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Leaning down, I reverently kiss her soft palm, and then I continue stroking it as she asked. Slowly, the tension in her face eases, and I’m able to take a full breath as my ribcage expands in relief.
I need her to be well. I need it more than anything.
It seems like no time at all passes before Vika returns with a tray of food. By then, some color has returned to Alina’s cheeks. As Vika removes the needles, I drizzle honey over a bowl of buckwheat and top it with berries, the way I’ve seen Alina do for herself. On the tray are also eggs, toast, and all kinds of breakfast meats and seafood, but I suspect my Alinyonok won’t be up for anything that ambitious.
Sure enough, once Vika leaves, Alina wrinkles her nose and says, “I’m not sure I can eat right now. I’m not hungry.”
“How about just a few bites?” I coax, stuffing some pillows behind her to prop her up to a half-sitting position. “Just something to stabilize your blood sugar.”
She sighs. “Okay.”
She reaches for the bowl, but I’m already holding out a spoon of buckwheat and honey-drenched berries. She hesitates for a bit, then lets me bring the spoon to her mouth. I smile, satisfied on some primal level as I watch her chew and swallow the food I’ve given her, and then I scoop up another spoonful and feed it to her. Obediently, she accepts my offering, and blood surges to my dick as I watch her red lips close around the spoon.
Fuck. This isn’t supposed to be erotic.
I try to chase away all thoughts of what I’d like those plush lips to close around next, but I’m not entirely successful. Everything Alina does—including sleeping and breathing—turns me on. It’s been that way from the moment I saw her, and it’s only getting worse. I can’t get enough of her.
Each touch, each kiss only feeds my addiction.
She’s such a good girl too, eating one spoonful after another, and I tell her that, my voice huskier than it should be. She doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, her lids are at half-mast as she looks at me from underneath her long, thick lashes, her chest moving in a quick, shallow rhythm. Before long, the bowl of buckwheat is empty, and I’m so hard my dick could drill through the ocean floor.
“How is your headache?” I ask, my voice hoarse with the desire she evokes in me.
I have no intention of taking her again. I just need to know that she’s okay and—
“It’s better,” she whispers, her eyes like endless pools of jade, dark and liquid and mysterious. She leans toward me ever so slightly, her lips parted, and before I can rein myself in, I reach for her, pulling her toward me, angling her face until our mouths meet. I try to stop, but I taste the honey and berries on her breath, and I deepen the kiss, desperate for more of that sweetness, more of her.
And she gives me more. Wrapping her arms around my neck, she pulls me down until I’m on top of her, pressing her into the mattress. Holding on tight, she kisses me back, arching against me, and I lose the fight against the lust riding me.
I take her like the animal I am, and the only thing I remember to do last minute is get a condom.
Never again will I endanger her life and health.
Chapter 24
Alina
I close my eyes and lay my head on Alexei’s chest, listening to the steady thumping of his heart as a pleasant drowsiness sweeps over me in the aftermath of the sensory storm that’s just torn me apart. My headache is all but gone, and the hypnotic way Alexei is gently running his fingers through my hair makes me disinclined to move a muscle.
He used a condom. Again.
I don’t understand it, but I can’t say I’m not grateful. Which is stupid and may signify the beginnings of Stockholm syndrome because gratitude is not what I should be feeling toward a man who kidnapped me, forced me into marriage, and more than likely has already made me pregnant.
I wait for the panic to crash over me, but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s all the endorphins from the sex or the fact that there’s nothing I can do if the worst has happened, but I feel strangely calm about the possibility of pregnancy. Numb from shock, maybe? It doesn’t feel like it, but then again, I can’t trust my emotions around Alexei. His mere presence messes up my inner compass. Like a powerful magnet, he scrambles my sense of right and wrong, good and bad… love and hate.
No. Not that last bit. I still hate Alexei Leonov. That’s the one thing I’m sure of. So what if we’re lying here like lovers? We’re not. We’re stalker and victim, captor and captive, husband and unwilling wife. And the worst part is, I still don’t know why.
