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How can one man have so many different sides to him?
It would be easier to understand Viktor if he were simply the cruel, violent man I’d heard about. But the man I’m coming to know—he doesn’t make sense to me at all.
“No,” I whisper, the word coming out halted from my dry lips. “I don’t want to hear about any of that.”
Viktor straightens, his blue gaze cold as he looks down at me. “Good,” he says with satisfaction. “Then I’ll assume you’re pleased with the new leaf I’ve been turning over. The one where I make bargains with the Italian Don and the new Irish king instead of killing their families and stealing their territory. The one where I marry a mafia princess to bind our families together, and then take her on a lovely date to the Philharmonic where the Don’s wife is playing a concert, so that we can show just how happy and well-adjusted the Manhattan crime families are these days.” He raises one arched eyebrow, and I see the lines in his forehead deepen as he does. It’s sexier than it should be, those lines and the creases at the corners of his eyes and the silver at his temples. It’s a reminder that he’s more than fifteen years older than me, a man at the end of his thirties when I’ve only recently been twenty-two, just before my engagement. I can feel my cheeks flushing at the reminder of how handsome my husband really is and the brief flash of our one night together, those blue eyes looking down at me as he fucked me deeper and harder than I ever had been before.
There’s a beat of silence between us, and Viktor looks coolly down at me, that eyebrow still arched. “Which would you prefer, Caterina? The brute or the gentleman? I’m working very hard at trying to be the latter.”
“The gentleman,” I manage to whisper, my mouth still feeling as if it’s stuffed with cotton. Even in our previous fights, Viktor had held back, but I can see a wave of anger in him now that is beyond anything he’s shown me before. It’s a reminder that I’ve married a bear on a chain, and the only one holding him back is himself. “Of course—we’ll go together. A show of good faith for Luca and the others in the Family.”
“There’s my mafia princess.” Viktor smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he reaches out to touch my cheek, his fingers brushing over my burning cheekbones. “There’s the woman I bargained for. I didn’t just marry you for your fertile womb, you know. I also married you because you understand this life. The things we have to do. I thought you wouldn’t shrink from them.”
“Going to a performance with my husband is hardly something to shrink from.” I force a smile, looking up at him as pleasantly as I can manage. I’m still seething, but this is one fight that I think Viktor has won.You need to be smart,I remind myself.You need to be the woman you were raised to be if you’re going to survive this. Not every battle is worth fighting.
Viktor is still smiling coolly down at me. “Ah, yes,” he says, his voice almost mocking. “There’s the woman I married. Myprintsessa.”
I feel myself tense at the nickname, but I force myself to keep quiet. There’s another moment of silence, a beat where I know he’s waiting for my retort, for me to fight back. But I don’t. I just turn away, walking towards our bed without another word.
Tonight he doesn’t read in bed next to me. He turns out the light the moment we’re both under the covers, rolling away. I can feel the space between us, the yawning chasm of the mattress that we leave so that there’s no chance of us rolling into one another in the night, waking up in each other’s arms. I can’t imagine, at this point, how that would feel. I don’t want to try.
That night, I dream about the fight we just had. But in the dream, I don’t back down. Even as I look up at his handsome face, his silver temples and creased eyes, I spit into his face that he’ll never be a gentleman, that a man like him, Russian and Bratva, can only ever be a brute. I can feel the fear rippling through me in the dream, waiting for him to react like Franco would have, to grab me and shake me, slap me, throw me across the room.
But he doesn’t. In the dream, Viktor smirks down at me, running a hand through his hair as his eyes rake over my body. “Your mouth says you don’t want me,”he growls, leaning towards me until there’s almost no space left between our bodies.“But your body says something different. Your body says that you remember that night. That you crave the pleasure I can give you.”
He leans closer to me, his face hovering above mine as he grabs my arms, pulling me into him, letting me feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing against my thigh. “You make me hard, littleprintessa. You want me to be a brute? Then I’ll show you just how cruel the Bratva can be.”
I should be terrified. Iam, even in the dream. But I’m wet too, as he lifts me and throws me onto the bed, following me down as he rips at my clothes, stripping me naked. His eyes are hungry as they rake over my naked body, without anything to cover me now, not like our wedding night. He reaches for my breasts, grabbing them in handfuls, squeezing them. “Small,”he growls, pinching at my nipples. “But still enough for me to grab. To squeeze. Topunish.”
I can hear myself begging for him to stop, but my body is screaming something else. When he slides his fingers between my folds, I’m dripping for him, my skin flushed and hot, aching for the deep, hard thrusts of his cock as he pounds into me. I want it hard, rough, for him to take me however he pleases, and the shame of it makes me burn bright red as he grabs my hips, forcing himself between my thighs.
“Take that Bratva cock, little princess,”he snarls, thrusting into me hard, his huge cock filling me to my limit, filling me to the point of pain laced with pleasure. “Take it all. Don’t you dare come on it until I let you. Don’t fucking come until I give you permission.”
But I do. I can’t hold back, my body shuddering with waves of pleasure, with the incessant thrusting of his cock deeper than any man has ever been before, again and again, until I feel as if he’s touching every nerve, pleasuring parts of my body he’s not even touching. He fucks me harder, growling that I’m a slut, wet and dripping for him and his cock, but I’m beyond caring.
My body clenches a second time, coming again with deep, rippling waves of an orgasm that seems to come from my very core—and that’s when I jerk awake, panting and drenched in a fine sheen of sweat.
Oh my god.I can feel the insistent throbbing between my legs, the pulse of arousal, the stickiness of it on my thighs. I canfeelhow wet I am from the dream, and my face blazes with heat so intense I’m sure anyone could see me blushing even in the darkness.
I squeeze my thighs together, wanting more than anything to get up and run to the shower, wash off the evidence. But I don’t want to risk waking Viktor. I don’t want there to be any chance that he might somehow know I was just dreaming about him, wanting him, having anorgasm in my sleepbecause of him.
Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I feel hot and anxious, lying there, wondering what on earth is wrong with me that I’m dreaming about a man I despise, aching for him, that he can coax an orgasm from me even in my dreams.
I hate him, I decide as I look up at the ceiling, both wanting to fall back to sleep and desperately trying not to. The last thing I want is to slip back into another dream like that—or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
The insistent ache between my thighs tells a different story, though.
