Page 71 of Santa Daddy
Waiting to see if his little Christmas bride was about to set the room on fire.
I didn’t say “I do.”
But I didn’t pull away either.
I forced my head to move in a nod that barely counted, my throat refusing to cooperate.
My silence is compliance. And he knows it.
His thumb eased off my pulse. The pressure of his hand slid from restraint into something that would look, from a distance, like steadying.
The priest seemed satisfied enough not to die over semantics.
“Then by the power vested in me…” he shuffled pages, desperate to get this over with. “You may now?—”
Konstantin leaned in, breath hot at my ear, whisper threading under the priest’s words.
“Smile, kotyonok,” he murmured, the Russian endearment curling like smoke. “You’re mine now.”
Notbaby.Notlove.
Kitten. Something you pet. Keep. Own.
The command slithered down my spine.
I hated that a part of me wanted to obey.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest managed, definitely not paid enough.
Konstantin’s hands came up to frame my face with deceptive gentleness.
Then his mouth slammed into mine.
This wasn’t a kiss.
This was a press conference.
His tongue pushed past my lips without asking. His hand slid into my hair, tightening just enough to angle my head where he wanted it. The other hand splayed over my lower back, dragging me flush to his chest.
Everyone saw.
The priest. The council. His men. The enemies masquerading as well-wishers.
This is mine.
I should’ve felt humiliated. Reduced to something decorative and useful, like the floral arrangements.
Instead, heat roared through me, awful and familiar. My body remembered every wall he’d pressed me against. Every time his mouth had done this in private.
I hated him.
I hated that a kiss in front of an audience could still short-circuit my brain.
When he finally pulled away, my lips tingled, my lungs burned, my heart hammered.
His face had already cooled. Mouth back to a line, eyes back to ice, as if what he’d just done was a minor formality instead of setting me on fire in front of a room full of killers.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the priest said shakily, “I present Mr. and Mrs. Zverev.”
