“Leon,” he corrected, then leaned in, lips parting as he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of my thigh. My fingers twisted in his short hair before I could stop myself.
“No-Leon?—”
His name turned into a groan as he took the head of my cock between his lips, tongue swirling over the slit. The wet heat was almost too much, my hips rolling forward instinctively, seekingmore. He let me, hands sliding up to grip my ass, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he sucked me deeper into his mouth.
His lips stretched obscenely around me, and he hollowed his cheeks, taking me to the back of his throat with a low, rough sound. My fingers twisted in his hair, my other hand slamming back against the counter for balance as he pulled off with a wetpop, then dove back down, throat working around the head.
“Shit—fuck—” My voice cracked, hips stuttering as he took me deeper, and my vision whited out for a second, pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain.
Lips slick and swollen, his gaze locked onto mine with raw, hungry focus on the way my chest heaved and my cock pulsed in his grip.
Then he swallowed me harder, his free hand sliding between my legs to roll my balls in his palm. The pressure built fast, my orgasm coiling at the base of my spine. I tried to warn him, tried to ease back, but his grip was iron on my hips, holding me in place as he worked me over with his mouth, his tongue, the rough scrape of his teeth.
“Gonna—fuck—” My warning turned into a broken cry as I came, my cock kicking against his tongue as I spilled down his throat. He took it all, swallowing around me, throat working until I was wrung dry, my legs shaking so bad I wasn’t sure I could stand.
He pulled off slowly, lips dragging across my oversensitive skin, and I shuddered, my grip on his hair loosening as he sat back on his heels. His mouth was wet, his chin glistening, and when he licked his lips, I nearly came again from the sight.
“Was that okay?” he asked, and it threw me. He was never uncertain about anything, but in this, he hesitated. Why?
I stared at him in silence, my chest rising and falling too fast, my cock still twitching between us.
Novak stood, slow and unhurried, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes never left mine as he tucked me back in. Then he leaned in, his body pressing against mine, fingers against my pulse, and his breath hot against my ear.
“Was that okay?” he repeated the question.
“Yeah, yeah,” I managed, “five stars, would recommend.”
He nodded then, as if he were filing away what had happened and taking notes on his performance. “Next time will be better.”
And just like that, he headed out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedrooms. My pulse still raced, my skin too hot, and my thoughts spun with the weight of what had happened—and the terrifying realization that Iwantedthere to be a next time.
He’d marked me, and I should have pushed back, but instead I wanted to see how far it would go.
He promised more.
Leondid that.
FOURTEEN
Novak
I stood at the window,staring out at the trees beyond the cabin, but I wasn’t seeing them. The quiet pressed in, wrong. It itched under my skin, a slow, needling irritation I couldn’t reach to tear out. I flexed my hands at my sides, jaw tight, measuring my breathing, measuring the room, as if there was something here to neutralize.
There wasn’t.
I should have stayed.
Said something or done something? Thanked Caleb? After that—after heat and hands and the way he’d sucked me down—there should have been a sequence. A response. A next step.
I didn’t have one.
It was never covered in the convent’s assassin 101.
I dragged a hand over the back of my neck. The memory hit again, clean and sharp. Caleb’s grip on my shirt. The force of it. The decision. The kiss—Christ. Real. No angle to it. No control to maintain. No reading him, adjusting, giving him what he needed, so it ended clean.
He’d wanted me, and this had been different, which meant I didn’t have a script for it.
Tree branches rattled together in the wind, and for a second, it pulled me somewhere else. The convent. Same line of trees, tall and still, watching. I’d stood at a window then, too, smaller, running through possibilities before stepping back into the room. What they expected. What would keep the peace? What would stop the pain?
