7
T he two-story house was more than Alessandra had expected. It was spacious, fully furnished and had a large backyard with an equally generous swimming pool.
“Did you buy it like this?” she asked Roman as they stood outside on the stone patio leading to the pool. They had driven home from their wedding reception in Roman's car, the twenty minutes spent together in the car going by in almost complete silence.
Home.
Like it or not, this was now the place she had to call her own.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I didn't have time to make any changes, but you're free to do so, if you want.”
She took a few steps forward, admiring her surroundings.
It was a hot night at the beginning of July, and the dark sky was laden with thousands of glowing stars.
She heard a click behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Roman light up a cigarette.
A smirk tugged at her lips as she turned around to face him, arms crossed over her chest.
“And to think that you gave me grief about doing the same.”
Roman put the Zippo into his pocket and gave her an unapologetic look. “You're too young to be indulging in such nasty habits.”
“I bet you were even younger than me when you started smoking,” she challenged, deciding to test the waters while she could.
“Fourteen. That doesn't mean I condone it in my wife.”
“Double standards much?”
“Yes, very much. You'll learn soon enough that us Russians tend not to be as delicate with our opinions as your Italian men. I don't like something, I say it.”
“That should also apply to the women, right? I'm a quick learner.”
Her reply made him chuckle, his voice low and rich. “You have some fire in you. I like that.”
Alessandra bit back a grin, happy to see that her husband had at least some sense of humor.
Feeling more at ease in his presence, she decided to kick off her heels.
Her feet touched the cold stone, and she let out a satisfied sigh as she lifted the bottom of her long dress and gathered the material in one hand.
When she looked up again, she noticed Roman's eyes were fixed on her naked calves.
“I couldn't wait to get them off,” she said more quietly. “My feet were killing me.”
He took a drag from his cigarette, blue gaze slowly traveling up her body, over the curve of her hips and lingering on the shape of her breasts. When he met her eyes, she was already blushing from the intensity of his stare.
“You look beautiful,” he said in a voice that left no room for interpretation.
“Thank you.” She accepted the compliment as she had been taught to from an early age, despite the anxiety blooming to life in the pit of her stomach.
She already knew what was expected of her on her wedding night, but no matter how attractive she found Roman, the prospect of being intimate with him scared her.
“Are you on birth control?”
To Alessandra's virgin ears, the question was shockingly candid. Still, she answered. “Yes.”
Roman nodded, and to her relief, dropped the subject.
They remained on the patio for another few minutes. Alessandra admired the stars and Roman smoked a second cigarette, both of them absorbed in their own thoughts.
???
At a few minutes past midnight, Alessandra stood with one hand on the doorknob, working up the courage to step out of the bathroom.
She had taken a shower, removed her makeup and changed into a silk nightie.
The lingerie was a gift from Carmen, and even though she didn't think it had been given with pure intentions, she had nothing else to wear for a wedding night.
She only had an overnight bag with her, the bulk of her clothes and personal items scheduled to be brought in tomorrow afternoon.
Taking two deep breaths, she twisted the knob and opened the door. Roman was sitting on the king-sized bed, eyes focused on the phone in his hand. He looked up when he heard her return, his gaze moving from her face to the silk lingerie she was wearing.
Feeling her cheeks turn red from his attention, Alessandra quickly took a few steps to the other side of the bed, eager to get out of his line of vision. Roman stood and silently stepped into the adjoining bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Alessandra propped her back against the headboard and pulled the sheet up over her chest as she listened to the noises Roman made as he took a shower then used his electric toothbrush.
The waiting did nothing to calm her nerves.
Anxiety seized her, sending a surge of panic through her body as her thoughts reached a place she didn’t like.
What if it hurt too badly?
Was he going to be gentle on her first time?
Was he even going to care about her comfort?
As inexperienced as she was, Alessandra knew some men liked their sex rough and had no regard for the woman's pleasure.
