The slight tremble of her shoulders, the quiet inhale that reaches through the air, and the tight grip of her fingers around the first aid box.
She didn’t save me because she suddenly grew a conscience. Not after weeks of declaring, in every way possible, that she would rather do the most horrific things than have a slice of sympathy toward me.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I just did.”
Liar. There’s only one way to get the truth.
“You’re smarter than that,” I reply, not letting her escape. “You wouldn’t do something like that unless you had a reason. Tell me, printsessa.” I touch her stitches, admiring them.
I thought I knew everything about Isabella, but it turns out there’s so much more to the woman who carries my last name. My wife. The urge to strip her layers down to the last one slithers across my skin.
“Have you fallen in love with me?”
“Love?” Her voice breaks.
“Yes.” I nod, watching her shoulders stiffen. “Love. It’s not hard to fathom if you think about it. It’s a chemical reaction. Only slightly more potent than lust.”
She whirls around. I expect to see anger clearly written on her face, because the point of implying that she’d fallen for me was to see her crack—but there’s something else there.
It’s denial, hovering beneath her silence.
“So?” I prompt, pushing at the layer. It’s cruel to reach for her vulnerability, but I’m driven by something other than tenderness.
“Who would be in love with you?” she sneers. “You don’t know what love is, Roman, and the fact that you think it’s the same as lust tells me everything I need to know.”
Huh. I turn to Leo. “Can you give us some space?”
“No,” she snaps at him. “You don’t have to leave. I don’t have anything else to say to you, Roman. You’re welcome to make whatever assumptions you have about what I did. I don’t care.”
“Leo—”
He raises his hand. “Yup. Leaving now. I’m just going to see if there’s something to eat. If you bleed out, Roman…” He doesn’t finish his sentence as my eyes narrow in his direction.
As Leo vacates the living room, I push to my feet, ignoring the stab of pain that ripples from my arm and spreads through my body. My focus is Isabella, the tension radiating from her calling out to me.
My steps are deliberately paced as I approach, giving her enough time to run. To retreat. I inhale slowly, never once taking my eyes off her. I need her to see. That I don’t intend to be gentle.
That I want to take her apart, piece by piece, and see what she’s hiding from me.
“Tell me.” I stop inches from her, my head tilting with deep curiosity. “What do you think love is, Isabella? Willingness to die for someone? Loyalty? Duty? Because if that’s your definition, then Leo is definitely in love with me.”
“It’s not the same thing,” she hisses.
“Really?” I click my tongue. “Then enlighten me.”
Her lips part, and her tongue touches the roof of her mouth, but no sound escapes. A chuckle rolls off my tongue as I step closer, leaving nothing between us.
I lift my uninjured hand to her cheek, and my thumb brushes against her skin like a whisper. “You’re not in love with me, yet your body trembles when I touch you. Your lips part, and I can hear the sound of your heart racing.”
My thumb dips to the seam of her lips, eliciting an involuntary sigh. She clamps down immediately, but she doesn’t pull away. Defiance? A show of self-control?
I’m uncertain what she’s trying to prove, but it doesn’t matter.
My fingers drift lower as I cradle her face, and my other hand settles on her waist. “Tell me, Isabella, that your body doesn’t crave me. That if I stripped your clothes off, you’d protest.”
“I—”
“No?” I ask quietly. “I can see your nipples poking through your shirt. I bet if I touched you between your legs, you’d be wet. Aroused. For me.”
She doesn’t respond. My hand inches up from my waist, sliding over her chest. My thumb grazes her nipple, and she inhales sharply, her composure cracking again.
“Fight me all you want, printsessa, but we both know the truth.”
“You don’t know anything,” she protests without a lick of fight in her voice.
I tut, letting my hands drop to my sides. “It sounds like you’re posing a challenge. Do you want to bet?” I ask. I lift my hand again, brushing her hair from her shoulder, and I feel a slight tremor run down her spine.
Dipping my head, I press my lips to her ear. “You’re mine, Isabella. Not just because I’ve claimed you, but because you want what I can give you. You want my hands on your body, my lips on your skin. You crave it so much that you’ve decided hating me is the best pretense.”
