Chapter 51
Ayla
Two Months Later
The hallway light is still on, a thin gold line under the door, but inside it’s just us and the dark blue spill from the city outside.
I’m already under the sheets when he comes back from the bathroom, towel slung low on his hips, hair damp at the ends.
He doesn’t turn on the lamp. He never does when it’s late like this.
He stops at the foot of the bed and looks at me.
I’m propped on one elbow, sheet pulled up just high enough to cover my breasts, legs tangled in the cotton like I’ve already given up pretending I’m not waiting.
His eyes drag over the shape of me under the fabric—slow, lingering, the way he looks at something he already owns and still wants to remind himself he does.
“You’re staring,” I say.
His mouth curves, small and knowing. “You’re in my bed.”
“Our bed,” I correct, mostly to be difficult.
He lets the towel fall. Doesn’t rush. Just steps out of it and pulls the sheets off of me.
He climbs onto the mattress, knee first, then the other, until he’s over me, caging me without touching yet.
The mattress dips. My body instinctively shifts toward the center of him, thighs parting a fraction before I can stop them.
He notices, like always.
One hand plants beside my head. The other slides down, finds my hip, thumbs the tattoo there like he’s mapping territory he’s already claimed a hundred times. His skin is still warm from the shower. Smells like his body wash and mint.
“Legs,” he says. Quiet, commanding. Just the word, low and certain.
I could argue. I almost do—I feel the stubborn little spark in my chest, but then his thumb strokes once, slow, across the crease where thigh meets hip, and the spark gutters out into something hotter. I open for him.
He settles between my thighs, heavy and warm, cock already half-hard and brushing the inside of my leg. Just resting there, letting me feel the weight, the heat, the faint metallic promise of those bars I know by heart now.
His mouth finds my throat first. No teeth. Just lips, open, dragging up the side until he reaches the place he marked earlier. He kisses it—soft, almost tender, then sets his teeth there, light pressure, enough to make me arch and press my breasts against his chest.
“Maks…”
He hums against my skin. The sound vibrates straight down my spine.
Then he shifts, lines himself up, and pushes in—slow, one long continuous slide until he’s seated deep and I’m full in that heavy, stretching way that still makes my breath catch every damn time.
No rush. No slam. Just him filling me until there’s nowhere left to go, until my body has to soften and accept every inch.
I make a small, helpless sound into his shoulder. My nails dig into his back, not hard enough to break skin, just enough to hold on.
He stays there. Doesn’t move. Lets me feel him throb once, twice, inside me. Lets me adjust. Lets me feel how perfectly we fit when there’s no hurry, no audience, no adrenaline to chase.
“You good?” he murmurs against my ear.
I want to snap something sarcastic. I open my mouth to try.
He rolls his hips, just once, slow and deep, and the words die in a gasp.
He smiles against my neck. Smug bastard.
Then he starts moving. In steady, unhurried strokes that drag every ridge along every sensitive place like he’s taking inventory.
Each time he bottoms out he grinds a fraction harder, pressing in until I feel the blunt nudge deep inside, then pulls back almost all the way before sliding home again. The rhythm is patient.
Merciless in how patient it is.
My legs wrap around his waist. He hooks one arm under my knee, opens me wider, changes the angle so the next stroke hits higher, sharper. I arch hard.
My nails rake down his back—deeper this time. I feel the skin give under my fingertips, feel him hiss through his teeth, feel his cock jump inside me in response.
“Fuck,” he breathes. First real crack in the calm.
I smile against his shoulder even as my body starts to tremble.
He retaliates by shifting his weight, pinning me more fully to the mattress. His free hand slides up my side, cups my breast, thumb circling the nipple once, twice, then pinching just hard enough to make me clench around him.
I whimper.
He kisses me then, deep, lazy, tongue sliding against mine like we have all night. His mouth tastes like mint and him. I kiss him back harder than I mean to, teeth catching his lower lip, tugging until he groans into my mouth.
When he pulls back his eyes are dark, pupils blown. “You want it harder?”
I shake my head. “No. Just… like this.”
His expression shifts, something softer, possessive, pleased. “Then like this.”
He keeps the rhythm exactly the same—deep, rolling, controlled, but now every stroke feels heavier, more dintentional, like he’s carving space inside me for himself.
My hands slide up into his hair, tugging the damp strands, holding his mouth to mine while he fucks me slow and thorough.
