Throne of Power: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance (Throne Duet Book 1)

A long time ago, when I was a kid and had to be raised among monsters, I was taught to never covet anything.

Everything is temporary, usable, discardable. Every. Fucking. Thing.

So how come when I stare at the woman standing against the wall, all I can feel is the need to run my tongue over her cheek until I claim those parted lips?

How come she’s the first thing that comes to mind in the morning and the last thing I want to see before I close my eyes?

Rai Sokolov is the forbidden fruit I should’ve never tasted, because one single taste isn’t enough. Neither is the second, the third, or the tenth.

She lifts her chin up even though her position is the epitome of vulnerability. Her dress is bunched up to her waist, and her underwear is gathered around her ankles. Even the frail elastic causes red lines against her smooth, pale skin.

“I don’t need your hand,” she says breathlessly. “Get out.”

I lean against the supply room door, crossing my legs at the ankle. “Never mind me. I’ll just stay and watch. How does it feel to touch yourself with the toy you hated so much at the beginning? Are your walls clenching around the rubber?”

“S-shut up…” Her back visibly arches, tits pushing against the fabric of her dress. My cock throbs at the view, demanding to grab her by the throat and fuck her raw.

But the urge to play games with her is stronger, and I know she needs them too. That’s why she provokes me every chance she gets.

Watching her thrust that plastic thing in and out of her pussy while I’m standing right here is both a turn-on and annoying. The former is because I love how she surrenders to pleasure. Her body relaxes, her lips part, and her eyes appear high as if she’s in tune with every spark running through her.

The latter is because I don’t want anything but me to touch her, not even a toy that I bought. My dick is raging hard, plotting to replace the toy and making her shatter all around him.

“Is the toy’s size not able to satisfy you anymore?” I ask in the most nonchalant tone I can manage, even though I’m close to fucking her on the floor like a bloody animal. “Is your cunt begging for more?”

She traps the corner of her bottom lip under her teeth; as much as she likes to hide it, Rai gets off on dirty talk. Her walls clench around me harder whenever I describe what I plan to do to her.

“If you want the real thing, just ask. Or rather, beg for it like a good princess.”

“You want this so much, too.” She tips her chin toward the bulge in my trousers.

“Never said I didn’t.”

“Then how about you beg for it?”

“Women beg me, not the other way around.”

“Well, maybe you should go to them.”

“Maybe I will.”

Her movements slow down as she pins me down with a glare. “Then maybe I will go find myself men who beg me for it too.”

My jaw clenches. Even though I recognize her ‘eye for an eye’ principle, the thought of her with any other fucker turns my vision black. “Not if I snipe him down first.”

“You can’t watch me twenty-four-seven.”

“Oh, I fucking can. I will murder every last man who comes within a meter’s range of you. If you don’t believe me, try it. Just go ahead and fucking try it.”

She smiles a little through her whimpers, the expression taking me by surprise. When she speaks, her voice is breathy, needy, begging without saying the word ‘please’. “Do you like exercising control so much you ignore your own bodily needs, Kyle?”

Her head tilts to my trousers again, to where I haven’t bothered to hide the evidence of my fucking obsession with this woman.

“What’s the matter, Kyle? Afraid to act on your urges?” She lifts her chin, still thrusting the toy in and out of her, unhurriedly, almost…seductively. Fuck me. Since when did Rai become an expert in the art of seduction?

“Afraid of what?” I hold on to my control with an iron fist.

“Afraid of letting go…of feeling.”

I reach her in two long strides and twist her around so her front meets the wall, then hold her by the throat from behind. Her gasp of surprise slowly turns into a moan when my fingers close around the delicate flesh of her neck, the flesh that’s easily bruised, easily marked as mine.

“I’m not the one who’s afraid to let go, Rai,” I murmur against her ear. Then I bite down on it, my voice dropping. “You are.”

Her whimper of pleasure is the only incentive I need as I release her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders. Then I unbuckle my belt and push down my boxer briefs enough to free my aching dick.

I pull the toy out of her pussy and throw it away. She holds on to my hand that’s wrapped around her throat, not to remove it, but to treat it like an anchor for what’s about to come. I’ve become so attuned to the way she needs me. My wife is beautiful, strong, but she’s still vulnerable for me.

Only me.

Her head tilts to the side, allowing my hand to completely wrap around her neck. It’d be so easy to break her and watch as she shatters to pieces.

“I won’t hold back,” I whisper against the lobe of her ear, nibbling on the tender flesh.

“Were you ever holding back?”

“Oh, I was. You have no idea how much I was.”