When my mouth finds hers, there’s no resistance. Like I said. Her hands remain stubbornly by her sides for a moment, but the lick of my tongue against hers wrangles a moan through, and her fingers fist my shirt as she gives in.
My fingers dig into her hips as I claim her mouth harder, nipping her bottom lip before thrusting my tongue into her mouth again. Isabella arches, rubbing her nipples against my chest.
I groan as my cock stirs in my pants, straining and jerking wildly against its restraints. I back her to the wall as my fingers make quick work of her shirt, pulling it over her head and tossing it to the floor.
I run my tongue across her collarbone, and she whimpers as it swirls over her nipples before sucking on them. Her fingers sink into my back, nails dragging over my bloodied shirt.
My leg slides between her thighs, and she lets out a broken sound as her hips jerk.
“Look at you.” I lift my head, cupping her lips with my index finger and thumb as she rides my thigh. “So responsive. So fucking responsive, Bella.”
Her breath stutters, lips parted around a gasp as I flex my thigh beneath her, forcing another shudder from her body.
“Grinding on me like you need it to breathe,” I growl, dragging my finger down her chin to her throat, pressing lightly. “You’re mine like this. Every twitch. Every sound. Every goddamn drop of need in you is mine.”
I don’t give her a second to catch her breath. My hands grip her waist, guiding her movements—harder, slower, crueler. Her head presses back to the wall, hair tumbling over her shoulders as her nails bite deeper into my back.
“That’s it,” I murmur against her chest as I drag my tongue over her nipple again, my voice low and thick. “Use me. Take what you need—but remember who you belong to when you fall apart.”
Before she can collapse against me, I spin her around, locking my arm around her waist as my chest lines flush with her spine. My other hand slides up, rough palms cupping her breasts and teasing them with my fingers.
My mouth grazes the shell of her ear.
“Feel that?” I breathe, voice thick with hunger as my dick presses against her ass. “Tell you don’t think about it more than you want to, Isabella.”
She leans into me with a soft, keening sound, and I drag my mouth down her neck as my finger slips into her pajama bottoms, pulling it lower. I nudge her legs even wider, my thumb dipping over her clit.
“Fuck,” she cries.
“Keep your hands on the wall,” I murmur, fueled by a selfish need to drive her to the edge. Drive her to the point where it’s undeniable how much I want her. She obeys, and I press the pad of my thumb to her clit, circling it with every cry that leaves her lips.
My middle finger goes lower, sliding over her pussy. My chest rumbles with a harsh groan as I push my finger into her, and it goes in—the wet sound of her body clenching, driving me close to insanity.
Another finger, and she takes me in willingly, backing up and riding my hand with reckless desperation. “Ty vsya moya,” I rasp as her head falls on my shoulder.
My teeth graze her exposed skin, marking her neck with soft bites.
When her hand reaches behind, fumbling with my zipper, I snag her wrist, pinning it behind her back. I take her other hand too, holding both in place.
“Perfect,” I mutter as I take a step back, gazing at her flushed skin and the look of need as her head turns. “You look so perfect.”
A noise from further into the house momentarily steals my attention and I realize we’re still in the living room.
Even better. I step closer, crowding Isabella with my body again. “Do you want me to fuck you here?” I ask. “Where Leo can hear you? Where Polina can walk in on us?”
She bites her lip. My hand slides across her stomach again, cupping her breast. “That wasn’t a question,” I say.
A faint gasp escapes her throat, and I feel the way her body leans into my touch desperately.
My mouth brushes her ear as I murmur, “Keep your eyes on me.”
I slide my hand lower, dragging it over the waistband of her bottoms again. “Let them hear how much you want me,” I say, my voice low and rough. “Let them know exactly who you belong to.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
So I press my palm between her thighs and feel the heat of her arousal through the thin fabric. “Still not a question, Isabella.”
I pull her bottoms down, and my pants drop, the sound of fabric rustling too loud in the silence. I keep her close, pressing against her, the tension thick as I bend her forward, my grip on her hips tightening.
