Page 35 of Arranged for the Russian Pakhan

I’m a logical man, too. And it goes against logic to presume myself a stronger creature than I am. Yes, I am capable of controlling. I exercise it in various aspects of my life—from a disciplined exercise regimen to the way I rule my gang with an iron fist. Because of this, I know its limitations. I’d let Darya push and obliterate them last night; it’s a mistake I can’t afford to make twice. Not if I want this marriage to work. The vicious savage who’d made such a wild, beautiful mess of her was not who Darya had bound herself to. She’d signed up for a sexless robot. A husband, only on paper, for only one purpose.

She is not mine to have. And, whether I like it or not, having her is all I fucking think about when she gets close to me. Now that I know what she tastes like—what she fucking sounds like when I am tasting her sweet, slippery cunt—and feels like beneath my hands, during and after I’ve taken her apart and left her shaking? I can’t pretend otherwise.

And what’s worse is that she knows it. I’ve seen that she does. Her eyes dared mine every time she caught them since I’ve returned home from my day. Not only is she aware that there’s no abating my appetite for her, but it is also evident that she has no desire to do so in the first place.

It’s cruel. But I’ve found that cruelty comes easily to Darya.

What other word is there for the way she shows up at the door of the library now? Jesus fucking Christ. The skimpy, ice-blue silk she comes swathed in, trimmed in ivory lace that brushes the middle of her thighs—a nightmare dressed like a fucking daydream—is nothing short of cruel. She walks in and traverses an unwilling path to the shelves, but it doesn’t fool me. She can act like she isn’t aware of my presence, or maybe that she’s above caring about it. I know better. The time when she pretended I had no impact on her body is well and truly gone now. If I weren’t so attached to not being a lascivious asshole, I’d throw her up against that very shelf and pound into her until she told me the truth.

The urge alone—the fact of its existence—is why I don’t move, not a muscle. No other movements allowed besides the needs-must, adjusting my reading spectacles and reading the sentence a twelfth time.

My skin prickles with awareness of her proximity.

Of the fact that I’ve seen this woman in couture gowns at galas and prissy little blouses paired with slacks around the Yuri estate, and elegant dresses here and there. I’ve had her undressed, her skin feverish beneath my palms. And this, still, is the most deviant she’s ever looked; she is walking temptation, and air feels hard to come by.

I can try to peel my eyes off her all I want. I’m still a fucking liar because I notice how she parses through shelves and a handful of volumes before she settles on a book of Anna Akhmatova’s poetry instead.

It’s a testament to how entranced I am by the awesome vessel of her body that it takes sinking into the chair opposite me to realize her feet are bare. For some reason, it feels illegal to see her tiny toes, painted a vivid strawberry red. But I still stare, watching them curl against the rug like she’s digging for warmth.

When she finally does speak, it’s to demand, “Light a fire for me.”

She commands me, like she’s made to do it. And my limbs, anything but impervious to her spell, comply as if fucking hypnotized. Without a word, I open the flue and lay a crumpled fire-starter at the base of the grate. I stack kindling loosely over the paper in the shape of a tent, like I’ve read you ought to. Like I go around building my own fires instead of having one of the staff do it. With the flick of the long-barreled lighter, I set a piece of paper aflame, watching kindling catch fire and start burning, before I stack logs from the heap onto the pile.

I don’t look back. But I don’t have to. I feel Darya’s eyes on me, as tangibly as the poker I adjust the fire with.

The fire snaps and crackles. And I can’t look back at her.

“You have a lot of military history and political theory in your shelves,” she says apropos of nothing, and I dig, curl my hands into fists. Even this, I can’t do without thinking about the crescent moons she’d dug into her palms last night, when I’d edged her until she cried.

I clear my throat. “Yes?”

Without permission, my gaze flits to her anyway. I’m rewarded by her own eyes, stubbornly fixed on whatever it is Akhmatova has to say. It’s to the page she says, “It’s too expected. A man in power who likes to read about other men in power? Are you really that unimaginative?”

Despite myself, my lips fight a grin. She sounds so disgruntled by the idea. I let her sit with it a second, then challenge it, “‘Memory of sun ebbs from the heart. Grass fades early. Wind blows the first snowflakes. Barely, barely... Freezing water can’t flow along these narrow channels. Nothing happens here, oh—nothing can happen.’”

The dent between her brows looks tender and aching. “What?”

I gesture with a nod of my head at the book between her hands. “Anna Akhmatova. That was part of a poem. It should be in the first half of the book you’re holding.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “I know,” she bites out. “I’m—”

“Impressed?” I can’t help but tease her.

“I thought we established last night that I’m not easily impressed, Anton.”

My brow cocks up at her. I’d like to believe I’m above typical male pride, but that’s what coats my words. “I thought we established that I can make you come harder than you ever have?”

“You think a lot of yourself.”

“Sometimes,” I admit, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Occupational hazard, I suppose.”

She doesn’t appear to be disarmed by my candor so much as she is pensive. To inspire it in her is enough, at least, for me to finally move on to the next sentence. I get three more in before she says, “Do you see being the wife of a Pakhan as an occupation, too?”

Not with a gun to my head could I have guessed that would be her line of thinking. Out of shock alone, I don’t pause to think. I just blurt, “Of course not.”

It swiftly becomes clear that that’s the wrong answer.

“Do you?” I ask, mystified.