Page 188 of Marrying the Savage

His expression goes still in a way that is not cold. It’s something else. Something I’m not ready to name yet. Then he kisses me, and this time when he pushes inside me, he does it slowly enough not to hurt me badly and hard enough to make me clutch at his shoulders.

I cry out into his mouth.

He stops halfway. “Pain?”

“No,” I breathe. “Don’t stop.”

He pushes deeper. My body stretches around him, still not used to him, still sensitive from before, but the pressure turns good quickly. Full. Intense. Almost too much, but I want too much tonight. I want to be taken apart by someone who came for me. I want his body over mine and his cock inside me and his hands on my skin until the last three days are not the only thing I can feel.

Damir starts moving.

The first thrust is controlled. The second is less so. By the third, I dig my nails into his back and meet him, and whatever restraint he was holding breaks in a way that makes heat flood my stomach. He grips my hip, drives into me harder, and I take it because I want him like this. Not polished. Not measured. Not the king at the head of the table. Just Damir, breathing hard above me, losing control because of me.

His mouth moves to my throat, and I freeze.

He feels it immediately, and his whole body locks. I don’t know what he sees on my face, but his expression darkens with understanding and rage.

“Not there,” he says, voice rough.

I swallow. Then I pull his mouth down to mine. “Here.”

He kisses me hard, and when he starts moving again, he keeps his face above mine. No hands near my throat. No mouth there. Nothing that takes me back to the club. He understands without making me explain.

That’s when something inside me shifts. He’s inside me, his hand under my back, his mouth against mine, his body giving me exactly what I asked for while refusing to take what would hurt me, and I feel it so suddenly that it scares me more than the man at the club did.

Love.

Not the soft kind from songs. Not the pretty kind. This is terrifying. It opens in me like a door I didn’t lock properly, and on the other side is Damir’s face when he saw me in that club, Damir’s hand shaking once in the car before he hid it, Damir saying he was asking instead of ordering, Damir stopping the second my body remembered fear.

I love him.

The thought is so clear I almost make a sound from the shock of it.

He feels the change. His thrusts slow, and his eyes search mine. “What?”

I shake my head.

“Sofia.”

“No talking,” I whisper.

His gaze sharpens, but he lets it go. For now.

He hooks one of my legs higher around his waist and drives deeper, and the new angle makes me gasp so loudly that his control frays again. The bed hits the wall once, then again. His hand closes around the headboard above me. I grip his shoulders, my body moving with his, taking every thrust, every rough breath, every low sound he tries to keep back and fails.

I’m close again. He knows.

His hand comes between us, thumb finding my clit, and I almost sob from how quickly it pulls me under.

“That’s it,” he says, voice rough. “Come for me.”

I do. Harder than before.

The orgasm tears through me, making my body clamp around his cock, and Damir curses against my mouth. His hips drive into me once, twice, then he goes rigid, buried deep, his breath breaking as he comes inside me.

For a while, neither of us moves. He lowers himself carefully, not crushing me, but close enough that I feel every heavy breath against my skin. My hands stay on his back. My legs stay around him.

He turns his head and kisses my shoulder. I close my eyes.