Page 52 of Beautiful Ruin

He sinks into me in one long thrust, burying himself until our hips meet. We both groan at the same time. He’s so big, stretching me perfectly, filling me so completely, I feel it in my chest. For a moment he just stays there, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard.

“Go,” I say gently.

Then he starts to move.

It’s slow at first, his strokes deep like he’s savoring the way I clench around him each time he moves again. But the pace quickly turns punishing. He grips my hips hard enough to bruise, driving into me with raw need. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the kitchen, mixed with my gasps and his low, filthy curses.

“You feel so fucking good,” he growls against my neck. “So tight. So wet for me. Like you were made for me.”

I cling to him, my nails biting down onto his shoulders, my legs locked around his waist as he fucks me. Every thrust hits that perfect spot inside me, building the pressure again just as quickly as the last. I come a second time with his name on my lips, walls fluttering around him, pulling him deeper inside me.

Rowan follows me over the edge with a broken groan, hips stuttering as he spills inside me. He buries his face in my neck, body shuddering while his arms wrap around me like he never wants to let go.

For a long moment we just stay like that, tangled together in the middle of the silent kitchen.

In this world of corruption and iron-clad control, Rowan Vasiliev has just given me something real.

Something I’m terrified I’ll never be able to give back.

17

SOFIA

Iwake slowly, surfacing from a sleep deeper than anything I’ve had since returning to Russia.

The first thing that registers is a solid warmth that surrounds me. Then it’s a scent that feels so familiar, I find myself breathing it in deeply. It sinks into my lungs and settles low in my belly, stirring memories of last night that make my skin flush even before I open my eyes.

When I finally do, I find Rowan is beside me asleep.

The ruthless tension he carries in every waking moment has finally loosened. His face is relaxed, his mouth no longer pressed into that perpetual hard line. Dark lashes rest against his cheeks, and his chest rises and falls in slow, even breaths. He looks younger like this, almost vulnerable. The man who has killed without hesitation, who stands like a shadow at my uncle’s back, is gone. In his place is someone I want to protect even though I know he would hate me for thinking it.

My chest tightens painfully.

I take him in greedily, memorizing every detail I’m not supposed to see. The slight crook in his nose from an old break. The faint scar cutting through one eyebrow. The way his hair falls messily across his forehead when it’s not pushed back from his face.

My gaze drifts lower, to the fading remnants of Ivan’s punishment. The swelling is gone now, having faded slowly over the past week. The bruising has turned into faint yellow-green marks along his jaw and ribs. Only the faintest discoloration remains as evidence of the worst of the blows.

Guilt twists deep inside me, so strong I nearly choke on it.

Slowly, carefully, I reach out to him. My fingertips brush the faint mark along his jaw, tracing it with barely-there pressure as if I can erase what caused it… or take responsibility for it. Sneaking out last night was reckless. And bribing Dima for a spare key? Even worse.

Meeting my father in secret, risking everything just to hear truths I wasn’t ready for, was dangerous enough. Being caught by Rowan on my way back felt like the universe’s mercy in disguise. If it had been anyone else, the consequences would have been catastrophic.

And if Rowan hadn’t kissed me back? If he hadn’t lost himself with me in that moment of mutual, desperate surrender?

I swallow hard.

Honestly, I don’t even want to think about it.

Now that morning is here, the fantasy of last night is beginning to dissolve. Reality is creeping in like cold fog, surrounding me from all sides. I know Rowan. He won’t let what he saw last night go. He won’t pretend nothing happened, nor will he accept the cheap trick I used last night to dodge the truth.

He’ll want answers, and he won’t stop until he gets them.

My fingers tremble as they continue their gentle exploration, brushing over the healed split in his lip. He stirs slightly but doesn’t wake. What I really should be doing is slipping out of this bed before he opens his eyes and the walls slam back into place. But I can’t. Not yet. Not when he looks like this, peaceful and unguarded and mine in a way he’ll never allow when he’s awake.

Rowan’s bedroom is sparse and minimally furnished. My eyes scan the space to take it in the way I couldn’t last night after we left the kitchen and ran upstairs to continue for a round two. There is very little in the way of personal artifacts in here and nothing from what I can see that speaks to who Rowan is as a person.

When his eyes finally flutter open, I stiffen instinctively, ready for the inevitable return of the guard I know so well. But instead he slides an arm around my waist, then another behind my shoulders, and pulls me against his chest. His heartbeat is steady in my ear. His fingers, those brutal, disciplined hands that have ended so many lives, thread softly through my hair.