Chapter 4
Dominik
She's asleep on my chest.
Her mouth is pressed to my collarbone. Her leg is tangled between mine. Her hand is curled against my ribs like she's holding onto something she's afraid will disappear. I’ve been watching her breathe for three hours because I can't stop.
I can't stop.
That's the thing no one would believe if I told them.
That Dominik Voronov, who has controlled every variable in his life since the age of sixteen, cannot stop watching a sleeping woman breathe.
Cannot stop looking at the way her eyelashes fan against her cheeks.
Cannot stop pressing his nose into her hair and inhaling the scent of her shampoo mixed with sex mixed with him…
The smell of two people who have fused together at a molecular level and can't be separated.
I knew.
That's what I keep coming back to. I knew at the auction. I looked at a woman on a stage in a see-through dress with her fists clenched and her chin up and her dark eyes full of terror, and something in me said: there she is .
Like I'd been looking for her my whole life without knowing it.
Like every decision I'd ever made, every kill, every deal, every calculated step up the ladder of an empire built on blood, had been leading me to that basement. To that moment. To her.
I've tried to explain it to myself in rational terms. Pheromones.
Psychology. The predictable response of a man who grew up without softness encountering softness for the first time.
I've tried to reduce it to biology because biology can be managed.
Biology is just chemistry, and chemistry is just math, and math is the thing I'm best at.
But math doesn't explain why I burned a plan to kill Kir Belov. Math doesn't explain why I bid a million dollars without hesitation. Math doesn't explain why the first time she flinched away from me, something in my chest tore open and hasn't closed since.
She stirs. Her fingers curl tighter against my ribs. Her eyes open.
She looks at me and she doesn't flinch or calculate. She looks at me the way a person looks at the thing they chose.
"Last night," she says. "You didn't use anything."
The air shifts.
"I know," I say.
"Was that deliberate?"
I take a slow breath in, steeling myself for what happens when I tell her the truth. "Yes."
She's quiet. Her finger stops on the scar. "I said not now, Dominik."
"You also said yes. You said don't stop. You said yours . And you didn't ask me to pull out."
Her cheeks flush. She holds my gaze.
"That's not the same thing."
"I know it's not." I roll onto my side. Cup her jaw. Run my thumb across her cheekbone. "If you tell me you're not ready, I'll stop. Every time. Until you say otherwise."
"And if I am ready?"
My heart slams once. Hard.
"Then I will fill you tonight and every night after until it takes. And I will marry you before it shows. And every man in this city will know that Wren Calloway is mine in a way that goes beyond paper or money or territory."
She stares at me. Her lips part. "That's not how this works."
"Then explain to me how it works, Wren. Explain how I looked at you on that stage and felt something click into place that was never there before.
Explain how I walked away from a kill I'd spent three weeks planning because the thought of another man touching you made my vision go red.
Explain how I kneel between your legs every night like a man at prayer because the taste of you is the closest thing to God I've ever found. "
Her breath catches.
"I can't explain it," I say. "I've tried. I've run every equation I know and none of work out. You're the variable I can't predict. The outcome I can't control. And instead of terrifying me, which it should, it makes me want to build my entire life around the uncertainty of you."
Her hand comes up. Presses flat against my chest. Over my heart.
"Your heart is racing," she says.
"It does that when you're close."
"The big scary bratva king has a racing heart."
"The big scary bratva king has a lot of things he didn't have eleven days ago."
She looks at me. Something shifts behind her eyes.
"Yes," she says.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I'll marry you. Yes, I want this. Yes, you can..." She falters. Color floods her face. "You know..."
I kiss her, rolling us so she is on top of me, all soft and warm and naked.
She pulls back, looks at me for a moment.
“I’ve never done this before,” she states.
“Which part?” I ask, stroking my hands down her side until they find her hips.
“Any of it,” she says. “I’ve never had a relationship, never been married, never had sex until last night…”
My cock throbs at her words. I knew she was a virgin. I saw a smear of blood when I looked at the space between us. It’s what pushed me over the edge so soon.
“I’ve never been on top…” she adds, her face flushing.
“Just take your time, do what feels good, let me know if you want to stop.”
She frowns a little, a cute crease of determination forming between her brows as she lifts her hips and looks between us.
Leaning back, she takes my cock in both her hands, working it slowly, testing out lighter and firmer grips, different length strokes, watching as a bead of precum forms and spreads, then forms again.
The she lifts herself up, lines me up with her entrance, and slides down my shaft slowly. Easing from side to side, spreader her knees wider beside me to open her up a little more.
When she has taken me fully, her head tips back on a moan, a shiver running through her.
“It feels good,” she says, her voice a register lower than usual. I cup her tits in my hands and squeeze lightly. Her nipples pebble against my palms, and my cock throbs in response.
