Page 54 of Marrying the Silver Fox

I bid him farewell to leave him to take care of the matter of Max’s excommunication, and I sit for a moment at my desk in the silence, pondering how I wound up here. When I insisted on Andie joining me at the end of the aisle on our wedding day, I never could have imagined that it would end up here.

Hell, I never thought she’d stick around long enough to make it this far—I only intended to keep the humiliation of being abandoned at the altar from reaching the kinds of people who would use it against me.

But she has stayed. She came to Russia with me, met my family, made herself at home in the world that I have been part of my entire life. And even when we came back to America and she found herself frustrated by the way I protected her, she stayed.

And she’s back here now, asleep in the next room, draped across my bed as she rests after all she has been through. The way she called my name through the door when she heard me busting into that apartment that Max kept her in, I know she couldn’t have faked that—a need for me that goes deeper than I ever imagined it would.

There’s still so much she doesn’t know about me. So much that she deserves to, I’m sure of that. Now that she’s pregnant, now that our bond has deepened beyond the point that it can ever be broken, she deserves to hear it, to be able to fill in all the blanks in any way she wants to. She has opened up to me about what she went through, how it shaped the kind of person she has become, and if she’s willing to hear it, I want to give her the same.

“Hey.”

I glance up to see her leaning in the door, head resting against the frame, still a little sleepy. Her hair is a mess, her face still creased from the pillow, but she’s smiling. God, she looks so fucking beautiful like that, this delicate, intimate side of her that she chooses to show me now.

“You want something to eat?” she asks, nodding through to the kitchen. “I was going to give some breakfast a go, if you want to risk it…”

I grin, rising to my feet. “Let me help you,” I reply, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her against me. I brush my lips lightly along her temple, and she leans into me for a moment, slightly surprised by my sudden affection.

“What’s all this for?” she laughs, and I shake my head, looking down at her.

“A man can’t kiss his wife good morning?”

She cocks her head to the side, looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she replies, shaking her head. “Just…getting used to being someone’s wife, that’s all.”

And with that, she leads the way to the kitchen, and I follow. I know exactly what she means. We might have been married for a few months now, but it’s only recently that I’ve begun to truly feel like a husband to her.

And it’s a sensation I never want to let go of.

27

ANDIE

The first thing I feel when I wake up is the slow slide of Nikolai’s hand down my lower belly, the warmth of his body tucked up against me from behind. Still half-asleep, I move back against him, snuggling into him happily.

“Hey,” I murmur, just as his fingers brush over my bush.

“Hey,” he replies, voice low and throaty from sleep. He presses a kiss into the back of my neck as he kneads my mound gently, coaxing my legs apart as he spoons me lazily. I can feel his cock moving up my back, hardening as he brings me to wakefulness in the most delicious way possible while the sun streams in through the crack in the curtains just opposite us.

I reach back to cradle his head, holding him against me and letting my eyes drift shut once more as he continues to tug and press against my mound and my lower belly. These kind of mornings have become second nature to me, waking up here in his arms and losing myself to the way he feels against me.

He always sleeps with his arms wrapped around me, holding me close, pulling me tight against him as though he never wants me to be anywhere other than his side again—it’s been like that since I started sleeping in his bed, when he returned me to this place after Max snatched me away.

And most mornings have begun like this too, with his hand resting on my tummy, as though he’s trying to figure out if he’s able to feel the slight curve that announces my ever-progressing pregnancy.

He took me to an exclusive maternity clinic a few days ago to confirm that I’m definitely with child, and I swear, since then, he has been treating me with even more care than before. I doubt he would have me so much as brushing my own teeth if he could help it, not wanting me to exert myself more than I have to, no matter how much I try to assure him that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.

He has been all over me since then too—almost as though the revelation that I’m really, truly pregnant has stirred a whole new side of his want for me. His fingers slip down to my pussy, stirring around my clit softly a few times, and he lets his tongue glide up the back of my neck and toward that almost painfully sensitive spot between my throat and my ear. I whimper, arching against him, and I can already feel his cock throbbing against the small of my back.

“You smell so good,” he rasps against my ear, sinking his teeth into my lobe and tugging slightly to make me gasp. Okay, so maybe he’s not entirely opposed to a little exertion on my part, after all…

His fingers continue to work in small circles around my clit as he slowly presses kisses up and down my neck, his warm breath sending shivers down my spine. Once he’s sure that he has me good and ready for him, he moves his hand to the inside of my thigh, gently parting my legs so he can move in between them, pressing his erection against my slit from behind as he guides my hips back toward him. I can feel the nudge of his cock against my pussy, the scorching heat of his head teasing just at the entrance of my slit—and then, in one motion, he pushes himself inside of me, wrapping both arms around me so he can pin me against him.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” he growls in my ear, as he circles his hips against me for a moment.

The fullness makes my vision blur, lashes fluttering as my body contends with the newfound pleasure—waking up to this is a luxury I’ve never known before, coming to consciousness beside a man who wants every inch of me and will do anything to have it.