71
IVAN
Cora’s face is pale, her eyes wide. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.
Or maybe she just caught a stray glimpse of herself in the mirror.
“What,” I ask, looking her over from frilly head to bedazzled toe, “in the hell are you wearing?”
Anya elbows me in the side. “It’s a wedding dress, asshole.”
“Sure, but which corpse did you strip it off of? It looks ancient.”
There is an ungodly amount of fabric draping off of her shoulders. She looks like she is drowning in it. Throw her out on a windy day and she’d probably take flight.
“Apparently, the designer has a vintage collection.” Cora tries and fails to flatten the volume around her waist. “You don’t like it?”
There’s a playful edge to her voice. She knows I don’t like it. And I know she would rather get married naked than in this.
Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea.
“I’ve never been more eager to get you out of an item of clothing in my entire life.”
“Then maybe it’s a winner,” Jorden suggests. She was tucked up behind Francia, but she steps away and folds her hands behind her back. “That’s the kind of energy a man should bring to his wedding night.”
Francia is still standing off to the side, her nose buried in her phone.
Anya holds up her hands in surrender. “Okay. If you all are going to be gross, then I’m out of here.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” I drawl. “I think I’ll take over the wedding dress hunt from here.” I turn to Cora’s friends. “But for now, I’d like a moment alone with my fiancée.”
“What about the dresses?” Anya protests.
“Wear them, sell them, burn them. I don’t give a fuck.” Whatever gets them out of here the fastest. I don’t even care; I’ll eat the cost.”
Jorden looks at me warily as she hugs Cora goodbye. Francia doesn’t even look at me. She just hugs Cora and then pulls back, holding her by the arms. “Be careful.”
Then the women leave and Cora and I are alone.
I circle around her, twisting my head from side to side to capture every angle. “I thought I was vicious, but my sister is heartless for putting you in this dress.” I lay a hand on her arm and have to compress six inches of material before I feel her body underneath.
“Believe it or not, I chose this myself.”
I arch a brow. “If your goal is to get abandoned at the altar, then I’d say it’s perfect.”
“There won’t be an altar to leave me at, remember?” She turns back to the racks of dresses, the gown swishing around her with every step. “Why take this seriously if the wedding isn’t real?”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
Yet something inside me rages against the idea.
“I remember someone telling me that we needed to practice.”
She ducks her head. I can see a blush creeping up her cheeks. “That was different.”
“No, it wasn’t. No one will believe we’re getting married if we don’t touch each other in public. You learned that lesson. And no one will believe we’re getting married if you don’t choose a dress. Same thing.”
“If you say so. I’ve never been married before,” she says with a forced nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know how any of this is supposed to go.”
I step up behind her and slowly pull the zipper of the dress down the length of her spine. “Then let me teach you.”
Goosebumps spread across her shoulder blades. She snorts. “You don’t know anything about wedding dresses, either… do you?”
She’s asking something else. A question beneath the question. But I’m too focused on exposing more of her skin to worry about it.
I push the sleeves down her arms. “I know what I like. I know what I’d like to see you in.”
Nothing at all.
As hideous as this dress is, I can’t think of anything more beautiful than the way it slides down her body.
What would it be like on our wedding day? How much more would this moment mean after hours spent ogling her in her gown? After vows and cake and dancing? Would I peel her out of the dress slowly like this? Or would I rip the expensive layers to fucking pieces just so I could get at her, touch her, claim her… my wife.
Suddenly, Cora spins around to face me. The gown is hanging low on her arms, the top barely covering the twin swells of her breasts. “You aren’t supposed to see me in my wedding dress before the ceremony. We’re breaking all the rules.”
I pull her closer. “Do I strike you as the kind of man who gives a damn about the rules?”
She laughs quietly. “No, I guess not.”
“Didn’t think so.” I pluck her hands away from the fabric she’s trying to hold over herself and let the dress cascade into a puddle around her long, toned legs. She’s wearing a strapless white bodysuit that covers just enough of her to drive me mad.
I swallow down a groan. “Put something on. Anything.”
“As you wish.” She riffles through the rack and pulls down a slinky satin gown.
And thus begins my torture.
I sit on the bed and watch Cora slip in and out of dress after dress. Again and again, she twirls in front of me. And again and again, all I can think about is shredding through the gowns like a gift box on Christmas morning so I can devour her.
She comes out in the fifth dress and it’s a struggle to stay seated. I have to clench my fists to keep myself from grabbing her around the waist and hauling her towards me.
The dress is sheer, nothing but meticulously overlaid lace covering her chest and the space between her legs. I can see the shadow of her body through the tulle. Light dances around the curve of her hip and her thighs. She looks ethereal. Like a dream.
“What do you think about this one?” Long lashes bat at me. There is no goddamn way she doesn’t know what she is doing.
I rise slowly from the bed, eyes locked on her. “I hate it.”
She starts to smile, but then stops. Her brows pinch together in confusion. “What?”
“I hate it,” I repeat, moving towards her, “because every set of eyes in the room would be locked on you. I’d have no choice but to claim you as mine in front of everyone.”
I snag her waist and pull her close. Her back arches over my arm so she can look up at me. “How would you do that?”
“I could show you,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “Consider it a rehearsal.”
Her phone vibrates on the dresser behind us, but Cora doesn’t even glance at it. Her throat bobs as she swallows. “Yes. Show me.”
I take a gentle bite of her jawbone, her earlobe, then I press the flat of my tongue to her skin and taste her.
Her phone vibrates again, and I feel her turn towards it. But then I grab her hips and circle her against the length of me.
“If seeing you in the dress is bad,” I breathe, “then fucking you in it must be unforgivable.”
“Straight to hell,” she agrees with a strained laugh.
I press her back against the dresser. “I’m already going to hell. What’s another sin on the way down?”
Then her phone vibrates again and again. A nonstop series of messages that are impossible to ignore.
She reaches for it with flamed cheeks. “Sorry. I’ll turn it off.” But when she sees who’s texting, her smile falls.
She scrolls and scrolls, her expression growing stonier by the second. When she finally looks up at me, I feel like the last few minutes were a dream. I must have imagined them.
“You said you’ve killed someone before.”
It’s a statement, not a question. But it comes from so far out of left field that I can’t get my bearings. I shake my head. “What?”
“You told me before that you killed someone.”
“You saw me kill someone,” I remind her. “That mudak tried to snipe you. I killed him to—”
She shakes her head. “Not him.”
I step away. “Most people have the ‘how many people have you slept with’ conversation. This is a new one.”
“I’m not talking about your enemies,” she says. “I’m not talking about taking out people who attack you. You told me when I first got here that you had killed another girlfriend. Is that true?”
I remember it now. Cora and I were arguing. She wanted to leave. I wanted her to stay.
What are you going to do? Kill me?
It wouldn’t be the first time, I said.
“Why are you asking me about this now?” I ask, the heat inside of me turning to solid ice.
Her eyes narrow. “Tell me who Katerina is.”
And just like that, the other shoe drops.