Chapter 50 Gabi
GABI
Ivan doesn’t let go of my hand as he guides me into the house, up the stairs and to my room.
I don’t know who has been here, but it’s been cleaned in our absence, with fresh linen on the bed and vacuum lines on the carpet.
“Who was in here?” I ask, my gaze jumping to the nightstand where my book and Bible should be, heart in my throat.
They’re still there, and I huff in relief at seeing them, maybe dusted, but exactly where I left them. Everything else, from the bridal magazines to the hairbrushes and discarded clothes, are neatly packed away on the dresser.
“Just Kostya, a man of many talents,” Ivan says as he closes the door and tugs at his tie. “Now, Gabriella Petrova, let me look at you.”
He homes in on me, his gaze soft but his intentions clear as he tosses his tie onto the chair and toes off his shoes. There’s no backing out now, and I stand still, glowing under the slow sweep of his gaze.
He takes his time, touching me with his heated gaze, from my lips to my chest, lower, to where my nipples harden against the wedding gown’s thick silk, then to my hips, igniting me. I shift on my feet, because his inspection is a slow seduction spreading fire in my blood, begging for his touch.
He reaches for my hands, and his warm fingers gently hold my quivering ones.
“I’ll go slow. We’ll go slow, because I want your first time to be perfect.”
Now I want to cry, because his murmured words promise to wipe all my horrid memories of the time in Mancuso’s cellar from my mind and replace them with memories of us, of him, and of his love.
“Just touch me already,” I beg, closing the gap between us, my breasts pressing against his chest. Take me somewhere where I don’t think about the past, worry about the future, and fret about the present and Chiara’s life all the time.
I want to beg for his help, because he might have connections who can help find her.
Be in the moment, cara. I’d hate for you to fuck this up because you’re worried about me.
For the first time in days, her voice booms in my head, crystal clear. I rake in a sharp breath. Chiara. She’s alive…maybe not well, but she’s—
“Sshhh, moya ptichka,” he hushes, his lips on my temple as he gathers me close, his hands on my hips.
“We have all the time in the world tonight,” he whispers as his lips slide down the shell of my ear, a hand coming up to cup my breast. “I don’t want to rush.
Everything has been so crazy these past months, this past year, let me honor the gift you are by giving you the time you deserve. ”
At these words, I want to shrink away, my throat filling with pebbles, heavy with the pressure of my deceit.
But this man, his gentle patience, how he honored my purity because that’s what I’m supposed to want, is enough to make me fall for him completely.
To shatter in love. So instead of pulling away, I cling to him as his thumb brushes over my nipple, as he kisses his way down my neck, sending ripples of desire to my sex.
“Ivan,” I beg, just wanting to get everything off my chest already and deal with the fallout.
“Feel that?” he grunts as he rolls his hips into me, the hard ridge of his cock hitting my mound through all the layers of fabric between us, the connection a perfect tease of what’s to come, each slow, deliberate thrust an exquisite little jolt to my clit.
“This is what we’re dealing with, and it’s fucking needy. I don’t want to hurt you.”
All I want is to whisper again and more, but his lips cover mine, quieting me as his hand slides down the valley of my breasts.
He gathers me flush with his straining erection, holding still now, pressing pause on the quick build-up in my body.
Not a single part of me wants to stop. Ever since I’ve felt what Ivan can do to me, my mind has been churning with lust in the background.
I ride up against his body, seeking the friction he’s depriving me of in this moment. It’s maddening.
“Don’t tempt me, moya ptichka,” he whispers, “to fuck you like you’ll still beg me to fuck you in future. There’s time for all of that, and we’ll get there soon enough.”
At his words, the visuals of everything he could do to me erupt like fireworks, and I know even if Ivan does take it slow, he won’t hold back. Within a week of being in this man’s bed, I’ll have experienced every physical pleasure, at last liberated.
I want to cave in, swept away in this fantasy of him actually doing what he promises me, and fuck me, take me, make me his because I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.
I splay my hands over his chest, hesitant at first to touch him like this, but I’m married now and something has shifted.
My fingers might be trembling, but his moans against my lips as I explore his pecs, the ridges of his collarbones, the muscles straining in his neck are fuel to my fire.
More and again are silent echoes in the room as he kisses me deeper and I ride my hands over his shoulders and help him shrug off his jacket.
His fingers rake into my hair, pulling my head back, exposing my chest as he peels the dress’s shoulder away, revealing my nipple.
With a groan, he leans in, licks and sucks as I grip his shoulders for balance, because the heat that sweeps through my body, drenching my thong even more, is an unstoppable wave that will make me crest if he carries on like this.
Easy. It’s all so easy now, the forbidden untethered and floating away on the tide of our mutual need for each other.
To think a few little vows have the power to shift my mind from sin to sanctioned, setting my whole being adrift in the sensation his hands and lips are creating, building need in my body.
Ivan releases my nipple with a tortured pop, sending a sensual, if somewhat painful zing of lust to my sex. “Fuck,” he grunts as he pulls away. “Turn around before I rip this dress off you.”
I do as he tells me, closing my eyes and breathing through the slow seduction of my husband loosening each button on my back, one by one, his knuckles placing soft kisses along my spine.
The dress falls forward, and he swipes my hair away, exposing my neck, kissing the dip of my shoulder as his hands circle my sides and cup my breasts from behind.
My nipples harden even more as he rolls them between his fingers, and I lean back into him.
“So close…” I breathe. It must be the novelty, my inexperience, or simply my attraction to him that has me this close to the edge already. Maybe it’s the slow burn of days wanting him, finally coming to this point. “I’m so close.”
“Too fast, moya ptichka. I want you soaked—”
“I am soaked.”
“I need you drenched, or I’ll hurt you,” he murmurs as he presses his cock against my butt, and I feel it, the size of him, even through layers of silk. He pulls away and steadies me with his hands on my hips. “Step out of the dress.”
I gingerly step over the fall of fabric, and he supports me when I wobble on my high heels.
“Hmmm,” he groans as he makes me turn and rakes me down with a glance.
My impulse is to cover up, but I meet his intense gaze and the command is there, so I relax my hands at my sides and let him look his fill. Naked, in only a lacy thong and heels that are killing me, my blush seems to spread with the route his eyes take.
My gaze travels, too…over the perfect fit of his tailored black shirt, to where it’s tucked into his pants, and the massive outline of what’s straining to escape its confines.
When his gaze drops to my sex, I feel myself swell there, the pulse point thrumming. Soon, achingly soon, I’m going to have to come, or I’m going to go mad.
Ivan seems to be fighting his own restraint as he lets go of my hand to fist his cock through his pants. “The things I want to do to you should not even enter my mind because you’re a virgin, but fuck, Gabriella, you’re the fantasy I’ve been waiting for.”
Pure. Untouched. His.
Unmarked.
That’s what Ivan is thinking, but that other Russian is here, even if only in a breath that seems to ghost over my back, sending shivers down my spine.