Chapter 30

Thirty

R uby

I fly awake at the sound Kirill cursing loudly, his body no longer covering mine.

"I'm going to feed her to Simba," Kirill roars, the bedsheets flying back as he shoots up from the bed to stomp into the bathroom.

I giggle as my gaze lands on a wild-eyed Nala. She's the sweetest kitty during the day, but she gets a dose of wild whenever the moon comes out, and for some reason, she likes to taunt death by using Kirill as a climbing tree whenever the witching hour strikes.

"You have to stop doing that," I whisper to her as I slide out of bed, following my grumpy, sleep deprived husband, into the bathroom. He's standing at the sink with a wet cloth slung over his shoulder. Pulling it away, I see a scratch with little beads of blood.

"They can't sleep in here anymore."

I laugh. "We tried that. They cry at the door all night. It breaks my heart."

"I thought it was the orange one I hated, but Nala turns into a demon at night."

"It's Rafiki." I don't know why he's determined to call him ‘the orange one'. "And Nala isn't a demon. She's a kitten. They get a little wild at night."

"She's going to kill me."

I tease, "Death by a thousand cuts isn't so bad." His glaring eyes meet mine in the mirror as I move in close behind him. "Besides, you're a tough guy. You can take a scratch or two."

"A scratch or two? Have you seen my back?"

"Oh, yes." I take the cloth from him, dabbing at the kitten cut. "It's a lovely back."

His eyes snap to mine in the mirror, something other than anger flashing for the first time in the dark depths. We haven't been intimate, since the cabin. We've been home for a week, and nothing. The moment Kirill put his suit back on, I stopped seeing the man I'd been falling for at the cabin, and instead, saw the dark man who'd held me in the cellar.

I've been a wreck of emotions. I'm falling for my husband, but I don't want to fall. I don't want to hit bottom, because I'm not sure that when I finally land, I'll survive the collision.

At the cabin, it had been just us. I'd genuinely liked the man he was there. He'd been less intense. Less rough.

Here, although far more polished, he feels so much more distant. I'm not sure how to bridge the gap.

But now, like this, he feels like the man I had at the cabin again. He feels like mine again.

"You like it when I'm all roughed up?" he asks darkly, his voice husky.

Desire flickers in my core. "I think it's cute how such a sweet little thing can send you over the edge like this."

"She's not the only sweet little thing who can send me over the edge."

That flicker grows. An uncomfortable clench of need pulling at my core. And then, because I can't help myself, I lean in to press my lips to his cut. "There," I say. "All better."

"Not quite."

I laugh. I can't help myself. "No?"

"It might need another kiss."

"Is that so?"

"Yes." The word is deliciously rough.

Nala takes that moment to race through the bathroom. She pauses at the end, back arched, hair tufted along her spine as she gives two quick hops on all fours, shooting Kirill a sideways stare down with a puffy tail, to boot.

"Tell me you see that?" Kirill demands. "Demon."

"Look at it like practice," I say before I can catch my tongue. "For fatherhood."

His eyes slam into me, stealing my breath. "Fatherhood?"

I swallow hard, nodding. It's not like I can back down now, can I? "Sure."

"You're thinking of babies?"

"No," I lie, shrugging. "But practice is practice."

He raises a brow as he turns slowly to face me. "Tell me, wife, do you think I need practice?"

Why does it feel like I can't breathe. "Don't we all?"

His eyes drift over my face. "Not you. You'd make a wonderful mother as you are."

I swear, my ovaries do a happy dance that I shut down firmly . Still, I hear myself say, "And you would make a wonderful father." After a pause, I add, "With some practice."

"Well." He crowds me, his hands finding my hips before I can take a step back to escape. "I guess it's a good thing we have Nala, then, isn't it?"

Before I can answer, he's taking my mouth in a kiss that steals every last breath I have in my lungs. Then, he's lifting me onto the vanity, spreading my legs and moving quickly to fill the space. Instantly, my body responds. Heat wicks at my core, my breasts grow heavy and achy with need. My skin feels sensitive everywhere.

"I need to be inside you," he murmurs. "It's been too long."

It really has, but I can't seem to find the words I need to speak. It's no matter, because his hands are already tearing at the buttons of his shirt I wear. It doesn't take long before I'm bared to him, before he pulls my panties from my body, shoving his hand down the front of his briefs to tug his erection free. I gasp at the sight of his tip, already slick with precum, before he lines it up with my entrance, and pushes in.

I cry out at the fullness of his intrusion, clinging to him as he moves. A sound of relieved release escapes the depths of his lungs. It's enough to ignite a fire of need within me that only he can sate.

