Page 95 of Ivory Oath

It’s only been a few days of this—fumbling for each other in the early morning and sliding together—but it’s already an instinct. “The human desire to multiply,” Mikhail joked one morning, running his finger along my opening as his “desire to multiply” leaked out of me and stained our sheets.

He’s not even wrong. We’re having sex—really, really great sex—but it’s sex with a purpose. We are making a family and Mikhail never lets me forget it.

You’re going to look so good carrying my baby.

Everyone is going to see you and know that you belong to me.

All of Mikhail’s intensity is focused on getting me pregnant, and I love it.

“Food,” Mikhail decides, sliding out of me from behind and rolling out of bed. He grabs my robe from the bathroom door and holds it open for me.

I press my legs together. “I need to clean up. I need to?—”

“Leave it.” His eyes darken, tracing over every naked inch of me. “Hold me inside of you. Maybe it will help.”

“I don’t see how it’s going to make any difference. We’re fucking more than we’re not the last few days. I don’t think we need any more ‘help.’”

He yanks me to my feet and slides the robe over my arms. “It will help me get through breakfast without throwing you down on the table and filling you again.”

I flush from head to toe. “Oh. Well then.”

“That’s what I thought.” He pinches my lower lip between his teeth. “Let’s eat.”

Even sitting across the table from each other is sexually charged. I can’t watch Mikhail butter his toast or take a bite of eggs without thinking about all the dirty things he’s done with those fingers and that mouth.

Is this what people call the honeymoon period? Or am I always going to feel like this?

I’m not sure, but I enjoy the tingle down my spine and the warmth in my chest.

I pull my eyes away from him and focus on sustenance. After last night and this morning, I need the calories.

“I figured Dante would be awake by now.”

“He’s on a field trip with Anatoly and Mrs. Steinman.” Mikhail eyes me over his coffee. “Anatoly told you about it last night. At dinner.”

I frown. “I don’t remember—” Then it hits me and my face flames.

Mikhail smirks, far too pleased with himself. “Was your mind somewhere else?”

Yeah—in the gutter.

I remember pretending to listen to Anatoly, nodding and smiling along with whatever he said. Under the table, Mikhail was dragging his hand up and down my thigh, inching higher and higher. It’s what I deserved for wearing a dress to dinner. That’s what Mikhail told me once we were alone, anyway.

When he finally slid his finger over the lace between my legs, I almost skyrocketed out of the chair.

I jab the tines of my fork at him. “You’re becoming a distraction. We’re not going to be able to pull this kind of stuff once we’re back at the office.”

I would have been more upset about Cerberus burning down if anyone had been hurt—which, thankfully, they weren’t—and if it hadn’t meant a prolonged vacation for me—which, thankfully, it had. Something about being kidnapped—twice—left me in need of a work sabbatical. But now that things are creeping towards something like normalcy, I’m excited to get back to it and settle into a new office.

“When did you say the offices would be ready?”

Mikhail is suddenly very focused on his nearly-empty plate. “Tomorrow.”

“I need to tell Anatoly.”

“He already knows.”

“Right. Of course he does,” I mutter, my brain whirring with a thousand new thoughts. “Is he going to be here at the house with Dante after his tutoring? Someone will need to be here with him since I won’t be home until the late afternoons now. I hear my boss is a real hardass.”

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