Page 59 of Forced & Obsessed By the Bratva King
The tension is lesser now, with neither of us acknowledging our conversation or her admission from hours ago.
Elena sits by the window, busying herself with her work tablet. She tries so hard to appear detached, to blend into the curtains, but I begin to notice the small emotional cues she thinks she’s hiding.
Every once in a while, I see the nervous glances she shoots toward the doorway, where I sit in a chair by the wall.
I spot the slight trembling of her hands whenever she swipes the screen, and then, the rarest sight: a small, fleeting smile when she reads something on the display.
I close my ledger with a quiet thud, opting to break the silence. “Are you not going to have something to eat?” I ask, keeping my tone casual, conversational, hoping she doesn’t misunderstand it as seeking to start another fight. “You’ve been staring at that screen for three hours.”
She doesn’t look up immediately, but her jaw sets in that familiar, stubborn line. “I’m not hungry,” she replies tightly. “Thanks for the offer, though.”
That fiery defiance, wrapped in the lingering fear of what happened this morning, is intoxicating.
Most people collapse under my attention, but she holds her ground with a stubbornness that completely fascinates me.
I watch her carefully, the reality of the situation sinking in deeper than before.
When we started this craziness, my initial plan only had her as my wife on a piece of paper—an asset that belonged only to me, giving no one else the opportunity to claim what I wanted.
But now she’s more than that, actively shifting something inside me. She doesn’t know it, but she’s breaking through the defenses I spent a lifetime building, affecting me emotionally in ways I’m still trying to comprehend.
The tension in the room thickens as she finally stands up, deciding she’s done with the window. She walks toward the dresser, intentionally ignoring me as she moves.
As she bends over to pick up the heavy leather messenger bag resting by the floor, my breath catches in my throat.
I let my gaze linger shamelessly on her curvaceous body.
Her movements pull the fabric of her shirt taut, tracing the flawless, elegant curve of her back and highlighting the softness of her exposed skin at the nape of her neck.
Heat floods my veins, my throat going completely dry as the urge to cross the room and pull her against me burns hotter than ever.
I stare longer than is appropriate, my gaze tracking the slow, elegant line of her spine. My mind is a battleground between a burning, feral desire and the absolute, ironclad need to remain in control.
A man in my position survives on his discipline. The moment he lets his desires dictate his actions, he’s a dead man.
Yet, looking at her, the rules feel incredibly flimsy.
And the throbbing between my legs only worsens by the minute.
The heat flares again later in the evening.
She’s at the wardrobe, quietly adjusting a heavy woolen coat on a hanger. Her attention is entirely focused on the task.
I step out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped loosely around my waist.
I move silently across the floor, stepping up right behind her.
I don’t touch her, but I get close enough that the cool water droplets on my bare skin skim the hair on her neck. Close enough that the solid heat of my chest radiates directly against her back.
“Do you need help with that?”
She freezes instantly, the hanger rattling against the metal rod. She doesn’t pull away, and I don’t step back.
“No,” she says, then clears her throat to assert more firmly, “I don’t need your help. Thank you.”
I bend my head lower, until my lips are a hairsbreadth away from the soft curve of her earlobe. “You’re so fucking stubborn.”
I watch a burst of pink settle on her cheeks and rush to the tips of her ears. Her lashes flutter as she blinks, and her lips open and close, but no words come out.
