Page 62 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
The sky has darkened fully now, the last orange bleeding out of it like a wound. Below, the city glitters. Still unaware.
Chapter Twenty - Maxim
It’s just past midnight Tiago leaves.
I’ve been pacing the last hour, though I’d never admit it aloud. The whiskey on the sideboard is untouched, the fire in the study long since died out. My phone’s screen has gone dark from disuse, but I keep checking it anyway. Not for messages. Just for the time.
I hear the front doors open before I see her.
She walks in like the silence belongs to her. No hesitation. No apology. Wind-stirred hair curling against her shoulders, her eyes half lidded and heavy with fatigue. She looks soft. Wrung out.
She looks beautiful. But it’s not the sight of her that hits me first.
It’s the scent.
She smells like the Ortega estate. Like somewhere else. Somewhere not mine.
That’s what bothers me. That she’s carried it back with her—whatever quiet things they whispered in her ear, whatever touches lingered too long. It clings to her skin like perfume I didn’t approve.
I say nothing. I don’t ask how it went, what was discussed, who was there. I don’t care.
She’s here now. Under my roof. Back in my world, and I’m starved.
She shrugs out of her coat slowly, movements languid, too casual. My eyes track each one—her hands pushing her hair back, her mouth parted on a tired breath, the way her dress clings slightly where she’s been sitting for too long. She avoidsmy gaze, but I see the tension in her jaw, the way her shoulders square the moment she senses I’m watching.
She’s tired, but she’s on guard.
I take a step forward, stopping just short of her. The air between us thickens immediately. “I trust everything went smoothly,” I say.
Her chin lifts, but she doesn’t answer. Not with words. Just a faint nod, enough to suggest agreement without giving anything real away.
I want to ask who she saw. What they told her. What she told them. I want to strip the night from her skin and search it for lies.
Instead, I reach out. My fingers graze her wrist, slow and measured, watching how her breath stutters when I do. Her skin is warm. Too warm.
“Next time,” I murmur, voice low, “you’ll take me with you.”
She says nothing, but doesn’t pull away.
I take that for what it is—a silent kind of surrender. Maybe that’s enough for tonight.
We barely make it up the stairs.
I don’t remember if the door shuts behind us. I don’t care. The moment we cross the threshold into my room, something in me snaps loose—weeks of silence, of watching her walk the halls like a ghost I can’t touch. That dress, that scent, the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes—I can’t let it go unanswered.
She turns, lips parted like she’s about to speak.
I don’t let her.
My hands are on her before the words leave her mouth. I drag her to me, my mouth crashing against hers. There’s nothinggentle in it. Nothing patient. It’s hunger, sharpened and honed, carved into the shape of her.
She gasps, body tensing beneath mine, but she doesn’t resist. She grips my shirt, nails curling against my chest as I walk her backward—toward the bed, toward surrender. I break the kiss just long enough to yank the zipper down her back, slow and rough all at once. The dress slides off her shoulders and pools at her feet.
No hesitation. No modesty.
She stands there in lace and defiance, breathing fast.
I step in close, mouth brushing the hollow behind her ear—the spot that always shatters her. Her breath catches on a sob, hips twitching forward as I slide my hands over her ribs, down her waist, anchoring her to me.
