Page 27 of Sinful Bride

"I can." He turns toward the door, and panic flares in my chest.

"Where are you going?"

"My own room." He doesn't look back. "I'll see you in the morning, wife."

"Declan—"

But he's already gone. I'm left alone in the bridal suite, my body still trembling with unfulfilled need, my nightgown rucked up around my hips, my skin flushed and damp.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, I understand exactly what kind of man I've married. Not a brute, but something far more dangerous.

A man with enough self-control to walk away. A man who intends to find out exactly how to break me down, piece by piece, until I give him what he wants.

A man who's just established that he's the one in control.

I lie back on the bed, my body still aching, my mind spinning. All I can think about is the way his hands felt on my skin. And as my hand slides down between my thighs to finish what he started, a terrible, traitorous part of me wishes he’d come back instead.

7

DECLAN

The hotel room door closes behind me, and I lean back against it, my hand still on the handle, my breathing rough and uneven. My entire body is wound tight—muscles tense, heart racing, cock still hard and aching in my pants. The adrenaline from the docks hasn't faded. If anything, it's worse now.

I left my wife on our wedding night, wanting her, her body flushed and trembling, her eyes dark with need she didn't want to admit.

Good.

The thought is vicious, and completely at odds with the way my body is screaming at me to go back and finish what I started. To bury myself inside her until neither of us can think straight.

But I won't. Not until she begs.

I push away from the door and go to get another whiskey from this minibar. I drink it in one swallow straight from the miniature bottle, welcoming the burn down my throat and the heat spreading through my chest.

It doesn't help. I pour another into a glass and drink it more slowly this time, trying to focus on the taste, the warmth, anything other than the memory of Elena's skin under my hands. The way she gasped when I touched her. The slick heat between her thighs. The desperate little sounds she made when I denied her.

Fuck.

I set the glass down harder than I mean to. The crystal clinks against the wood, and I stare at it for a long moment, trying to get myself under control. I can still feel the violence from earlier thrumming through my veins. The docks were a mess—another, smaller Russian family testing my boundaries, seeing if the new Irish boss would fold under pressure. They thought my wedding day was the perfect time to make a move. Thought I'd be distracted and soft.

They were wrong.

I handled it, along with Cormac and two of my other men. I broke some bones and made some examples. It won’t be quickly forgotten.

And the whole time, all I could think about was getting back to Elena.

Getting back to my wife.

The word still feels wrong, like I'm playing dress-up in someone else's life.

But she's mine now, in almost every way that matters to the families and the organization and the world we live in.

Except in one way.

I haven't made her mine in the most fundamental sense. And every cell in my body is screaming at me to fix that. To go back to that bridal suite and finish what I started. To make her understand that she belongs to me now, whether she likes it or not.

But that's exactly why I can't. She doesn't want it. Not really. She wants to do her duty. Wants to lie there and think of Italy while I fuck her like some kind of obligation she has to endure.

And I won't do that. I won't be that man.