Page 9 of Bribed & Bred By the BRATVA
I don’t hide from the truth. “Yes. I will have my line, just like the rest of you. I will have it with the woman I chose. If any of you make a joke at her expense, you better do it far from me.”
Roman comes to a stop at the edge of the rug, hands in his pockets, head tilted like he is trying to see a new angle. “You are serious.”
“Deadly. I married her tonight,” I say. “A judge signed. My ring is on her hand and I’ve already filled her once. This is not a plan. It is done.”
Maksim’s voice is softer through the speaker. “Does she want you?”
“She wants her brother alive,” I say, twisting my mouth. “And want is such a small word for what’s coming next.”
Roman snorts. “You always were the most devout believer in your own inevitability.”
“Because I’m right,” I say simply.
Nikolai sobers. “What is she like?”
“Steel where it matters. Not dramatic. Not brittle. She stands in front of me and refuses to beg. She eats when I put food in front of her because she is hungry enough to be honest. She’ll learn fast.”
Maksim sends another photograph. A tiny hand around his finger. Then says “Just try not to fuck everything up while I’m away. We should be discharged tomorrow.”
Roman’s gaze sharpens as he ends the call and looks at me. “Security?”
“Tripled,” I say. “No one outside the family knows yet. I do not intend to hide her. But the first days are mine.”
Mikhail sighs, the kind of sound a man makes when he sees a storm and knows he will stand in it. “No point telling you to be careful,” he says.
“I will be precise,” I answer with a grin.
Nikolai nods slowly. “Congratulations then. I suppose.”
Roman’s mouth curves without warmth. “If you have to do it, do it thoroughly.”
“I do everything thoroughly,” I say. I raise my glass to my brothers and then down the whiskey before sliding the glass back onto the desk.
On the walk back to the pool house the air smells like rain and the lemon trees the gardeners fuss over too much. The water holds the moon like a coin. In the dark glass I see two shapes layered over each other. The man I have always been, and the man with his hand on a future that has a woman’s shape.
Inside, the house is quiet. I move to my bedroom and sit in the chair facing the bed, watching her chest rise and fall, listen to the soft little sounds she makes in sleep.
I already want her again. I want her soft and pliable in my hands, her skin against mine, her warmth wrapped around me as I empty into her.
My cock is already hard, straining against the fabric of my trousers. Fucking her earlier only gave me a temporary relief. She is mine. A stranger this afternoon. My wife this evening and for the rest of time.
I undo my belt slowly, because control is still mine even now. My palm wraps around myself and the first stroke is a relief so sharp it borders on pain. I keep my eyes on her. On the shape of her beneath the sheets, casting my mind back to the colour of her pussy after I’d fucked it for the first time.
“Mine,” I growl, low enough not to wake her. My hand moves harder, faster. I imagine her whispering it back, shame coloring her cheeks as she begs me not to stop.
I brace one hand against the chair arm as I stroke myself faster. My chest heaves. Every thought sharpens into a single truth: she will bear me. She will swell with me. She will know what it means to be filled by more than cock and seed. She will be filled with my future.
The thought drags me over the edge. I shudder hard, come spilling hot into my fist, jaw clenched against the sound that wants to tear out of me. My seed coats my hand, my wrist. I pump through the aftershocks until it’s too much, until the need softens just enough to let me breathe again.
I sit there for a long moment, chest rising and falling, listening to the silence of night. She sleeps. Oblivious. Safe. Already mine.
I wipe my hand with the handkerchief I keep in my pocket, tuck myself back into my trousers, and rise, knowing exactly what I should do with it.
Patience is still a pleasure. Especially when I know exactly how this ends.
Tomorrow she’ll see her brother. Tomorrow gratitude will take root. Tomorrow she will start to crave me as much as I crave her.
Isabella
