16. Yaromir
YAROMIR
I leave before I do something unforgivable.
Barely.
Anya is still on my bed when I step away from her, breathing hard, nightdress shoved high, breasts bare, thighs open from where my shoulders forced them apart. Her face is flushed, her mouth swollen, her eyes dark and furious and ruined.
I’ve seen women after pleasure before.
I’ve never seen one look at me like that. And it scares me very much.
My cock is so hard it hurts. I stand there for half a second too long, looking at the wet shine between her thighs, at the way her body still twitches from what I just did to her, and all I can think is that I want to push inside her.
Slowly at first. I want to feel that tight little body stretch around my cock, pleasure her until she forgets anybody else ever had her.
I want her nails in my shoulders and her mouth open against my throat.
I want to hear the exact sound she makes when she stops being a virgin and starts being my wife in every possible way.
The thought nearly ends me.
So I turn away. “Sleep,” I say. My voice sounds rough even to me.
She pulls the nightdress down with shaking hands. “You’re leaving?”
The question hits harder than it should.
Not soft. Not pleading.
Accusing.
“Yes.”
“After that?”
I don’t turn back. If I look at her again, I will not leave.
“Especially after that.”
She says nothing.
I walk into the hallway and close the door behind me. For several seconds, I stand there with my hand on the handle, breathing through my nose like a man trying not to become an animal.
My wife is on the other side of the door.
I press my forehead briefly against the wood. Then I push away and walk down the corridor. Not to my study. Not yet.
I go to the smaller bathroom near the west wing, the one no one uses at night. I lock the door behind me, brace one hand against the sink, and look at myself in the mirror.
My hair is a mess from her fingers. My mouth is still wet from her. There’s a faint red mark at my throat where she bit me without meaning to.
I grip the edge of the sink hard enough for the old porcelain to creak.
“Fuck.”
The word comes out low. Useless.
I unfasten my trousers. My cock is heavy in my hand, painfully hard, already slick at the tip. I close my fist around myself and the first stroke almost makes my knees weaken.
I think of her exactly as she was. Spread open on my bed. Tits bare. Nipples hard. Thighs shaking. Her fingers in my hair while she tried to pretend she wasn’t grinding against my mouth.
I stroke harder.
My jaw tightens.
I think of the sound she made when my tongue found her clit.
The way she tried to close her legs and then opened them wider.
The way she grabbed my wrist but didn’t push me away.
The way she came for me, shocked and helpless, hips lifting like her body had been waiting all her life to learn that one thing.
My breath turns harsh.
I imagine taking her after that.
In my head, I’m back in that room. I’m over her. Her knees are spread around my hips. Her hands are twisted in the sheets. She’s looking up at me with those wide, furious eyes as I line my cock up against her.
She says my name like she knows no one else’s. Like she already knows there’s no way out of wanting it.
I stroke faster.
My free hand tightens on the sink.
I imagine the first push into her. The resistance. The heat. The way her breath would catch, how her body would fight me for a second before taking me in. I would go slow enough not to break her, but not gentle enough to let her pretend this is anything less than possession.
I come hard, teeth clenched, one hand braced against the sink as the release tears through me. For several seconds, I can’t move. My breath comes rough and uneven, my body still locked around the image of her beneath me.
Then the silence returns.
Cold tile. Running water.
My own reflection staring back at me like a stranger.
I clean myself up, wash my hands, and splash cold water on my face.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing helps. Only she can. But I don’t want to corrupt her with my darkness.
I pour a drink, but I don’t finish it. I sit in the chair behind my desk, still in my wrinkled shirt, and stare at nothing until the fire burns down. Sometime before dawn, exhaustion finally drags me under.
When I wake, the room is gray. My neck hurts. The study is cold.
For a moment, I don’t remember falling asleep. Then I shift and feel the stiffness in my back, the dried blood on my knuckles, the ache in my body that has nothing to do with sleep.
Anya.
I stand immediately.
The house is quiet, but not in the peaceful way. It’s the early morning quiet of servants not yet moving and guards changing shifts outside. I leave the study and head for the stairs.
Halfway across the main hall, I stop.
