Page 55 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

There’s been distance between us that I couldn’t name, couldn’t cross, couldn’t muscle through the way I muscle through every other problem in my life. But this isn’t a problem I can intimidate into submission. This is Zara. All curves and guarded silences and a mind that runs faster than either of us can keep up with.

“I’m here,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I meant it to.

She nods. A tear slips down her cheek, tracking through the faint smudge of mascara, and I catch it before it reaches her jaw. My thumb lingers at the corner of her mouth, mirroring where hers had just been on mine.

The moment stretches.

Then she leans forward and captures my lips.

It’s not desperate. That’s what surprises me. After everything—the shouting, the sobbing, the way she’d clutched at my shoulders like I was the only solid thing left in a world that had turned to water—I expected clawing hunger. The frantic need to feel something other than pain.

But her mouth on mine is soft and intentional. She kisses me like she’s relearning the shape of me, and I let her.

God help me.

My hands find her waist. The fabric of her blouse is thin, still warm from the heat of her body, and beneath it I feel the slight tremor that runs through her. Her curves press against my palms—that generous swell of hip, the narrowing of waist—and I’ve memorized it all before, but tonight it feels new and uncharted. Something sacred I’m being given access to again after thinking I’d lost the key.

She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her lips are parted, slightly swollen, and her chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven breaths.

“I don’t want words,” she breathes. “I can’t—I can’t do words anymore tonight.”

And I understand. Words have failed us both.

My hand slides up her spine, pressing her closer, and I lower her onto the floor—but she doesn’t complain. Her dark hair spills around her head like ink in water, and the blue scarf finally surrenders, slipping free to pool beside her shoulder.

“Zara.” Her name is a prayer I didn’t know I still believed in.

She reaches up and pulls me down.

Our mouths meet again, and this time there’s heat beneath the tenderness. Her hips rise to meet mine, and the friction draws a sound from her throat—small, broken, half-sob and half-moan.

I swallow it like I’ve swallowed everything else tonight: her rage, her fear, the ugly truth she finally let herself speak aloud.

My hand finds the hem of her blouse. Each button I slip free is an apology for every moment I spent on the wrong side of the distance between us. Her bronze skin reveals itself inch by inch—the swell of her breasts, the softness of her belly, the rise and fall of each breath as she watches me watch her.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, and I need her to believe it, need her to understand that this body—every curve, every scar, every stretch mark that silver-lines her hips—is the only altar I’ve ever wanted to kneel at.

She shakes her head, a tiny motion, and that’s worse than anything else tonight. That small denial. That reflex of self-doubt.

I lower my mouth to her collarbone. “You are.”

My lips trace the hollow of her throat. The place where her pulse hammers against the skin, frantic and alive.

“You’re beautiful,” I repeat against her sternum, “and you’re exhausted,”—a kiss to the rise of her left breast—“and you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,”—my tongue tracing the edge of her bra—“and I am so fucking sorry I let you forget that.”

Her fingers thread into my hair and grip tight, not pulling me away but anchoring me here.

We shed the rest of our clothes slowly. There’s no tearing, no frantic yanking of fabric. Each piece removed is deliberate—her blouse sliding from her shoulders, her pants eased over the generous curve of her hips, my shirt joining the growing pile beside us.

When I’m finally bare above her, she runs her palms over the ink that sleeves my arms, over the vines that climb my neck, her touch reverent.

I settle between her thighs. The heat of her against my length makes us both pause, suspended in that breathless moment before everything changes.

“Look at me,” I order lowly.

Her eyes open, wet and steady.

I push inside.