Page 73 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
The first thrust is deep. Hard.
She cries out, and I catch her mouth in mine to swallow it whole. Her body arches beneath me, tight and hot and slick, and I can feel how much she’s been waiting for this—how badly she wants to forget the ballroom, the politics, the danger. How badly she wants me to make her forget.
I set a brutal rhythm, one hand gripping her thigh, the other cradling the back of her head. She moans into my mouth, panting, fingers clawing at my jacket until I shrug it off and let it fall.
It’s rough. Messy. Desperate.
There’s something else threading through it, something quieter, more dangerous. The way she looks at me between thrusts—like I’m the only real thing in her life.
She comes fast, her whole body pulling tight around me, legs trembling, nails raking across my spine. I follow soon after, buried to the hilt, my forehead pressed to hers, breath stolen from both of us.
We stay like that for a moment, tangled in heat and sweat and something neither of us will name.
Then she exhales, soft and shaky. “You really need to lose the tie next time.”
I laugh under my breath and kiss the corner of her mouth.
I don’t say it, but I’m already thinking about how long I can keep her in this car. How long I can keep her mine.
Chapter Twenty-Three - Kiera
It’s that hallway again.
That same awful red light, like every bulb is dipped in blood. The silence buzzes in my ears, too loud and too still. I know what’s coming. I always know. My feet move anyway, slow and heavy, like I’m being pulled forward by something I can’t see. The door is already broken—splintered down the middle like something forced its way through—and the air inside smells like copper and smoke.
I step through, and he’s there.
Crumbled like a discarded coat on the floor, limbs twisted beneath him. My father. His eyes are wide, glassy, so full of nothing it knocks the breath from my lungs. He was a giant when I was little. Tall enough to carry me on his shoulders through the compound garden, strong enough to hold up the whole world. Here, he looks small. Fragile. His mouth is open. There’s blood everywhere.
On the walls. On his shirt.
On me.
I look down. My hands are coated in it, thick and red and wrong, and I don’t remember touching him. I don’t remember any of it. The blood is there, sticky and shining in the light. Proof that I was too late, or worse—part of it.
I want to scream, and I do.
The sound tears up my throat, raw and sharp—and then I’m awake.
My body jerks, lungs gasping, the sheets tangled around my legs like restraints. My chest heaves. I blink at the ceiling, heart thundering, and it takes a full minute to remember where I am. The room is dark, still. Not red. There’s no blood. No body.
Just me, and the dream.
Another one. They’re getting worse. Sharper. Louder. Closer to the truth every time.
I drag a hand down my face and sit up slowly, pushing the damp sheet aside. My body still feels like it’s trapped in that moment—skin clammy, nerves frayed, heart knotted tight. I hate this. Hate the way it lingers, like smoke in the back of my throat.
I swing my legs off the bed and press my feet to the cold floor. My fingers tremble, just barely, and I ball them into fists until they stop.
This is why I’m here. Why I came.
He stole my father two years ago. He built an empire from his blood. Every dream is a reminder of that—of the hole Maxim carved into my life and called it justice. I used to think holding on to that grief would be easy. That if I clung tight enough, it would never slip.
Things have started to twist.
He touches me like I’m something precious. Protects me like I’m worth more than strategy.
It isn’t just the sex, though that would be easier to compartmentalize. It’s not the way he groans against my throat or the bruises he leaves on my hips that bloom like flowers in spring. It’s not the things he whispers when he’s buried inside me, rough and low and so reverent it makes me shake.
