Alexei tucked a stray lock of my hair behind my ear—he seemed to like doing that, as if it grounded him when the intensity that flared inside him got too much. “Of course. Nothing has changed about that.”
I remembered those conversations, but I pushed them to the back of my mind. He’d been Teddy then, a stranger in posh clothes. He was Alexei now, and whatever relationship we had was a world away from the wild hook-up we’d shared. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Alexei let his hand drop from my face, his expression shuttering before he seemed to catch that too. He closed his eyes a second and I let him have it. I’d give him anything he ever needed as long as I wasn’t pushing fucking daisies.
This time, the permanence of how I felt didn’t alarm me so much. I found Alexei’s hands and pulled him into my lap, loving that he let me and that his legs wrapped around me on instinct. My head was foggy enough that I couldn’t quite tell how long I’d been in his bed, but I dug the normality we’d somehow nurtured. The easy affection that my gut told me he didn’t share with anyone else.
I kissed his neck, heat pooling in my belly, flooding south as he ground softly against me, a reflexive move that didn’t match the sadness in his gaze when he opened his eyes again.
“I have no siblings,” he said. “Only a distant cousin. He lives in London.”
I ran my hands up his bare back. “Do you speak?”
“Not often. He is very normal. Married to a rich man and works in the city. I do like him, though. He is kind to me when I see him.”
“Does he know what happened to you?”
Alexei shuddered, though it could’ve been from my touch. And god, Iwantedit to be from my touch. Because I was a selfish prick and I wanted to fuck all the bad memories out of him, as if I could wipe the trauma from his soul with my magic fucking cock.
“Sacha doesn’t know,” Alexei whispered. “And I will not tell him.”
He kissed me then, perhaps to shut me up, and I kissed him back, letting him push me into the mattress and climb all over me, tearing away the clothes we’d only just put on. He was rough with me in every place except the throbbing bones in my torso, gripping my chin and savaging my mouth, pumping my dick in a merciless rhythm as I lay prone beneath him, addicted to the heat sweeping through me.
Alexei rose up on his knees, his cock so straight and hard I was almost scared to touch it, as if it would fucking shatter on impact.
I wanted it in my mouth.
I wanted it everywhere, and I wondered if he knew, if this was the moment he’d kick my legs apart and dominate me in a different way.
Alexei leaned over me, grinding his dick against mine. I flinched at the pleasure, nerves jumping, and he smiled, predatory and raw. “I want you.”
“Have me.” I spread my arms wide and lifted my chin. “Take anything you want.”
He kissed me again while reaching for his drawer of tricks. Condoms and lube landed on my chest and I sucked in a breath. However he wanted to do this, it didn’t scare me, but the renewed thrum in my pulse did. The scorching heat in my blood. The burning need to climb inside him and never come out. My heart had only ever beat this hard for Saint, and I’d swallowed it down. Drowned it under the weight of every other fucking thing in my life. As Alexei stared down at me, I forgot how to do that, and every defence in my heart melted away. “I—”
Alexei covered my mouth. “Do not think or speak. Just feel.”
He tore a condom free from the wrapper and rolled it onto my cock. My hips bucked, but he held me down. “Do not move.”
The command lacing the words rattled my soul. “I thought you were going to fuck me.”
“Would you let me?”
“That’s a complicated question.”
He leered. “Too complicated for today, I think.”
“If you say so.”
Alexei pumped my dick with a slick hand, lubing and testing me in a filthy take on multitasking.
I held still and he smiled in a way that was as pretty as it was terrifying, if I was the kind of bloke to be scared of whatever journey he was about to take me on.
Recklessly, I wasn’t.
Or maybe it wasn’t reckless. Maybe I really did trust him.
Alexei widened his legs and leaned forward before tipping back and impaling himself on my cock. He took me inside him with no prep or hesitation, a tiny snarl the only sign of discomfort, and even then, I couldn’t be sure.
