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The most I thought I could hope for was that he was pleased with me and would give me more freedom. I didn't know how to deal with him being proud of me.

A lump formed in my throat, and I tried to push it down with a deep breath.

It was… almost normal.

That night when he sat next to me on the sofa and went to turn something on the TV, I took the remote from him and tossed it on the floor.

For the first time I kissed him first. I crawled on top of him and stripped his shirt off, running my fingers over his bare chest.

Something came over me, and I needed to show him how much I liked the way he made me feel.

The need to prove I could be good, that I could give myself to this marriage, to him, overwhelmed me.

And I just wanted him. The craving for his rough, tattooed hands on me, his mouth licking and sucking mybody, and the satisfaction I knew only he could provide took over.

I kissed my way down his chest, the nerves leaving my body as he laced his fingers in my hair. This time, he didn't push me down.

He let me take my time exploring his body with my fingers and my tongue.

Every time his abs flexed under my touch and his breath hitched, or a low growling moan left his lips, I got bolder.

His approval, his arousal, fueled my own.

I took him in my mouth, and he let out another moan that made my heart pound and gave me the confidence to do whatever I wanted to him.

He was at my mercy...at least for about five minutes, when his control snapped and he threw me back on the sofa cushions, burying his face between my thighs until he made me scream his name. Twice.

The way he touched me, the way he kissed me as he pushed inside me, felt like more than it had. It felt intimate, like we were building something more than him just pulling pleasure from my body as he chased his own end.

He was chasing something else, trying to tell me something, and I found myself desperate to understand it.

After we caught our breath, he picked me up and carried me into the bathroom and started our own little post-sex ritual.

He went to the tub and filled it with steaming water and while he was getting the temperature right, I would study the maze of patterns and images in his tattoos. Hewas covered, and there was always something new to explore.

That night, my eyes went to the tattoo on his right side, covering his ribs. The ones I had to stitch over the night before our wedding. I had tried to line up the ink as best as possible, and I think I did a pretty good job. The skin was still raised and a little red, but the image was clear.

Chains. They were broken, links shattered.

I didn't ask about his tattoos. Ever.

They seemed like something deeply personal.

And as Samara had explained earlier when she was talking about a painting, art had different meanings to different people, evoked different responses in them. An image may make one person feel one way, and someone else feel another.

The broken chains on his ribs made me think of where we could be. If only he would trust me enough to break his iron-like grip on my life. Trust me enough to know I wouldn’t betray him.

Why couldn’t he trust that I wouldn’t run?

"Which scent did you want?" he asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

A smile graced my lips.

He always asked which of the expensive bubbling bath oils I preferred for the night.

For such a large, terrifying, tattooed mafia enforcer, Pavel loved his bubble baths, and I loved the way it felt to relax against his skin in the warm water.

"Amber and vanilla," I answered. That scent was the perfect mix of feminine and masculine.