Chapter Text
Their actual wedding night is spent sleeping. With all the excitement of the day, with the exhilaration of their marriage being announced at the ball, with the exertion of hours of dancing — well. Alina is exhausted, and her new husband just smiles at her when she stands beside the bed, starting to gnaw at her lip.
“I’m far too tired for anything more strenuous than sleep,” he tells her, crawling into bed and shuffling around to find a comfortable position. “Come here, Alinochka.”
She climbs under the covers and snuggles in beside him, her lips curling into a smile when he wraps an arm around her shoulders and tugs her into a gentle embrace. “I can hardly believe it,” she whispers, more to herself than to him. “We’re married.”
His nose nudges against the crown of her head. “We are,” he replies, warmth and contentment clear in his tone. “Sleep, milaya. The morning will come soon enough.”
But she finds it hard to relax enough to fall asleep, staring at the ceiling for what feels like hours as Aleksander makes little snuffling noises beside her, holding her close.
When she wakes, it’s to Aleksander pressing butterfly-light kisses to her hairline, murmuring her name. She smiles and shifts and brings a hand up to cup his cheek. “Good morning,” she whispers, wincing when it comes out as more of a croak.
He chuckles, tilting his forehead against hers. “Oh, my darling, you sound like you hardly slept at all.”
“I feel like I hardly slept,” she grumbles. “Can you send Ida for a breakfast tray for me?”
He nods and sits up, fingertips tracing along the edge of her face for one more moment before he rises. Alina snuggles into his side of the bed — unsurprisingly warmer than hers, as she is always chilly — and watches him dress through sleepy eyes.
She and Aleksander are among the first to leave. Genya tugs her into an embrace, and then will not let her go for a long while, whispering how much she’ll miss her into Alina’s hair. The Safins have been so kind to Alina this Season, and she is grateful to have Genya as a friend. They both promise to write, and then Alina and Aleksander climb up into his carriage.
He’s so glad that Mirko, Alina’s brother, had long-ago made him promise to take care of Alina should anything happen to the rest of her family. Without that promise, would any of what happened this Season have come to pass?
He suspects not.
Watching her as the carriage jolts along the road — not nearly as well-maintained as those around his estate, now that they are nearly an hour away from the Safins’ — he thanks the Saints for the whim that had him pull Alina into the conservatory a few nights ago. He has hardly been able to think of anything but her for months now, but it was made all the worse when she asked him towards the beginning of the Season if he wouldn’t mind kissing her, just in case, so that she wouldn’t have to endure her first kiss being pressed on her by some fortune hunter. She had blushed so deep a red that he could not even suspect her of dissembling, of trying to catch him with her wiles. Of course, she had not known, then, that she had already caught him, that he was all entangled.
They still have a half-hour or so left of travel to reach his estate when he glances up from his book to see Alina — his wife, he can hardly believe it! — chewing her lip. Setting the book to the side, he leans forward, catches up her hand, and pulls her toward him, settling her atop his knees.
“Lo- I mean, Aleksander, what are you-?” She looks up at him with a furrowed brow, and he cannot help himself any longer: he nudges his nose against hers and then kisses her, gentle at first, but growing in intensity as she returns the kiss.
He has been longing for this for months now, and now Alina is all his: his wife, to hold and cherish and keep. And much as he had long wondered about the taste of her lips, once he had obliged her with that first kiss, he has desperately wanted another — and another, and another. He wants everything, and after having to restrain himself last night, well. He cannot be blamed, can he, for slipping his fingers into her upswept hair and tilting her head back so that he can press kisses down the length of her neck? For flicking his tongue out to taste the skin of the curve of her shoulder? For slipping the neckline of her dress over that shoulder and tugging it down to reveal the sweet curve of her breast?
“Aleksander-!” Alina gasps, breathy sounds entrancing him as he sucks her tightly-furled nipple into his mouth, her hands coming up to clutch at his hair, little moans escaping her throat. “Oh, Sasha,” she breathes, and really, how is he supposed to stop himself from rucking up the hem of her dress, sliding a hand up her thigh, caressing the soft skin of her hip, when his wife sounds like that?
And even though he knows that they are near to his estate, that it is unkind of him to ruffle her so when she is about to meet his staff for the first time as their mistress, how can he help but slip his fingers between her thighs to stroke along the slick seam at their apex, glorying in each moan that flies from her lips to his ears?
Truly, how is he meant not to do such things when his wife is so delectable?
Alina is flushed and panting when Aleksander removes his hand from beneath her skirts — and, to her shock, sucks his fingers clean with a deep groan. “Oh,” she whimpers, shifting on his lap, freezing when her hip brushes against something hot and hard.
“Milaya, we are very nearly there,” he murmurs against her neck, his arms curling about her waist. “Please cease such distracting movements if you want me to be able to greet my staff without humiliating myself.”
She can feel the way her cheeks flush dark, such a rush of heat to them that she wishes for a damp handkerchief to press to them. “Would you prefer me to move to the other seat?” she asks as the carriage turns into the long drive up to the Kirigan manor house.
“No.” His arms tighten. “I would prefer you to be right here.”
Her chin ducks down as a smile curls the corners of her lips up, as she tucks her head against his neck, as she reaches up to stroke her thumb along the line of his jaw, fingers curling around his nape. “Very well,” she murmurs. “I’ll stay here.”