Chapter 16

Sixteen

K irill

She's so lovely all the time. I catch myself watching her, lost in time, a prisoner of her allure more than I'm comfortable to admit. Her loveliness is arresting, captivating, corrupting. And yet, watching her now, as lovely as she is, there is a slight pinching of discomfort squeezing the air from my lungs. Her tears glisten on soft skin flushed with too much emotion. Ruby red hair is mussed against black sheets, her naked body pinned, trembling beneath mine.

Beautiful. So goddamned beautiful.

I'd known when I started this, intent to take more than a simple kiss from her lovely lips, that I would push the boundaries she set, ironclad, in her mind. But I couldn't have imagined what her tears in the aftermath would do to me. How they would pluck at the armor I built around my soul long ago, to poke at the tender center.

I'm not a good man. I may have started that way, long ago. A man with a soft center, an unbroken moral compass. But life, and corruption, changed me. Altered me. A glaring need to protect that soft center birthed something dark, and dangerous. A monster that lurks never far from the surface of my skin.

I haven't felt that soft center stir, in so long, I'm momentarily unsure what to do with it as I recall the man, I'd once wanted to be within the memory of the weak boy I'd been.

A jarring blade of breath cuts into the silence as her sobs increase. My heart throbs heavy in response.

She makes me remember the boy I'd been. Tender, gentle, kind, and slow to act. She makes me want to shed the man I've become, if only in the darkness, only for her. I ache to shove the methodical, dangerous man aside, to be all that she needs.

But even as I touch her, my hands against the sides of her lovely face, I can't help but know they are drenched in the blood of men who are as wicked as me.

Still, as monstrous as I am, I want to be good for her.

The way she's looking at me now; it wouldn't surprise me if she can see the boy through the monstrous shield I wear. It's the first time in my life that I don't work to hide the weakness within me.

It's the first time in my life that I've ached to expose all the parts of me to another.

To be soft, if only for her.

"You are so lovely." My voice sounds rough, like thrown gravel. Maybe I can't be soft—not even for her. I've been formed under pressure and malice into this hard, sharp, polished stone that I am, carved into a deadly blade that maims with ease.

She shudders beneath me. "This is wrong."

"No." I reject her words. "You are mine. There has never been anything more right."

Full, puffy pink lips, tremble. "It feels wrong."

Something dark coils inside me. Shadows intent to smother her denial.

"Don't lie to me, Ruby."

"I'm not lying." Raw emotion leaks from her eyes, sliding over my thumbs at her temples. "I feel—I feel dirty." She sniffles. "I feel used ."

The monster, the thing inside me intent on claiming, bristles.

My pitch darkens, and I forget the boy with the soft center as I lower my head to hers, claiming her mouth with raw possession that strips her of breath. As I slide my tongue into her mouth, I know she can taste herself in my kiss.

I demand, "Do you taste that, wife?"

She tries to push me away. I don't let her.

"That's your pleasure," I say darkly, and she whimpers. I kiss her harder, my tongue pushing against hers as she fights against me. Her hands are on my shoulders again, nails digging into flesh. The bite of her touch only fuels my need to possess her. To claim all the parts of her she fights to keep from me.

The parts of her she's been fighting to keep from me.

It's been weeks. I kiss her every night, holding her as she sleeps snuggled in tight to my chest, but come the light of morning, she refuses to meet my gaze. Refuses to give me conversation—or an opening of any kind into the heart I yearn to seize, as I've seized her body. I am fed scraps while Maxim tells me she is funny, and sweet, and intelligent. My agitation is growing on the strings of an untempered jealousy.

I'm restless to know my wife .

She cries out when I nip her lip. I command, "Stop fighting me."

"I'll never stop fighting you," she vows, glaring up at me through wet eyes. "I'll never stop hating you. I'll never sit here and be content with my life as your prisoner."

Fuck, but I believe every word she says. The way she speaks the words, dripping acid, burns a hole straight through my soul.

Still, stubborn as I am, I refuse to back down.

I've molded myself into a man who finds a way to take what he wants, regardless the obstacles. And I want her.

I want all of her.

Every part of her.

For myself.

"I suggest you start looking at life with me at a different angle, wife. Because you are mine, and I'm never letting you go. No matter how you want to fight me. No matter the way you try to hurt me. And I'm done letting you hold walls between us." There's no mistaking the threat in my words as I speak them against her lips. "You are mine, and I am yours."

"You're a monster," she hisses. "I don't want you."

Fuck, but that hurts. "Want me or not, you have me. I'm yours."

My eyes drop to her trembling lips again, and the urge to claim that mouth flares inside me once again. I refrain, as I've been refraining since I made her mine.

She thinks I'm a barbarian, taking all I want at will. But I haven't even come close to taking all I want from her.

I slide off her body, doing my best to ignore the hard throb of my arousal. I'd taken care of myself in the shower, as I've been doing every day since I decided to keep Ruby, but it's no matter. I could spend myself a thousand times, and all I'd have to do is touch my lips to hers—smell the lovely rose of her skin—and I'm hard again. Aching for her. Needing her.

Not allowing her to don her clothes, I tug her back into my front. She gasps at the feel of my arousal against her lovely ass but says nothing in protest. She doesn't want to draw attention to it, I'm sure.

The thought makes me smile as I lean my body into hers, pinning her to the bed.

I don't miss the tiny sigh that slips from her some long minutes later, or the way her tense body relaxes in the bed, or the way, for the first time since I claimed her as my wife, she falls asleep before she thinks I have.

I don't miss the wick of hope that ignites in my chest.