Dariy
The elevator ride to the executive level feels longer than the one that carried Callie to my bed last night. My pulse doesn’t know what to do…speed up, slow down…like my entire circulatory system has been hijacked by a woman who I’ve only known for twenty-four hours.
I find Adrik alone in his office, reading numbers that decide the fate of men who don’t know they’ve already lost.
He doesn’t look up when he says, “You didn’t kill her. Did you at least put a baby in her belly.”
It is not a question.
“No, I didn’t kill her,” I answer, stepping in, shutting the door. “I can’t. But there has been a development.”
Now he lifts his gaze. Those ice-blue eyes not unlike mine, spark with something close to amusement.
“I’m going to marry her.”
Adrik sets his pen down with surgical precision. “You’ve known her for less than twenty-four hours, brother.”
I press my palms to the back of a chair, grounding myself. “Time doesn’t matter. What I feel—”
“Is exactly what I felt for Jasmine.” His voice isn’t mocking. Just tired. A man who remembers fighting the same madness not that long ago, and now goes home every night to her warming his bed.
“If you want to marry her,” he continues, “make it so no one, not even the bratva, can question it. You put your ring on her finger and put your child in her belly. That’s the only reality our world offers to women not born into it.”
I nod once. It’s already decided. “I’ll take care of the first part immediately.”
“And the second?” he asks, one brow rising. He already knows the answer.
“Will happen soon. And there’s no hardship in the trying.”
Adrik smirks and shakes his head. “I’m happy you found someone, Dariy, even if the circumstances were less than favourable.”
I turn to go, but he stops me with a final line:
“Be sure she understands the weight. A Korolyov marriage is eternal.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s the point.”
His words play on repeat in my mind all the way down to the ground floor where the casino and mall are located.
The jeweler is closed, but it doesn’t matter. One phone call and the lights flicker on like a shrine coming to life. I select the ring instantly, a bright diamond center stone flanked by two amethyst baguettes that burn violet under the display glass.
Her eyes. That impossible, unguarded violet.
“I’ll take it,” I say before anyone can speak.
When I return to my penthouse, Callie is curled on the sofa, hair damp from the shower, wearing my clothes again, and it feels like fate pulling a loaded gun on me.
She looks up.
I kneel.
Her lips part on a small, broken inhale.
“Callie,” I say, my voice unsteady for the first time in years, “you walked into a room you shouldn’t have and gave me a reason to defy everything I’ve ever been. You’re the only thing I care about protecting anymore. Be my wife. Stand beside me knowing you can never leave.”
Her hand trembles when I take it. She doesn’t snatch it away. She doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes,” she whispers, and it sounds like salvation.
I slide the ring onto her finger, and it fits like it was forged for her alone.
Before she can say another word, I draw the gun from my holster. Her eyes widen. I break the magazine open, bullets falling into my hand like dull gold.
One by one, I place them on the table between us.
“From this moment,” I tell her, screwing the silencer into place with slow, deliberate turns, “we have no secrets, no shame.”
My gaze lifts to hers.
“We are honest with each other in every aspect of our lives.”
She exhales shakily, stepping closer, until the ring presses against my chest.
“I didn’t know,” she breathes. “I thought it was a combination of adrenalin and fear and the way you were looking at me.”
“It’s okay, krasótka. It’s okay to be turned on by something that scares you.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “And it’s okay for you to break apart when you come inside me. I love knowing how good I make you feel. How you can let yourself go completely with me.”
I nod, her words giving me a permission I didn’t know I needed.
“Take off your clothes, Callie. I want you fully naked for me.”
She does as I say and pulls off my T-shirt and sweat pants, revealing she is wearing no underwear. Once she has thrown them onto the back of the sofa she stands in front of me. I shuck off my jacket, open the buttons at my collar and cuffs, and roll up my sleeves.
When I step towards her, she shivers with anticipation, her nipples pebbling.
I bow my head and she looks up, tracking her eyes over every part of my face before landing on mine. I press the length of the cold silencer against her thigh, exactly where it was last night.
Her response is instant. Her eyes cloud, and the scent of her arousal blooms between us, heady and sweet.
“There’s one more thing, krasótka,” I say as I move the tip of the gun over the soft skin of her thigh. “I have to breed you as soon as possible.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and nods.
“So you need to come off any contraceptives you are on,” I add, sliding the silencer between her folds. She mewls and her hips jolt sharply, her clit pressing against the cool metal.
“I’m not on any,” she says on a breathy exhale, her voice trembling with need.
My cock spasms. She has been letting me fuck her raw all along. Letting me fill her up knowing what the risk was. But she trusted me enough to let that happen.
Fuck.
Every intention I had of drawing this experience out fizzles away as the urge to come strips me of all sanity. I undo my belt and fly with one hand, tug my cock free from the confines of my pants and spin her around, bending her over the side of the sofa.
I’m in her instantly, lifting one foot onto the sofa for leverage and using one hand to hold my gun against her clit as I plow into her from behind.
I’m railing into her recklessly, thrusting with long strokes that have me pulling out of her wet heat each time, and then entering her again, making her scream with every re-entry.
Callie grinds against my gun, and I can feel how slippery it has become as her juices run down the barrel and onto my hand.
It’s all too much, and I can’t hold back as heat bursts at the base of my spine, my balls tighten, and I unload everything I have into her.
She brings me to my fucking knees every time.
The sounds ripping from me are nothing like the masculine control I live my life by, but needy little moans and whimpers that only ever happen when I’m with her.
She makes me that way, I realize, still pumping into her with everything I am.
She makes me want to fuck her and fill her over and over again, and I know it’s next level.
As the orgasm subsides, my knees begin to give way, and I lower us both to the floor.
I help her turn around, my entire body sensitive, my cock begging for rest, my gun slipping from my hand as I try to hold it against her.
With every clench of her cunt, I jerk, a broken whimper escaping me. I twist the gun, applying more pressure where she needs it most, and she shatters.
She throws her head back and comes on my cock with such force, a scream is torn from her.
The orgasm throws her rhythm off, and she slips from my cock and straight onto the silencer of my gun.
I try to pull it away quickly, but the look on her face makes me hold it still.
I press my thumb against her clit, instead.
She is silent now, her mouth open in an “O” of surprise, her eyes glassy with a faraway look as her body convulses through the last waves of pleasure.
She drops forward, bracing herself with her hands on my chest. She looks like a fucking queen, trembling on my gun and leaking my cum over my cock and balls.
I cradle her jaw with my free hand, a hand that has ended lives without remorse, and drag her mouth to mine.