40. Viviana

As soon as I wake up, I reach for Mikhail.

It's only been a few days of this—fumbling for each other in the early morning and sliding together—but it's already an instinct. "The human desire to multiply," Mikhail joked one morning, running his finger along my opening as his "desire to multiply" leaked out of me and stained our sheets.

He's not even wrong. We're having sex—really, really great sex—but it's sex with a purpose. We are making a family and Mikhail never lets me forget it.

You're going to look so good carrying my baby.

Everyone is going to see you and know that you belong to me.

All of Mikhail's intensity is focused on getting me pregnant, and I love it.

"Food," Mikhail decides, sliding out of me from behind and rolling out of bed. He grabs my robe from the bathroom door and holds it open for me.

I press my legs together. "I need to clean up. I need to?—"

"Leave it." His eyes darken, tracing over every naked inch of me. "Hold me inside of you. Maybe it will help."

"I don't see how it's going to make any difference. We're fucking more than we're not the last few days. I don't think we need any more ‘help.'"

He yanks me to my feet and slides the robe over my arms. "It will help me get through breakfast without throwing you down on the table and filling you again."

I flush from head to toe. "Oh. Well then."

"That's what I thought." He pinches my lower lip between his teeth. "Let's eat."

Even sitting across the table from each other is sexually charged. I can't watch Mikhail butter his toast or take a bite of eggs without thinking about all the dirty things he's done with those fingers and that mouth.

Is this what people call the honeymoon period? Or am I always going to feel like this?

I'm not sure, but I enjoy the tingle down my spine and the warmth in my chest.

I pull my eyes away from him and focus on sustenance. After last night and this morning, I need the calories.

"I figured Dante would be awake by now."

"He's on a field trip with Anatoly and Mrs. Steinman." Mikhail eyes me over his coffee. "Anatoly told you about it last night. At dinner."

I frown. "I don't remember—" Then it hits me and my face flames.

Mikhail smirks, far too pleased with himself. "Was your mind somewhere else?"

Yeah—in the gutter.

I remember pretending to listen to Anatoly, nodding and smiling along with whatever he said. Under the table, Mikhail was dragging his hand up and down my thigh, inching higher and higher. It's what I deserved for wearing a dress to dinner. That's what Mikhail told me once we were alone, anyway.

When he finally slid his finger over the lace between my legs, I almost skyrocketed out of the chair.

I jab the tines of my fork at him. "You're becoming a distraction. We're not going to be able to pull this kind of stuff once we're back at the office."

I would have been more upset about Cerberus burning down if anyone had been hurt—which, thankfully, they weren't—and if it hadn't meant a prolonged vacation for me—which, thankfully, it had. Something about being kidnapped—twice—left me in need of a work sabbatical. But now that things are creeping towards something like normalcy, I'm excited to get back to it and settle into a new office.

"When did you say the offices would be ready?"

Mikhail is suddenly very focused on his nearly-empty plate. "Tomorrow."

"I need to tell Anatoly."

"He already knows."

"Right. Of course he does," I mutter, my brain whirring with a thousand new thoughts. "Is he going to be here at the house with Dante after his tutoring? Someone will need to be here with him since I won't be home until the late afternoons now. I hear my boss is a real hardass."

I smirk up at him, but Mikhail isn't smiling. "No one needs to be here with Dante." I'm about to argue before he adds, "Because you'll be here."

Mikhail drops the bomb and gets up from the table. As if this conversation is over. As if I'm just going to let him walk away.

"I'll be here tomorrow?" I ask cautiously. "Or…"

"Every day. Most days," he amends. "Since you won't be working."

Somewhere in the back of my head, a record scratches. "And why won't I be working?"

He meets my eyes with a sigh. "Think about it, Viviana."

"No." I jab a finger at him, shaking my head. "No. Don't say it like that. Don't say it like I'm being ridiculous and I should understand this. When we got married, I told you I was going to keep working."

"When we got married the first time."

"I didn't realize I needed to re-up my terms and conditions before the second ceremony," I snap.

"There are no terms and conditions this time. That's why this is different. Our marriage isn't a business deal anymore; it's a relationship."

