Chapter 18
ELLE
When his mouth finds mine, the fight doesn't end. It transforms.
All that tension, the accusations, the fear, the brittle honesty that cracked us both open, it doesn't disappear. It pours into the kiss like gasoline on a fire that was already burning.
I lean forward, hair falling around us like a curtain, and bite his bottom lip. Hard enough to make him grunt. That sound. God, that sound. It goes straight to my core, and I soothe the sting with my tongue.
His fingers slide up the back of my neck, threading into my hair until I can't tell if he's steadying me or warning me.
"You don't play fair," he mutters.
"Neither do you."
I kiss him again, slower, deeper, until words stop working and there's nothing left but tongue and teeth and the rough sounds he makes that turn my spine to liquid.
His hands tighten on my hips, fingers digging in like he's claiming territory. I rock against him, slow, and feel him hard beneath me. My silk robe slips off one shoulder and I don't fix it.
Every line of him is solid heat. I find the buttons of his shirt and start working them open. One by one. Each pop a small victory.
Warm skin underneath, golden in the lamplight. I follow each inch with my mouth, mapping him like a secret meant for just me. His scars under my lips. His heartbeat under my palm.
His shirt hits the floor. I lean back, still straddling him, running my hands down his chest. The ink on his forearms, the lean muscle, the battle-written skin.
"You're killing me," he growls when I circle his nipple with my tongue.
I glance up through my lashes. "Patience, sir."
His eyes flash. His hand cups my face. "Say that again."
I let my fingers trail to his belt. "I thought you might like that... sir."
The sound he makes is half surrender, half warning.
His fingers tighten in my hair, testing, then pulling just enough to tilt my head back. The kiss that follows isn't sweet. It's a collision. Teeth, tongue, need, and the kind of heat that makes me forget the world outside this bed.
I pull away. Slide down his body, letting myself drag against every inch of him. He throws his head back with a groan that vibrates through the mattress.
I slap his reaching hand away. Not tonight.
Belt. Zipper. Pants off. Boxers gone.
And there he is. Thick and hard and straining, and the sight of him makes my mouth water in a way that should probably embarrass me but absolutely doesn't.
I fall to my forearms, ass in the air, and let my lips hover over the tip of his cock. My breath brushes his skin. My eyes never leave his.
He watches me like a man watching his own destruction approach and choosing not to move.
I let my tongue circle the head. Slow. Deliberate.
His hips jerk. His hand finds the back of my neck, not pushing, just resting. Holding on.
I take him into my mouth. Slow at first, learning the weight and heat of him on my tongue, then deeper. I feel him hit the back of my throat and hold him there, eyes watering, before sliding back up with a hollow-cheeked pull that drags a curse out of him so raw it sounds like prayer.
"Fuck, Elle."
I set a rhythm. Deep and slow, then faster, then slow again when I feel his thighs tense beneath my hand. I'm controlling this. Every stroke, every swallow, every wet, filthy sound between us is mine.
His fingers twist in my hair. His breathing fractures. "Look at you," he rasps. "Taking me so deep. So fucking perfect."
I take him deeper still. Feel the stretch at the corners of my lips, the ache in my jaw, the tears blurring my vision. But his voice, wrecked and desperate above me, is worth all of it.
"Elle," he warns, hips starting to buck. "I'm going to..."
His hand tightens. Pulls me off with a forceful tug.
I meet his gaze. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
"Problem, sir?"
His eyes go black. "My turn."
Before I can breathe, the world flips. One hard pull and I'm on my back, his weight following, solid and sure. His hands slide up my thighs, taking the robe with them, peeling silk off skin until I'm bare beneath him.
He kisses me, tasting himself on my tongue, and the intimacy of that makes something inside me ache. His hands are everywhere: my hair, my breasts, squeezing, claiming. When his fingers find the wetness between my thighs, he groans against my neck like the feel of me hurts him.
"Soaked," he murmurs, circling my clit until I'm writhing. "All of that from having me in your mouth?"
"Don't flatter yourself." I gasp as his fingers push inside. "Okay. Maybe flatter yourself a little."
He laughs against my throat. Dark. Warm. Then withdraws his fingers, brings them to his mouth, and tastes them while looking me dead in the eye.
I nearly combust.
"Turn over," he says. Voice like gravel wrapped in smoke.
The words hit me low and electric. I shift, rolling onto my stomach, and his hands find my hips, pulling them up until I'm on my knees, face pressed into the pillow, ass in the air.
"Christ, Elle." His voice behind me is reverent and ruined at the same time. His palm slides down the curve of my spine, slow, and I shiver from scalp to toes.
I feel him position himself. The blunt head of his cock pressing where I'm slick and aching and completely, embarrassingly ready.
"Please," I breathe into the pillow.
He pushes in. One long, deep, devastating stroke that fills me so completely I forget how to make sounds. My fingers claw the sheets. My spine arches. He grips my hips with both hands and holds me there, pinned on his cock, while we both remember how to breathe.
Then he moves.
The first thrust shoves me forward into the mattress. The second makes me moan into the pillow. By the third, I'm making sounds I didn't know I was capable of, and I don't care who hears.
He fucks me like a man who just fought to keep me and won. Hard, deep, relentless, his hands bruising my hips, his cock hitting a spot so deep I see white behind my eyes.
"God, Nikolai." I can barely form words. "Don't stop."
"Not a chance."
His hand slides around my hip, fingers finding my clit from behind, and the dual sensation of him inside me and his touch against me is so overwhelming I nearly collapse.
He circles slow while he drives hard. The contrast is maddening, gentle fingers and vicious hips, and I can feel the orgasm building like a wave gathering height before it destroys the shore.
"You feel what you do to me?" he growls, driving deeper. "You feel how hard you make me? This is what you do, Elle. You wreck me."
His words, the raw honesty of them, push me right to the edge.
"I'm going to..." I gasp.
"Then let go. I want to feel it."
The orgasm detonates through me. Not a wave. An earthquake. I scream his name into the pillow, my body clenching around him so hard he curses, hips stuttering as he buries himself to the hilt and follows me over.
We come apart together. Loud and graceless and shaking.
He collapses over me, chest heaving against my back. His mouth finds the curve between my neck and shoulder and presses there, breathing hard, staying close.
For a long time, neither of us moves.
He rolls to the side eventually, pulling me with him, and I curl against his chest, boneless and buzzing and unable to form a coherent thought.
"Guess that counts as forgiveness," I whisper.
His lips curve against my hair. "Temporarily."
I smile, eyes already closing. "I'll take it."