Chapter 42 Bella
BELLA
The first thing I notice when I wake up is the sound of rain, pitter-pattering overhead like tiny little drumbeats. The second is the bone-deep cold that sets me shivering violently.
The third is an impossible warmth pouring into me.
My eyes flutter open, and it takes a moment before I realize that I’m naked in Slava’s arms. Our chests are pressed together, and his skin is searing hot against mine. His lips are hovering at my ear, whispering something in Russian that sounds like a prayer.
And his hands are at my back, rubbing me up and down.
Then, the memory of what happened comes rushing back. The storm. Falling from the horse. The cold pelting rain. Slava coming back for me. The ride in the cold towards a tiny hunting lodge.
I gasp. Immediately, the pain in my shoulder sends me crying out, and I collapse into Slava for support.
“I have you, Bella,” he whispers in my ear.
God, he has no idea how completely he has me.
I blink awake, and finally take in my surroundings. Gray storm-light filtering through small windows. From the light of a blazing hot fire behind me, I can make out rough shapes of heavy wooden furniture, antlers mounted on walls, and Slava’s body as he holds me.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers and cinches something close around me.
I grasp it, and feel soft warm fur underneath me.
“You didn’t,” I reply. “I’m alive, thanks to you.”
His hands slide up my back, spreading a heat that burns hotter than the roaring blaze behind me. I shiver involuntarily from the touch, and a low moan escapes from my throat.
His hand reaches higher until it finds the back of my neck. Fingers close around the skin, and heat rushes through my veins. He cups me like I’m precious, feeds the warmth with his touch, and coaxes it to spread as he pulls me until all space between us disappears.
I whimper at how good this feels, how right, and he turns to look at me.
We stare at each other for a heartbeat that lasts a lifetime. Then, his mouth opens against mine, and we crash together into a deep kiss that drives a sound I’ve never made before for him to swallow.
We’re both still wet from the rain, but I can’t feel the cold anymore. I can only feel the fire of his touch, the heat of his skin under my hands, and the furnace of his body against mine.
His fingers thread into mine, and with a single motion, he pushes them over my head. I arch into him, my legs spread open for him in invitation, and I let myself drown in the reality of his mouth moving from my lips to my jaw to my throat.
His lips brush the necklace, and he doesn’t pull back. He kisses around it, tongue laving the hollow of my collarbone.
My fingers dig into his scarred and muscular back, and my legs close around his waist to keep him here, like I’m scared he’ll leave the moment I let go.
“I want to remember this,” I breathe against his shoulder. “I want to remember everything.”
He pulls back just enough to look at my face, brows furrowing. “Why do you say that?”
Because this might be the only time.
Because I’ve already betrayed you, and I’m going to betray you again.
And after that, you’ll never let me touch you again, and all I’ll have are memories of you and how you felt.
“Because I want to,” I say. “Because I want to remember how your hands feel. How you taste. How you—”
He doesn’t let me finish as he kisses me again, harder this time, and I stop talking because talking is dangerous.
Bodies don’t lie the same way as words.
Bodies just feel.
And I want to feel him with my entire being.
When he breaks the kiss, both of us are panting. His hand finds a handful of my hair and yanks it to expose my throat while my breasts are pressed against his chest. His lips press against my neck, nipping at the skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, and his voice is rough, stripped of its usual control. “Do you know that? You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Show me,” I whisper. “Show me I’m beautiful.”
His mouth starts moving lower, past my neck, and down my body until it closes around a single nipple. As he does, it sparks a fire inside of me, warming me up from inside out as his tongue swirls around the sensitive bud.
I moan and press myself closer to him, and he pushes against my body. His single large hand closes around both of mine, keeping them pinned above my head while he sucks my nipple.
“Yes…” I whimper as he groans and switches breasts.
Lips, tongue, and teeth scrape across my skin, and I don’t care because it feels so fucking good. He feels so fucking good.
I throw my head back and moan, as loud as I want. The world outside and the storm have faded away, and the only thing that remains is him. His body. His tongue. His mouth. His lips. His cock pressing insistently between my legs. His weight holding me down and his knees keeping mine from closing.
Our breaths mingle by the fire, and his mouth finally releases my sore and aching breast. His hand in my hair loosens just slightly for me to move. His breath brushes my thighs, warm and wet.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes and see him settled between my legs. His gaze is dark and possessive, but his touch is gentle and reverent.
But when he presses his tongue—hot and wet—against me, it’s anything but gentle. Pleasure rushes through me, flooding every single nerve ending as he runs it in a line from my ass to my clit.
Then he closes his lips around my clit, starts to suck, and my eyes roll into the back of my head.
My hands fist in his hair as he feasts on me. His large hands push my thighs further and my hips roll into his mouth. Fire dances through my core, chasing away the cold that had seeped into my bones.
The first finger sends me yelping in surprise. The second has me screaming in pleasure. And by the time his hand starts to move between my legs, I’m choking on my words and become incapable of human speech.