She’s on the staircase. Curled awkwardly on the wide landing between the first and second floors, one arm under her head, her nightdress covered by a robe someone must have left in my room. Her bare feet are tucked beneath the hem. A half-empty glass sits on the step beside her.
For a second, something cold and sharp cuts through me.
I move quickly. “Anya.”
She doesn’t wake.
I crouch beside her, touching two fingers to her throat before I can stop myself.
Her pulse is steady. Warm skin.
Alive.
My breath comes out slower than I expect.
I hate the relief. I hate that I felt fear at all.
“Anya,” I say again, lower this time.
Her lashes flutter.
She wakes slowly, confused, then jolts when she sees me. “What?”
“You are asleep on the stairs.”
She blinks, looks around, then down at herself as if the staircase has personally betrayed her. “Oh.”
“That’s your explanation?”
Her cheeks color faintly. Even half-asleep, she manages to look offended. “I came down to get milk.”
I look at the glass. “Milk.”
“Yes.”
“At dawn.”
“It wasn’t dawn when I came down.”
“When was it?”
She pushes herself upright, wincing slightly. “I don’t know. Late. Or early. I couldn’t sleep.”
Neither could I.
I don’t say that.
She glances at the glass, then rubs her eye with the heel of her hand, looking suddenly younger than she did last night. “I drank it,” she says. “Then I sat down for a minute.”
“On the stairs.”
“I didn’t plan to fall asleep.”
“Clearly.”
Her mouth tightens. “You don’t have to sound so judgmental. Milk helps me sleep.”
“I see,” I say, trying to keep the amusement off my face.
She notices anyway, and scowls. “I was just asleep. What’s it to you?”
“I didn’t know that.”
Something in my voice makes her look at me more closely.
The irritation fades from her face. “You were worried.”
“No.”
“You checked my pulse.”
“You looked dead.”
“I was asleep.”
“You were on the stairs, Anya.”
She looks away first, embarrassed now.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
The house is still. Morning light creeps across the marble floor below us. Her robe has slipped slightly off one shoulder, showing the pale skin of her neck where my mouth had been last night.
I remember the way she tasted. The way she came.
The way I left her.
My body reacts with immediate, inconvenient interest.
I stand before she can notice. “Come,” I say.
She looks up. “Where?”
“To bed.”
Her eyes widen in disbelief.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
She rises carefully, holding the railing. Her legs seem unsteady, and satisfaction moves through me before I can stop it.
I look away.
She notices anyway. “Don’t look pleased,” she mutters.
“I’m not pleased.”
“You are.”
I step down one stair, closer to her. “If I were pleased, you would know.”
Her breath catches.
The memory of last night enters the space between us so clearly it may as well be another person standing there.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. Only for a second.
Enough.
I take the empty glass from the step. “You need sleep,” I say.
“So do you.”
“I slept.”
“In your study?”
I say nothing.
Her expression shifts. “You didn’t come back.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because I was afraid I would fuck you before you understood what you were asking for.
I say, “Because you needed rest.”
She studies me. She doesn’t believe that is the whole answer.
I gesture up the stairs. “Go.”
She starts walking ahead of me, slowly, one hand on the railing. I stay behind her, close enough to catch her if she slips, far enough not to touch.
She pauses near the top. “Yaromir?”
“Yes?”
Her back is still to me. “Did you leave because you regretted it?”
The question is quiet. Too quiet.
I look at the line of her shoulders under the robe. “No.”
She turns her head slightly, not fully. “Then why?”
This time, I answer more honestly. “Because I didn’t trust myself to stop twice.”
She goes still. The back of her neck flushes pink. For several seconds, she says nothing. Then she continues up the stairs.
I follow her to my bedroom.
Our bedroom.
And when she steps inside, I remain in the doorway.
She looks back at me. “You’re still not coming in?”
“Not yet.”
Her mouth tightens, but there’s something else in her eyes now. Not hurt.
Anticipation.
I close my hand around the doorframe. “Sleep, Anya.”
This time, she doesn’t argue.
But before she turns away, she says, very quietly, “I didn’t regret it either.”
Then she closes the door between us, and I stand there for a long moment, staring at the wood.
My wife is going to be the death of my restraint.
And God help me, I’m starting to look forward to it.