The build is quiet. Insidious. It creeps up through my thighs, my belly, my chest, until I’m shaking under him, breath coming in short, helpless pants against his lips.
He feels it. Knows it.
His hand leaves my breast, slides down between us, finds my clit with the pad of his thumb. Circles once, light, then presses firmer, matching the rhythm of his hips.
I break on a sob. The orgasm rolls through me slow and shattering, long waves that keep cresting, pulling me under, making my whole body lock and flutter around him. My nails dig in again, hard, fresh red lines down his shoulder blades.
He groans low, hips stuttering once, then twice, and then he’s coming too, deep, pulsing, spilling inside me while his mouth finds mine again, swallowing the last of my broken sounds.
He doesn’t pull out. He lowers his weight carefully, still buried, softening inside me. His arms come around me—one banded low across my back, the other cradling the back of my head so my face is tucked into his neck. I can feel his heartbeat against my cheek, steady and strong, slowing now.
My legs are still wrapped around him. The sheets are already a twisted mess around us, half off the mattress, one pillow shoved against the headboard. I don’t care.
He presses a kiss to my temple. Then another, lower, against the shell of my ear.
“Mine,” he says. Quiet. Smug. Certain.
I don’t argue.
I just turn my face into his throat, taste salt and skin, and let myself sink into the heavy, warm sprawl of him holding me like he has nowhere else to be.
The room smells like us. I feel boneless already. Oversensitive. Wrecked in the best way.
And safe.
So stupidly, dangerously safe.
I close my eyes and listen to his breathing even out.
***
I wake on my stomach, cheek turned into the pillow, completely relaxed.
My skin still feels warm and oversensitive everywhere he touched me, especially my neck where his mouth dragged last and hardest, like he wanted something to linger after.
Behind me, Maksim shifts, the mattress dipping with his weight as he leans over to grab something from the nightstand.
The movement pulls me back just enough to make me aware of little things.
The cold air on my bare shoulders. The ache between my thighs. The smell of sex and his soap.
I crack one eye open.
Maksim is sitting at the edge of the bed in nothing but black briefs, broad back to me, one forearm braced over his thigh as he checks his phone.
His hair is a mess, blue still bright through the top where it catches the morning light.
My scratches stripe his shoulder blades, angry pink against tattooed skin, and a small, vicious pulse of satisfaction goes through me.
My voice comes out rough with sleep. “You’re leaving already?”
He glances back at me over his shoulder.
Those eyes drag over where I’m sprawled in his bed, naked and messy and still trying to wake up, and something in his expression shifts.
Possessive in that quiet way he gets when he’s looking at me like I’m a problem he enjoys having.
“I have things to do,” he says.
I make a face and bury half of it back in the pillow. “Rude.”
His mouth twitches.
I hear the phone hit the nightstand a second before he turns fully and reaches for me. His hand slides up my calf, over the back of my thigh, then higher until his palm spreads warm and heavy over my ass.
“Morning,” he says. “Is that better?”
“No, you’re an ass,” I mumble.
His hand comes down in a sharp smack.
I jolt, yelping, and twist to glare at him. “Maksim.”
“There. Be good.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
He looks completely unimpressed with my attitude. Hair a wreck. Mouth swollen from us and still somehow fully in control of the room.
I hate him.
Not really.
Unfortunately.
He leans down and kisses me before I can say something bratty, one hand sliding into my hair, the other gripping my hip.
It starts slow, lazy almost, warm from sleep and sex and the kind of morning quiet that makes everything feel thicker somehow, heavier.
Then his tongue drags against mine and I make a small sound before I can stop it.
His mouth curves against mine.
Asshole.
When he pulls back, I chase it for half a second before dignity slaps me across the face.
I scowl.
He notices.
His thumb brushes my lower lip once. “What?”
I hesitate, which is disgusting in itself before I ask. “Can I go with you?”
One brow lifts. “To a warehouse full of men?”
I prop myself up on my elbows and immediately regret it because my whole body feels deliciously overused. “Yes, I always go.”
His stare drifts over me again, taking in my naked body, the sheet pooled uselessly around my thighs, my hair all over the place.
“No.”
I frown. “Why not?”
“Because,” he says, calm as anything, “you promised Vasilisa and Adriana you’d go out with them today.”
Oh.
Right.
I flop back face down dramatically. “I know, but I don’t want to do the girl thing anymore.”