Perhaps the alliance wasn’t the only reason he’d wanted me.
“What’s wrong?” His hot breath spilled over my face.
“Nothing—you’re moving too fast.”
His grip eased and he shifted back, propping himself up on his elbow.
“You know, I didn’t want to have an arranged marriage either,” he said.
I studied him through sleepy lids. “Why did you agree to it then?”
“Because it’s tradition for the godfather to form an alliance with his marriage. All of the men before me did it…I didn’t really have a choice. It’s not just you who’s trapped in this world.”
It had never occurred to me that he wasn’t happy with his situation. He was a man and men thrived in our world. I blinked at him in confusion, unsure why he felt trapped. As a man, he had the power to do whatever he wanted. He could break from tradition whenever he pleased.
“You’re in charge, you can change things,” I said.
He released a sigh. “The entire organization rests on my shoulders. If I don’t inspire confidence in my men, they won’t have a leader. If they don’t have a leader, things fall apart. Their families are vulnerable to attack, my men will lose their livelihoods.”
I’d never considered it like that and I fell silent for a long moment. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling with a contemplative expression on his face.
“And I have to have an heir,” he added. “I’m already forty-four.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand,” I said frowning. “I’m Italian. Doesn’t the organization expect you to have a fully Russian heir?”
“Well, Sienna, the organization’s most salacious open secret is that their godfather isn’t actually Russian. Hasn’t been since my grandfather,” he said.
I gaped at him. “What are you then?”
“Danish and Swedish.” His hand slid up my side tentatively, barely brushing my naked thigh beneath the cover. “My grandfather was the godfather’s right-hand man and he stepped into the role of Pakhan when his boss died unexpectedly without leaving a son.”
I mulled this over. Here was another way in which he surprised me. He truly was a different man than the one Lucien had married me off to. But if he wasn’t the brutal Russian godfather who married solely to build an alliance, then who was he?
Reaching out a finger, I traced his chest. I liked the place beneath his collarbones where he had a patch of pale brown hair. It felt nice to run my fingers through it and it sent little trickles of warmth down my thighs. His pale eyes fixed on me, studying me with that heavy stare.
“Let’s agree not to hate each other,” he said quietly.
If I hadn’t been so sleepy, I wouldn’t have had the courage to say, “You just want to fuck me.”
He laughed softly and I closed my eyes. His touch burned on the inside of my thigh, just above my knee. It stopped halfway up and then he brushed his lips over my forehead and withdrew. I lay there in silence, pretending I wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t dragged his hand up higher to the little pulse between my thighs.
He shifted and after a while his breathing changed, filling the room with its deep, even rhythm. I lay beside him and let the sound soothe me like the gentle rush of the ocean. That was one thing I hadn’t expected about my new life—I enjoyed sharing my bed with him. His warmth and the heavy presence of his body calmed the anxiety in my chest.
I didn’t get a chance to visit Magnolia Lightfoot until Sunday a week later. In the meantime, I spent my days trying to settle in and my nights beside my new husband, sometimes even allowing him to sleep against my body. My things arrived in the middle of the week and it took me a few days to set them up and sort through what I wanted to keep. I was disappointed that whoever had packed everything hadn’t deemed my books essential items. It was, however, nice to get my clothes back.
I was beginning to warm up to Viktor, although I hated that he was dismantling my walls with such ease. He brought a steadying, almost comforting presence wherever he went. There was an edge to him too, but it wasn’t the dark one I’d imagined. No, he was intelligent and he was the only man I’d met who always had a quick response to my little digs. I couldn’t be mad at him either because everything he dished up was served with a smirk and a glint in his pale eyes.
I’d never had so many conflicting feelings about a person before in my life.
On Sunday I woke to find him standing in the kitchen, bare-chested, in sweats. There was a pan of sizzling bacon on a skillet and the room smelled amazing. For a moment, I hung back in the hallway and just stared at him. God, he was sexy and I was going to indulge myself and stare at him for as long as I could before he noticed. My breath caught as he moved, the V going into his waistband flexing as he leaned over to open the fridge door.
When he straightened, his eyes fell on me and I had the sudden urge to cross my arms over my hard nipples, poking through the fabric of his t-shirt. Brenda wasn’t at the house on Sundays so I hadn’t bothered to get dressed.
“Hungry?” he said, his voice still husky from sleep.
“Yes, please,” I said, trying to appear casual as I circled the breakfast bar and perched on one of the stools.
“I made bacon and scrambled eggs,” he said. “How does that sound?”