“Now you w-won’t?” There’s a slight trembling in her voice. She’s scared, but that’s not the only feeling present.

My wife’s excitement shows through the widening of her eyes, the way she goes completely still against me.

“No.” My voice is hardly audible near her ear. “And you’ll take everything I give you. Every thrust, every orgasm, and every drop of my cum.”

Her shudder is the only reaction she shows as I slam inside her in one swift go. Her moan is loud, unrestrained, echoing in the small space around us.

Using my hand at her throat, I shove my index finger in her mouth. “Shh. They will hear.”

She bites down on my finger, hard. I suppress a wince as I smirk. I love it when she gives back as good as she takes, when she submits to me then decides she wants to show her feisty side.

“Y-you’re…you’re so big,” she says against my finger.

“And yet you take everything I give you like a good princess.” I power on deeper into her, letting her feel the extent of my madness and the surrealness of it all.

Rai slaps her other hand against the wall for balance, her head bowing. I use my grip on her throat and angle her face up so she’s staring up at me. “Look at me when I’m fucking you.”

Her twinkling eyes, although filled with undeniable desire, are also projecting something different—a challenge. She’s challenging me to give her my all.

I chuckle, the sound probably coming out manic. “If you keep looking at me with those eyes, you’re fucked, Rai.”

“You said you’d give your all,” she murmurs as if she doesn’t want to admit her deepest, darkest desire.

“Oh, you’ll get my all, all right. Don’t blame me if you bruise.”

My hand moves from her throat to grip her by the hair as I ram inside her with a power that takes my entire energy. All my blood rushes to the space between us.

She squeals, bucking off the wall, but I hold her against it with a harsh grip on her hip. Her moans mount and rise, and she has to place both hands over her mouth so the outside world doesn’t hear.

But she doesn’t break eye contact, not even when my thrusts go out of control.

I am going out of control.

I have no idea what she sees when she studies my face, but it’s one of the few times I show her my truest form, the one she stupidly wants to know. If she does, it’ll be game over for her.

But instead of the disgust I expected—hell, fear would’ve made sense too—Rai removes her hands from her mouth and seals her lips to mine.

She’s…kissing me.

Rai is kissing me when I’m ruthlessly using her body and showing her the monster I truly am, the monster who left her because she has enough monsters to deal with.

I bite her lower lip, a last-ditch effort to make her snap out of it, but she licks my upper lip in return.

Fuck. Fuck!

I kiss her back with an urgency that knocks the bloody breath out of my lungs. Who cares about oxygen when I’m breathing her in as my favorite type of drug?

This woman will cause both our downfalls.

Her lips part as her orgasm surfaces, but I don’t stop feasting on her, not even when she’s strangling my dick with her inner walls. I don’t stop devouring her parted lips either, nipping on the flesh, sucking her bottom lip into my mouth.

Rai’s knees buckle, failing her, but I hold her up by the hip. “I’m not done with you, wife.”

At the word ‘wife’, she closes her eyes. No idea if it’s due to pleasure or distaste, but she tries standing up on her legs.

I go on and on, thrusting into her with the same strong rhythm like a madman in search of his sanity—or probably a sane man on the verge of insanity. Because this? The way she enjoys it when I go all in? This is exactly why Rai is made for me.

Wait…made for me?

I don’t have the mental space to focus on that bizarre thought when my balls tighten and my spine jerks into a line. I hold her in place, grunting as I shoot my seed inside her.

Like I told her earlier, she takes everything in, every fucking drop. I don’t pull out of her for the seconds we use to catch our breaths.

Rai slumps against the wall and I crash into her from behind. If I’m too heavy, she doesn’t protest, just continuing to try to catch her breath.

I give us a few seconds like that. Just me and her. Body to body. Pulse to pulse.

I stare at my watch, cursing myself for losing track of time, considering the show I plotted for tonight. Thankfully, there are still twenty minutes to go. I should keep Rai here until it all ends.

She raises a hand to wipe the corner of her eye—or more accurately, a tear that escaped.

Fuck. That was too intense, even for my level of depravity.

Feelings of regret I should never have creep in on me as I take in her form against mine. She’s breakable, easily bruised, and yet I took it all out on her.

I pull out, begrudgingly releasing her. She turns around to face me, barely standing on her legs, using the wall for balance.

My eyes lock on her dark blues as I wipe a finger under her eyes. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m not a delicate flower, Kyle. Don’t treat me like one.”

“But you are.”

She juts her chin out even though it’s trembling slightly. “No, I’m not.”

I glide my fingertips over the mark on her collarbone. “This proves otherwise.”

“I’m fine. I asked for it.”

