Exposed.
I kiss a path back up her body, lingering here and there along the way. “Let me remind you,” I whisper against her skin, “exactly how perfect you are.”
She’s flustered in the sexiest way—cheeks pink, lips parted, breath uneven. Her legs are tangled in the sheets, one knee bent just enough to tease me with a view that restarts the fire in my veins.
“How the hell are you ready again?” she asks.
I grin and roll to my side, resting my hand on her thigh, squeezing gently. “I could ask you the same,kotyonok. But if I had to guess,” I lean in, brushing my lips over her ear, letting my voice drop to a whisper, “you bring it out of me.”
She shivers.
I slide down her body, kissing as I go—collarbone, sternum, the soft swell of her breasts. I pause to circle a nipple with my tongue, sucking just enough to make her squirm.
Her hands slide into my hair. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Not yet,” I murmur. “Still have things to do.”
I trail lower, lips brushing her stomach. She arches beneath me, hips twitching.
By the time I get between her thighs, she’s already trembling. I can’t help but let my gaze linger on her slit, glistening and pink. I look up, locking eyes with her as I drag my tongue across her lips slowly, teasing. She gasps. Her hands fist the sheets.
“Delicious,” I murmur against her, tasting again, deeper this time. “You taste like fucking nectar.”
She moans—soft at first—then louder as I work her over. My mouth moves in a steady rhythm, tongue circling, pressing, until her hips lift off the bed and her breath is coming in ragged little whimpers. I pay special attention to her clit, making lazy circles around it.
She’s trying to hold back. I can feel it.
“Let go,” I whisper, dragging two fingers through her wetness and sliding them inside her. “I’ve got you.”
I dance my tongue over her clit, watching her buck and moan. She cries out, thighs clamping around my shoulders, back arching like a bow as the orgasm crashes through her—wild, sharp, and beautiful. I don’t stop until she’s trembling all over, pulling at my hair like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered.
Her chest is heaving. Her skin’s slick with sweat. Her eyes are dazed and dark. I kiss her hard, wrapping her in my arms as if I could keep her in this moment forever. I brush my knuckles down her cheek, then settle beside her, close enough to feel her breath on my jaw.
“I need coffee,” she murmurs a few minutes later. “Desperately.”
“Of course,” I say, resting a hand on her hip. “But only if you make it naked.”
Her head tips back in a laugh—bright and unguarded. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” I grin, “here you are.”
With an exaggerated sigh, she throws back the covers and walks—naked, unhurried, glowing—into the living room. I follow behind, my eyes locked firmly on her perfect body.
The light from her kitchen window catches her curves just right, casting golden shadows across her back, the dip of her waist, the swell of her hips. Every movement is a quiet kind of poetry, unaware of its own power.
She starts the coffee pot, humming under her breath. I sit, naked on her couch, watching like a man who’s found religion and knows better than to interrupt the sermon.
A thought enters my brain and disturbs the peace I’d found in her arms. She doesn’t know that I know exactly who she is. That I’ve known from the start.
She doesn’t know what happened to her parents that night or what’s been hidden since. She doesn’t know the layers of blood and lies buried beneath the legacy of the Ivanov name. Or that my father, for all his sins, may not be the villain in her story.
But I know.
I can’t decide what’s worse—that I’m falling for her or that I could be the very man she’s been trained to distrust. If I tell her, I could lose her. If I don’t, I could lose myself.
She pours two mugs, turns, and catches me watching her.
“Back to reality after this,” she sighs, padding over and handing me a cup.
