26. Ariel
26
ARIEL
The grappa burns my tongue when he kisses me. It’s not gentle—nothing about Sasha Ozerov ever has been—but I don’t want gentle. I want the bite of his teeth, the sting of his stubble.
If it doesn’t leave me sore tomorrow, I don’t want it.
He lifts me onto the bar with a growl. A bottle of limoncello shatters on the floor, sharp citrus flooding the air. I don’t care. All I care about is the heat of him between my thighs, the way his cock parts to the deepest point in me.
He rips my dress down by the neckline and up by the hem, so that it puddles around my waist. There’s no preamble, no patience—just Sasha burying himself to the hilt in one brutal stroke.
“ Bozhe moi, ” he rasps, hips stuttering. “Still so fucking tight.”
“Still so fucking big,” I shoot back, nails raking his scalp.
My back arches off the bar. He doesn’t let me adjust, doesn’t let me think. Just sets a punishing rhythm that rattles my teeth.
“Look at me,” he demands, fingers tangling in my hair. “Look at me when I’m inside you.”
I force my eyes open. His gaze burns through every lie I’ve told myself. That this is just physical. That I don’t still love him. That I won’t break when he walks away again.
He reads it all. Of course he does.
But I see it in him, too. As his teeth nip at my neck, giving birth to the hickey he just swore not to leave, I see how flimsy his hold on himself really is.
He’s as wrecked as you are. He’s every bit as fucked.
“No , ” he growls, slamming into me harder. “Don’t retreat into your head. Stay here. With me.”
I bite his shoulder to muffle a sob. He tastes like salt and sin. The bar digs into my spine, the pain sharp and grounding. I need it—need the ache to counter the pleasure mounting low in my belly.
“Sasha—”
“Say it.” He finds my clit and strokes rough circles that steal my words. “Say you want this.”
“I want—” The orgasm hits like a freight train, tearing through me with a violence that borders on cruel. He drinks my scream with a kiss, swallowing every shattered syllable.
He doesn’t stop or slow. Just fucks me through the aftershocks until I’m raw and shaking, until pleasure tips back into pain.
“This is just sex,” he growls again against my collarbone. Does he need the reminder, or do I?
“Right. Just… ngh… ” His tongue swipes the hollow of my throat, and I forget how words work. Just sex , I scream internally as his palm slides up my thigh. No feelings. Just… friction. Yeah, friction. Simple. Clean. Clinical.
But there’s nothing clean about the way he fucks me. It’s merciless. We’re making a mess, breaking bottles, stools tipping over, but I just can’t find it in me to care.
“Again,” he orders, dragging me to the edge of the bar. My legs hook around his waist as he pins me against the wall. Plaster crumbles under my shoulders. “Come for me again.”
“I can’t?—”
He sinks his teeth into my neck. “Yes, you fucking can.”
We’re a tangle of desperate angles—his hips snapping brutally, my legs clamping his waist, the bar’s edge leaving welts on my ass. My back arches as he hits a spot that liquefies my spine. “Sasha, I?—!”
He smothers the admission with his palm. “Don’t. Don’t say it.” His thrusts turn punishing. “Just take what you need.”
The second climax is slower, hotter, a molten spill that leaves me boneless. He holds me up with an arm under my ass, the other hand fisted in my hair. His thrusts turn erratic, ragged breaths flaring hot against my skin.
“Ariel…”
He spills inside me with a groan that sounds like surrender. For one heartbeat, for two, we’re fused—foreheads pressed together, lungs heaving, his cock still pulsing deep within me.
Then he pulls back, looks at me, and with his cock still inside me, he says, “This means nothing.”
I almost believe him.
But then he pulls out and it hurts too badly to be “nothing.” Cold air replaces the heat of him. I slump against the bar, dress bunched around my waist, thighs sticky with sweat and cum. He tucks himself away, every movement sharp, controlled.
No feelings. No sleeping over. No marks.
Well, two outta three ain’t bad.
“Well.” I swipe a trembling hand across my mouth. “That was…”
“Math.”
“Yeah.” I hop off the bar, wincing at the ache between my legs. “Just math.”
But my pulse is going bananas in my throat. Liar, it whispers.
Liar, liar, liar.