The room seems to contract around us.
For a moment, he just stares at me. Not moving. Not speaking. Like he’s deciding whether this is a trap, a mistake, or a line that can’t be uncrossed.
Then he steps toward me.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Not like a man taking what he wants, but like someone giving me time to take it back.
He stops beside the bed and sits down, leaving a careful inch of space between us. Our shoulders brush anyway.
The contact is accidental.
The jolt is not.
My breath catches. His jaw tightens. I feel the heat of him, the restrained tension humming beneath his stillness, like a storm held behind glass.
“Raelyn,” he says quietly, my name weighted, grounded. “Do you know what you’re asking?”
I nod, even though my chest aches and my fear coils tight.
“Look at me.”
I meet his gaze, and slowly the space between us dissolves. His hands sink into my hair, his fingers threading through the strands to find a firm grip, and he pulls me to him. Konstantin slams his mouth over mine in a searing kiss that obliterates the last of the silence.
The restraint he was holding onto snaps like a frayed wire. This isn’t the soft peck from a moment ago; this is a collision. His tongue sweeps against mine, tasting the salt of my skin and the heat of my desire, and I melt into the mattress under the sudden, heavy weight of his body.
A low, broken sound vibrates in my throat, and it’s the spark that sets the rest of him on fire. He moves his hand from my hair, sliding it down to the small of my back to arch me up against him, needing to feel the curve of my body against every hard line of his. The world outside—the danger, the risks, those shadows following us—it all burns away until there is nothing left but the friction of our skin and the desperate, rhythmic pulse of finally being found.
I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, deeper, as if I can fuse us together. Konstantin groans into my mouth, a raw, jagged sound that tells me he’s just as lost as I am.
I break the kiss, my lungs burning as I pull back just far enough to speak. The air between us is electric, vibrating with everything we’re about to do. I look at him, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“I’ve never done this before,” I whisper.
Konstantin frowns, his hands still threaded deeply through my hair, his knuckles brushing against my scalp. “Done what?”
I cast my gaze down, unable to hold his intensity. The silk of the sheets feels cool against my heated skin, a sharp contrast to the fire he’s started. “Sex,” I breathe out, the word feeling heavy and fragile all at once.
He doesn’t let me hide. Using the strands of my hair, he applies just enough pressure to tilt my head back, forcing me to meet his storm-gray eyes. They are turbulent, swirling with a dark, unreadable emotion.
“Are you a virgin?” he asks, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly vibration.
I nod.
Konstantin freezes. His breath hitches, held tight in his chest, and his eyes sharpen with something fierce, possessive, and almost reverent. The air in the room feels still, as if the gravity has shifted.
“Are you sure you want this, Raelyn?” he asks, his voice thick.
I nod again, my cheeks flushed, my voice soft with a vulnerability that leaves me completely exposed. I don’t say the words directly, but the truth is vibrating between us: I want him.
Not because of the marriage contract, not because of the fear that usually follows his name, but because I am drawn to him. I am pulled toward the quiet storm beneath his calm exterior, and for tonight, I want to be right in the center of it.
He kisses me again, slowly this time. The jagged edge of his hunger has smoothed out into a focused, deliberate gentleness as he guides me back onto the mattress. His hands roam my body over the cotton shirt with a lightness thatmakes my breath hitch—he treats me like something precious, something he is terrified he might damage if he presses too hard.
He worships every inch of my skin with those careful hands, his touch murmuring a praise that doesn’t need words. The cold detachment that usually defines him, that icy wall he keeps between himself and the world, is completely gone. In its place is a terrifyingly beautiful control, tempered with an emotion I don’t know how to handle. It’s too big, too heavy to name.