6. Damir #3
Her veil is crooked. Her mouth is soft and angry. Her bouquet is gone. One of her pearl earrings has come loose, hanging by a thread. Her wedding dress is crushed between us, and still she lifts her chin like I am the inconvenient part of the day.
“Did you invite me?” I ask.
Her eyes flicker. There.
There it is. Not enough for a confession, but enough for me.
“I invited many people,” she says.
“No.” My hand tightens slightly at her waist. “You invited me.”
Her lips part, but no answer comes. The noise from the church surges, closer now. Men running. Orders shouted. Dmitri’s voice somewhere behind us, thick with rage and blood.
Sofia looks toward the passage. I catch her chin and turn her face back to mine. Her skin is warm beneath my fingers. Too warm.
“You caused a war in a church,” I say.
She swallows. “You came.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t blame me for your hobbies.”
That does it. The control I’ve carried for forty-six years does not break. It bends, just enough.
I lower my head.
I tell myself I’m doing it because she needs to stop talking. Because we are surrounded by danger and her mouth is a distraction. Because I need to know whether the heat in her eyes is fear, defiance, or the same violent pull that has been in my blood since I saw her in that restaurant.
All of those are lies. I kiss her because I want to.
Her mouth is softer than her words. For one suspended second, she goes completely still, shocked against me, her fingers trapped between us and her breath caught in her throat.
Then she makes a small sound that goes through me like a match dropped into oil.
I release her wrist and slide my hand into her hair, ruining whatever careful pins remain. Her veil shifts under my knuckles. She grabs the front of my jacket, not pushing me away, but holding on as if the world has tilted and I am the only solid thing left in it.
The kiss turns hard quickly. Her mouth opens under mine, and I take the invitation she has given without words.
She tastes like champagne, panic, and something sweet beneath both.
Her body presses closer before she seems to realize she’s doing it.
The lace of her dress scratches my wrist. Her fingers tighten in my lapel.
Her bare foot slides against my shoe as she leans up, chasing more.
I should stop there. I know I should.
I’m old enough to recognize the precise moment a mistake becomes a decision, and this is it.
Her back is against the wall, her hands are fisted in my jacket, and the church behind us is breaking apart in gunfire and screams, but all I can feel is the heat of her mouth and the wild little tremor that moves through her when I pull her closer.
My hand slides from her hair to the back of her neck, holding her exactly where I want her while I take her mouth again, deeper, rougher, swallowing the soft sound she makes when my teeth catch her lower lip.
She tastes too sweet for this place. Too alive.
Too mine for a woman who was standing beside another man at the altar less than five minutes ago.
That thought should disgust me. Instead, it turns something in me vicious.
I drag my mouth from hers and hear her inhale sharply, as if the absence of me hurts. Her head falls back against the wall, veil twisted around her shoulders, throat exposed, pulse racing beneath delicate skin. I look at that spot for one second too long.
Then I lower my mouth to it.
Her whole body jerks when my lips touch her neck. “Damir,” she breathes.
The sound of my name from her mouth does something violent to my restraint.
I bite. I soothe the bite with my tongue, then do it again, lower this time, where her throat meets the edge of her wedding gown.
The lace hides nothing from me. Not her shiver.
Not the way her breathing breaks. Not the way her body presses closer, confused and hungry and furious with herself for wanting this.
I lift my head and look at her. Her lips are swollen from mine. The mark on her neck is already blooming faintly pink beneath my mouth.
Christ. She is going to be a problem. A terrible one.
A beautiful one.
Behind us, someone shouts my name. Mikhail. The warning in his voice cuts through the blood in my head.
I look toward the passage, then back at the bride.
Her bridegroom is down somewhere behind us. Her uncle is armed and furious. Her invitation sits crushed beneath Sergei Antonov’s shoe. And Sofia Antonova is against the wall in front of me, mouth red from mine, wedding dress ruined, no longer looking like a sacrifice.
She looks like the beginning of a much better war.
I take her hand.
She looks down at our joined fingers, then up at me. “What are you doing?” she asks.
I pull her away from the wall. “What you invited me to do.”
Her eyes narrow. “I didn’t invite you to manhandle me.”
“No,” I say, leading her toward the side exit as gunfire cracks again behind us. “You invited me to a wedding.”
I open the door with one hard shove. Cold air rushes in.
I look back at her once.
“So I am taking the bride.”