Chapter 8 - Anton #2
It’s Darya. I recognize the touch before I angle to face her.
One glimpse of her plastic smile, and I don’t have to question what’s happening. She’s simply performing.
“It’s time,” she announces.
Shit.
My hand may dwarf hers, but it’s she who leads me to center-stage and steps into my arms, her body slotting against mine in a flawless stance.
My priorities rearrange themselves. Her eyes lock onto mine.
This is one of the few Western customs integrated into the ceremony, and she’d warned me about it beforehand.
Nevertheless, “Are you going to step on my toes, Anton?” she taunts.
“Or is dancing one thing you’re actually capable of doing today? ”
The fire in her eyes sets heat coursing to my groin. It’s serrated and honest. Real. My fingers press indents beneath her left shoulder blade. “Will you stomp on mine?”
She shifts her weight to the balls of her feet, likely encased in heels that help her lips easily reach just below my ear. To spectators, I’d bet it looks like she’s laying a kiss on the spot. “The idea has crossed my mind more than once,” she says.
I bite back a smile, since she just might do it if she catches it. She’s performed too hard today for it to be ruined like that. “I would advise against it, personally.”
“Who asked for your advice?”
“A good wife would,” I suggest.
Darya’s eyes threaten to eviscerate me. The smile escapes my grasp on it, no longer willing to be withheld.
It works out in my favor. She’s stunned enough by its appearance to let me lead her around the dance floor, the music swelling to a wave I ride with her against me.
This close, I can feel the boning of her corset press through three layers—the shirt, a waistcoat, and my tuxedo jacket—and brand me.
Her breath does the same, fanning out against my neck.
Her shock must burn off soon enough, because it isn’t long before she zings, “You’re better at this than I expected.”
I steal the barb from her before it leaves her lips. “Should I be touched that you’ve been imagining dancing with me, krasivaya?”
The word slips out without my meaning for it to. It would be nothing short of dishonesty to reel it back, if that were even possible. She is beautiful. In front of her, it’s a paltry fucking word, actually.
But I should know better than to think it would change anything for her. Darya’s expression remains impassive. Unmoved by it. Her voice remains flat and factual as she murmurs, “You should definitely be touched that I’m letting you touch me.”
“I am.”
The way she throws her head back to laugh, trusting my hand to hold her in place in some impromptu trust exercise, she looks like a vision. I doubt anyone but me hears the note of cruelty in her pretty laughter.
“Sure,” she dismisses, segueing into a twirl my hands can’t help but oblige. “Your uncle keeps staring at us, by the way. I thought you should probably know that.”
“I know,” I lie, refusing to follow her gaze.
I steer her back against my chest instead, navigating her body around, until the look I catch is as organic as it is orchestrated.
Sure enough, Boris is glaring. I don’t bother explaining to Darya that, with the day I’m having, I couldn’t give less of a shit about his displeasure. This is hard enough.
We make it through the rest of the song like that, though. I have to pause and consider if it bothers her when she doesn’t budge from the stance as the next song begins.
Despite an arched brow, I don’t question her.
I cut right to the point. “Are you afraid of him?”
My incredulity must shine through because Darya looks comically insulted. “I’m afraid of no one,” she assures. “He just creeps me out.”
Of all the things I thought could go wrong today, I never considered my own bursting into laughter being one of them.
Just like that, I feel at least ninety percent of the room turn to stare.
I can’t even blame them. Laughter isn’t something I engage in often, and certainly not as a casual affair amidst a jury of vultures.
Yet here we are.
Fortunately, there are plenty of people to look at who aren’t my mother or uncle. I can name at least nine pairs of eyes that are eyeing only me, and softening over the sight of what a magnificent bride Darya makes. “Your family adores you. Focus on that.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “If this is going to be your warning me that yours won’t, though, you can save it. I don’t give a damn.”
“I don’t either,” I say, and find the words true.
If I did, I wouldn’t have proposed.
The song bleeds into the next, and I don’t think she believes me. Yet she doesn’t move away either. Swirling around us, the reception finds its rhythm. Before long, chatter surrounds us, glasses clink and empty, and even the most reluctant of guests seem to accept the occasion.
I maintain my doubts, for obvious reasons. It’ll take more than a few convincingly romantic dances to convince a room full of hardened criminals to get on board with an alliance. And I have to live with it, that if they do, that’s Darya’s handiwork.
The score for the evening is Yuris: 1, Zakharovs: 0.
This isn’t helped by Viktor going off the fucking rails and getting the crowd going. It’s like powder and a lit fuse. In seconds, the entire room seems to be chanting, “Gorko! Gorko! Gorko!”
Bitter, I know what it means.
An invitation to sweeten the room with the married couple’s kiss.
Somehow, it was a ridiculous, frivolous tradition I managed to bypass at my first wedding. Darya isn’t so lucky today. She knows that. I can tell from the way the spot between her fine brows dents.
After what she’s done today, practically fucking carrying me, I owe her this. I can give her this.
“It’s just a kiss,” I remind her gruffly.
However stiff her body is, I can conceal its language with my arm slipping from its perch on her back to ensnare her, hauling her flush against me. The warmth of my body thaws her enough for me to go for it.
My head lowers, and my lips brush hers, chaste. Sweet.
She fucking destroys that when her part comes with a gasp. It’s involuntary, I can tell; her cheeks color, as if she’s bashful about it.
Fuck.
I raise the tangle of our hands to her cheek, cupping her jaw, guarding the look on her face.
Shielding it, and apparently pissing her off in the process, if the adamant way her head tilts to deepen the kiss is anything to go by.
She punishes me with a nip to my bottom lip.
Her shiver wracks through my body when I surrender to her mouth.
I surrender.
The chanting dies down before either of us pulls away.
No. This is nothing like my first wedding.