Page 34 of Marrying the Pakhan

He lifts his head. Looks at me like he’s checking one last time that I’m still here, still choosing it. Whatever he sees must be enough, because the last of the careful distance leaves his face.

He sits back just long enough to strip the rest of his clothes, then mine. When he’s fully over me again, there’s nothing left between us. Skin to skin.

The heat of him settles heavy and real against my thigh. I can feel the thick, hard length of him and the way his breathing has gone uneven.

His hand slides down between my legs. Fingers stroke through the slick heat there, and my hips lift into the touch without my permission. “Shit,” he says quietly. “You’re already so⁠—”

“I know.” I pull his mouth back to mine. “Don’t make me wait.”

He doesn’t. He pushes into me in one long, controlled stroke.

The stretch is sharp at first, then deep, then everything. My breath leaves me in a broken exhale against his neck.

He holds still, buried to the hilt, forehead pressed to mine, giving me time even though every muscle in his back is tight under my hands.

“Okay?” he asks, voice low and strained.

I nod, then manage actual words. “Yes. God—yes.”

He starts to move. Slow at first, almost careful, pulling nearly all the way out before sliding back in. Each thrust drags against something that makes my thighs tighten around his hips.

I dig my fingers into his shoulders. He feels it and goes deeper, the rhythm steadying into something heavier.

“Look at me,” he says.

I do. His eyes are dark, locked on mine, and the intensity of it is almost more intimate than the way he’s moving inside me. There’s no distance left. No arrangement. Just this.

“Viktor—”

“I know.” He kisses me once, then drops his mouth to my ear. “I’ve got you.”

The pace builds. His hand slides under my knee, opening me further, and the next thrust hits so deep a soft, helpless sound spills out of me.

He answers it with a low groan, the kind that vibrates through his chest into mine. Sweat starts to slick between us. The bed creaks softly under the force of him.

I can feel myself getting closer already—too fast, too much—but I don’t try to slow it down. My nails scrape lightly down his back. His breathing turns ragged.

“Harper,” he says, almost a warning.

“Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t. He drives into me harder, the control finally slipping. Every thrust is deeper, rougher, and I meet him for each one, hips lifting, chasing the pressure coiling tight and low in my stomach. His hand finds mine and pins it to the mattress above my head, fingers laced tight.

The orgasm hits without warning, sharp and full-body, my back arching hard off the bed as I come around him with a broken cry against his mouth. He follows almost immediately, burying himself deep with a rough, guttural sound, hips stuttering as he spills into me. His weight settles heavy for a second, then he catches himself on his forearms, so he doesn’t crush me.

We stay like that, still joined, both of us breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine. I can feel his heartbeat racing against my chest.

After a long moment, he eases out of me carefully and rolls onto his back, pulling me with him so my head lands on his chest. His arm wraps around my shoulders. One hand starts tracing slow, absent patterns along my skin.

The moonlight cuts a pale line across the sheets.

I listen to his heartbeat slow beneath my ear.

“Well,” I say eventually, breaking the quiet. “That wasn’t pretending.”

He laughs, low and real, and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “No. It wasn’t.”

“I should probably feel more complicated about this than I do.”