Chapter 9

Nine

R uby

"Tonight?" I blurt loudly. The dog just walks into the room, my room , making himself at home somewhere behind me. I don't look away from the man, though. Of the two, he's more dangerous.

Kirill raises a dark brow at my shrill tone. The look on his face is wry. Dryly, with just a touch of amusement, he asks, "Tonight, what, Ruby?"

Fire bursts in my cheeks. I want to cover them with my hands, to hide them. But I keep my hands in place where they clutch my towel to my chest. My heart is an unsteady drum, making a play to break free.

I wouldn't blame it, either. If it found a way to tear from its cage of torment, I'd cheer it on as it fled. Leaving my heartless body behind at the mercy of this heartless man.

I straighten my spine when his eyes dip slowly over the length of my body, even though I ache to cower. To cave in on myself. To hide. Covered only by a thick, soft, cream-colored towel, I've never felt quite so exposed. So vulnerable.

I clear my throat. "What are you doing in my room?"

He cocks his head only slightly to the side. "Am I not to spend my wedding night with my wife?"

Oh God . He means to—to— I'm not ready.

Sucking in a deep breath for bravery, I skirt around him as I edge my way along the wall to the closet. I just need some clothes. Something more for this discussion. A shield.

I'm almost there when a big, hot, calloused hand closes around my arm. My heart lurches to a stop and I stumble, catching myself against the wall and him .

"Whoa," he eases, stepping far too close. The scent of him swarms me, overpowering the calming scent of rose with cedar and flame. He tsks. "Don't run from me, Ruby."

"I—I need to get dressed." I mean for the words to sound firm, but they fall on a barely audible whisper.

His jaw pulses. "I won't take your body until you are ready."

My glare snaps to his eyes. "I'll never be ready for that ."

"You will," he says assuredly. His confidence nearly floors me. "I won't force you to fuck me, but you are my wife. As I explained before you agreed to be mine, I will sleep next to you each night." His free hand lifts to snag my chin between thumb and finger, before his thumb slides firmly up over my chin to smooth over my lower lip. "I will kiss you, whenever, and wherever, I want." From the depths of his dark eyes, I swear I see a spark of something, a flame, flare. "I will touch you and watch as you come apart beneath my hand, but I won't put my body inside yours until," he leans in to speak against my ear. He's so close, I can feel the soft tickle of his lips against the delicate, sensitive skin. My breath shudders. My body, too. He finishes, "Until you beg me."

I'm horrified.

I'm horrified by his words, by the vulgarity of them.

I'm horrified by him . But more, I'm horrified because, even as his words are vulgar and should fill me with disgust, that dangerous spark that flared in his dark eyes must have transferred to me somehow. Because way deep inside the core of me, something uncomfortable and hot grows. My belly is in knots, and even though my thighs are wet from the water of my shower, I feel a new kind of spilled heat between my legs. It assaults me with a shame unlike any I've ever known in my life.

I've always sought to be a good girl. To do the right thing by Mama and Daddy, to make them proud. I've tried to live true to my faith. To honor my body and this life I've been given with goodness.

But this doesn't feel good.

It feels wrong. So, so wrong. And, yet, so right…

My mind fractures, thoughts fraying. My body quivers. My lungs seize as I try to suck in desperate breaths. To make sense of everything.

He steps in even closer, the scent of him—the heat radiating off his body—the mass of him—it's all so much. I tremble, even as I glare up at him. I'm a doe caught between the deadly claws of a grizzly.

He's going to shred me.

His voice pitches low. The darkness in his eyes flares with a hunger that terrifies and ignites me as they drop to my lips.

He wets his lips.

My core spasms.

I'm going to hell.

He curses low under his breath. When he speaks, there is spilled gravel in his tone. "Is a husband not entitled to taste his wife's mouth on his wedding night?"

I sneer. I'm not sure if I'm angry at the audacity of this man, or at myself for the way my body betrays me so quickly for him.

"A husband is entitled to nothing. That doesn't mean you won't take it, anyway."

His jaw hardens. His voice is smooth. "You're right."

I didn't expect that reply, and for a moment, I'm speechless. Then fear quickens inside me. My fingers curl into useless fists. "I hate you."

There's a muscle ticking in his jaw now. He's frustrated, but he only steps away from me. I watch, breaths falling heavily into the space he vacates as he moves to my bed. He claims the side closest to the door, to my escape.

I watch, unmoving, as he sheds his suit jacket and then his watch. When he moves thick fingers to the buttons of his black dress shirt, popping one and then two through the holes, I think I forget to breathe.

The man is undressing! I've never seen a naked man, much less had one undress in front of me.

I need to look away, but with every button he pops through the hole, exposing more and more of his hard, carved chest, and the black ink that decorates it, I grow more and more transfixed.

What am I doing? Ruby Belle—shoot— what's my last name again? Oh, frick.

It doesn't matter what my last name is. What matters is that I'm drooling over the devil.

Over my husband.

"Come here." His voice is deep and low as he shrugs from the shirt, tossing it to the same chair he'd tossed his jacket. He's so big and so—well, defined . Muscles ripple as he moves, the massive black tattoo of a bear seeming to tear from the very flesh he wears, as though it's ready to rip into any foe who dares to take arms against him.

It's ironic how I'd compared him to a bear not all that long ago. Now, as his hands fall to the belt that hugs his waist, big hands making quick work of the buckle, I really can't help but compare him to the bear he wears on his flesh. They're both massive and ruthless. Deadly.

I shiver.

"Ruby," he calls, and I blink. When I shift my eyes from his now open belt buckle to his face, I find his expression is impossibly dark and terrifyingly hungry.

Not for the first time tonight, I feel like my knees might give out. I swear, they knock. I squeak, "Hmm?"

"I said, come here."

I gulp. "Oh. Um. I can't."

He raises a brow, but I swear his lip twitches. "You can't?"

"I need jammies."

His amused expression doesn't fade as he abandons his task of stripping from his pants to lift the shirt he tossed to the chair, and then he's moving to me. My heart climbs from my chest to lodge like a spur in my throat. I do my best to swallow it down. I fail.

Kirill holds his shirt out to me. I stare at the black fabric that dangles from his finger as though it might shift into the very bear that is inked into his skin, to devour me whole.

Dumbly, I ask, "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Put it on."

My eyes bug. I choke on the heart in my throat, finally coughing it down. "I'm s-sorry?"

"You say you need something to sleep in." He pushes the shirt closer to me, a dare lighting his dark coffee eyes. "Sleep in this."

"I can't sleep in your shirt."

"Why not?"

"It's yours."

"And you are mine." His free hand lifts, a finger sliding between the fabric and my overheated skin. When he gives it a firm tug, I stumble from the wall toward him. There's no way I'm releasing the towel. Standing toe-to-toe with him now, he dips his head. "You can put on my shirt, or I can put it on for you. The choice is yours."

"You and your choices," I grumble, but I snatch his shirt.

Then, because I'm feeling all kinds of prickly, and sensitive, and overly confused, I stomp back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

The dog lets out a single bark.

I swear, I hear my devil laugh.