Page 35 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

“I’m not going to break,” I tell him.

“I might.”

The admission hangs between us. I reach for the buttons of his shirt, and he lets me. Each one reveals more ink—vines that twist down his sternum, across his ribs, disappearing into the waistband of his jeans. His chest is lean and muscled.

“Beautiful,” I breathe.

His laugh is a broken thing. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that.”

“Then everyone else is blind.”

I press my palm flat against his heart. It’s pounding harder than my own. The realization undoes me—this man, this dangerous, untouchable man, is as undone by me as I am by him.

His mouth is softer than I expected when it captures mine, though the desperation beneath it is anything but. His tongue sweeps against my lower lip, and I open for him without thought. The taste of wine and something darker and metallic, like he’s been biting the inside of his cheek to keep from devouring me whole.

His hands find the clasp of my bra. He fumbles and curses under his breath. I reach behind to help him, and then my breasts are bare and his mouth is on them and I can’t think.

My fingers fist in his hair. The strands are silk, cool and slippery, and I pull harder than I mean to. He groans against my nipple,and the vibration travels through me like a plucked string. His tongue circles the peak, slow and deliberate, and my knees buckle.

“Bedroom,” I gasp.

He lifts me effortlessly. My legs wrap around his waist, and I can feel him through the denim, hard and insistent, and the friction makes me bury my face in his neck. The vines there taste like salt.

The bedroom is dark. He doesn’t bother with the light. He lays me down on the mattress like I’m made of glass, and then he’s above me, and the weight of him is the safest thing I’ve ever felt.

He peels my jeans down my thighs, my underwear following, and then his mouth is on my hip bone and I’m gasping. He kisses the soft curve of my belly, the inside of my thigh, the crease where my leg meets my body, and every touch is a promise.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.

“Because I need you.”

“Not yet.”

His thumb finds me, wet and slick. He spreads it slowly, painting circles that make my hips buck. One finger slides inside, then two, and he watches my face the entire time, cataloging every reaction.

When he finally settles between my thighs, when I feel the blunt pressure of him against my entrance, he pauses.

“Zara.”

“I’m here.”

He pushes in. Inch by agonizing inch, and the stretch is exquisite. My nails dig into his shoulders, and he hisses, and then he’s fully seated and I can feel him everywhere.

He doesn’t move.

Just stays there, buried deep, his forehead pressed to mine, and the intimacy of it is overwhelming. Our breath mingles as our hearts beat in tandem. The vines on his throat are dark rivers in the moonlight, and I trace them with trembling fingers.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers, “that it could feel like this.”

“Like what.”

“Like I’m not alone.”

He moves slowly. His body speaks a language I didn’t know I understood, and I answer with my hips, my hands, the broken sounds spilling from my throat. The pressure builds, not like a wave but like the moment before a storm—electric and heavy and inevitable.

“Mikhail, oh my God,” I gasp.

“I got you, baby,” he says, and the endearment shatters something in my chest.