It's a desperate coming together, but it's not violent like I thought it would be. His thrusts are deep, but they are slow, intentional. His kisses are long, but they are soft. His hands roam my body everywhere, the need to touch and claim a physical thing neither of us possess the power to deny.

"You've been keeping yourself from me," he says as he thrusts. "I don't like it."

"I miss you."

"You have me."

"No—the you that's just you ."

"You have just me. Every night we close our bedroom door, Ruby. It's just me, and just you. We're us." He bottoms out inside me, and I gasp. I'm so full. So full of him.

God, but he's going to slay the very last of my reservations. "I don't know how to be us here in this house. We're never alone. There is always someone around. Always?—"

He takes my mouth again, kissing me deeply. "If you want me alone, you say the word, Ruby." His fingers curl around mine over the lip of the vanity, pulling them free to twine with his before he lifts my hand to his mouth, kissing me as he rocks into me, rooting himself deep and staying there. He kisses one finger, and then two, three, then four. "I am wrapped around these fingers, wife. I am inside you now, but you are inside me, always . You are a vice around my heart, and it grows tighter and tighter every day. I count the minutes until I can return to you each day I am forced to leave you. I've been miserable for a week, hoping you will invite me inside again." He drops his face into the crook of my neck, his hot tongue sliding against sensitive skin. He growls, "Your scent drives me to the edge of madness." His free hand dives into my hair, tugging gently as his mouth finds mine again. Against my lips, he murmurs, "I've never felt more at home anywhere in my life, than I feel when I am inside you. You are my home. Your goodness is my salvation. Your purity is my deliverance. You. Are. My. Wife." He spills hot release inside me as I shudder, breaking around him. "And I am yours. Entirely, and eternally, yours."

Burying my face into his chest, I attempt to gather the shattered pieces of my shield. I feel raw and brutalized by his words, and the affection within them. I'm on the brink of tears. I feel overly emotional and over exhausted. The man can't possibly know how his words affect me, how desperately I want for them to be true.

When I sniffle, he angles back to catch my face between his hands.

"Hey." He dips his head to look at me. I can feel his release leaking from my body even though he's still buried deep inside me. He's reluctant to pull out of me, just as I'm reluctant to lose him. "Look at me, Ruby."

How can we fit like this together? Like we were made for one another? As though God built me specifically for him, and him for me?

How can something that started so wrong become so right?

"I'm making a mess." I blush at the words, feeling the stickiness of our release trickling down my thigh to pool on the counter.

"I don't care."

I shake my head between his hands, my eyes desperate on his. "We have to stop doing this."

"No," he says roughly, firmly. "We don't. And we won't."

Again, I feel fire in my cheeks. "I mean like this—unprotected."

His eyes flash to mine, and his lips hitch in a cocky grin that flips my heart. "Didn't you just tell me I would make a wonderful father?"

Oh God…

"I said you'd make a wonderful father, with practice ."

A laugh plays at the edge of his eyes. "Trust me, Nala is taking my training with the utmost seriousness."

My ovaries clench. Again. "Kirill!" I admonish with a swat to his broad, inked chest. "I'm serious."

"So am I."

"We're not ready for a baby—and if we keep doing this—a baby is what we're going to get."

"Who says we're not ready?"

I feel my mouth drop. Then I shove at his chest, trying to shove him out of me—away from me. "You are not ready for a baby! I am not ready." I glare at him as I slide off the counter. "I don't even know how I feel about you."

He herds me to the shower with his back at my front. He's hard again. I can feel his tip pressing insistently at my back as he stops us outside the glass. With one hand coming to plant itself at my lower belly, the other sets the water to hot.

When the steam begins to billow, he pushes me inside the glass and stone enclosure, his hands coming to mine at my sides, fingers linking through mine as he lifts my hands to place them on the wall in front of me.

He dips his head, speaking low into my ear. "You know perfectly well how you feel about me, wife. But you keep fighting it, so I'll keep pushing into you again and again, until you admit it to yourself. Admit that you want me. That you crave me." He leaves my hands there against the wall, dragging his down the length of my body to my hips, where he pulls my ass back to grind over his dick.

I moan.

He chuckles deep and low. "I'll make you admit that you need me. I'll show your body again and again that you can't live without me inside you. And, eventually, you'll be forced to admit what your heart already knows."

"What's that?"

Angling my ass back, Kirill positions his tip before he thrusts through the release of our last joining, rooting himself home inside me. He nips the lobe of my ear, earning a sharp cry that spills into the billowing steam.

And then he shakes me to the core. "That you're in love with me."

"No," I lie. My wrecked heart falling to ruin at his feet.

He pulls out to slam home inside me again. I scream. He hooks his arm around me, forever his prisoner as he invades my body—imprinting himself into the very fabric that weaves my soul. "And, wife, I am in love with you."