Page 54 of Brutal Bratva’s Owned Hostage

“That’s not exactly the point of the exercise, but thank you.”

“I’m serious. When we get back, if you still want one.” He squeezed my hand gently. “There’s no reason you can’t have small, ordinary things alongside everything else, Val. I’d like to be the reason you get to have more of them, actually, not fewer.”

We walked further along the shore in comfortable silence after that, the emotional distance that usually existed between us dissolving with every passing minute.

When we finally stopped near a quieter stretch of beach, tucked away from the main house behind a low rise of dunes, the air between us shifted again into something more intimate. Something shaped by months of tension. Like the slow, steady connection was finally arriving somewhere it could actually breathe.

He turned to face me properly, brushing a strand of hair back from my face with the same careful, deliberate gentleness he’d used a hundred times before. Something in his expression carried none of the adrenaline that had shaped so many of our previous moments together.

“I keep thinking about what you said to me that night. Well, it was a random night,” he said quietly. “About wanting to reclaim something that felt like yours.”

“What about it?”

“I want this to be that. Not survival. Not strategy. Just whatever this actually is between us, chosen freely, without a raid or a wedding or a war forcing it into existence.”

“I think it already is that,” I said. “Has been, for a while now, if I’m honest with myself.”

He claimed my lips with his, his movements slow, conveying unhurried want. At first, it was simple and unguarded; we were just two people finally given enough space to feel something without the weight of danger pressing in from every direction.

I kissed him back with the same unhurried intention, my hands finding the front of his shirt the way they always seemed to.

When he lowered us both onto the warm sand, I let myself sink into it completely, no fear left anywhere in my body to compete with the steady want building slowly between us.

What followed carried none of the urgency of our earlier nights together, none of the adrenaline or grief or desperate need for reassurance that had shaped every previous time we’d found our way to each other. This felt slow and grounded, built on nothing except trust that had grown steadily over months of surviving impossible things side by side.

His fingers crept beneath my underwear and drove me to two mind-numbing, body-shuddering orgasms, one after the other, his lips swallowing my unrestrained moans.

The ocean moved gently beside us, wind moving softly across bare skin, the whole world narrowing down to nothing except our connection and the attention he gave to every part of my body.

When he entered me, filling me with his hard length, and even when he started powering into me, I let myself feel wholly present in a way I hadn’t managed in months.

I reminded myself that there was no fear intruding, no distant threat pulling my attention away from the man moving slowly above me, watching my face with the same patient focus he always gave me, like nothing else in the world mattered more than making certain I felt safe and wanted in equal measure.

After, we lay tangled together on the warm sand, my head resting against his chest. I listened to his heartbeat gradually slow beneath my ear while the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink that felt almost too beautiful to be real given everything we’d survived to reach this particular moment.

“I could stay here forever,” I murmured, half joking, half entirely serious, the words slipping out easily in the moment.

“We could stay longer than planned, if you wanted.”

“Vale wouldn’t like that.”

“Vale doesn’t get a vote in how we spend our time,” he answered, his tone almost harsh.

I traced his chest with my fingers slowly.

“I know. And I know I’m safe with you. It was meant to be a joke. A silly one, clearly.”

His chest vibrated as he chuckled. Then he kissed my head.

“I want to be the one to hear all your jokes.” Then he explained, “We can’t stay forever, though, realistically. But we can stay long enough to actually remember what this feels like, so we have something to hold onto once we go back.”

“And we can come back anytime? Although I wouldn’t want to disturb your sanctuary or anything.”

“Now that I’ve tasted sanctuary plus my wife, I never want sanctuary alone. It’s yours as much as it’s mine, Val.”

I swallowed, the tenderness of his tone and the words themselves hitting somewhere deep inside me.

Exhaustion crept over both of us slowly as the evening deepened. I felt my eyes growing heavy despite the beauty of the sunset still unfolding above us and Dmitri’s strong arms wrapped securely around me.