Chapter 10 Katya
Katya
The words leave my mouth before I can reconsider them.
I don’t want to reconsider them.
“I’m ready to be your wife now,” I say quietly. “If you want me to be.”
The silence that follows fills the entire room.
Killian doesn’t move. He stands by the closed door in nothing but cotton pajama bottoms, barefoot, bare-chested, his breathing slow and controlled in a way that tells me control is the only thing keeping him still.
His eyes search mine.
“Katya,” he says carefully. “I need you to understand what you're saying.”
“I know what I’m saying.”
“You’re in my room in the middle of the night after a week of—”
“Yes,” I interrupt. “Seven days of you pulling out my chair, bringing me tea, and sleeping down the hall because you refuse to take what isn’t given.” I swallow. “I’m giving, Killian. This is me choosing.”
His shoulders tense. His hands remain at his sides, fingers slightly curled as if he’s physically restraining himself from reaching for me.
“Not because of the contract,” he says quietly.
I shake my head.
“Not because of your father.”
Another shake.
“Not because you think this is what I expect.”
“Killian.” I rise from the ottoman, my legs slightly unsteady but my voice certain. “I’m not here because of a contract or a clause or the man who put me in a dress with forty-two buttons and told me to be grateful.”
My breath catches, but I push through it.
“I’m here because I can’t close my eyes without seeing you. Because you gave me your name and bled on a sheet so I wouldn’t have to feel ashamed. Because every door in this house opens from the inside and you made sure I knew that before anything else.”
My voice softens.
“I’m here because I want to be. And I’ve never wanted anything for myself before.”
The stillness breaks.
Killian crosses the room in three strides. His hands come up to my face, warm palms cradling my jaw, fingers threading gently into my hair. He pulls me close until I can feel the heat of his body and the warmth of his breath against my lips.
But he doesn’t kiss me.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly. “At any point. Any reason. I stop. No questions. No consequences.”
“Okay.”
“Say it back.”
“I can tell you to stop, and you’ll stop.”
“And?”
“There won’t be consequences.”
His thumbs trace the line of my cheekbones, the same deliberate precision he used when undoing the buttons of my dress. Only now his hands are on my skin, and the warmth of them spreads through me in a way I’ve never experienced before.
“Killian,” I whisper. “Please.”
He kisses me.
It’s nothing like the kisses I imagined as a girl reading forbidden romances under my blankets. There’s no urgency. No claiming.
It’s slow.
His mouth moves against mine with careful patience, warm and deliberate. My knees weaken immediately, and I grip his forearms to steady myself, feeling the muscles shift beneath my fingers.
The forearms I’ve spent a week pretending not to stare at.
He pulls back slightly, studying my face.
“Okay?” he asks softly.
I nod.
He kisses me again, deeper this time. His tongue brushes my lips and I open for him without thinking, without analysing, without performing. The taste of him floods my senses and something inside me unravels completely.
I don’t want composure anymore.
His hands slide into my hair, cradling the back of my head as the kiss deepens. I press closer instinctively, wanting more contact, more warmth, more of him.
Even the thin fabric of my pajamas suddenly feels like too much distance.
He breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against mine, his breathing no longer steady.
“Katya,” he murmurs. “Keep talking to me. Tell me what feels good. Tell me what doesn’t.”
“Okay.”
“What do you want?”
The question settles between us.
No one has ever asked me that before.
But this time I know the answer.
“I want you to touch me,” I say quietly. “I want to feel your hands on me. I want to stop being afraid of how good this feels.”
He kisses my forehead, then my temple, then the hinge of my jaw beneath my ear. The scrape of his stubble sends a shiver down my spine.
His fingers find the hem of my pajama top, brushing the bare skin of my waist, and my entire body reacts instantly. He lifts the fabric slowly, giving me time to stop him.
I don’t.
I raise my arms and the shirt disappears over my head. Cool air touches my skin, followed immediately by the weight of his gaze.
Killian looks at me like I’m something extraordinary.
“Jesus Christ, Katya,” he breathes.
His hands settle on my waist, warm and steady. His thumbs trace the curve of my ribs, his fingers spanning my sides.
