“The guards followed us from the venue. They are on duty right now.”
I shake my head and step forward, grabbing Viktor’s glass. It is empty, so he doesn’t resist as I pull it from his hands and place it next to mine. When I turn back to him, I can’t look up at his face yet, so I stare at my hands as they work their way up the hard planes of his chest.
“I mean, will I feel alone tonight?”
He pauses for a second and then lays his large hands over mine. “Only if you want to, Molly.”
Finally, I let myself look into his face. His eyes are a wide-open sky blue, and I see hope in them. Desire. And, even though our wedding was a farce, I see a promise there, too.
Viktor will take care of me. He’ll protect me and Theo and our unborn child. He is going to do everything he can to keep us all alive, and for right now, that is the only vow that matters to me.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to be alone. I want you to stay.”
He lets out a breath and then we are kissing. His hands pull me against him, one around the back of my neck, the other curled around my waist. My body molds to his in the same way my mouth does—soft and warm and eager.
A breeze cuts through the balcony, and I shiver. Viktor shifts his arms to my waist, picks me up, and carries me inside without ever breaking the kiss.
I reach for the couch as we pass it, assuming we are going to stop there, but Viktor growls and shakes his head. “On the bed. I want you on the bed tonight.”
Tonight. Our wedding night.
Again, I remind myself this is fake, but it doesn’t feel fake. When he lays me down in the bedroom, he steps back and lets his eyes devour the sight of me. He bites his lower lip. “That dress is sinful.”
“It’s white,” I smile, hoping it’s dim enough he can’t see how easily I’m blushing.
Viktor crawls over and lifts me up against his chest. He pulls the zipper slowly down my back and then works his hands over my shoulders, pushing the straps down my arms.
“It’s a lie,” he whispers in my ear. He grips the neckline and begins peeling it down my body, revealing more and more of my skin with each inch. “You aren’t innocent. Or pure. You’re wretched, Molly. Just like me.”
Distantly, I think I should be offended, but Viktor speaks each word like a caress. As he shimmies the dress over my hips and trails his fingers along my thighs, I want to be whatever he says. Whatever Viktor is, I want to be the same. If that’s wretched, so be it. I can be wretched.
The second the dress is off my legs, Viktor throws it over his shoulder, and I lunge forward and begin undoing buttons as fast as my fingers will go. Viktor leans forward and licks the side of my neck from my collarbone to my ear. He sucks my earlobe into his mouth, and my body is on fire. There is heat pooling between my legs, heavy and pressing, and it needs attending to urgently.
Viktor must sense the need because his hand cups the delicate lace at my center, and he rolls his palm over my heat. My lips part in a moan, and I buck my hips against him.
“Wretched,” he purrs into my neck. “Wicked.”
I tear his shirt from his shoulders and begin working at his pants all while Viktor is undoing me with his lips, kissing and sucking and nipping at my skin until I’m wild with lust.
His finger smooths a path across my panties before dipping inside. I still as he finds my opening and presses inside. Then, he curls his finger, needlessly beckoning me closer as if I’m not already under his spell, and I melt. I fall forward, my cheek against his chest, and spread my knees wider on the bed to stabilize myself.
Viktor is on his knees, too, and from my lazy position lying against his warmth, I slip my hand inside his unbuttoned suit pants and stroke the hard length of him. He growls, the sound rumbling through his chest and into my body. The animal in him calls to me, daring me to push him further, to make him as wild as he is making me.
I hook my fingers in the waist of his pants and push them down around his thighs, freeing him. He springs out of them, excited and ready, and I stroke my hand down at the same time he curls a second finger into me. I gasp and brush my thumb over his tip, eliciting a shudder.
Viktor works a third finger into me, and I’m falling apart. I moan and bite his collarbone, trying to reclaim my grip on reality, and he lets out a soft curse.
I’ve never felt so connected to my own body yet so tuned in to every brush of skin on skin. The thumb Viktor circles over my center is the only thing holding me to the planet, and it isn’t enough. I need more. I need all of him.
I grab his wrist and pull him out of me, feeling the loss immediately. Then, I push him back, and Viktor sees where we are heading. He stretches his legs out in front of him, grips my lower back, and guides me onto his lap.
He presses himself against my opening, and then we sink together. I’m not sure whether I’m going under or Viktor is coming up. It doesn’t matter. The laws of physics don’t seem to have any hold on us as we rock together.
I hug Viktor’s head to my chest, clawing at his silky hair, and roll my hips again and again.
Viktor’s large hands spread out on my back as I lean away from him to get better leverage. He tips forward and sucks my breast into his mouth, his lips soft even while his teeth nip and tug and punish. I cry out from the cacophony of sensations. From the pain and pleasure and warmth even as goose bumps shoot down my arms. It’s more than I’ve ever felt, and Viktor was right, I’m safe.
I can feel it with him. A perfect bubble around us, protecting us from the rest of the world in a way I’ve never experienced before.
My legs start to shake with the beginnings of my climax, and Viktor tips me back, back, back until I’m lying down and he is over me. His elbow presses into the mattress on one side while his other hand explores the topography of my body. While he brushes my nipple and strokes my waist and grips my hip.
I bring my knees up and wrap my legs around him as he dives into me again and again, and when my orgasm comes, I bury my face in his shoulder, clinging to him with all of the strength I have left.
He falls not long after, his lips pressed to my neck, whispering words I can’t hear but can feel. They are his vows. His wicked, wretched vows, whispered in the throes of passion, and they mean more to me than anything he said in front of the witnesses.
When he is done thrusting, and his weight presses down on me, I curl my finger around his square jaw and draw his lips up to mine. Against his mouth, I whisper my own wretched vows.
I give him the only thing I have left to give: my trust.
4
Viktor
I left Molly’s late in the morning before Theo was set to arrive home with the nanny.
We slept next to each other all night and woke up together like any normal married couple— except, we weren’t married. Molly tucked her body against mine like a small spoon, nudging her hips back until I slid into her and took her gently like it was normal. Like we spend every morning this way.
Except, we don’t.
There are lots of reasons to maintain two apartments. My men won’t ask questions if we don’t give them reason to. Which is why we have to do the swearing-in ceremony.
When I told Molly about it the night before, she was hesitant.
“I thought we already said our vows,” she said.