Page 23 of Keeping Ruby

My wife.

She sobs harder. “I don’t want you.”

Fuck, that hurts. “You will.”

I’ll make certain of it.

“This isn’t real. We aren’t real. You made me marry you.” Her eyes slam into mine. “Don’t you understand? We can’t be anything more than this forced thing that we are.”

I smile softly, gravely. “I’ve seen the greatest loves, the most pure, most possessive, most protective loves, grow from a stolen beginning.” Her eyes widen at my words, pink lips parting. I speak over her protest. “I will capture your heart as I captured your body,” I vow. “You will fall in love with me.”

“And what of you?”

“I’ve spent every day, sitting in the silence of your hate, for nearly two months.” Her eyes widen, processing the time gone. “I’ve thought you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever encountered, while you tried to kill me with your eyes alone. For you, I’ve practiced a patience I’ve never been capable of possessing in my life. You’ve tested the limits of my tolerance so much that others who have done what you have, would have perished. I’ve manipulated and schemed to see that you remain safe, and mine. Tell me, what do you take from all that, Ruby?”

Her lips tremble, her eyes so innocently wide, I want nothing more than to corrupt her. “I think you are insane. I think you are dangerous. And I think that you don’t know what love is.”

I chuckle deep and low. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to teach me, won’t you, wife?”

Her lips part, brows pinching in a frown. “I?—”

“I think we’ll start my lesson now,” I add. “With a kiss.”

“Kirill,” she breathes my name. It’s the first time she’s said it, and it hits me square in the chest. I close my eyes, savoring the breathy plea of my name on her lips. I want to taste it.

I’ve always been a man who takes what he wants, when he wants it. I’ve always known women to be more than willing to see to my desires. So, when I slide my body closer to hers on the bed, even though I know she’s not like the usual women I entertain, I’m mildly surprised when she inches away from me.

Hooking her around the small of her waist, I tug her closer, until her side is plastered to my front. Through the fabric of my shirt, I can feel the hot heat of her body. The urge to feel her soft flesh against mine is a spear right through the gut, the desire is so intense. So acute.

My fingers flex into her soft flesh, and her lips part. I don’t delay, dipping my head and stealing her lips as I intend to steal every part of her. Against her slipping will, and completely.

Her heart, her body, her soul. I’ll take it all.

Under my lips, hers are impossibly soft. She smells like sweet flowers on a summer breeze, and tastes like honey. The hand she’s planted in my chest tries to push me away, but I won’t be moved. Gripping her waist tighter, I sink into her body, trapping her hand between us. I cover her mouth with mine, kissing her even though she’s not kissing me back—but she’s not twisted her head to the side, either.

Instead, she’s kissing me like she might kiss her grandfather. A pucker of her sweet lips, distance, and resistance. As though she thinks she’s completed her obligation.

When she makes a little noise of protest, I growl against her mouth. “Open for me.”

She shakes her head, only slightly, but the denial is enough to wake the bear inside me. The predator. The brutal slayer.

I will slay her iron will.

I demand, “Kiss me, Ruby.”

“I am.”

Sweet, sweet defiance. I’ve always loved a challenge. “Kiss me. A real kiss, Ruby, or this will become much more than a kiss.”

Her eyes widen as they search my face for signs of a bluff. I’m not bluffing.

Her eyes drop to my lips, and she swallows hard. “I don’t—I am kissing you.”

I study her. She’s a twenty-three-year-old woman. How can she possibly think this is a kiss?

I think about the church boy—Miles—who I know flirted with her. I also know she flirted back. I think of the torment my thoughts had put me through, as I imagined her sweet body under the mercy of his inexperienced rutting.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe my assumptions are wrong.

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