Page 147 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
My wife.
She shivers slightly. I sit up and roll her over so she’s closer to the fire, rubbing her arms and legs softly.
A small red mark on the white carpet beneath us.
At first, I think it’s mine. My hand is still split from Dmitri’s face. There’s dried blood along the knuckles, old and dark at the edges. But this spot is fresh. Brighter. Small, but impossible to miss against all that white.
My body goes still.
Anya notices immediately. “What?” she asks, voice rough from everything that just happened between us.
I don’t answer. I shift carefully away from her, enough to look down properly. She follows my gaze, and the moment she sees the blood, her face changes.
Not fear. Embarrassment.
I touch the stain with two fingers, already knowing before I lift my hand.
Fresh. Hers.
I look back at her. She’s lying on the carpet in the torn remains of her dress, hair loose around her face, skin flushed from my mouth and my hands and my cock. A minute ago, she looked satisfied, dazed, almost soft.
Now she looks exposed.
Too exposed.
“Anya,” I say.
Her throat moves. She reaches for the ripped red silk, pulling it higher over herself, but there’s not enough fabric left to cover much. The movement bothers me more than the blood.
My voice comes out lower. “Are you a virgin?”
She looks away. That’s answer enough.
Still, I wait.
Her fingers tighten in the ruined fabric. “Not anymore,” she says.
The words land heavily.
For a few seconds, I can’t move.
Not because I’m displeased. God, no.
Something worse than satisfaction moves through me first, deep and savage and possessive enough that I have to crush it before it shows on my face. Dmitri never had her. No one did. She gave that to me.
Then the rest follows.
The guilt. The realization. The fact that I took her on a carpet in front of the fire after tearing her dress off her body because I was too hungry to ask the right questions.
I close my eyes once. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her head snaps back toward me. “Would you have stopped?”
“Yes.” The answer is immediate.
Her face twists slightly. “That’s why.”
I stare at her. She pushes herself up on one elbow, wincing before she can hide it.
