Page 36 of Defiled Innocence

He lifts a shoulder. “Then we wait.”

I groan. Maybe if I just rattle it off, it won’t hurt so much.

“And to willingly-accept-any-consequences-he-sees-fit,” I huff after rattling off the last, horrible bit. “And that’s it.”

The judge, who seems unsure if he should accept what I said or not, pauses a moment. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to get me to repeat it more clearly and continues on with the rest.

“You’re now man and wife. You may, uh, well, kiss the bride.” The judge shuts his booklet and lets out a relieved breath.

Dmitri grasps me by the back of the neck and pulls me into him. His lips barely brush against mine, sweeping across a second time before capturing me beneath the most domineering kiss I’ve ever been a part of.

Moving my hands to his chest, partly to push him back, but also to steady myself, I can feel the tension of his muscles beneath the expensive suit. His fingers tighten in my hair as his tongue sweeps past my lips, deepening the already mind-altering kiss.

My mind may have fought the words of our vows, promising to obey him, but my body has no qualms about folding into his embrace.

By the time he breaks the kiss, my lips are swollen, my lungs aren’t sure how to work, and my heart bangs out a heavy metal jam against my ribs.

Fuck. He has to stop touching me. If I can keep his hands off me, I can think better.

“Now we can move on to the second subject.” He presses a soft kiss to my cheek and moves to press his mouth against the shell of my ear. “Your disregard for obedience.”

Dmitri

“You pout like a child.” I break through the thick silence of the car as I maneuver through the city to my condo.

Amelia sits beside me, one leg crossed over the other and her arms tucked tightly across her chest while staring out the window. Her bottom lip is even protruding slightly.

“Well, then you’ve married a child,” she shoots back at me. “I mean compared to your age, I guess I am.”

“Fifteen years isn’t that much.” And she’s definitely not a young twenty-four-year-old.

There’s an old soul inside her. She’s seen things in her young life that have aged her.

Lucas didn’t talk about his family often. Our business together rarely touched on our personal lives. Occasionally, he’d mention Amelia. Especially after his father had the good graces to die and leave her in Lucas’ hands.

When he spoke of her, it was as a proud older brother, especially when she graduated high school at the top of her class, missing valedictorian by a hair.

She had wanted to skip college and go to work for an addiction center on the south side of the city, but he’d put a stop to it, opting to help her set up the foundation and the Moreau Center, so long as she worked toward her bachelor’s degree.

He’d brought up the center when he had heard I was going to start merging some of my business with my cousins. The Romanovs deal with party drugs, and he wanted to be certain none of the cash I ran through his business had been dirtied by their hands.

Gun money was fine.

Drug money was off limits.

“Lucas was my guardian. Basically, my father.” She turns to glare at me. “You’re the same age as him. So… basically, you’re like my father now too.”

“Worse. I’m your husband.” I turn down an alley and head to the garage of my building.

“How is that worse?”

“Because after I’ve punished you, you can’t run off to sulk in your bedroom. You’ll have to stay and let me comfort you like a husband comforts his wife. And you’ll love that part.” I wait for the garage door to open before pulling through. “And you’ll hate to love it.”

“I don’t sulk.” She ruins her bravado by forcefully twisting away, giving me her back.

“No. Not at all,” I say as I pull into my parking spot and watch as the two SUVs behind me drive past the garage doors.

“Are those my spies?” she asks, noting me eying the rearview mirror as my men depart.

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