“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t stop. I need—” She can’t finish the sentence, but I understand anyway.
She needs to feel alive and feel something other than grief and fear. She needs the same thing I need—connection, warmth, proof that we’re both still here, still breathing, and capable of feeling.
“Are you sure?” I ask roughly. “Vera, if we do this?—”
She nods. “I’m sure.” She pulls me back to her, and this time when our lips meet, there’s no hesitation.
The kiss deepens and becomes more urgent. My hands are everywhere—sliding down her sides, learning the curves of her body through her nightgown. She arches into my touch, gasping, and I feel myself losing what little control I have left.
“Look at me,” I command, pulling back just enough to meet her eyes. I need to see her and make sure she's here, present, choosing this. “I need you to look at me.”
She does. Those amber-flecked eyes meet mine, dark with desire and need and something else I can’t quite name. There’s no fear there. No hesitation. Just want.
“You’re mine,” I whisper, and the words feel different than when I said them on our wedding night. It’s less about ownership and more about... something else. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” she breathes.
I kiss her again, harder this time, pouring everything I can’t say into it. All the confusion and desire and this terrifying need that’s been building since our wedding night.
Her nightgown is in the way. I pull it over her head in one smooth motion, and then she’s bare beneath me save for her underwear, and I have to stop and just look.
She’s even more beautiful than I remembered. More curves than I noticed before. Her body is changing with the pregnancy, subtle shifts that make her look softer, more feminine. Her breasts are fuller, her hips rounder. There’s a glow to her skin that takes my breath away.
But it’s her face that really undoes me. She’s looking at me like…like shewantsme. And I don’t know what to do about that.
“You’re staring,” she whispers, and I can hear the uncertainty in her voice, self-consciousness creeping in.
“Because you’re beautiful.” The words come out before I can stop them. “God, Vera, you’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you.”
Her eyes widen, and I see the moment my words register before a dark red blush stains her cheeks. It makes her look more stunning.
Then she’s reaching for me, pulling at my shirt, and I help her, stripping it off and tossing it aside. Her hands go to my chest, exploring, learning, and everywhere she touches feels like fire.
I capture her mouth with mine again. Her lips are soft, pliant, and although they taste slightly salty from her tears, she tastes like rain that brings flowers and promises, like sugar and tea, and I needmore. I need to touch and taste everything, so I tease my way into her mouth and spread my fingers over her smooth skin, pressing her against my chest.
Mine.
Vera slips her arms up between us, her hands wandering over my shoulders, up to my neck, to my hair, and I try to swallow my groan. I take my time with her. Not because I’m trying to be gentle or kind, but because I want to memorize this. I want to learn what makes her gasp, what makes her arch, and what makes those little sounds escape her throat that drive me insane.
I pull back, ignoring her pained whimper, and push her back gently until she’s sprawled on the bed, chest heaving. She looks up at me quizzically.
I let out a slow breath before whispering my next demand. “Stay down.”
An eyebrow raises at that and for a moment, I wonder if she’s going to obey me, but then she relaxes into the mattress, but her eyes still remain on me. I exhale again. It’s much better this way. Much better to have her like this so that I can kneel before her as was intended. Her lips are full and flushed as I lower myself to my knees.
Open. Open for me.
I nudge her thighs apart with a gentle touch before hooking the sides of her underwear and pull them down her legs slowly until they meet her ankles and then they’re discarded to the floor where her nightgown lays. I press a kiss to the inside of eachknee, working my way down her thighs, stroking and kissing each mark, each freckle, each line.
The heady scent of her envelopes me and when I rub my fingers against her slit and feel how wet she is, the knowledge that she wants this as much as I do makes me dizzy.
“I’m going to make you feel so good,” I promise her before I duck my head in between her thighs and kiss her. The moment my lips touch her cunt, I wonder why I haven’t spent all my days here. She tastes so good, and I could lose myself between her thighs, licking and sucking and breathing her in. I hike one leg over my shoulder to open her wider and give myself more access. I want her to forget everything that’s happened and to focus on me. She can’t remember her nightmare when I’m sucking at her clit, right? She can’t hide her flushed skin or that lusty little gasp as I open her even wider and slide a finger into her dripping pussy.
“Dimitri,” she gasps, her back arching off the mattress. “I—yes.”
Vera. Her name is a prayer on my lips. She’s snug and warm, and I need to focus,focuson rolling her clit under my tongue, focus on her slightest hitch of breath, focus on the curl and rhythm of my fingers as I add another, but I’m so fucking painfully hard in my pants, and her flush has spread down her neck to her chest, and her head falls back, mouth open.
I should bring her over the edge first, but I can’t. I can’t have her on my fingers when I need her on my cock. I need to feel her come on my cock again. I need her mouth. I need her close, her whole body close, and I need to be in her,reallyin her.
