Page 33 of Savage Vows

DANTE

I siton the edge of the bed and work through updates on my phone. Security reports. A couple of messages from the docks. A brief note about Serrano that tells me nothing I didn’t already know. The noise helps. It keeps the night from getting inside my head.

The bathroom door opens.

Adriana steps out in a white robe, hair damp along her neck, skin still warm from steam. For a reason I cannot name, my breath catches. I turn the phone face down on the coverlet.

“Are they still there?” she asks.

I listen. The faint scrape of a chair. The soft drag of fabric. The old record ticking in the next room. “Yes,” I say. “They’re not leaving until they get something.”

“Something,” she repeats.

I keep my face calm, but the rest stays in my head. This isn’t a real tradition anymore. People with sense let it die. My fatherinsisted. I know why. He wants the Petrovs small. That was the point from the start—not celebration, humiliation.

She tightens the belt of the robe. She doesn’t ask for comfort. Good. I am not the man to offer it.

“We can give them time and nothing else,” I say. “When it’s enough, I’ll send them away.”

“No,” she murmurs. “Let’s give them something.”

Before I can ask what she means, her fingers find the knot at her waist. She smirks—that slow, knowing curl of her lips—and the robe slides off her shoulders like water.

My throat goes dry.

The baby doll clings to her curves, sheer enough that I can see the swell of her tits, nipples pressing against the delicate fabric, the shadow between her thighs. The hem skims the tops of her legs, making me imagine what it would feel like to hook my fingers under it and drag it up.

My cock hardens instantly, pressing against my zipper.

She knows it too. Her eyes drop, catching the shape of me straining in my trousers, then lift again with a look that dares me to move first.

“Jesus, Adriana…” My voice comes out low, rough. I take a step toward her, my gaze locked on the way the thin straps frame her shoulders, the way her breasts shift with each slow breath.

I want to tear that flimsy thing off her. I want to push her down and make her forget why she even put it on.

She doesn’t back away. She just stands there, letting me look, letting the heat between us thicken until it’s almost painful. Myfingers twitch with the urge to touch—to slide up her thigh, to palm her ass, to cup those perfect tits and feel her gasp against my mouth.

I don’t realize I’ve moved until my hand is on her hip and I’m pulling her into me, the baby doll brushing my cock through the thin barrier of my pants.

“You’re playing with fire,” I murmur against her ear.

“You wanted a spectacle, right?” she says.

I shake my head, but I don’t speak. This isn’t how I wanted it.

My hand slides from her hip down over the curve of her ass, the sheer fabric of the baby doll whispering under my palm. I squeeze gently, my other hand drifting up her side, my thumb brushing just under the swell of her breast.

She inhales sharply and stills.

Her eyes flick to mine—not cold, not rejecting, but uncertain. Like she’s standing on the edge of something she knows she can’t come back from.

For a beat, I hold still. My thumb draws slow circles on her skin, giving her room to pull away if she wants. “Adriana,” I murmur, “tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t.

Instead, she bites her lip, gaze dropping to where my chest rises and falls against hers. I feel her soften just a fraction, that guarded tension loosening under my touch.

I let my hand trail upward, over the lace cup until my fingers brush her nipple through the thin fabric. She shivers.