Cheers and laughter follow us out of the tent.

I’m gently set into the SUV. “Milos,” I sigh.

He’s unrepentant. “Yes,kotyonok?”

“Never mind, tell Danil to get us there quickly,” I whisper to him.

“Already done.”

Over the hour-long drive, we talk about the wedding, neither of us truly focused on the conversation—it’s a way of keeping our hands off each other until we get there.

As we pull up in front of it, I’m surprised. “It’s huge. When you said lake house, I thought like cottage or something.”

Milos grabs our bags in one hand, me in the other and tells Danil and Peter to leave. No calls for a week, his brother is the one to handle business.

It isn’t easy to keep up with his long legs. The moment the door is closed behind us, he drops the bags and tosses me over his shoulder.

I giggle. “Milos, if you drop me—”

A smack to one ass as we go up the stairs. “Never. Won’t happen.” He opens a door. “Yellow is the guest room,” I hear him mutter as he sets me down gently on my feet.

“Ohh, I love this bed. It’s like the one in my bedroom at home. This is a lovely room.” I sigh as I turn to study it.

His hand is at the zipper in the back, pulling it down. “Thank you for picking this dress,” he murmurs against my bent neck.

“I thought you wanted me to. It was too close to the nightgown I wore in your home to be a coincidence.” I step out of the silk and lace. Standing in front of him in a white lace bra and white silk stockings again—no panties.

He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. “I went shopping for a Christmas gift for my mother and saw it in the store. The moment I laid eyes on it, it reminded me of you. I wanted to see you in it. Despite knowing I had to stay away from you for years and no idea when you would wear it, I bought it. Putting it on you when you were so bruised was a double-edged sword of elation and anguish. For three years I stroked my cock to the memory of you in that nightgown. You appeared so sweet, so pure. Everything I wanted and nothing I deserved.”

My hands go up and push off his jacket. “I used to wear it to bed. I’d lie awake at night desperate for you, remembering how you fucked my mouth, wishing you had fucked me the way I wanted you to so badly.”

His shirt and tie disappear. I run my hands over his hard chest, tracing along the lines of his muscles. He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have let you go once I had you. Even if it meant tying you to my bed. You weren’t ready yet.”

I blink back tears. “It feels like a waste of time. We both wanted each other then.”

Cupping my chin, his kiss is gentle. “Sometimes it isn’t enough, no matter how much you want it to be. We would have destroyed each other. The way we almost did in the first week,kotyonok.”

It doesn’t help he’s right. I still feel robbed. Milos deepens the kiss, assuaging the pain I had no idea was still buried deep. I’m clinging, lost in him when he lifts me into his arms and sets me on the bed. I watch as he finishes undressing.

“Your body is so beautiful.” I sigh.

He smiles as he shakes his head. “Nothing compares to you. For years it was only my fist and pictures of your beautiful body.”

I shouldn’t love how dirty he is. He’s coming down over me on the bed and all thought disappears; only feeling matters now.

Over the last two weeks, there was no more of the rough-handling, yet he has yet to touch me as gently and sweetly as he does now. His lips and tongue whisper over my skin, not nearly enough to soothe the ache he’s created within me. Cupping a breast, he suckles deep as his tongue teases.

“I can’t wait until our daughter is here,” he whispers against my nipple before suckling again and again. His fingers run up and down my lower lips. “I love how wet you get for me. I love the taste of your cunt, I could eat you for hours—only your cunt, and never get hungry for anything but you.”

I’m wary he’s going to force me over his mouth like he did before. He chuckles as he sees it. “My baby didn’t love all those orgasms?”

“The first two weren’t so bad, it was that you kept going.” I trace the skin along the edge of his beard.

Pulling back, he looks down at me. “So are you saying you never want me to do it again?”

Bastard, he knows me and my body so well. Embarrassed, I let my eyes fall to his chest. “Not never ever, or maybe you could stop at three,” I mutter as he lifts me up and over him. This time he stops after four—he’s proud of himself for compromising.

Celia