ANYA — The Bedroom — 2340
The handle doesn’t move.
I twist it again until pain shoots up my arm, but the lock stays firm. Every door in this palace locks from the wrong side—his side—while I stand here useless, sweating through silk like an idiot who thought she might actually get to breathe on her wedding night.
The room is too warm, too big, too… him. His cologne sits thick in the air—oud and cedar—and my pulse jumps anyway.
I back away from the door, scanning for another way out.
The bed looks like a stage. Four posts, dark silk sheets, pillows arranged like it’s a showroom for “kidnapped bride chic.” The fireplace crackles.
And in the corner, the saints stare down at me with flat golden eyes that say: Girl, you are so screwed.
The corset digs deeper with every breath.
Move. Do something. Don’t just stand here and hyperventilate.
Fine. Windows.
I grab fistfuls of my ridiculous skirt and drag far too much silk across a Persian rug so thick my heels sink into it. The windows are tall and heavy and—yeah, bulletproof glass. Sensors. Guards outside.
My throat burns. Mishka is out there somewhere in the world—
No. Stop. Don’t go there or you’ll collapse.
My eyes land on the nearest chair.
It is antique. Heavy.
I still try.
I bend my knees, grab the armrests, and pull with both hands. The damn thing doesn’t lift.
“Come on,” I hiss. “Just—move.”
I drag it—drag it—across the floor toward the window. Sweat trickles down my spine. My arms shake. I get it halfway across the rug, and one leg sinks deep enough into the fibers that I almost topple over.
I lift the chair again.
I swing it toward the window—
—and the door opens.
Roman fills the doorway. Rolled sleeves. Tie loosened. No jacket. His eyes sweep the room and find me in half a second.
Me.
Sweaty.
Teary.
Holding a chair above my head like a deranged Victorian ghost bride.
“Put it down, solnyshko.”
His voice is low and calm and way too collected for a man watching his new wife try to commit property damage.
That’s what breaks me.
I don’t put it down gently. My arms give out, and the chair drops—half falling, half throwing—crashing sideways into the rug with a heavy thud. One brass fitting pops off and rolls across the floor.
Roman doesn’t flinch. He leans one shoulder against the doorframe, watching me like I’m a puzzle he’s already solved.
“Better?” he asks.
I just move.
I go at him with both hands, hitting him. The corset steals my breath, the dress wraps around my legs, and I still swing. My palms slam into his chest. His arm. His shoulder. My fists hit hard muscles, and nothing moves.
He lets me do it.
That is the worst part. He stands there, immovable, like I’m nothing, instead of a furious woman hitting him with everything I have left. His face stays unreadable, but his eyes—his eyes track every part of me. My shaking hands. My heaving chest. The tears are spilling over.
“I hate you,” I gasp. “You bought me. You used my brother. You locked me in here like I’m—like I’m—”
His hand snaps out and catches both my wrists.
I’m slammed into the wardrobe. His body presses into mine, hot and overwhelming, pinning me in place. My wrists go above my head, held in one of his hands.
And then I feel him.
There is a hard line pressed against my stomach—heavy, hot, thick—and my brain short-circuits because oh God, I know what that is, and my body reacts anyway.
Heat floods between my thighs so fast I want to scream in humiliation.
“Tishina,” he murmurs, his mouth at my ear. “Quiet.”
“I—let me go—”
“You feel that,” he says softly, rolling his hips once into mine. “Your body does. Whether you like it or not.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” His thumb drags across my lower lip, gentle and obscene at the same time. “I feel you.”
My whole face burns. My legs tremble. My thighs press together on instinct and make everything worse.
“Mishka,” I choke out. “I need to see him. Please—I need to—”
“No.”
The word hits.
“He’s gone,” Roman says. “Vadim moved the flight.”
My heart collapses in on itself.
I sag against the wardrobe, and the tears just fall. Hot. Silent. Unstoppable.
“Cry,” he says. “Then breathe.”
“I hate you,” I whisper again.
“I know.”
He lets go of my wrists. My arms drop like dead weight.
Then—
“Turn around.”
“What? No—”
“Turn around, Anya.” He gestures at the dress. “Buttons. You can’t reach them.”
My humiliation is so sharp, but I turn. I put my hands on the wardrobe and stare at the carved wolves because looking at him right now will break me.
He starts on the buttons, slow and methodical.
“You can breathe in a minute,” he says quietly.
My throat tightens. I swallow hard.
“This is a nightmare,” I sob. “Why did you choose me?”
“I didn’t,” he says. His fingers work down my spine, each button freeing a little more air. “Vadim chose. I obeyed.”
Something about the honesty steals my breath more than the corset.
“Then stop pretending you did this out of some grand design.”
“I’m not pretending anything,” he says. “But if I had refused you, Vadim would’ve picked a woman who wouldn’t last a week. I don’t want a corpse in my house.”
There is something twistedly sincere in that, and it scares me more than cruelty.
