Magnus would have broken me. He would have used my body and crushed my spirit and turned me into the empty shell my mother has become. Rafael is offering me something different, something that looks like a cage but might actually be a kingdom if I am brave enough to claim it.
But a child. A baby. A living, breathing person who would be born into this world of violence and power plays and impossible choices.
“It’s blackmail of the worst kind. I cannot?—”
His mouth cuts off my protest, capturing my lips in a kiss that steals the breath from my lungs and the thoughts from my head. He releases my wrists and his hands find my ass, hauling me up his body with an ease that speaks to strength I can only imagine. My legs wrap around his waist automatically, my skirt riding up my thighs until there is nothing between my core and the hard ridge of his arousal except the thin cotton of my underwear and the fabric of his trousers.
He is big. Even through the layers of clothing, I can feel the impressive length of him pressing against me, and a fresh wave of heat floods my center.
I kiss him back because I do not know how to do anything else. He releases his hold on my wrists. My fingers tangle in his dark hair, pulling him closer, deeper, and he groans into my mouth in a way that makes me feel powerful for the first time since I walked into his club three weeks ago.
His hands work at the buttons of the shirt I stole from his closet, and when they will not cooperate fast enough he simply tears it open, sending buttons scattering across the hardwood floor like tiny surrenders. The tank top beneath follows, ripped down the center with a violence that should frighten me but only makes me wetter.
And then I am bare from the waist up, my breasts exposed to the cool air of his office and the burning heat of his gaze.
“Beautiful,” he breathes, and the reverence in his voice makes something crack inside my chest. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
He carries me to his desk and sweeps everything aside with one arm before laying me down on the cool wood surface. Papers flutter to the floor, a lamp crashes somewhere in the darkness, but neither of us cares because his mouth is on my breast and his tongue is circling my nipple and I am drowning in sensation.
“Rafael.” His name comes out as a moan, and I feel him smile against my skin.
“I have waited two weeks to taste you.” He switches to my other breast, lavishing it with the same attention while his hands work at my skirt. “Two weeks of holding you every night and nottouching you. Two weeks of waking up hard and aching and walking away because I was trying to be noble.”
The skirt slides down my hips and joins the ruins of my clothes on the floor. I am left in nothing but a pair of silk panties that leave little to his imagination. I’m spread across his desk like an offering, and the vulnerability of the position should terrify me.
Instead, I arch into his touch when his fingers trace the edge of my panties.
“Please.” The word escapes before I can stop it, a plea I did not know I was capable of making.
An animalistic growl tears from his lips. Raw primal power pulses with life between us and the vivid urge to let him devour me takes hold.
“Please what, little dove?” His voice is sin itself, dark and promising and full of things I have only read about in books. “Tell me what you want.”
“I do not know.” And it is the truth. I have no experience with this, no framework for the sensations flooding my body. All I know is that I need more, need him, need something I cannot name.
He hooks his fingers in my underwear and drags them down my legs, baring me completely to his gaze. I should feel exposed, embarrassed, ashamed of the wetness I can feel coating my thighs. But the way he looks at me, like I am something precious and rare and worth worshipping, makes me feel like a goddess instead of a sacrifice.
“Then let me show you.”
He drops to his knees between my spread thighs, and the first stroke of his tongue against my center makes me cry out so loudly I am certain the entire building can hear.
“Quiet, little dove.” His breath is hot against my most sensitive flesh. "Or do you want my brothers to know exactly what their king is doing to you right now?”
I press up on my elbows. “They can hear us?”
The thought should mortify me. Instead, it sends another pulse of arousal through my core, and Rafael laughs softly before returning to his task.
His smile is devilish. “No, now lie back.”
I do and he eats me like a man starving, like I am the first meal he has had in years and he intends to savor every bite. His tongue traces patterns against my clit that have me writhing on his desk, my fingers scrabbling for purchase on the smooth wood surface. When he pushes one finger inside me, testing my tightness, I nearly come apart right there.
I clutch the edges of the desk and bow in the center.
“So responsive.” He adds a second finger, stretching me in a way that burns and soothes at the same time. “So perfect. You have no idea how long I have wanted this.”
I am climbing toward something, a peak I can sense but have never reached with another person. My muscles are tightening, my breath coming in short gasps, my vision narrowing to nothing but the feeling of his mouth and his fingers and the pleasure building like a storm inside me.
And then he stops.