She'd heard enough stories from her married cousins and other female relatives to know it could sometimes go terribly awry—especially in a world where arranged, loveless marriages were the norm.
She remembered what her father had told her about Russians being violent by nature, and the nervousness she had been battling since they entered the master bedroom twisted her stomach into a tight knot.
She wondered if she’d feel any different were it Luca in that bathroom instead of Roman. At least she knew Luca. She knew that he could be gentle and loving. She knew that he’d never hurt her—not physically anyway. With Roman, everything was a Russian roulette.
She’d been curious about sex for a while now, and up until a month ago, she’d been excited and eager to experience it for the first time. But right now, she was torn, not knowing if she could still enjoy it with a different man from the one she envisioned in her random bouts of daydreaming.
She briefly contemplated asking Roman to sleep in another room tonight, but quickly dismissed that notion altogether. No mafia man in his position would ever agree to simply skip the sex without a good reason, and Alessandra had none of those except her own reluctance in the face of the unknown.
When Roman finally joined her in bed, wearing just a pair of black boxer briefs, Alessandra was a mass of cold, shivering limbs. He left the light on, and she fought the impulse to tell him that she wanted it off.
“You okay?” he asked in a neutral voice, as if them being in the same bed, half-naked, was perfectly natural. He studied her face, patiently waiting for an answer.
“I'm fine,” she said quietly, trying not to let her eyes wander south of his face. “Just nervous.”
“We'll take it slow.” He sounded calm. Confident.
Even though his cool and unrushed demeanor was meant to put her at ease, part of her hoped that maybe he was going to postpone the inevitable, seeing as she was just a bundle of nerves. That expectation quickly died out when he gestured her over. “Come here.”
Not wanting to upset her new husband and risk his wrath, Alessandra let go of the sheet and did as she was told, despite the way her knees trembled as she moved toward him.
She only intended to scoot a little closer to his side, but Roman had other things in mind.
Grabbing her waist with both hands, he easily dragged her into his lap, her legs straddling his hips and her crotch in dangerous proximity to his.
She exhaled a surprised breath—something between a gasp and a yelp—her hands going to his shoulders on instinct.
The feel of his strong, warm thighs beneath her chilled flesh felt alien.
She had never been this intimate with another man before, not even Luca.
Unable to hold his gaze this close, she looked down and noticed the eight-pointed star engraved on each of his shoulders, and another tattoo right above his abdomen—some sort of Cyrillic writing forming a half-circle.
Before she could analyze the meaning of them, Roman pulled her closer, positioning her where he really wanted her. Alessandra’s eyes widened when she felt the unmistakable outline of his erection between her parted legs, and her gaze fluttered up, barely able to focus on his face.
“You’re so cold,” he murmured, gently kissing the side of her neck. “What do you fear?”
“That it will hurt.” Her voice was little more than a rushed breath as her face flamed up with her embarrassment.
“It probably will,” he replied candidly, his lips slowly continuing their descent from her neck to her collarbone.
She felt a weak smile tug at her lips. If she weren’t so tense and awkward, she probably would have laughed. “You have a weird way of comforting me.”
He paused to look at her, his eyes darkened by lust. “If comforting means lying to you, I don't see why I would do it.”
“So I will relax?”
“We'll get there.”
He was arrogant, infuriatingly so, but somehow, Alessandra found that she liked it because it gave her some reassurance that he knew what he was doing.
After a beat, he went back to kissing her skin, his mouth moving down toward the soft mounds of her breasts peeking out from the luxurious fabric of her nightie.
He went at it for a while, his lips lavishing her with kisses until the tightness in her limbs started to lessen, leaving room for the first timid shivers of arousal.
She closed her eyes, a low hum vibrating in her throat as she allowed herself to simply feel .
She didn’t know much about sex, but if the way her body relaxed against him was any indication, he was quite good at it.
His wet tongue circled one of her nipples through the lingerie she was wearing, and she jumped a little, not expecting it.