Page 12 of Watched and Bred By the Bratva
He studies me another beat and then—because apparently he has a knife for every kind of resistance—he drops the sharpest one on the table between us. "You fascinated me from the first moment I saw you," he says, voice stripping down to something raw. "You were too young, too innocent. I planned to stay away—tried and failed. So I contented myself with brief interactions. Random fixes when I couldn't resist any longer. Watching you from afar and lying to myself that it was for your protection. After all, if Dimitri hadn't been watching out for Amani, he wouldn't have been able to help her. But then you called my name and I knew we wanted the same thing."
"You—" I can't find a word that isn't a scream. "You were watching me?"
"I watched the video." No preamble. No buildup. It knocks the air out of me. "Your bed. Last week. You touching yourself and saying my name. I sat fucking frozen. Paralyzed by you and came so fast, I couldn't even get my pants down."
Heat explodes across my face. The room tilts again. I feel it everywhere—the mortification, the ache that wants to be anger and turns into something hotter instead. A hundred ugly answers race through me. None make it to my mouth. The one that does isn't the one I expect.
"But I can't…" It tastes like defeat. "I don't… finish. Why would you want someone who can't enjoy—"
His body stills. Every line knits down tight. Not rage. Focus.
"You told the doctor you could."
"I lied." It slices to say it. "I've never—no matter what I try—" The room blurs and I blink hard until it sharpens back into edges. "So if this is about giving me a baby the 'natural way,' and you think I'll suddenly turn into someone who can—" I gesture uselessly at my own body. "I won't."
Something in him eases. Not because he's pleased. Because he's decided. The sensation of it fills the room like weather rolling in.
"Then we'll stop pretending you're alone in that," he says, so even I almost miss the steel in it. "You're not broken. You're untouched."
My mouth opens and no sound comes out. I hate him for using the word I buried in the dark where even I couldn't trip over it. I hate that it lands like mercy.
His gaze drops to my hands strangling the blanket. His voice hardens. "Come here."
"No."
"Zara." Harder now. "Come here."
My legs swing off the bed before my pride can yank them back. I stand barefoot on a rug that's too soft and walk toward a man I should run from. He doesn't move. He lets me come to him and hates it, and that strange double feeling—restraint and want, hunger and patience—buzzes across my skin until I'm standing right there, within reach.
Close, he smells like clean skin and dark coffee and something sharper I can't name. Something like cold metal warmed in a fist. "Give me your hands," he murmurs.
I should say no. Instead, I lift them. He threads my fingers through his hair. My breath catches. I did this last week with a man whowasin the room, stealing my fantasies. Holding the real thing undoes me. Warm scalp. Thick, wavy strands that cling a little to my fingers. A tremor rides through his body that he kills in a heartbeat, and the effort it costs him is the most intimate thing anyone's ever shown me.
"Teach me," he says, echoing the words I whispered into the dark. "Tell me what you need. Tell me how to make you feel good."
"I don't know." It slices me again. "I've never…"
"I know." His hands cradle my wrists, not to pin, just to feel the shake that gives me away. "I'll learn you. All of you. We have time." A beat. The lightest brush of his thumb at the base of my throat, a ghost of a touch that somehow sears. "We have time."
The ticking ovulation bomb waits to go off in a week. I know to the exact minute when I'll be at my most fertile. Do I push him for my release? I don't believe he'd physically hurt me... Which means I'm as crazy as he obviously is. But if he had wanted to assault me, he had the chance. He could have taken me at any point since we met. Instead, he waited until my words gave him consent. Stolen consent, but yes, I'd pleaded for him to take me.
"Why me?" It flies out before I can catch it. "You could have anyone."
"No." The answer is simple and insane. "Only you."
I want to laugh so he can't see the way it lands. I want to slam a door between us and breathe for a year. I want—
"Don't overthink it," he murmurs, and if he knew me less, the words would irritate. He knows me enough that they soothe. "Don't talk yourself out of the truth."
"What truth?"
He bows the smallest fraction. I feel his breath more than I hear his voice. "You want me to kiss you."
Heat slams through me so fast I sway. He doesn't take the moment. He lets it tremble there between us like a tightrope.
"Say yes, and I will." A whisper. A command. A request. All three. "Or say no and I won't."
My heart climbs into my throat and beats there, frantic and stupid.
