Page 22 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #13)

It’s just past midnight Tiago leaves.

I’ve been pacing the last hour, though I’d never admit it aloud. The whiskey on the sideboard is untouched, the fire in the study long since died out. My phone’s screen has gone dark from disuse, but I keep checking it anyway. Not for messages. Just for the time.

I hear the front doors open before I see her.

She walks in like the silence belongs to her. No hesitation. No apology. Wind-stirred hair curling against her shoulders, her eyes half lidded and heavy with fatigue. She looks soft. Wrung out.

She looks beautiful. But it’s not the sight of her that hits me first.

It’s the scent.

She smells like the Ortega estate. Like somewhere else. Somewhere not mine.

That’s what bothers me. That she’s carried it back with her—whatever quiet things they whispered in her ear, whatever touches lingered too long. It clings to her skin like perfume I didn’t approve.

I say nothing. I don’t ask how it went, what was discussed, who was there. I don’t care.

She’s here now. Under my roof. Back in my world, and I’m starved.

She shrugs out of her coat slowly, movements languid, too casual.

My eyes track each one—her hands pushing her hair back, her mouth parted on a tired breath, the way her dress clings slightly where she’s been sitting for too long.

She avoids my gaze, but I see the tension in her jaw, the way her shoulders square the moment she senses I’m watching.

She’s tired, but she’s on guard.

I take a step forward, stopping just short of her. The air between us thickens immediately. “I trust everything went smoothly,” I say.

Her chin lifts, but she doesn’t answer. Not with words. Just a faint nod, enough to suggest agreement without giving anything real away.

I want to ask who she saw. What they told her. What she told them. I want to strip the night from her skin and search it for lies.

Instead, I reach out. My fingers graze her wrist, slow and measured, watching how her breath stutters when I do. Her skin is warm. Too warm.

“Next time,” I murmur, voice low, “you’ll take me with you.”

She says nothing, but doesn’t pull away.

I take that for what it is—a silent kind of surrender. Maybe that’s enough for tonight.

We barely make it up the stairs.

I don’t remember if the door shuts behind us.

I don’t care. The moment we cross the threshold into my room, something in me snaps loose—weeks of silence, of watching her walk the halls like a ghost I can’t touch.

That dress, that scent, the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes—I can’t let it go unanswered.

She turns, lips parted like she’s about to speak.

I don’t let her.

My hands are on her before the words leave her mouth. I drag her to me, my mouth crashing against hers. There’s nothing gentle in it. Nothing patient. It’s hunger, sharpened and honed, carved into the shape of her.

She gasps, body tensing beneath mine, but she doesn’t resist. She grips my shirt, nails curling against my chest as I walk her backward—toward the bed, toward surrender.

I break the kiss just long enough to yank the zipper down her back, slow and rough all at once.

The dress slides off her shoulders and pools at her feet.

No hesitation. No modesty.

She stands there in lace and defiance, breathing fast.

I step in close, mouth brushing the hollow behind her ear—the spot that always shatters her. Her breath catches on a sob, hips twitching forward as I slide my hands over her ribs, down her waist, anchoring her to me.

“You let them touch you?” I murmur against her skin. My voice is low, dangerous, half control, half need.

“No,” she breathes.

Her answer is instant. Unthinking. Honest.

That does something to me. Something worse than jealousy. Something like possession.

I pick her up without another word. She’s soft in my arms, but her hands are wild—clawing at my shoulders, pulling me closer, nails scoring skin like she’s marking every inch. I lay her down hard, and she moans at the impact, her back arching as I strip off my shirt.

She watches me. Her eyes dark, lips parted, chest rising and falling like she’s been running.

I slide my hand between her thighs and find her already soaked. I don’t tease.

I push her panties aside and sink two fingers in, deep, precise. Her legs jerk, mouth falling open on a broken sound, but I don’t give her time to catch her breath. My thumb finds her clit, rubbing slow, brutal circles until she’s twisting under me, helpless and breathless.

“Say my name,” I growl.

She moans it, barely audible—“Maxim….”

“Louder.”

“Maxim.”

That’s better.

I slide down her body, dragging my mouth across her hip, her inner thigh, licking the edge of her need but never fully giving in.

She’s shaking by the time I finally put my mouth on her—open, wet, demanding.

Her hands fly to my hair, her thighs clamping around my head as I devour her.

