Chapter 21 – Isabella #2
He ground against me, and I welcomed every thrust.
He opened one button after the other and pushed the shirt open, his eyes darkening as he took in my naked body beneath. He moved his hands across my skin with unexpected gentleness.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, reverence in his voice as he traced the curve of my breast with a calloused finger.
I reached up to tug at his shirt, suddenly desperate to feel his skin against mine. He understood, sat back just long enough to pull it over his head before returning to me. The sight of his bare chest—muscled and marked with scars and oh so many tattoos—sent a jolt of heat through my core.
He was unbelievably exciting and breathtakingly handsome.
He leaned down, pressed his body against mine, skin to skin. I gasped at the contact. The heat of him seemed to burn through me, igniting something I’d kept carefully controlled for far too long.
Ivan moved his mouth from my lips to my jaw, then down the column of my throat, leaving a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses that made me arch beneath him.
“Please,” I moaned, not even sure what I was begging for. More. Less. I didn’t know.
“Let me hear you,” he murmured against my skin. “I want to know what makes you come apart.”
His words made me clench and simultaneously sent a fresh wave of heat through me. No one had ever spoken to me like this, with such raw honesty about their desire—and mine. Nobody had ever demanded to hear what I liked. It was intoxicating.
His hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, learning my body with methodical thoroughness, discovering places I hadn’t known could bring such pleasure.
Each touch, each kiss, each nibble—his eyes were watching me. Every action was both question and answer, a conversation without words, as if he was eager to learn my responses.
He pulled my leggings off me agonizingly slowly—one leg at a time, following his hands with his mouth, kissing the bare skin he’d just uncovered until he reached the arch of my foot and kissed me there.
But he kept his eyes locked with mine. The whole thing was one of the most sensual things I’d ever experienced.
“Lift your hips for me, Shorty,” he whispered.
I followed his command, and he pulled my panties off, never looking away from my eyes, until they were gone.
When he again spread my legs and slid his fingers up my thighs, and found me wet and ready, the look on his face was one of primal satisfaction. “So responsive,” he growled, his accent thickening with arousal. “So perfect.”
I trembled beneath his touch as he worked me with devastating precision. He teased my slick folds with his fingers, and when he circled my clit, I cried out, trembling.
He brought me to the edge before backing off, again and again, like a sadistic little player.
Until I was writhing beneath him, begging him to let me come.
Which was apparently what he’d been waiting for. “Let go for me, Shorty,” he commanded, his voice a rough caress while he circled, then squeezed my clit once more. “I’ve got you.”
And this time, he didn’t back off.
When release finally crashed over me, it was with an intensity I’d never experienced before. I cried out, my body arching off the bed as waves of pleasure washed through me, leaving me trembling and disoriented.
While I recovered, Ivan got up.
I opened my eyes at the rustling and watched him get rid of his jeans and boxers. God, he was sexy like a Roman god and hung like a horse.
I was a bit distracted, so I didn’t realize he opened the drawer of his nightstand, opened a condom with his teeth, and was about to pull it over his perfect cock.
“Wait.”
He froze.
“I didn’t even get a chance to—”
“To what?” he asked.
“Look at you, touch you…” I whispered.
He put his head back and groaned. “Can you wait until next time?”
I licked my lips, and he immediately zeroed in on my lips and groaned again.
Could I wait? Maybe…probably. I nodded, which was all he needed.
He was there, positioning himself between my thighs. He paused, his eyes locking with mine in a silent question.
“Please,” I whispered, reaching for him.
With one powerful thrust, he entered me, filling me completely.
I cried out, the sensation overwhelming—a delicious stretch that bordered on pain before melting into pleasure. Thank God I was wet and ready.
We both froze for a moment, adjusting to the intensity of the connection.
Then he began to move, setting a rhythm that was deliberate and deep but constrained. Each thrust sent sparks of pleasure radiating through my body, building the tension anew. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulled him closer, wanting, needing more.
His control was slipping again; I could see it in the tightening of his jaw, the popping veins on his forearms—and feel it in the increasing urgency of his movements. His eyes never left mine, maintaining that connection even as our bodies were joined in the most intimate way possible.
He leaned into me and nibbled my earlobe.
“Mine,” he growled against my skin, the possessiveness in his voice sending an unexpected thrill through me.
The word should have offended me, should have triggered my need for independence and my defiance.
Instead, it felt right in a way no words could explain.
He bit my neck, then sucked, simultaneously painful and sensual.
I found myself responding to his intensity with a fervor that surprised me, meeting him thrust for thrust. I still needed more.
Needed his self-control gone.