“You’re so fucking wet, Bella,” he growls with each swirl of his tongue and every push of his fingers. “So fucking sweet.”
The sound fills the air, and a new pressure fills my body from his hands and mouth. The fire continues to spread—up my arms, down my legs, culminating in the tips of my fingers and toes before doubling back and rushing straight into my pounding heart.
“Oh…” I moan as my fingers tighten in his hair and my legs tremble under his touch. “Oh God! Oh yes! YES! YES!”
The orgasm burns away all thought from my mind. A shudder flutters deep inside of me, and suddenly I’m rising up off the floor, screaming.
And when I come down, my body puddles while my heart continues to race.
That’s when Slava draws back to his height, and I look down to see his cock jutting up between my legs. A drop of pearly precum dots the tip, and the red tip flexes just enough to let it drip onto my fevered skin.
When it does, I swear I can hear it sizzle.
We stare at each other, motionless.
Months. The hallway, the balcony, the shower, the jet, every loaded silence and near-miss and moment of denied want. All of it converges here, in this hunting lodge, and by this fire.
He leans forward to kiss me, and then he’s inside of me.
The stretch of him overwhelms me with its masculine fullness, and I gasp against his lips while my nails dig into his back.
Finally, something in me exhales. Finally, finally, finally.
He breaks the kiss, pulls back, and stares at me.
“Look at me, Bella,” he commands, and I obey.
And then he starts to move, his eyes never leaving my face as he fucks me.
Behind us, the fire crackles. Above us, the storm still rages outside. And between every thrust, his mouth finds mine.
I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper, and he groans against my throat, and the sound undoes me more than any sensation other than the evidence of his want, the proof that he feels this too.
“Malyshka,” he moans. “Ty takaya krasivaya.”
I don’t know the meaning of any of those words, but I don’t need to. All I care about is that I’m finally clinging to him, my fingernails leaving crescents in his shoulders while the pleasure builds in waves, each one higher than the last.
He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow down. I feel so full, so deliciously full from him. I can feel him in my stomach, in my heart, in my throat.
When he draws back to his full length and plunges back in, it hurts so good that I never want it to stop.
This is what it’s like to be fucked.
He gives me everything—every stroke meant to hit exactly where I need it, and every kiss is timed to steal my breath away at the perfect moment.
He reads my body like a language he’s spent years studying, and anticipates every gasp and shiver before they ever bubble to the surface, and adjusts until I’m shaking on the edge of another orgasm.
Remember this, I tell myself. Remember how it feels to have him inside you. Remember how his sweat tastes. How his hair smells. Remember the sound of his breathing going ragged, the tension in his shoulders under your fingers, and the way his jaw tightens when he’s trying to hold back.
The wave crests without warning. One moment I’m climbing, and the next I’m falling and shattering. My entire body flutters and seizes around him as the orgasm tears through me.
I cry out and then bury my face in his neck. My teeth find his skin because I need something to hold, something to channel my own impossible pleasure into.
The bite sets him going a second later. A groan pulls from somewhere deep in his chest, and before he can pull out, his cock is pulsing inside of me, and my pussy drinks him in greedily. My arms are locked around his back, my legs are still wrapped around his waist, and I refuse to let go.
Don’t end, I think desperately. Don’t end, don’t end, please. Just let us stay here—
But everything has to end.
Afterward, we lie tangled together on the furs as the fire dies down to embers.
My head is on his chest. His arm is heavy around my shoulders. The necklace has shifted to the side, the gold star resting against my clavicle instead of pressing between us, and I trace idle patterns on his skin with one fingertip.
“I didn’t think it would be like this,” I murmur and press my lips to the tattoo on his chest while my body aches with a delicious soreness.
His chest rumbles with a questioning sound. “Like what?”
Like coming home. Like safety. Like everything I’ve ever wanted and can’t keep.
“Like I can’t ever get enough,” I say, because it’s the truest answer I can give without giving everything away.
His arm tightens around me. His lips brush my hair.
“Who says that this will be enough?” he asks quietly.
I close my eyes and feel the tears that want to come because he doesn’t know. Because he can’t know.
I press closer instead of pulling away. My body clinging even as my mind screams that I should confess. Or do anything except lie here letting him hold me while the clock counts down toward the completion of my betrayal.
Are you going to be my new mama? I can hear Alessandro asking me again.
I could have been, I think sadly.
Slava’s heartbeat is steady under my ear. I count the rhythm—boom-doom, boom-doom—and commit it to my memory as well.
Overhead, the light starts to brighten. The storm is passing.
I push myself up until I’m sitting. “We’ll need to go soon.”
“Our clothes are still wet.” He hooks a finger under my chin and turns me to look at him. “It’ll be a while until they dry.”
I know what he’s really asking me to do. Here, in this lodge where the rain softens to a whisper, and the flames are already flickering low as they cast dancing shadows on the walls.
Sooner or later, we’ll have to go back to the real world.
But maybe we don’t have to go back just yet.
So, I come back down to join him. My lips find his, my fingers reach between his legs, and I stroke him until he’s hard again.