Every moan is a plea. Every jerk of her hips a confession.

She comes hard, writhing beneath me, my name tangled in the wreckage of her voice.

I don’t stop, I don’t let her rest.

I rise over her, undoing my belt, dragging my jeans down just enough. Her eyes widen when she sees how hard I am, how much I’ve held back.

She opens for me without being told. My control slips when I sink into her. She’s tight. Hot. Drenched.

I have to bite down on a curse as her body clamps around me, pulsing and perfect. I grip her thighs, pull them over my hips, and start to move.

Fast. Brutal. No rhythm at first, just pure need. Weeks of restraint breaking all at once.

She takes it. All of it. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, her mouth open in soundless gasps. Her breasts bounce with every thrust, her legs wrapped tight around me like she’s trying to hold me in.

“You’re mine,” I growl into her neck. “Say it.”

“I’m yours,” she gasps.

I thrust harder.

“Again.”

“I’m yours, Maxim—yours—”

That’s what undoes me.

I grab her wrists, pin them above her head, and slam into her until the bed creaks and the air is full of nothing but breath and skin and the wet sounds of our bodies colliding. She’s gasping, sobbing, whispering my name like it’s sacred. Like I’m holy.

She comes again, and this time I follow.

I stay buried inside her, panting against her neck, lips brushing sweat-slick skin. My weight presses her into the mattress, but she doesn’t push me away. Her arms come up around my back, holding me there, grounding me.

We’re still connected, in every possible way. My cock still hard inside her, twitching with aftershocks.

I kiss her jaw. Her cheek. The corner of her mouth.

She turns her head, catches my lips with hers, slower this time. Deeper. Her tongue slides against mine, and I groan into her mouth, the tension between us shifting—still charged, but now it burns lower, deeper.

I pull out slowly. She shudders at the drag of it.

I move down again, mouth finding the slick mess between her thighs, tasting the blend of us. She moans—high, helpless—and jerks when I suck her clit back into my mouth, two fingers sliding back inside.

She’s already spent, but I want more.

I want everything.

Her cries rise again, louder now, raw with oversensitivity, her hands flying to my hair, trying to push me away, then pull me closer. I don’t relent. I hold her hips down, feasting on her like I’ve earned the right.

She comes again with a sob, body arching so hard she nearly slips from my grasp.

Only then do I crawl back up, kissing every inch I can reach. Her collarbone. Her throat. Her mouth.

I roll her over onto her stomach, lift her hips, and take her again.

Slower, but deeper. Every thrust now is a promise. A threat. A confession I’ll never speak aloud.

I press one hand to the back of her neck, holding her steady while I fuck her through it—through the guilt, the silence, the heat that never really left us.

She moans into the pillow, her fingers clutching the sheets, her body yielding to mine like it’s the only thing it knows how to do.

When we both come again, shaking, spent, ruined—I stay.

She falls asleep not long after.

Still naked, still warm, curled slightly into my side like some soft thing that doesn’t know it’s lying beside a man who ruins whatever he touches.

Her hand flutters near my chest, fingertips brushing the space between my ribs like she’s reaching for something even in her dreams. A small sound leaves her throat—gentle, involuntary—and it burrows under my skin, subtle but unbearable.

I lie still. Eyes open. Staring up at the dark sweep of the ceiling while the city hums low and distant through the glass.

My hand is on her back, dragging slow lines along the dip of her spine, barely touching, but I know the shape of every inch now. I know where she arches. Where she breaks. Where she clutches the sheets like they’ll save her from drowning.

Still, none of that explains the ache in my chest.

I should move. I should get up, put space between us, draw the lines again before they blur into something worse than lust. But I don’t.

I stay. I let my fingers trace her skin.

I feel her breathing slow, the weight of her settle like she’s never known danger, like she’s never been raised by wolves.

She’s too trusting, and I’ve never deserved that kind of closeness from anyone. I should remind myself that this is all part of something else. A longer game. A twisted knot of power and betrayal neither of us fully understands yet.

She’s so fucking quiet beside me. So still. That quiet—it doesn’t soothe me. It disturbs me. Because I’m used to chaos, to struggle, to resistance. And she gives me none of that now. Not because she’s broken. Because she chose this. Chose to let me in. Chose to stay.

Her lips part again in sleep. Her brow softens. She breathes like she’s at peace and that ruins me.