Russian words spilled from his lips as his movements became more urgent, the foreign words somehow more intimate than English could have been. I didn’t need to understand the words to comprehend their meaning—praise, possession, promise.
But I still needed more. Needed him unleashed. Needed him to stop my brain from working.
I grabbed his head, and he stilled.
“Too much?” he asked, and I almost chuckled.
Too much? Not nearly enough. “More. I need more. I need it all.”
Something in his eyes glittered, and a dark smile played around his lips. He moved my legs over his shoulders and pulled me up into the air, until he was impossibly deep inside of me, then he placed his hand around my throat and choked me slightly.
I groaned. I never knew I liked being choked. On the contrary, actually. But this…with him—this was exactly what I needed.
He leaned down until our lips touched. “How much more do you need, my dirty girl?” he whispered, then thrust into me with one long, hard push.
Yes.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, could only receive his thrusts, his kisses, the absolute power he held over me. I completely surrendered. Let him take over my body and mind. And in the darkness, I found parts of myself I’d hidden away, surrendered to feelings I’d denied even existed.
Our bodies moved together in perfect symphony as if we’d done this a thousand times before. The tension in me built again, higher and tighter than before, a coiling spring of pleasure that demanded release.
“Come for me,” he commanded, his voice strained with the effort of holding back. “I want to feel you come around me.” His fingers found my clit, and he drew lazy circles.
I tightened around him, squeezed his cock inside of me until he pushed me over the edge.
My second release was even more powerful than the first—a supernova of sensation that left me gasping.
With a guttural groan, he followed me into oblivion, his body shuddering against mine as he found his own release.
We collapsed together, breathless and sweaty. Ivan shifted his weight to avoid crushing me but kept me tucked against him, one arm beneath my head, one wrapped possessively around my waist, his cock softening against my hip. The position felt protective rather than constraining.
For several minutes, we lay in silence, our breathing gradually slowing to normal. I felt oddly peaceful, my body languid with satisfaction, my mind quiet for the first time in forever.
Ivan’s hand traced lazy patterns on my belly, feather-light touches that made me shiver despite the warmth. I turned my head slightly in his embrace to look at him, curious about what I might find in his expression after such intensity.
His face was more open than I’d ever seen it, the usual mask of control temporarily abandoned.
In the soft light, with his hair tousled and his guard down, he looked younger, almost vulnerable.
The realization that he was allowing me to see him this way felt like a gift more intimate than the sex we’d just had.
I reached out, traced the lines of the tattoo on his arm—a stylized phoenix with a lion’s face, rising from flames that curved around his shoulder and down his arm. Up close, I could see how the intricate design incorporated subtle scars.
“Each line tells a story,” I murmured, following the pattern with my fingertips.
Ivan caught my hand, bringing it to his lips in a gesture that felt unexpectedly tender. “Not all stories are worth hearing.”
“For me, yours is,” I said simply.
Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, perhaps, or disbelief. He studied my face as if searching for something.”
“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice still rough with the aftermath of desire.
The question was disarmingly direct. I considered deflecting with humor or sass, my usual defenses, but something about the moment demanded honesty.
“That Vince will kill you if he finds out. That this complicates everything,” I admitted, not pulling away from his touch.
A shadow passed over his face, but he nodded. “Worth it?” The question carried a vulnerability I wouldn’t have believed him capable of just days ago.
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation, surprising myself with the truth of it. “Not the smartest thing to do but totally worth it.”
The admission hung between us, weighty with implications neither of us was ready to voice. Instead of responding with words, Ivan pulled me closer, pressing his lips to my temple in a gesture that felt unbelievably intimate.
We lay tangled together, without speaking, but I was acutely aware that something fundamental had shifted between us.
What had begun as enemies had evolved into a reluctant alliance and was now something I didn’t have a name for—something deeper and more dangerous than I’d ever allowed myself to experience.
As my eyes got heavier again, I pushed my nose against Ivan’s chest and nestled into his arms.
He got rid of the condom, then pulled up the blanket before he wrapped his arms around me again, his hand idly stroking my hip in a soothing rhythm.
For tonight, I would allow myself this peace. Tomorrow, we would face Vince, Grey, and all the dangers we had to face—but tonight, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Just before drifting off, I felt Ivan press another kiss to my hair, followed by words so soft, I might have imagined them: “I never expected you.”
I smiled against his skin, eyes already closed. “I never expected you either.”
His quiet chuckle vibrated through his chest, the sound wrapping around me like a blanket as I surrendered to sleep, safe in the arms of the man who had somehow moved from enemy to protector to lover in the span of mere days.
For someone with my trust issues, the scariest three words weren’t “I love you.” They were “I trust you.” And as I was drifting off to sleep in his arms, I realized I did.