Page 27 of Charmingly Obsessed

I let my head fall back completely, surrendering to the onslaught, to him.

When he slips into that feverish, relentless, almost brutal rhythm, trying – and spectacularly failing – to slow himself down, I make wild, incoherent, animalistic sounds.

There’s some kind of connection between them, some primal language, but I don’t understand it myself.

Frez does, though. He always does. We’re speaking in a tongue I don’t know, a language of pure sensation, need, but somehow, miraculously, we’re still talking. Still connecting.

I don’t know anything anymore. Except for the mind-blotting thrusts of his cock inside me. Filling me. Claiming me. Over and over and over.

At some point, as the pleasure builds to an unbearable, shattering crescendo, he slams his fist into the pillow beside my head, a strangled roar ripping from his throat.

Right as I start gasping for air, my body convulsing, my vision whiting out. And then he spills into me. Hot. A final, definitive claiming.

Afterward, he grips my head so firmly, his fingers tangled in my hair, that I instinctively soothe him with slow, gentle strokes across his lightly furred, sweat-slicked chest.

He threads his fingers through my hair, holding me close, as we both struggle to catch our breath, our ragged exhales mingling against each other’s lips.

The sheer, unchained, almost savage force of him… it makes me feel… free. Utterly, terrifyingly free.

With him, it’s like standing on the highest, most exposed peak of a snow-covered mountain – everything around me burning with an impossible, exhilarating fire, wild, hurricane-force winds whipping past, threatening to tear me apart, to scatter me to the four corners of the earth.

And not caring about it. Not even a little bit.

“My little thief. Diana… you are my wife.”

“Yes,” I nod, a sense of dazed wonder washing over me, as if he were waiting for my confirmation, my acceptance of this new, unbelievable reality.

“Yes,” he echoes, his voice fierce, possessive. His jaw tightens. His head moves from side to side, his nose brushing over every inch of my face – my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, my lips. As if memorizing me. Branding me. “Yes. Yes! Yes!”

We hold onto each other stupidly, desperately, tangled in the wreckage of the sheets, through several more of those incoherent, post-sex conversations. I want to tell him I don’t want this night to end. Ever. But I don’t dare. The words feel too big. Too fragile. Too real.

And I don’t want to go home. Not back to Serafima’s. Not yet. Frez won’t throw me out, that’s for sure. He’s too… possessive for that now. But I want him to not let me go in the first place. I want him to insist that I stay.

“I’ll find you something to wear for the night. Don’t worry, Diana. There are a few… things… in the guest room closet. But they won’t do for sleeping in my bed.” He smirks. That familiar, devastating Frez smirk.

Of course, he has women’s dresses in his guest room. Probably a whole goddamn wardrobe full of them. Forgotten remnants of past conquests.

The thought sends a sharp, unwelcome pang of something that feels suspiciously like jealousy through me.

I sigh, staring down at my fingers. My right hand, the one with the burn scar, needs daily therapy. Ointments. Stretches. I’ve missed every single session lately, thanks to the escalating chaos of these past few days. Thanks to him.

I don’t remember when, exactly, I fall asleep. But I think we were talking.

Mostly, Frez was telling me, in that low, mesmerizing voice of his, how we’ll be going to Paris sooner than expected.

How the trip might take a while. Weeks, maybe.

Naturally. Hunting down the elusive, eccentric Royce in the romantic streets of Paris…

that’s the whole convoluted, insane reason we got married in the first place. Isn’t it?

By morning, I feel… wrecked. But in a good way. A very, very good way. Sore. Sated. And right on the delicious, trembling edge of wanting more from the moment I wake up.

He’s not in bed. The space beside me is cool, the sheets rumpled, smelling faintly of him.

I still take my wrinkled dress and what’s left of my dignity into the enormous en-suite bathroom to change, just in case he walks back in unexpectedly.

I rinse my face, brush my teeth quickly with a new toothbrush I find in a drawer, and run a comb through my hopelessly tangled hair.

I’ll shower properly when I get back to Serafima’s. I just need to call a cab. Get out of here before I do something stupid. Like ask him to let me stay. Forever.

Back in the bedroom, my eyes catch on the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from behind a stack of investment reports on the massive, minimalist desk.

It has distinctive golden-turquoise lines and smudged yellow streaks. Familiar. Stunned, my heart suddenly hammering against my ribs again, I pull it out.

It’s my painting. étude Twelve . A small, almost insignificant piece. One of my early, experimental works. I don’t even remember when, or to whom, I sold it. It was years ago.

I stand there, frozen, staring at it. At my own hesitant, uncertain brushstrokes. My own flawed, childish vision.

What in God’s name is it doing here? In his bedroom?

Memories, sharp and unwelcome, flood in. His voice, deep, slightly hollow, laced with that casual, unintentional cruelty from three years ago, echoing in my head—

…an emotional cripple…

…stunted, slow, incomplete… infantile…

I shove the painting back into its hiding place, my hands trembling. I smooth down my wrinkled dress, my face flaming with a fresh wave of humiliation.

None of this matters. It happened a long time ago. Ancient history. And everything he said back then… it was true. About the art. About me.

That was the moment, that disastrous first meeting, that I realized Mykola Frez wasn’t just some empty, charming suit.

People always whispered about his uncanny instincts, his almost supernatural ability to read people, to understand their hidden motivations.

If you believed the online gossip, the man understood human nature and human weakness better than the Devil himself.

They weren’t exaggerating. Not by much.

Steadying myself, forcing my thoughts into a practical, unemotional direction, I step out into the main living area.