I close the distance between us.
The contact is electric.
His chest presses against mine and the sound he makes is low and rough in his throat.
“Katya—”
“Stop being careful,” I whisper tipping my head back so he can see I mean it. “I’m not fragile.”
“I know you’re not.”
“Then stop treating me like I might break.”
His grip tightens slightly.
“If I stop being careful,” he says roughly, “I’m not going to slow down.”
“Good.”
He studies my face one final time. Whatever he sees there is enough. He lifts me easily and carries me to the bed.
This time the kiss isn’t careful. It’s deeper, fuller, claiming in a way that makes heat rush through my body. My hips move instinctively beneath him until I feel the hard length of him pressing against me.
The friction sends a shock of pleasure through me and I gasp.
He freezes instantly.
“Good or bad?”
“Good,” I manage breathlessly. “Very good.”
The almost-smile returns briefly before his focus shifts again.
“More,” I whisper.
His mouth moves down my body, tracing heat along my skin until my breath becomes shallow and uneven.
The first touch of his tongue is soft, almost careful, a slow flat lick from my entrance to my clit that makes my hips jerk off the mattress.
I make a sound I don’t recognize, and my hands fly to his hair, fingers threading through the short strands.
He groans against me, the vibration rolling straight through my core.
“You taste like heaven,” he says, words muffled against my folds before he licks again, firmer this time, parting me with the point of his tongue. “So fucking sweet. So wet for me already.”
Heat floods my face, my chest, everywhere.
I’ve read about this, stolen scenes in books I hid from my father, but the reality is nothing like the words on a page.
It’s warm, wet, relentless. His tongue circles my clit in slow, lazy strokes, then flicks, then sucks gently until my thighs shake around his ears.
“Killian—” My voice cracks. “It’s too much—”
He lifts his head just enough to speak, lips shiny with me. “Too much good, or too much bad?”
“Good,” I gasp. “So good. Don’t stop.”
His eyes flash with something dark and pleased. He dives back in.
This time there’s no gentleness left. He licks and sucks and thrusts his tongue inside me like he’s starving, like he’s trying to drink every drop I give him.
One hand slides up to pin my hip to the mattress when I start writhing; the other pushes two thick fingers into me, curling just right, stroking that spot that makes white sparks burst behind my eyelids.
I’m making noises I can’t control. Whimpers, moans, broken versions of his name. My heels dig into his back. My fingers tighten in his hair until I’m sure it hurts, but he only growls in approval and works me harder.
“Look at you,” he murmurs between licks, voice wrecked. “Opening so pretty for my mouth. You’re dripping down my chin, Katya. You’re going to come on my tongue, aren’t you? Going to let me taste how hard you come for your husband.”
The words tip me over.
I shatter.
My back bows, thighs clamping around his head as the orgasm rips through me in violent, shuddering waves.
I think I scream his name. I know I pull his hair hard enough to hurt.
He doesn’t stop. He keeps licking, keeps sucking, keeps his fingers curled inside me until every aftershock has wrung itself out and I’m a trembling, mess.
Only then does he ease back, kissing the inside of each thigh like they’re something precious. When he finally crawls up my body, his lips are swollen, chin glistening, eyes blazing with satisfaction and something deeper. Worship.
“Hi,” he says quietly.
I laugh.
The sound surprises both of us.
He smiles fully then, and the sight of it feels like something breaking open inside my chest.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
I pull him down for another kiss, tasting myself on his lips and feeling a strange intimacy settle into something warm and familiar.
“More,” I whisper against his mouth.
He searches my face again.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I trust you.”
Something shifts in his expression.
He settles between my thighs, guiding me gently, his voice quiet and steady as he tells me to stay with him.
The first press of him makes me tense instinctively, but he waits until my body relaxes before moving again. The pain sharpens briefly before softening into something fuller, deeper.
“More,” I moan.
He builds the rhythm gradually, every movement drawing a new response from my body until pleasure begins rising again, stronger this time.
When the second climax breaks through me, it feels like the ground shifting beneath my entire world.
Killian groans and buries himself deep as his control finally shatters.