Page 54 of The Russian's Revenge Bride
His hands found the hem of my shirt—his shirt actually—and slipped beneath the fabric to map the skin of my back. I arched into his touch, craving the connection, the proof that we were both alive and here and choosing each other despite everything that should have driven us apart.
This wasn’t the desperate coupling of our wedding night or the heated collision after the hotel party. This was different. Slower. More deliberate. Like we were both finally understanding what we were building together.
“Eleanor,” he breathed against my lips, my name a prayer and a confession wrapped in one.
“I’m here,” I whispered back, and felt him shudder at the words.
His hands moved with reverent precision, relearning the landscape of my body like he was afraid I might disappear if he moved too fast. When he lifted the shirt over my head, I didn’t feel exposed. I felt claimed.
The afternoon light streaming through the windows painted patterns on our skin as clothes fell away piece by piece. No rushed urgency this time, no desperate need to claim or be claimed. Just the slow, inevitable collision of two broken hearts choosing to heal each other.
When he moved over me, his gray eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my soul ache, I saw all of him. The killer and the protector, the monster and the man, the person who’d been shaped by violence but had somehow managed to keep something soft and precious hidden away for me.
“I love you,” I said, the words spilling from my lips without thought or hesitation.
He went completely still, his breath catching like I’d just told him the world was ending.
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Maxim Voronov. All of you. The parts that scare me and the parts that make me feel safe. The darkness and the light. I love you.”
Something cracked in his expression, some wall he’d been maintaining finally crumbling under the weight of those three words. When he kissed me again, I could taste salt on his lips, though whether the tears were his or mine, I couldn’t say.
“I love you too,” he whispered against my mouth, the admission torn from someplace deep and hidden. “God help me, I love you too.”
Then he was moving, joining us together with a gentleness that made my throat tight with emotion. Not the claiming of our wedding night or the desperate hunger of our other encounters, but something that felt like worship. Likegratitude. Like the kind of love that was written in skin and sealed with gasps and promises.
Every touch was deliberate, every kiss a vow. He moved like he was memorizing me, like he wanted to map every freckle and scar and imperfection until they were burned into his memory forever.
I met him stroke for stroke, rising to meet him, letting him know with my body what my words might not be able to convey. That this was what I wanted. That he was what I wanted. That the blood on his hands didn’t scare me because those same hands held me like I was made of starlight and dreams.
We moved together in perfect synchronization, two people who’d found their rhythm in chaos and violence and were now applying it to something infinitely more precious. The afternoon dissolved around us, time becoming meaningless as we lost ourselves in the simple act of loving each other.
When release finally claimed us, it was with an intensity that left us both shaking. Not just from physical pleasure, though that was devastating enough, but from the emotional weight of what had just passed between us. The walls had come down. The masks had been removed. We’d seen each other,reallyseen each other, and neither of us had looked away.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the ruins of our clothes and defenses, breathing hard and staring at the ceiling like we were both trying to process what had just happened.
“That was…” he started, then trailed off.
“Different,” I finished.
“Good different?”
I turned my head to look at him, taking in the way the afternoon light caught the silver in his eyes, the satisfied exhaustion written across his features. “The best kind of different.”
He pulled me closer, tucking me against his side like he was afraid I might float away. “I meant what I said. About loving you.”
“I know. So did I.”
“Even after today? Even after seeing what I’m capable of?”
“Especially after today.” I pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “You killed for me, Maxim. You painted the street red to keep me safe. That’s not something I’m going to forget or forgive. That’s something I’m going to carry with me.”
“Most people would be horrified.”
“Most people don’t watch their husband become an avenging angel when their life is threatened.”
He was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing abstract patterns on my bare shoulder. “There’s going to be retaliation. For today, for the men I killed. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
