23. Yaromir #3
Then I follow her. My body locks over hers, cock buried deep, release tearing through me with enough force to leave me breathless. I press my face into her neck and hold her there as the last of it rolls through me.
For a while, neither of us moves. The only sounds are the fire and our breathing.
Anya’s fingers rest in my hair now. Her face is flushed, lips swollen, eyes half-open and unfocused. She looks wrecked. Satisfied. Tender in a way neither of us is ready to acknowledge.
My wife.
She shivers slightly. I sit up and roll her over so she’s closer to the fire, rubbing her arms and legs softly.
A small red mark on the white carpet beneath us.
At first, I think it’s mine. My hand is still split from Dmitri’s face. There’s dried blood along the knuckles, old and dark at the edges. But this spot is fresh. Brighter. Small, but impossible to miss against all that white.
My body goes still.
Anya notices immediately. “What?” she asks, voice rough from everything that just happened between us.
I don’t answer. I shift carefully away from her, enough to look down properly. She follows my gaze, and the moment she sees the blood, her face changes.
Not fear. Embarrassment.
I touch the stain with two fingers, already knowing before I lift my hand.
Fresh. Hers.
I look back at her. She’s lying on the carpet in the torn remains of her dress, hair loose around her face, skin flushed from my mouth and my hands and my cock. A minute ago, she looked satisfied, dazed, almost soft.
Now she looks exposed.
Too exposed.
“Anya,” I say.
Her throat moves. She reaches for the ripped red silk, pulling it higher over herself, but there’s not enough fabric left to cover much. The movement bothers me more than the blood.
My voice comes out lower. “Are you a virgin?”
She looks away. That’s answer enough.
Still, I wait.
Her fingers tighten in the ruined fabric. “Not anymore,” she says.
The words land heavily.
For a few seconds, I can’t move.
Not because I’m displeased. God, no.
Something worse than satisfaction moves through me first, deep and savage and possessive enough that I have to crush it before it shows on my face. Dmitri never had her. No one did. She gave that to me.
Then the rest follows.
The guilt. The realization. The fact that I took her on a carpet in front of the fire after tearing her dress off her body because I was too hungry to ask the right questions.
I close my eyes once. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her head snaps back toward me. “Would you have stopped?”
“Yes.” The answer is immediate.
Her face twists slightly. “That’s why.”
I stare at her. She pushes herself up on one elbow, wincing before she can hide it.
My jaw tightens. “Don’t move.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I heard you lie.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t speak to me like I’m breakable.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do. I simply want you to be comfortable.”
She sits up on her elbow and my gaze drops immediately to her tits. “I’m perfectly comfortable right here.”
I reach for my shirt where it lies discarded near the table and bring it to her. She takes it from me after a second, watching like she expects cruelty.
That makes something in my chest go cold.
“Put it on,” I say.
She does, stiffly, slipping her arms through it and pulling it around her body. It hangs off one shoulder, too large, open at the front until she buttons it with unsteady fingers.
My shirt on her should please me.
It does. But the blood ruins the feeling.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask.
She looks down.
“Anya.”
“A little.”
My hands curl into fists.
She sees it and immediately says, “Not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Not like you’re thinking.”
I move closer, slowly, and crouch in front of her. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“Yes, I do.” Her eyes are bright now. “You’re thinking you were too rough.”
“I was.”
“I liked it.”
My cock gives one stupid, inconvenient pulse at the words. I ignore it.
“You were a virgin.”
“I’m not made of glass.”
“No,” I say. “But it was your first time.”
Her mouth tightens. For a moment, she looks very young. Not childish. Just painfully new to this part of herself. New to pleasure, to pain, to wanting and admitting it.
Then she lifts her chin. “I wanted it to be you.”
Everything in me stops.
She says it like a challenge, like she’s daring me to turn it into something shameful.
I don’t.
I can’t.
My voice lowers. “Say that again.”
Her breathing changes. “I wanted it to be you.”
The words go through me harder than the sex did.
I reach for her face, then stop before touching her.
She notices. Her expression softens by a fraction. Then she takes my wrist and brings my hand to her cheek herself.
My thumb moves along her cheek before I can stop it.
There are many things I could say. Possessive things. Ugly things. The kind of things a man like me thinks when a woman tells him she chose him for the first time.
Instead, I lean in and kiss her.
Not like before. Not taking. Not proving.
Just my mouth on hers, slow and firm, because anything else would be too close to confession.
When I pull back, her eyes are wet, but no tears fall.
Good. She would hate that.