Page 98 of Black Ledger

And yet… I still wanted him with everything I was.

I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair. My touch was gentle and soft. Curious.

Shadows fought in his eyes, but he was still a stone statue, waiting for me to speak first and make the first move.

“I’m afraid,” I said, my voice lower than a whisper.

“Of me?”

“Of course.” The corner of my mouth tipped up. “Of course, I am.”

The shadows deepened in his irises. He didn’t say a word, but his hand reached out and held my thigh. He studied me with a cautious eye.

“Nothing is more terrifying than the truth,” I said.

Severin’s second hand settled on my other thigh before he opened my legs and shifted so he was kneeling between them. It was intimate, but not sexual. It was more like he was kneeling before his queen, asking her to command him.

“Severin,” I breathed, my hands slipping down to his face. “I thought about you every single day, too. You are like a willow tree with roots carved deep in my soul, and I don’t ever want to carve you out, Moya Iva.”

His grip tightened, just slightly, my words hitting him deeply. Then he turned his face into my palm and pressed a kiss there. It wasn’t soft. It was far more like a claiming than anything else. But still, no words left his mouth.

He was going to make me say everything.

“Severin, I’m scared.” The confession barely made it past my lips. “I don’t know what I’m doing. That was my first kiss, and you surprised me, and as you know, I don’t handle surprises well. I want to kiss you. I desperately want to kiss you, but I don’t know how, and I am afraid…” My words went on and on, an anxiety spiral flooding out of my mouth. “And you’re so experienced, and I don’t want to be bad… and I am afraid that I am just another conquest and that will kill me⁠—”

Severin fiercely dragged my ass to the edge of the bed, cutting off my words completely. “Would you like me to kiss your pussy, or your mouth first?”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “I—what?”

His thumb brushed my lower lip, slow and intentional.

“I think you very much understood the question.” His voice was like smoked whiskey. “Your pussy or your mouth, Xeniya Morozova?”

“I, uh—” My brows drew together. I had no fucking idea. My pussy? That was an option? Heat spread over my cheeks.

“Shall I decide?”

I bit my lip. Yes. Yes, I wanted him to decide. I wanted him to control everything. But I didn’t even know how to say that.

“Your pussy it is.” His fingers curled around the top edge of my boxers, but stilled. He tipped his chin up to better scan my face, waiting for my full permission. I had a feeling this would be the last time he’d ever be so accommodating.

I nodded.

I expected to feel tense or afraid because of my past, but I didn’t. I trusted him completely. I trusted him to do whatever he wanted to me.

Severin slowly, gently, tauntingly pulled the boxers down over my ass and down my legs. The pads of his fingers caressed my skin with every movement. He was drawing out each moment, edging me, torturing me—making it so I would beg him to continue.

I wouldn’t.

He lifted my feet, one leg at a time, out of the boxers before throwing them over his shoulder. Then he ran a finger up the inside of my calf. Slowly, oh so fucking slowly. By the time he made it to my knee, I was panting and desperate.

Severin liked to play with his prey.

A whimper escaped my lips when he languidly circled my kneecap with his thumb. His eyes drifted to me, but he didn’t move his hand up my thigh; he circled my knee, waiting. A wicked smile stretched across his face.

I sucked my lower lip into my mouth.

“Beg me.”