He is still for a moment. Processing. Adjusting. Then his hands move to my sides, sliding beneath my sweat-soaked shirt, and the touch of his skin against mine sends electricity cascading through my nerve endings.
I pull back just far enough to strip the shirt over my head. He looks at me in the darkness, at the scars that map my torso, at the evidence of every fight I survived before he found me. His expression is something I have never seen on his face before.
Hunger. Reverence. Want so naked it makes my breath catch.
"You are extraordinary," he says. The words echo what he told me after the restaurant, but they carry different weight now. "Do you know that? You are the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen."
I do not let him finish the thought. I pull his sleep pants down just enough to expose his hips, my fingers digging into his skin.
His skin is smooth where mine is scarred, unmarked by the violence that shaped me. I drag my tongue across his collarbone, tasting salt and heat, and his hands fly to my hair, gripping hard. The sound he makes—low and desperate—goes straight to my cock.
This is new. This reversal. Ivan is always in control, always the one giving orders, always the hand that wields rather than the weapon that is wielded. But beneath me now, with my weight pressing him into the sheets, he is yielding. Surrendering. Letting me take whatever I want from him.
The power of it is intoxicating.
I work my way down his body, mapping every inch with my mouth. I kiss the hollow of his throat. I run my tongue down the center line of his chest. His nipples harden under my tongue, and he arches off the bed, gasping. His stomach muscles clench when I bite the soft skin below his navel. By the time I reach his waistband, he is shaking, his hips lifting in silent plea.
I look up at him. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, his lips parted and wet from our kisses. The composed heir, the cold prince of the Baranov empire, is gone. What remains is raw need.
I work his pants down his thighs, kicking them off the bed. His cock springs free—hard, flushed, already leaking at the tip. It twitches against his stomach.
I wrap my hand around the base. It is thick, hot velvet in my palm. I squeeze and watch his whole body jerk.
"So responsive," I murmur. "Have you thought about this? About my hands on you?"
"Yes." The word comes out strangled. "Every fucking day for four years."
The confession makes something dark and possessive surge through me. Four years. Four years of watching me, wanting me, never acting on it. Four years of maintaining distance while desire burned beneath the surface.
I lower my head.
I take him into my mouth.
The sound he makes is obscene—a broken moan that echoes off the cabin walls, louder than the storm outside. His hips buck involuntarily, and I press them down, holding him in place as I work him deeper. He is hot and heavy on my tongue, the taste of him salty and musky, and I want more. I want everything.
I swirl my tongue around the head, teasing the slit and tasting the precum that leaks from him. He tastes clean and aroused. I take him to the root, swallowing around him and forcing my throat to open. His hands tighten in my hair to the point of pain, fingers tangling and pulling.
"Maksim—fuck—I cannot?—"
I pull off with a wet sound, a string of saliva connecting us. I look up at him, my lips swollen and slick.
"You can," I say. "You will take what I give you."
His eyes widen. Something flickers across his face—surprise, arousal, the realization that he is not in control here. Then henods, a jerky motion, and I reward him by taking him deep again.
I work him with my mouth and my hand, alternating between fast and slow, finding the rhythm that makes him fall apart. His thighs tremble against my shoulders. His stomach clenches tight. Every breath comes out as a moan or a plea, my name repeated like a prayer he cannot stop saying.
When I feel him getting close—the telltale tightening of his hips, the way his breath hitches—I pull back.
"No." He almost sobs. "Please, I need?—"
"I know what you need." I strip off the rest of my clothes, kicking them to the floor. My cock is hard, aching, pulsing with the need to be inside him. "And you are going to get it."
I find the lubricant in the nightstand drawer—Ivan is always prepared for contingencies—and slick my fingers. He watches me with dark eyes, his chest heaving, as I press the first finger against his entrance.
He flinches, then relaxes. I press inside.
He is tight. Hot. His body clenches around me, and he hisses through his teeth, then rocks back against my hand, demanding more. He spreads his legs wider, giving me access, surrendering to me completely.
