Prologue #2
It shouldn’t feel like winning, coaxing one plain word out of him. It feels like winning.
“It was excruciating. I may never recover.”
“Drama queen.”
“Pot, kettle.”
I laugh, actually laugh, surprised out of it, and something in the room shifts. The tension doesn’t disappear, but it changes shape, becomes something almost manageable.
“So,” I say again. “This is the part where we consummate things. Make it official. Seal the deal.”
“I’m aware of the tradition.”
“And here I thought your charm stayed in the car permanently.”
He turns to face me, and something in his expression has shifted. The cold mask from the restaurant is gone, replaced by something almost uncertain.
“Can I ask you something first?”
“Apparently we’re both people who ask regardless of permission.”
“What are you afraid of? Right now, in this moment?”
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“You’ve been holding yourself like you’re bracing for impact since we walked in. Shoulders up. Standing six feet from the bed like it might attack you. So I’m asking: what are you afraid of?”
I want to deflect. Instead, the truth comes out.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be cold. That this is going to be some kind of transaction, like everything else. That you’ll do your duty and disappear and I’ll spend my wedding night feeling like a line item on a balance sheet.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“What do you want?”
He crosses the room slowly, stopping in front of me. “I want you to not be afraid of me. I want one night where we’re not enemies or strangers or political pawns. I want to know who you actually are.”
“That’s a lot to want from someone you’ve known for a week.”
“I know. But I’m asking anyway.”
He reaches out, his hand hovering near my face, asking permission without words.
“You can touch me,” I say quietly. “If you want.”
His palm cups my jaw, gentle, careful. “I’m going to ask before I do anything tonight. Every step. And if you say stop, I stop. No questions, no pressure. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do you believe me?”
I look at him, really look, past the sharp jaw and the cold reputation, and I find something unexpected.
“Yes,” I say. “I believe you.”
“Good.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Can I kiss you? Not like in the church. For real this time.”
“Yes.”
The kiss starts soft, exploratory. Then it deepens, and his hand slides into my hair, and I make a sound against his mouth that surprises us both.
“Okay?” he murmurs.
“Very okay. Don’t stop.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
He kisses me again, slower this time, learning the shape of my mouth the way I imagine he learns a contract, thoroughly, without rushing the fine print.
His other hand stays at his side until I reach for it and set it on my waist. Permission given.
Permission taken. Heat blooms under his palm through the silk of the dress, and my breath goes out of me in a rush.
I’ve been holding it since the church without knowing it.
“Tell me if anything feels wrong,” he says against my lips.
“I will. Keep going.”
He walks me backward until my calves hit the bed. The skirt spreads around my ankles like spilled cream when he guides me to sit. He doesn’t shove. He waits, one eyebrow lifted, until I nod, and then he finds the hidden zipper along my spine with fingers that are steadier than my pulse.
“This okay?”
“Max. Keep checking and I’ll start thinking you don’t want-”
“I want.” The zipper whispers down. Cool air kisses my shoulder blades. “I want so badly I’m being careful on purpose. There’s a difference.”
“Show me the difference.”
He helps the dress fall. I step out of it in my slip and the ridiculous lace the bridal shop insisted on, something white and intricate that cost more than sense. His gaze drops, then climbs back to my face like he’s checking a map for consent before he lets himself look properly.
“You could blink,” I say.
“I’m memorizing. May I?” He gestures at the straps of the slip.
“Yes.”
The silk whispers down my arms. Then he asks about the lace, and somehow the asking makes me wetter than if he’d torn everything off with his teeth.
When I’m bare and he’s still in his shirt and pants, the imbalance feels intentional, like he’s leaving me room to change my mind, room to breathe, room to be a person instead of a signature on a peace treaty.
“Your turn,” I tell him. “Fair is fair.”
He undoes his buttons without looking away from me. The shirt hits the chair. The pants follow. He’s hard already, thick against dark briefs, and I feel my throat go dry in a way that has nothing to do with champagne.
“Can I touch you?” I ask, because if he’s going to make a religion of permission, I’m converting on the spot.
His laugh is quiet, almost startled. “Please.”
I palm him through the fabric. He sucks in a breath like I’ve punched him.
Heat, weight, the twitch of someone who’s been holding himself on a leash through vows and photographs and a dinner full of people measuring our usefulness.
I ease the briefs down and wrap my hand around him properly, hot skin, a bead of wetness at the tip that I smear with my thumb in a slow circle.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Cat-”
“Still okay?”
“If you keep doing that I’m going to embarrass myself before we get anywhere useful.”
“Then put me on the bed before useful becomes theoretical.”
He does. Gently. My head finds the pillow; his knees bracket my thighs.
He kisses my collarbone first, then asks before he closes his mouth over my breast, asks again before he sucks, and the asking is going to kill me in the best possible way.
My nipple peaks against his tongue. He switches sides like he’s keeping score of fairness, and I arch into him with a sound I don’t recognize as mine.
When his palm slides down my stomach I catch his wrist, not to stop him. To hurry him.
“Yes,” I say before he can ask. “There. God, yes. Don’t make me write you a permission slip.”
His fingers skim through the wetness between my legs, parting me carefully. One fingertip circles my clit and my hips jerk hard enough to shift the mattress.
“Sensitive,” he notes, almost scientific, and then he does it again softer, watching my face for the verdict.
“Don’t you dare get clinical on my wedding night.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He slides one finger inside me, slow, knuckle by knuckle, watching every flicker of my expression. “Still here with me?”
“Very with you. Add another before I expire of anticipation and bad champagne.”
He does. Stretches me open with a patience that makes me want to swear in three languages. His thumb keeps working my clit in lazy strokes while he crooks his fingers and finds a spot that makes my thighs shake and my breath hitch into something undignified.
“There, right there, don’t you dare stop-”
“I feel it.” His voice has gone rough, scraped raw. “You’re soaking my hand, Caterina.”
“Full name during fingering. Bold choice.”
“Accurate observation during fingering. Bolder.” He kisses me through the next stroke, swallowing the noise I make. “Can I taste you?”
The question lands so earnest I almost laugh. Almost. Heat floods my face anyway. “Yes. Please. Before I invent a new word for desperation and trademark it.”
He moves down the bed like he’s got all night and nowhere better to be, which, considering the armed perimeter outside, might actually be true.
The first drag of his tongue is light, testing.
The second is greedier. He licks into me with a focus that should be illegal in at least two jurisdictions, humming when I fist the sheets, adjusting the angle when I gasp too sharp.
My heels dig into the mattress. Something helpless climbs my throat and lodges there.
“Max, I’m close, don’t you dare pull away-”
“I’ve got you.” He slides two fingers back in and sucks my clit between his lips, and I break with a cry I muffle against my own wrist. The orgasm rolls through me in slow, shocking waves, unexpected and dizzying, thighs clamping around his ears.
When I finally blink the ceiling back into focus he’s kissing my inner thigh like a thank-you note written in heat.
“Okay?” he asks again, chin shiny, eyes dark.
I tug his hair. “If you ask that one more time I’m going to scream, and not in the fun way.”
“That was sort of the idea. The fun scream. For the record.”
“Come here before I revoke your oral privileges.”