—”
“I don’t give a fuck what I agreed.”
The room goes silent.
Because they hear it. The truth I didn’t mean to say out loud:
I am obsessed. I am gone. I am hers.
And I need to get back to her before the walls close in and I start breaking bones just to breathe again.
Yury changes the subject because he’s smart enough not to push. We handle business fast, efficient, and the second I have the sliver of an excuse, I take it.
“I’m done. I’m going home.”
Avros mutters around the blood in his mouth. “Goddamn. Pussy-whipped.”
I don’t even turn around. “Keep speaking and I’ll make sure I knock your teeth out.”
He wisely shuts the fuck up.
The drive back is a blur. Headlights slice through dark, every kilometer a slow-burning torture.
By the time I reach the estate, I am shaking with the need to see her. My wife. My pregnant wife.
The guards open the gates without a word, probably because of the expression on my face. I race inside and take the stairs two at a time, my heartbeat a weapon ready to fire.
Our room is quiet. Dim. She’s curled beneath the blanket, hair a tumble across my pillow, hand resting protectively over her stomach.
Over my child.
My chest cracks open and a painful, dizzying affection floods every hollow space inside me. I approach the bed and brush her hair back with a hand I’m not sure I can keep steady. She sighs in her sleep, leaning into the touch like she knows it’s me.
“Charlotte,” I murmur, lowering myself over her.
Her lashes flutter. A soft moan escapes her lips, my name tangled inside it.
I kiss her. Soft first because I need to taste calm before I take everything else. But the moment her mouth parts under mine my control is gone.
I kiss her awake, claiming her breath, her pulse, her dreams, and when her arms wrap around my neck, pulling me down on top of her, every cell in my body lights up with one truth.
Home is here. With her. In her. And I need to make sure she knows that.
She tastes like sleep and mint tea and the only peace I’ve ever known.
I kiss her like a man who has been drowning for thirteen hours and has finally found the surface. My tongue slides against hers, slow and deliberate at first, then deeper, hungrier, until she’s arching beneath me, her soft little whimpers vibrating against my mouth.
I pull back just far enough to look at her.
Moonlight spills through the gap in the curtains, painting silver across her swollen belly, the heavy curve of her breasts, the flush climbing her throat. She’s six months ripe with my child and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Vitali,” she breathes, eyes glassy, lips swollen from my kiss. “I missed you.”
The words detonate inside my chest.
I drag my shirt over my head and toss it aside, then shove my trousers down, kicking them away. Naked, aching, I crawl over her, careful of the bump, bracing my weight on my forearms so I can cage her in without crushing her.
“I’m here now,” I rasp against her ear. “And I’m never leaving you alone that long again.”
Her hands slide up my back, nails scraping lightly, and the small sting makes my cock jerk against her thigh.
I kiss down her throat, over the slope of her breast, sucking one tight nipple into my mouth. She gasps, back bowing, fingers spearing into my hair to hold me there. I swirl my tongue, graze with teeth, feel the shudder that rolls through her whole body.
“These are mine,” I growl against her skin, moving to the other breast, giving it the same worship. “This body is mine. This baby is mine.”
“Yes,” she whispers, breathless.
I slide lower, kissing the round curve of her belly, lingering there, lips pressed to the spot where our child moves.
I spread her thighs wide, settling between them. She’s already wet, thighs trembling, the scent of her arousal is thick in the air. I drag my tongue up her center in one slow, possessive lick.
She cries out, hips bucking.
I pin her down with a forearm across her hips and devour her. Long, thorough strokes, circling her clit, then sucking it gently until she’s writhing, begging, thighs shaking around my head.
“Vitali… please…”
I rise up on my knees, fist my cock slowly as I watch her watch me. Her eyes are dark, hungry, lips parted.
I nudge the head at her entrance and push in slow. She’s tighter now, swollen from pregnancy, and the heat of her is almost unbearable. I grit my teeth, forcing myself to go inch by inch, letting her feel every thick, throbbing, ridge of me.
“Look at me,” I order.
Her eyes lock on mine as I sink to the hilt.
A low, broken sound tears out of her throat.
“Tell me who you belong to,” I growl, pulling back and sliding in slowly again, deeper this time.
“You,” she gasps. “Only you.”
I drive us up slowly, the sound of her moans filling the room. Every long thrust pushes a soft cry from her lips, every retreat makes her chase me with her hips, desperate for more.
“Say it again,” I whisper, my voice gravelly with restraint and wonder, angling my hips so I hit that spot inside her that makes her eyes roll back.
“I belong to you, Vitali,” she sobs, voice cracking. “I’m yours.”
I slide a hand between us, thumb finding her clit fingers splayed over her mound, rubbing tight circles.
Her whole body goes rigid, then shatters. She comes with a scream, pussy clamping down so hard my vision blurs. I keep my pace exact, dragging it out until she’s shaking.
I lean down, mouth at her ear, voice raw and wrecked.
“You’re not leaving me,” I rasp, thrusting into her harder now, balls drawing up tight. “Not in nine months. Not ever.”
“Yes,” she sobs, clinging to me, legs wrapped high around my waist. “Yes, Vitali, I’ll stay, please—”
The words rip the last thread of my control.
I slam deep one final time and come with a guttural groan, pulsing hot and thick inside her, filling her again, marking her again, claiming her in the most primal way I know how.