“The lab,” he says, continuing to unbutton. “I told Luka to start the conversion tonight. You can check it tomorrow.”
“Why offer me that?” I whisper.
“Because you’d rot otherwise.” His knuckles graze lower. Electricity shoots straight between my legs.
He finishes the last button.
The dress drops.
I step out of it, shaking.
Roman steps away from me, and for a second, I think he’s actually leaving the room, which would be the first merciful thing he’s done since this nightmare started.
But no.
He stops beside the bed, turns just enough that the firelight hits him in a way that makes my stomach free-fall, and looks over his shoulder at me like he’s checking whether I’m watching.
I am.
Unfortunately.
“Don’t faint,” he says quietly, like he’s amused, and then he reaches for the first button of his shirt.
My mouth goes dry.
He unbuttons the shirt slowly. The kind of slow that says he knows exactly what he’s doing to my nervous system and is content to let me drown in it.
The shirt parts over his chest an inch at a time.
Pale skin.
Hard muscle.
A dusting of dark hair that disappears under the waistband of his trousers.
My brain short-circuits like a machine overheating.
Holy shit. Holy actual shit.
My eyes are glued to him as I’ve never seen a naked man before in my life.
He pulls the shirt free of his trousers and shrugs it off his shoulders, and I swear time slows down just to humiliate me. The shirt slides down his back, catching on the curve of his biceps, revealing—
“Oh my God,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His back is carved like a sculpture and tattooed like a sermon.
A whole cathedral covers him—domes, arches, stars inked across muscles that move when he breathes.
Scars crisscross the ink—knife, bullet, burn—stories written on skin I’m pretty sure I’m not emotionally stable enough to process right now.
He drops the shirt on a chair, then his hand goes to his belt.
My entire body tightens.
“No,” I say in my head. “No, don’t—what the fuck are you doing, Roman—”
He unbuckles the belt.
The sound of leather sliding through loops hits me harder than it should. My knees actually weaken, which is frankly rude because I’m already barefoot and half-naked and in no condition to be collapsing over a man who bought me like I’m a blender.
He pulls the belt free with one long, smooth drag of the leather, and my thighs press together, and holy shit, I need to get my life under control.
The belt hits the floor with a soft thud.
He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and looks at me like he’s making sure I’m paying attention.
I am paying attention.
I’m paying more attention than any woman has ever paid to anything.
He pushes the trousers down his hips.
No hesitation.
No shame.
Just a man who is used to being looked at and never flinches.
The trousers drop to the floor.
He slides the briefs down in one smooth motion—
And then he’s naked.
Completely, devastatingly naked.
My lungs forget what oxygen is.
My eyes widen so much they water.
My brain checks out and leaves a note: “Good luck, bitch.”
Because Roman Volkov is not just attractive naked.
He is obscenely naked.
His shoulders are broad enough to block the firelight. His chest is all hard muscles.
His stomach is cut in a way I didn’t think was real. His thighs look like they could break concrete.
And his cock—
Jesus fucking Christ.
It’s… big.
No.
That’s not the right word.
“Big” is what you say about a baguette.
This is a weapon. A whole separate entity.
Thick. Heavy. Long.
Curving slightly toward his stomach as it stands fully, completely erect.
My mouth actually parts.
Heat rushes between my legs so violently that I almost groan.
And the worst part?
He sees it.
He sees exactly where I’m looking. Exactly how long I’m looking. Exactly how my face heats and how my breath stutters.
His lips twitch in a slow, arrogant smirk that makes my entire body clench.
“Is something wrong, solnyshko?” he asks, voice deep and lazy. “You look struck.”
“I’m— I’m not— I wasn’t—”
“You’re staring.”
He takes a step closer to the bed.
The movement makes everything between my thighs pulse with humiliating awareness.
“Don’t worry. I knew you’d stare the first time.”
I make a strangled noise. “Oh my God—fuck—you’re insufferable.”
“And you’re blushing.”
“I’m overheating. It’s the fire.”
“It’s me.”
He slides under the sheets, massive and golden in the firelight, and the bed shifts under his weight.
He folds one arm behind his head. Casual. Relaxed. Completely aware he’s naked and I’m dying.
The sheet rests dangerously low over his hips. The outline of him is still visible beneath the silk.
My thighs squeeze together involuntarily.
“You coming to bed?” he asks.
“I hate you,” I manage.
“You’ve mentioned that.” His eyes drop to my chest. “Get in. There’s a nightdress in the drawer”.
Correction, there’s a little piece of silk that does nothing to cover me. I climb the bed, because I’m exhausted and half-broken and terrified and horny in a way that makes me want to smash my own head into the wall.
I get in on the opposite side, as far from him as physically possible.
The mattress dips every time he breathes. The heat from his body seeps across the sheets.
My skin buzzes like I’ve been rewired.
He glances at me once more.
“Sweet dreams, solnyshko.”
I stare at the ceiling and think: I am absolutely, completely, irreversibly fucked.