Some girlish part of me is giddy hearing him say that, but I squash it down. This isn't time for fawning, lovesick Viviana. It's time to be serious.

"Great point, Mikhail. This is a relationship. Which means we each have needs and desires that need to be fulfilled and we should respect those."

Mikhail edges around the island, stalking towards me. "Believe me, Viviana, I have the utmost respect for your needs and desires."

I take a step back. "I'm not speaking in euphemisms here. I'm being serious."

"So am I." He keeps moving forward, backing me around the island. But each of his steps are worth two of mine and he catches up quickly, cornering me against the countertop. His arms bracket either side of me. "I can't meet your needs and desires if you get yourself killed in the breakroom."

He smells like citrus and maple syrup. I want to take a bite of him. "You're being dramatic."

"There's no such thing when we're at war. They burned the last building down. I'll never be able to trust that you're safe there."

"So I'm supposed to sit around the mansion all day and wait for you to come home?" I ask incredulously. "You expect me to be happy with a social circle that includes you, yourself, and your penis?"

"You've been thrilled with that social circle the last few days." The deep rumble of his voice vibrates between my legs. I'm painfully aware that he's still dripping down the insides of my thighs.

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not." His mouth whispers over my neck. I close my eyes and take a deep steadying breath that doesn't do a damn thing to steady me. There's no such thing when he's this close to me. "The fact that we've been fucking like it's our full-time job is very much the subject. You're going to be pregnant with my baby soon, Viviana. The target on your back will only get bigger."

"So hire more security. I'll take Raoul with me everywhere I go."

Mikhail pulls back to look at me, annoyingly at ease. "He's not a bodyguard and he'd hate you for even suggesting it."

"Then find a bodyguard. I don't care who it is. You can't make me quit."

"Okay." He nods, thinking it over. "Then you're fired."

I shove against his chest, but he catches my wrists in his hands and curls them harmlessly against his chest. "You can't do that!" I argue, even though I know he can. "I'll sue you for wrongful termination."

He kisses my knuckles and my wrists. He slides the large sleeves of my robe higher, tasting my skin.

I try to pull away, but he pins my hands to the edge of the countertop and looms over me. The front of the robe gaps open and he notes it for several heated seconds before his eyes meet mine again. "You told me this is what you wanted, Viviana. You told me you wanted my baby."

"I do, but?—"

"Do you want to be a personal assistant more than you want to be pregnant?"

I sigh. "It doesn't have to be black and white like that."

He catches my mouth, kissing me until I'm liquid. He presses his forehead to mine, breathing hard. "Right now, the entire world is black and white. There are good guys and bad guys. There's safety and danger. I'm not willing to risk you or Dante or the baby-to-come," he says, brushing his hand over my stomach, "in some gray area. Until I know it's safe, you're fired."

What he's saying makes sense, which is somehow worse.

"So what am I supposed to do until then?"

He takes me by the waist and lifts me onto the counter. His eyebrow is arched, his pupils expanding with every breath. "I have a few ideas."

I don't want this conversation to be over, but what more is there to say?

Mikhail loves me. He wants to keep me safe. How can I be upset with him about that?

I slowly untie my robe, letting it gape open. "I thought the goal was to make it through breakfast without having sex again."

"And we did. Breakfast is over." Mikhail shoves my robe off my shoulders, leaving me completely naked on the counter. He drags a finger slowly between my breasts. "That's an accomplishment worth celebrating."

He slides me to the edge of the counter and pushes into me. This morning, the sex was slow and gentle. Now, he spreads each of my knees against the counter and slams into me. It's fast and rough.

I tug on the roots of his hair, meeting each thrust halfway until we're slapping together. Until my screams echo off the tile and Mikhail is grunting against my neck.

I clamp down around him a second before he dives deep and stays there, twitching into me.

"Soon, you're going to be carrying my baby." He bites my neck, soothing the hurt with his tongue. "You'll be pregnant and nothing else will matter."

I still don't know what I'm going to do every day. I don't know when I'm going to be able to leave the house—when we'll be safe. But when Mikhail is holding me like this, none of those questions seem nearly as important.

If this is all I ever have—Dante and Mikhail and the baby-to-come…

It's enough.