Her breath hitches, a soft whimper escaping her lips as I thrust forward—slowly entering her. She gasps, the sound like music, urging me on, pushing me to move faster, harder.
“Do you want this?” I growl as I continue to thrust, each movement meant to ignite every inch of her. “Right here? Right now?”
She doesn’t answer with words, but the way her body moves with mine, the way she clenches around me until I can barely breathe, says everything.
Her fingers grip the wall in front of her, nails digging into the surface, a silent surrender to the intensity of the moment. My hands never leave her hips as I set the pace, pushing her to the edge, to the brink of losing herself.
Losing myself.
The silence is broken only by the harsh sound of our breaths and the sound of my thighs against her ass, going deep with every thrust. She pushes back, matching the rhythm, failing and trying again.
I don’t hold back until I feel her tense, and every muscle in my body locks in response. Then she’s coming apart, shuddering with a loud cry that ends as I cup her chin and swallow the rest in a kiss, chasing my release too.
I hold Isabella for as long as it takes for her to catch her breath, and then I let go, reaching for my pants in the silence that follows.
She puts on her shirt in silence, and I don’t see the anger in her eyes until she picks up her pants and faces me. “You were trying to make a point, weren’t you?”
“What point?” I respond flippantly. Because, somewhere along the line, I lost the plot.
“Nothing,” she bites. “I should go to bed. It’s late.”
“Don’t be delusional, printsessa,” I say as she walks away, frustration etched in her steps. “You think that at any point you were in control?”
She pauses and turns, and I see unshed tears in her eyes.
My jaw clenches as a stab of guilt, of self-hate, punches through my chest. I shouldn’t have touched her. I was trying to prove a point, but I could’ve done it any other way.
Instead, I let my frustration take over. I made her pay the price for my troubled emotions. I knew how to break her, and I did because I couldn’t handle the fact that, for a moment, I felt something deeper than lust.
“What other lessons do you have to teach me?” she asks, hurt bleeding through her voice. “That it’d be a mistake to think you capable of anything remotely humane? That you’re a cold, manipulative bastard who I should have no sympathy for?”
No. Yes. I don’t want her to see me any other way, because I’ll never be the man she deserves, the one I know she wants. Beneath the tough, stubborn exterior, I know what she wants—kindness, love, everything my world doesn’t accommodate.
“Yes.” I nod, dragging my hand across my face. “Yes, goddammit.” My words are harsh and rough, tinged with the same frustration I tried to bury when I made love to her. “This isn’t a fairy tale. I am not on your side. You’re the daughter of the man who killed my father in cold blood, and I took you as a trophy, nothing more.”
“I see.” She nods slowly, her lashes fluttering rapidly.
She turns away for a moment, shutting her eyes. Then she faces me with a thin smile on her lips. “You’re saying I shouldn’t have saved you.” She laughs bitterly, biting down on her lip. “I guess I’m not as smart as you thought, then.”
My chest burns with more guilt as she continues, “But you seem to be mistaken about one thing, Roman. I chose to sleep with you. The sex?” She clicks her tongue. “It happened because I wanted it to. There’s a big difference between lust and love, and I promise you, I’m nowhere near the latter. You’re the last person I’d ever fall in love with.”
She exhales loudly, smooths her hands down her chest, and marches off without another word, leaving me in stifling, suffocating silence.
This is what I wanted.
For her to hate me the way she did when I threw her over my shoulder and took her from the cathedral. It wasn’t supposed to be a marriage with feelings or empathy—Isabella Ricci was my trophy bride, a punishment for her father, and a warning to everyone else.
I succeeded in reminding her of her position.
And yet—
My nails dig into my palms as I clench my fists, and my jaw aches from how hard it clenches, holding back a flood of fury and much more than I can admit—all of it directed at me.
Myself.
Because it should be a victory, yet all I feel is raw and stripped bare, down to the bone.
“Fucking hell,” I snarl as I stand, heading toward the kitchen. I need a fucking drink.
Something, any-bloody-thing to keep Isabella out of my head before it’s too late.
