Page 50 of Ivory Ashes

“We are not most people.” I offer Viviana my arm and she takes it. “We’re done here.”

As we walk out together, I hear Anatoly dramatically fake-sniffling behind us. “What a beautiful wedding.”

As soon as we make it into the hallway, Viviana rips her arm away from me. “Don’t touch me.”

“I take it you don’t want a first dance as husband and wife?”

“No first dance,” she confirms with a scowl. “But if there’s cake, I’d love to shove some in your smug face.”

“No cake. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Yeah, right.” She turns and walks away, her golden braid flipping over her shoulder. “Disappointing me is probably how you get it up. I bet you’re hard as a rock knowing how much I hate being married to you.”

I shouldn’t let her talk to me like this. I should hate the way she pushes and fights and resists.

I should turn around and go back to my office and let my new wife live out the rest of our marriage in her own wing of the house. Preferably with a brick wall between the two of us.

Instead, I shift into place behind her, whispering into her ear. “Me being hard as a rock has nothing to do with how you feel about our marriage. You just look that good walking away from me.”

I watch a blush spread to the tips of her ears even as she refuses to slow down or turn around to face me. “Are you going to follow me all the way back to my room?”

“Just giving you a chance to reconsider your decision about not having sex. Personally, I have a lot of frustration I could burn off.”

“You should try bottling it up way deep down inside,” she says flippantly. “I hear that’s great for your health.”

She’s only steps away from the door to her room when I grab her around the waist and flatten her against the wall. “For your sake, you better hope I live a long, healthy life. Otherwise, Dante is going to inherit the Bratva sooner than anyone expected. Do you think he’s ready to fend off attacks on his life between recess and lunch?”

She tries to push me away, but I pin her wrists to the wall. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I growl. “Hate me all you want; I don’t fucking care. But if you really think I’m not doing you and your son a favor, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

Her hazel eyes burn through me. By the looks of it, she has a good deal of frustration she could stand to work off, too.

Her pupils expand when I press my hard frustration against her stomach, but she schools her face into a frown. “Careful, Mikhail. I think you almost gave me a compliment.”

“Not a compliment—a warning. If you play this wrong, Viviana, you aren’t the only one who will suffer. You have Dante to think about.”

She strains away from the wall, her body arched against me even while her wrists stay firmly against the wainscoting. “I know I have Dante to think about! He’s all I’ve thought about for the last six years. You’re the one who isn’t thinking about him! Ripping him out of school and turning his life upside down doesn’t scream ‘stability.’”

She smells like vanilla and chlorine. Strands of blonde hair curl against her heaving chest.

I lean my weight into her, forcing her flat against the wall again. My erection is pinned between us, throbbing against the heat of her skin.

“What exactly is ‘stable’ about living in an apartment you can’t afford under a fake name?”

“Love,” she fires back. “I love him, which is more stability than I ever got growing up. Having someone who cares about you is better than any big, lonely mansion.”

I hate Agostino Giordano for what he did to his daughter, but I can’t help but admire the way Viviana rose from those ashes. I thought she was fiery before, but the way she is ready to go to the mat for our child? I’ve never seen anything like it.

“Lucky for you, Dante will have both here. A big mansion and two parents who want what’s best for him.”

Viviana tries to pull back, but there’s nowhere to go. Instead, she fidgets, effectively grinding her body against me. If she realizes what she’s doing, it doesn’t show. She’s too busy trying to kill me with her eyes to know she’s actually killing me with her hips. “You don’t know what’s best for him. He needs to be back in school. He needs to see his friends—his peers.”

“The only reason he was in that school to begin with is because you stole him away from the world he was born into. Those civilians will never be his ‘peers.’”

“Spoken like a typical, haughty Novikov,” she mutters.

I ignore her for her own sake. “Until things settle down, I’m hiring a tutor for him. He’ll be more comfortable here.”

---