Page 39 of Craving Dahlia

I swear, when his lips touch mine, I feel a spark. Like static electricity, prickling over my lips, heat washing over me as his mouth presses a little more firmly. For the briefest of seconds, as he kisses me, all of the feeling that’s been lost since that night comes rushing back, and despite myself, I sway towards him, my hands coming up to touch his chest as his lips graze over mine once more.

He flinches back at my touch, pulling away abruptly. He steps back, and I barely hear the priest announcing us as man and wife as Alek starts to head back down the aisle.

I quicken my pace, trying to keep up with him as we walk out of the church, out into the still-rainy afternoon. I can hear the murmurs of the guests, and my face burns, anger suddenly twisting in my stomach at the fact that Alek couldn’t even bring himself to walk out of the church with me like my husband. He chose to let me be humiliated instead.

It’s still raining as we walk outside, umbrellas covering our path as we head to the car. Too late, I realize that Alek and I are getting into the same one—as would be expected, but it’s the last thing I want right now.

He sits down across from me as the doors of the car close, and I swallow hard, trying to bite back all the things I want to shout at him.

“You couldn’t even walk out of the church next to me?” I finally ask, every word laced with anger and hurt. “I heard everyone talking as we left. Everyone is wondering why you married a woman that you seem to hate.”

“Why do you care?” Alek shrugs, looking out of the window impassively. “They have nothing to do with you.”

He’s right on that count, I suppose. I don’t know anyone who was in that church—all family and associates of the Yashkovs. No one other than Evelyn and Genevieve were there for me, and the thought opens up a pit in my stomach, a feeling of loneliness spreading through me.

I’m silent for a long moment, staring out at the rain, and then I realize that the car is headed back in the direction we came.

“We’re going back to the mansion?” I frown, confused, and Alek finally looks at me, his dark eyes as impassive as ever.

“I told Dimitri not to bother with a reception. He protested, of course, saying that the pomp was necessary for the family’s‘image’, but I told him I wouldn’t have any part of it. I’m sure you don’t care.” His gaze meets mine, challenging me to argue, to tell him that I actually wanted a wedding reception.

The truth is that I hadn’t known how I was going to manage to get through all of that—sitting next to Alek at a sweetheart table, eating dinner, cutting a cake, having a first dance. It seemed like an impossible farce, a series of motions that I didn’t know how I was going to go through, and I should be relieved that I’m being spared it.

I am…a little. But I’m also angry that Alek refused to play the part for even a few hours. I would have done my best, if need be. He won’t even fucking try.

I’m not going to let him see how angry I am, though, or how confused I am at how much of an asshole he’s shown himself to be. Instead, I raise one shoulder carelessly, letting it drop.

“That’s probably for the best,” I tell him, dragging my gaze away from his to look out of the window again.

Out of the corner of my eye, for the first time since the church doors opened, I see his eyes drift over me. I’d been disappointed, earlier, when he’d seen me in the clinging lace dress and there hadn’t been so much as a flicker of desire in his eyes, his face utterly impassive as he stood there at the altar. But now, in this close space, I can feel the air thicken, hear the sound of him swallowing hard as his gaze trails over me, from the bare slashes of my collarbone above the lace neckline all the way down.

The air feels warmer, the tension strung taut between us, but I don’t look at him. I stare at the pattern of the raindrops running down the glass, my hands twisted together in my lap against the soft lace of my dress, and I say nothing. I try not to think about what comes next, about the lonely night I’ll spend tonight, about the fact that despite my best efforts, I still ended up married to a man who can’t stand me, and who I’ve come to dislike in return.

When the car pulls up to the front of the mansion, Alek doesn’t wait for the driver to open the door or for someone to come with an umbrella. He shoves the door open himself, lurching out into the rain in his haste to get away from me, and I watch as the downpour plasters his hair against his skull, darkening it. His suit is soaked in a matter of minutes, and I try not to notice the glimpse of his chest through the drenched white fabric of his shirt, the way I can see the faintest hint of his abs glued against it. I ignore the way heat blossoms through me, my throat tightening, and I force myself to look away.

When the driver comes around with an umbrella for me, Alek is already gone. And as I step out of the car, I know that nothing really has changed.

I might as well have married a ghost.

13

ALEK

The first thing I feel when I wake up is the pressure of the ring on my finger, a little too tight, digging into the skin just below my cheekbone where my hand is tucked under my face. I pull my hand free, holding it up as I blink awake to the sun coming in through the window, and I see the rays glint off of the gold band.

Gritting my teeth, I yank it off, feeling the air leave my lungs in a sharp exhale as I set it on my bedside table. I don’t want the physical reminder of the vows I made yesterday, vows that I didn’t mean and don’t intend to even begin to keep.

We have an understanding,I remind myself. Dahlia heard me loud and clear when I told her there would be no expectation of love or sex in our marriage, and whatever I said in view of the public yesterday, that’s what I’ll stick to. If she expects anything else, then she’s a fool.

Wide-awake now, I sit up, the sheet pooling around my hips as I rub my hands over my face. The room is cool, my bare skin prickling, and I glance instinctively towards the door. I locked it last night, the way I have since I came to stay here, but I don’t want anyone to walk in and see me without a shirt on. Just thethought makes my stomach tighten, and I look at the lock once more, almost compulsively, before flinging myself back down to the pillows, drawing in a deep breath.

There’s no escaping my new wife, not entirely. She lives here, and she’s hardly going to hide herself away in her room in perpetuity. Maybe she might if it were just the two of us, but she’s Evelyn’s best friend, and I’m sure the two of them will have no end of fun playing house in Dimitri’s mansion.

The thought makes my hands curl into fists in the sheets. I don’t want to think about her, and yet it’s impossible not to.

She makes me feel things that I thought were dead, emotion and desire that I thought I’d forgotten and had no plans to awaken with the ferocity that she’s stirred in me. When I saw her coming down the aisle yesterday, I couldn’t so much as look at her, or I would have been rock-fucking-hard while standing in front of a priest, waiting on my bride.

Dahlia had to have picked that fucking dress on purpose. It clung to every inch of her, barely showing any skin, and yet still making me feel that same primal, feral urge that I felt the night we met: the need to devour her, to ravish her, to rip that dress away like some kind of caveman and bury myself in her so deeply she’d feel the imprint of my cock for days.

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