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Shaken, I stare after him, my mind able to form only one coherent thought.
My husband is a terrifying man.
Chapter 9
Alexei
Nearly ten minutes pass before Alina climbs down the starboard ladder into the waves below. I turn onto my back and float, watching her, the dark hunger still burning inside me. I deeply regret our latest bargain, the promise I made not to fuck her today. By now, I should know better than to give in to her pleas, yet here we are again. At the very least, I should’ve spent a few hours in the cabin with her, quelling my lust in some other way before coming out here.
“You know she’s your wife now, right?” Ruslan flops onto his back beside me, keeping afloat with lazy strokes of his arms. “No need to stare at her like a starving wolf. You can just have her.”
My fucking brother. I grind my teeth and fight the urge to drown him. He’s lucky the coolness of the water has tempered the white-hot jealousy that surged through me when I saw Alina looking at him admiringly. Not that Ruslan would ever try anything with her—he knows I would kill him for that, brother or not—but still, the mere thought that she might want him, or any man but me…
I clench my teeth harder and do my best to ignore Ruslan as I watch Alina gingerly test the water with her foot. She looks incredibly graceful as she clings to the ladder, her one-piece swimsuit reminding me of a ballerina’s outfit minus the skirt. Of course, no ballerina has ever had this effect on me. Even submerged in the cool waters of the Pacific, I’m semi-hard from looking at her. She’s all long legs and sleek curves, her body so fucking perfect it should be illegal. My hands literally itch to stroke her smooth skin, to cup her high, round breasts and feel the silky wetness between her—
Fuck. Why did I make that idiotic dress bargain? Or agree to this swim? I could be in bed with her right now instead of out here with my asshole of a brother. Then again, Ruslan is right—she’s now my wife. I can have her anytime I want. What’s a couple more hours when I’ve already waited for a decade?
“Just jump in,” Ruslan calls out as Alina pulls her foot out of the water and descends onto the next rung on the ladder, submerging both feet up to her ankles. “It’s not as cold as it seems at first.”
She looks over her shoulder at us. “I know.” She takes a deep breath, pinches her nose shut, and pushes herself off the ladder.
My pulse spikes as the water closes over her head. She can swim, I know, but she had that episode earlier. What if she gets dizzy again or faints or—fuck, I shouldn’t have agreed to this swim. I turn and cut through the water with swift strokes. It takes mere seconds to reach her, but by then, she’s surfaced and she’s laughing, pushing her wet hair off her face with both hands.
Something constricts inside me, as if a hand has reached through my ribcage to squeeze into a fist around my heart. That pure, unvarnished joy on her face… that smile, so genuine and bright—I’ve never seen anything like it. No longer merely beautiful, my Alinyonok is incandescent, like an angel glowing from within. It feels wrong to want her in this moment, almost sacrilegious, yet the lust in me only burns hotter. I want her with every twisted fiber of my being, every perverse cell in my body. I want her, and I can’t have her.
Not until we’re alone, at least.
She must notice the dark frustration on my face because she stops laughing and regards me warily. “Hi.”
“Hi yourself.” Unable to resist, I grab her arm and pull her to me, ignoring her startled gasp as her body bumps against mine under the water. Before she can push away, I wrap one arm around her slender back and grip her jaw in one hand, holding her face still as I lean in and kiss her deeply, taking advantage of her parted lips.
She tastes like the ocean and herself, like salt and sweetness and pure sex. I want to devour her, to delve so deeply inside her that she’ll never be separate from me, but all I can have in this moment is this kiss, so I make the best of it, sweeping my tongue over every silky surface of her mouth, nibbling on her soft, plump lips, inhaling her warm, panting breaths. In the back of my mind, I’m aware that my brother is swimming nearby, saying something undoubtedly sarcastic, but I don’t give a fuck.
She’s mine. Finally, after all these years, she’s all mine.
By the time I force myself to stop, her hands are gripping my shoulders and her legs are wrapped tightly around my waist. Breathing shallowly, she stares at me, her lips swollen and parted, her red lipstick mostly gone and her mascara smeared around her bewitching eyes—and I’m so hard I could come on the spot. The water that was so cool and refreshing on my skin now feels like it’s boiling me alive, and it takes everything I have to carefully disengage from her lest I break my promise and take her here and now, in the open ocean, with my brother next to us and the boat slowly drifting away.