I smile a little. “You sure as fuck did. Can you walk?”

“Just…just give me a second.”

“Take a minute.” My tone is amused.

She narrows her gorgeous eyes on me. “Are you mocking me?”

“Why would I, my delicate flower?”

“You’re such an asshole,” she mutters under her breath as she bends down to slide her underwear up her legs.

She’s still shaking, her fingers barely functioning. I place her hands at her sides and take over the task of making her look presentable.

A part of me wants her to go out like this, with my cum dried on her thighs and her face looking thoroughly fucked, but the other big part, the one that wins, doesn’t want anyone but me to see this side of her.

She tries to protest, but I yank her hands down. “Stay still.”

I comb her hair with my fingers before I tie it with the elastic band at the back of her head.

At first, she remains as frozen as a statue, but then she starts fidgeting. All of a sudden, she grabs me by the belt. “I’ll help, too.”

She tucks me in, bashfully at first, like she doesn’t know how to do it. My dick twitches back to life at her inexperienced touch. Fuck me. That thing doesn’t know how to rest.

Rai zips up my trousers and does my belt as I finish cleaning up the smeared lipstick around the contours of her mouth.

Then we stare at each other, her hands around my waist and my finger at the corner of her parted lips.

“Why does it feel…normal?” she murmurs.

“What’s it?”

“This.” She tips her head between us, and I don’t know if she’s talking about her and me or the way we tucked each other in.

“Shouldn’t it?”

She shakes her head once.

She always gets on my fucking nerves when she does that. She’s still fighting and running away, even though I already have her by the throat—in every sense of the word.

“You were always meant to be mine, Rai. Quit fucking fighting it.”

“Then quit hiding from me.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“You’re running.”

“Yes, Rai, I’m running, and I’ll screw you over on the way. Is that what you want to hear?”

I expect her to yell back, to challenge me, because that’s what she does in these situations.

Instead, her voice comes out small. “What I want to hear is something about you—the real you, not whatever image you’re projecting to the world.”

“What good would that do?”

“Me. It’ll bring me closer to your side.”

“And let me guess, you still won’t completely trust me?”

“Not unless you prove yourself worthy of that trust.”

I pause, considering my options and formulating the best scenario. “I was part of an assassination organization.”

Her eyes widen, but she says, “I knew as much.”

“No, you didn’t. You only knew I was a killer for hire. The organization bit is new to you.”

“And how long were you part of this organization?”

“Since I was five years old.”

Her eyes droop, and I hate the look in those eyes.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you fucking pity me.”

She shakes her head frantically. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing.” She pauses. “And then what?”

“Then nothing.”

“Kyle!”

“What? You’re not the only one who can use that word.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a major jerk?”

“You do that all the time. You have no competition in that department.”

“Dick.”

“I know you’re addicted to my dick. You don’t have to remind me.”

Her cheeks heat. “No, I meant you’re a dickhead.”

“Does that mean you want to give my dick head?”

“Ugh. Stop twisting my words around.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” I smile genuinely for the first time in a very long time. “It’s fun.”

A bang comes from outside, and I stare at my watch. Ten minutes early—what the fuck?

Rai pushes away from me and runs out of the supply room, her trembling limbs long gone.

“Bleeding hell,” I mutter under my breath as I jog after her toward the dining room.

Chaos unfolds in the midst of the peace as armed men barge inside with their weapons held high. Women crouch under the table, squealing as every man gets his weapon out.

Rai stops in front of them, pats Anastasia’s head, and then says something to Stella and a few other women.

I think she’ll join them and make this mission at least a bit easy, but then she bolts upright, and motions at Ruslan. He passes her a gun as he, Katia, and Rai form a triangle and shoot at the men.

The fucking bravery of that woman always gets me.

It’s useless in this situation, though. Not only are the attackers wearing bulletproof vests, but no one in the mafia can match their level.

Rai jerks her head in Sergei’s direction.

The motion happens in a fraction of a second. I follow her gaze and see the exact moment her brain decides on its course of action. There’s a gunman aiming at Sergei, and Rai just decided she will protect him.

Fuck!

I run at full speed and beat her to the position at the last second. She halts at my right, her expression stunned as a bullet pierces my chest.

The force swings me back and I slump on the ground, my bones taking the impact. Hot liquid pours out of me before red soaks my chest and pools all around me.

“Kyle!” Her shrill, panicked voice reaches me despite the chaos.

An angelic face hovers over me, flashing back and forth in my blurry vision.

I raise a finger to her cheek, only my arm doesn’t move.

“I knew you would be the death of me, Princess.”

My eyes roll back in my head and the world turns black.