Slowly, she rocks back and forth, testing which angle works for her. Then she rises up and down, my length slick with her arousal and glistening in the morning light.
I watch her through half-lidded eyes, every muscle in my body locked tight with the effort of not thrusting up into her like a man possessed.
She’s so fucking tight, her walls gripping my cock like warm velvet that was made for me alone.
Wren’s hands brace on my chest, fingers splayed over my scars, and she rocks again, clumsy, experimental, her hips rolling in a tentative little circle that drags her clit against the base of me.
A soft, surprised sound slips out of her throat. Her cheeks are flushed deep pink, lips parted, that wide mouth I’ve dreamed about for eleven straight days now trembling with concentration.
“That’s it,” I murmur, voice rough as gravel. My hands stay on her hips, thumbs stroking the soft skin there, but I don’t guide her. She needs this. She needs to learn exactly how to take what’s hers. “Feel how deep I am, Wren? Every inch of you stretching around my cock. You’re doing so well.”
She bites her lip, that determined crease between her brows deepening as she lifts herself and sinks back down.
The movement is uneven, a little too fast on the way up so that I almost slip out of her, then a shaky drop that punches a groan out of my chest. Her inner thighs tremble against my sides.
“Fuck—Wren.” My fingers flex on her hips, fighting the urge to slam her down harder. “Slow. Just like that. Ride me however you want. This cock is yours to use.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, dark and glassy with a mix of nerves and heat.
She tries again, rising higher this time, sliding down with more confidence until her ass meets my thighs.
A slick, obscene sound fills the room, her juices coating me, dripping down to my balls.
She gasps, head tipping back, and the sight of her like this; naked, flushed, tits bouncing softly with each clumsy roll of her hips, sends a fresh surge of blood straight to my cock.
I’m throbbing inside her so hard it borders on pain, but I stay perfectly still beneath her. Obsession coils tighter in my chest, hot and vicious. This woman. My woman. Learning to fuck me like she owns me, because she does. She’s owned me since the second our eyes met across that filthy basement.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” I rasp, letting the words spill out unfiltered. “Taking my cock for the first time on top. Look at you, perfect and so fucking wet for me. Keep going, Wren. Grind harder. Find what makes that pretty little clit throb.”
She moans softly at my words, the sound going straight to my balls.
Emboldened, she starts moving with more rhythm.
Still awkward, still learning the angle, but chasing her pleasure now.
She leans forward, bracing one hand beside my head, the other on my chest, and rocks her hips in short, grinding strokes that drag her clit against me with every pass.
Her breath hitches every time she bottoms out, a broken little whimper that makes me want to ruin her and worship her at the same time.
“Yes—fuck, just like that,” I growl, my voice low and filthy. “Use me. Ride my cock like you need it to breathe. I can feel how tight you’re getting, Wren. You’re going to soak my lap while you learn exactly how deep I fit inside this perfect cunt.”
Her rhythm falters for a second, thighs shaking harder, but she doesn’t stop.
She presses down harder, circling her hips in a figure-eight that has her gasping my name like a prayer.
Sweat beads between her breasts. I want to lick it off.
I want to flip her over and pound into her until she screams. But I let her stay in control, let her own this moment, because every inexperienced roll of her hips is another chain wrapping around my soul.
Her walls start fluttering around me, rhythmic and greedy, and her eyes squeeze shut.
“Look at me,” I command softly. “I want to watch you come.”
Her eyes fly open, locking on mine. That’s what does it.
She grinds down hard once more, then shatters with a cry that punches straight through my chest. Her pussy clamps down on my cock like a fist, pulsing, milking me as her body trembles and her nails dig into my skin.
I feel her come, wet heat flooding around me, her thighs clamping tight against my sides, and the sight of it nearly drags me over the edge with her.
I grit my teeth, hips twitching with the need to thrust up into that slick, fluttering heat, but I hold perfectly still, letting her ride out every wave while my balls empty inside her.
When she finally slumps forward onto my chest, panting, I wrap my arms around her and press a kiss to her damp temple, my cock still buried to the hilt inside her.
“Good girl,” I whisper against her hair, voice wrecked with obsession and pride and something far more dangerous. “My perfect fucking wife-to-be. Look at what you just did to me.”
She makes a soft, exhausted sound of contentment, nuzzling into my neck, and I know with absolute, terrifying certainty that I will never let her go. Not in this life. Not in any other.
I’m already thinking about the next time. About filling her until she’s dripping with me. About the day her belly starts to swell with our child.
But for now, I just hold her, heart hammering against hers, and let her stay exactly where she belongs, on top of me, in control, learning how to claim what’s already hers.