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Who is this and what has he done with the grumpy Russian? I swallow. Think. Do I want him to leave me?
I shake my head. I remember this morning. The hope that flickered like the catch of fire. “No. I’m…willing to try. If you’ll listen if I say stop.”
“Of course I will. I’m not a monster.”
I nod. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like the choice ismine.And that’severything.
Bending forward, Aleks touches his lips to mine. The kiss is so gentle it’s almost chaste.
“Keep the rest on, Harper. I wantyouto control this.”
He says that, but he’s the one giving the commands. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. I can do it. I know I can.
I don’t want to be naked in front of him, though. I have the same fearful thoughts every day.
“Who else is in this house with us?” he asks.
I lick my lips. “No one.”
“That’s right. It’s just us. You, my wife. And me, your husband. I will not hurt you. And there’s no one telling us where and when to do anything. I married you and that’s all that matters right now.”
A small part of me wonders why I thought he hated me before. Are things different now that I’m his wife?
My hands come to rest on my thighs. I watch as Aleks stands up beside me and slowly strips out of his own clothing, his brow furrowed as if in concentration. I saw him this morning in hardly anything at all, and I haven’t been able to get the thought of his golden skin, his muscled abs and toned biceps, the perfect planes of his shoulders, out of my mind.
Soon, we’re sitting before each other dressed like we were in the early quiet of morning. This morning, there were only the two of us. The two of us and a long day ahead. He barely touched me. Now, it’s the same, only this time we have nowhere to go and not even the semblance of waiting until after the wedding to prevent us from doing anything.
Wordlessly, he leans toward me and kisses my bare shoulder. A shiver trickles down my spine, but I don’t move. Another kiss follows the first, as he makes his way down the length of my arm and back again.
A tremor runs through me.
For so long, I’ve felt like I was only an object to the people I knew, the people I loved. I didn’t feel I mattered to anyone beyond what I could do for them. Now, however… I shouldn’t let myself believe that I matter to him, but it’s hard to think otherwise when he’s looking at me that way.
Am I just romanticizing this? Romanticizinghim?He chased me, forced me into the back of his car, and cuffed me.
But then we took vows. And maybe in this family…that means something’s changed.
“You’re beautiful,” he says in a low voice, as he makes his way to my other shoulder and kisses down the length of that arm, too. “Put your hands in your lap and don’t move them until I tell you.”
I couldn’t disobey a thing he said now if I tried. I’m putty in his hands, helpless to resist the pull of attraction between us. I’m floating somewhere in the atmosphere without the grounding force of gravity anymore.
So I do what he says. I lay my hands in my lap as he continues to worship me. A tentative kiss to the top of one breast. We’re like two long-lost lovers trying to remember the way toward each other.
“Lie down,” he whispers in my ear. “I want to taste you.”
With a shuddering breath, I obey. Wordlessly, he holds my wrists and pins them above my head. “Don’t move those hands.”
I keep them in place, but when he makes his way down the length of my body, I feel sick with nerves. When he kisses the vee at the top of my sex, my hips convulse but a sudden need to run flashes through me.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t. Please, no.”
I’ve never had anyone do that for me before but it’s too intimate, too close, and we hardly know each other.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t…do that. I’m not ready. Please, Aleks. I'm not comfortable with any of this.” As soon as I say it, I regret it. What's he going to do? He's my husband, and by all of the rules in both of our worlds, I belong to him now.
He looks thoughtful for a moment. “If you let me try, it will help prepare you. It’ll make it easier.”
