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“Everyone has their opinion about me tonight, don’t they?”
“All I want to say is…” Alya placed her hand on my arm. “It might be nice to have another woman who’s not Mother to talk to when it’s all said and done.”
In that moment, I saw my sister’s own loneliness and wondered if my new wife could relate to that better than I ever could. Father was dead, which meant that Alya’s life might change—especially if I was the one setting the rules instead of Uncle Misha. But until that was certain, she would be on the same path as Elia—married off to some fucking idiot for a bullshit alliance that might collapse if someone sneezed the wrong way.
I didn’t like how I felt about that comparison.
“I think everyone is waiting for the first dance,” Alya’s voice cut through my thoughts. “So why not give the gawking gallery what they came to see?”
I turned to Elia, and she was looking at me with an expectant expression in her eyes. Sweeping my gaze across the rest of the ballroom, the anticipation was palpable.
“Go!” Alya shooed, snatched my glass out of my hand, and pushed me forward.
The moment I reached Elia, Etta James’s “At Last” began filtering through the ballroom, and I gritted my teeth.
“A dance, my darling wife?” I murmured, reaching for her hand.
Elia’s eyes widened as I pulled her toward me. A flare shot through them before she shuttered the look and replaced it with the usual anger and defiance that I had come to expect.
“Put your arms around my neck,” I murmured near her ear, playing the doting husband dancing with his wife. “And play your role.”
That got a reaction out of her. Obediently, her arms slipped around my neck, and the faintest hint of her scent—flowery and unique—wafted through the air. My cock tightened as my nose nuzzled the sensitive skin behind her hair, and her breath quickened. Her fingers brushed the nape of my neck in tandem.
Fuck. I wanted those fingers everywhere. Suddenly, images flashed through my mind of her stroking my body, those nimble fingers brushing over the hard planes of my chest before inching downward until they wrapped around the thickness of my cock.
Iwantedthat. I craved it.
“Did you like sucking my cock earlier?” I whispered into her ear as I swung her around the ballroom. “Did you like the taste of my cum down your throat and on your lips?”
“You do that again,” she hissed, her arms tightening on my neck. “And I will bite it off.”
I chuckled darkly in her ear. “But then how else might I please you?” My hand found the spot on her back where the material left a gap. My fingers pressed against the exposed skin and stroked it lightly. “Perhaps you would prefer it with my fingers?”
She did her best to hide the flush that crossed her face. I dipped my head closer so no one could see the grin on my face. “Or maybe you’d like it with my mouth?”
“In your fucking dreams,” she breathed raggedly.
I was going to enjoy this far more than I thought.
As the last strains of the music died away, I stepped back, pressing my lips to her hand before striding away. A nagging thought rose up in the back of my head.
I was going to enjoy thistoomuch.
***
After what felt like hours of endless well-wishing, we were bundled in our car and driven toward my penthouse overlooking the Chicago River. I watched Elia as she stared ahead with a blank, unreadable gaze and wondered what was going through her mind now that we were alone.
“Are you hungry?” I asked lightly, attempting to break the stifling tension between us.
“No.” She shook her head, her hands smoothing her lace skirt. “Where are we going?”
“My penthouse,” I answered, drumming my fingers on my knee to keep myself occupied.
Surprise flickered over her lovely features. “I thought we would be staying at your family mansion.”
Of course she thought that. Why wouldn’t she? In everyone else’s eyes, the mansion technically belonged to me now. But neither my uncle nor my mother had decided to have the conversation with me on its final status. And I wasn’t about to open that can of worms when there were so many other things to worry about.
“I prefer my privacy from my family,” I said instead, the words coming out harsher than intended.
