Page 22 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

And then he's kissing me—devouring me—with the fury of someone staking a claim no one else was ever worthy of. His tongue coaxes, curses, commands. It's worship laced with war, a kiss that tells me I'll never escape, and worse, that I will never want to.

I moan, although I don't mean to, and he grins against my lips. My hands knot in his hair, yanking his head to the side, forcing him to break the kiss and gasp. He spins me, slams me against the door, pinning my wrists above my head.

I arch against him, using my legs for leverage. He presses his body flush to mine, and I feel the full length of him, hard, insistent, impossible to ignore. I twist, break free, and shove him backward. He stumbles, then recovers, stalking me across the office with a predator's patience.

We circle the desk. I put a hand out to steady myself, and he lunges, catching me around the waist, lifting me like I weigh nothing.

I wrap my legs around his hips, use the momentum to spin us onto the desk.

The glass of whiskey crashes to the floor, shattering.

Breathless, I rake my nails down his chest, popping the buttons off his shirt one by one.

He tears my blouse open, fabric ripping, fingers digging into my ribs. It hurts, but I crave the pain. I kiss him hard, bruising, then bite his shoulder, marking him as mine. He answers in kind, lips at my throat, teeth at the pulse point, hands everywhere at once.

He peels off my skirt, shoves my panties aside, and plunges two fingers in, testing. I'm already wet, soaking, and he knows it. He curls his fingers, hits the spot that makes me see stars. I clench around him, refusing to let him control the pace.

He unbuckles his belt, pulls out his cock, and it's bigger than I remember, thick and veined and pulsing with need.

I want it inside me, now, but he pauses, teasing, dragging the head along my slit, up to my clit, then back down.

I buck my hips, trying to pull him in, but he laughs, pinning my thighs to the desk.

"You want this?" he murmurs.

I glare and spit in his face. "Fuck you."

He smiles, wipes the spit with his thumb, then shoves into me in one thrust. I gasp, pleasure and pain fusing into a single white-hot line that makes me see stars. He fucks me hard, driving me into the desk so each slam rattles the drawers and sends papers fluttering to the floor.

I meet every thrust, matching him, daring him to break me.

He grabs my ass with both hands, angling me to take him deeper.

I dig my heels into his back, claw at his shoulders, scratch bloody lines down his arms. He licks the sweat from my collarbone, bites my nipple through the torn bra, and I scream his name, not caring who hears.

He growls against my throat. "No one else gets to touch you like this. No one else knows how to make you beg and fight at the same time."

I barely breathe before he lifts me off the desk like I weigh nothing. My legs stay wrapped around his hips, and he stays deep inside me, walking us to the nearest wall, pinning me there with the kind of strength that makes me burn.

"You think they could fuck you like this?" he rasps into my ear, slamming up into me so hard the back of my head thuds against the plaster. I choke on a moan, nails in his hair, forehead pressed to his as he pounds into me like he's trying to tattoo his name inside my body.

"I'm the only one who sees what you are," he says. "A woman made for a man. A man like me."

I break apart on the next thrust, clenching so tightly, he curses into my mouth. But he doesn't stop. He doesn't let me fall. He carries me to the chair behind the desk, drops into it like a throne, and I'm still on him, still pulsing around his cock.

Only now I'm standing.

He grabs my hips. A slow rock forward, a tilt back, the kind of grind that makes his head fall back and his grip tighten. "You're soaked," he mutters, voice strained. "You going to fuck me like this? Just stand there and melt all over my cock?"

I smile, lean down until my mouth brushes his jaw. "I'm not here to prove anything," I whisper. "You already know how this plays out, Markov ."

The corner of his lip tilts upward in a smirk.

"Is that so, Sofia?" he manages before a roll of my hips drowns the rest of his words in a groan.

Every subtle shift draws a ragged breath from his throat.

I angle forward, feel him hit that place that makes my legs shake, and I keep circling, grinding, dragging it out.

Letting him feel all of it. Letting him stay inside, trapped, straining, completely at my mercy.

His hands slide up, trying to control the rhythm. I grab his wrists, press them to the armrests, hold him there. "You're not in charge now," I say.

His eyes flick up to mine like he's seeing something he doesn't want to survive.

And I keep moving, letting the pressure build with no release until we're both right at the edge.

He lets me ride him like that—hands pinned, breaths shallow—as if this is some kind of penance he deserves.

But I feel the shift the second it hits him.

The moment I circle my hips just right and his whole body tenses beneath me. He breaks.

In one movement, his hands shoot up, gripping my waist with the finality of a man who's made up his mind. One arm wraps around my back, the other hooks behind my thigh. I don't resist. I want this.

He lifts me, spins, and deposits me onto the chair where he just sat. I'm still wet, still spread, the heat between my legs aching for him. Before I can find words, he grabs me by the throat—not to hurt, but to still me—and slides in again, slow and thick and all the way.

My legs lift instinctively. He catches them, one hand under each knee, guiding them to his shoulders like he's arranging something holy.

The angle is so deep it knocks the air from my lungs.

I brace my arms against the chair, but it's useless.

He's everywhere, inside and out, and I can't move without moving with him .

"Sweet girl." He laughs hoarsely, hips drawing back, then slamming forward, measured, punishing. "Like this doesn't belong to me?"

Every thrust lands sharper than the last, but his eyes never leave mine. He watches me fall apart, watches me try to keep control. "Tell me," he says, teeth gritted. "Tell me no one else gets you like this."

I open my mouth, but the words scatter. All I can do is nod, eyes wide, nails dragging down his back. He thrusts harder. "Say it."

"You," I gasp. "Only you."

And then, the world and my anger and all my rage be damned, I'm coming, shuddering, muscles spasming around his cock. He follows me seconds later, buried to the hilt, groaning into the hollow of my neck like the release was torn from somewhere deeper than flesh.

We stay like that for two minutes, tangled, breathing hard.

He pulls out, wipes his face, and turns his back to me as he puts his clothes back on.

For a long time, we don't speak. When I finally move, I get up from the chair, find my blouse on the floor, and shrug it over my shoulders.

The buttons are gone, but I knot it closed.

I look at him, sprawled and spent, and feel an ache coil in my chest.

"I still hate you," I say.

He sits up, grins, and for once the smile is real. "I'd worry if you didn't."

I leave him there. I walk the halls barefoot, half-dressed, and find my way to the family suite. After making myself decent, I check on Lev. He's asleep, breathing softly, curled around his pillow like nothing in the world can touch him.

I tuck the blanket tighter, press a kiss to his temple. I watch him for a long time, listening to the silence of the house. Inside, I am alive, every nerve raw, every muscle singing. My husband believes I won't poison him. But if I'm falling in love with him, I may not have a choice.