Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
AVA
Why not now?
The words echo in my head the second they leave my mouth, floating in the space between us.
Soren goes stock fucking still. His eyes lock on mine. Everything shifts. The air. The tension. The gravity in the room. Whatever leash he’s been holding himself back with?
Gone. As if it never existed in the first place.
Cautiously, he slides off the couch, settling on his knees in front of me. Knees. In front of me. As though I’m something holy. Like he’s about to pray.
I’m outside my body watching it happen. This is someone else’s night. Someone else’s pleasure. I don’t do this. I no longer let men in. I don’t get to have this sort of thing.
His hands come to my knees, thumbs pressing softly into the sides, warm and resolute. I should stop this. I should say something, laugh it off, run into my bedroom and lock the door, do literally anything else—but I don’t. I can’t.
That gleam in Soren’s eyes? I’m pretty sure it means he’s about to revise everything I thought I knew about my own body.
Fuck it.
I want to forget the walls.
I want to be the woman Soren Pembry gets on his knees for.
Even if it’s just for one night.
Calloused hands trail down the outside of my thighs, so achingly slow, my breath catches, and my toes curl.
Soren isn’t rushing. His hands slide to the waistband of my leggings, fingers hooking gently. There’s a silent question written in his eyes.
I nod.
Taking his time, he peels them down inch by inch, along with my panties. For him, this isn’t about speed, it’s about intention. About me.
Cool air kisses the skin Soren reveals, and I shiver from the way he watches every movement.
He eases the fabric down my legs, knuckles grazing my calves.
My entire nervous system lights up, and by the time he takes them off completely, I’m breathless.
He hasn’t even touched me where I need him most.
Soren nudges my legs open, and I tense on instinct. I want this—Lord, I do—but it’s happening. This isn’t a fantasy anymore. This is Soren between my thighs, peering up at me. And he’s about to remake me from the inside out.
I’m not sure I’m breathing. I’m not sure I remember how.
He presses a kiss to the inside of my knee, eyes locked on mine. My brain wants me to bolt. But my heart is doing cartwheels, screaming about every wall I’ve ever built and how this man kicked them down with a single glance.
His gaze never leaves mine. He squeezes my thighs—gentle, grounding. “You okay?” he asks, voice quiet. He knows I’m halfway to losing my mind.
I nod, too fast. “Yeah. Just… outside my body a little.”
His smile is soft. Unbearably tender. “Let me bring you back.” Soren leans in, presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh this time, and I nearly come apart from that alone. “You’re safe, Bells. And tonight, you’re mine. And you matter.”
No one’s ever touched me like I mattered. Soren wants to learn me. The others wanted to conquer. Perform. Take.
Sore rises, and his lips crush to mine as one hand palms the back of my head to hold me in place. He doesn’t kiss me like I’m a battle to be fought. He kisses me like I’m the victory already in his hands.
He peels back, and his eyes drink me in. I’m stripped bare in front of him, my legs parted, my breath ragged, my entire lower body trembling—and he’s still on his knees, staring at me. To him, I’m something to behold.
I should be embarrassed. But I’m not. I’m bold. Confident. He makes me that way.
By the adoration in his eyes. By the fact that he hasn’t even touched me down there yet, and I’m already coming undone.
Soren dips down, kisses me higher this time on the inside of my thigh. The scrape of his stubble drags a gasp from my throat.
Another kiss. And another. He trails them closer to my sex, his breath a whisper against my skin. One hand hooks my leg over his shoulder while the other splays over my hip to steady me. Smart. I might fly away if he doesn’t hold me down.
His tongue licks straight up my center, deep, slow, purposeful, as though he’s waited a thousand lifetimes for this and plans to take his time tasting every second.
A moan rips from my chest, and his hand tightens on my hip in response. He likes that. He wants more. And sweet hell, I want more too.
His lips are not tentative. Or shy. My fingers clutch the couch cushions beside me while his tongue traces circles that electrify my brain.
I’m not outside my body anymore. I’m buried inside it, every nerve ending awake.
Every thought is a blur. Every inch of me is open and trembling under the weight of this man’s mouth.
I can’t think.
I can barely breathe.
My body is one long, trembling wire pulled taut, and Soren’s mouth is the spark teasing closer and closer to the break.
He doesn’t change rhythm. He keeps me on the edge, circling it again and again until my legs are shaking, my lungs no longer know how to function.
Soren’s hands stay firm on my thighs, securing me to him, and the noises leaving me aren’t pretty. They’re ragged. Desperate. Choked.
His tongue moves with maddening precision, with deep strokes that split me open and devour in the same breath. His nose brushes where I need friction most, and I see stars. Actual fucking stars.
“Oh my god, Soren—” I gasp, voice raspy and useless.
“Yes, baby,” he hums against me–a man proud of his work, and that vibration detonates heat low in my belly.
I’m close. So close it terrifies me. So close, I want to run.
I don’t.
I stay.
I allow it to happen.
Because I fucking want it.
And when my orgasm tears through me, it’s not quiet or soft or clean.
It’s thunder.
It’s lightning.
It’s a scream ripped from somewhere deep in my soul.
I chase it.
My fingers claw into his hair, holding onto the back of his head so I can grind against his face, feral and gloriously focused. Every fractured part of me is fighting to be made whole through the heat of his mouth.
And Soren doesn’t let up. He groans. Like he’s living for this, wants every roll of my hips, each broken sound that spills out of me.
Unashamed, I ride it out on his face until I’m shaking so hard he has to grip my thighs tighter to keep me from sliding off the goddamn couch.
My back bows, a cry tears from my throat. My body shatters and spills over his mouth, wave after wave crashing. He holds me through every single pulse, twitch, and goddamn quake, staying with me, tongue still moving, mouth still claiming until I’m boneless and buzzing and barely human.
I finally breathe, collapse backward, and melt into the cushions as the world tilts and spins around me. I’m panting, flushed, drenched in sweat and sensation, and I don’t even care. I came so hard I forgot where I was.
“Fuck, Bells…I could live between your thighs and never need another thing.” Soren presses one last kiss to the center of me, sweet and respectful, a full stop on a sentence I’ll never forget.
I haven’t even caught my breath when I reach for him. I don’t think—I move. Still floating, still shaky, but I want to touch him. Taste him. Give something back after he obliterated me like that.
But when my hand grazes the waistband of those ridiculous pajama pants, Soren seizes my wrist and shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
My face scrunches with confusion. “But—”
“Tonight is about you, Bells.”
There’s a fresh sting behind my eyes. I don’t know what to do with that kind of care. That kind of refusal.
He kisses the inside of my wrist. “Let me hold you, yeah?”
I nod, too overwhelmed to speak.
Soren reaches for the leggings I’d completely forgotten existed and helps guide them back over my legs and hips with more tenderness than should exist. Once he’s done, he settles onto the couch and pulls me into him, tucking me against his chest, protectively.
And here, curled into the warm strength of his arms, legs entwined, heart pounding in the afterglow—I let my eyes fall shut.
I wake up in my bed.
Not the couch.
I was wrapped in limbs and tangled in the man who kissed me into oblivion, fingered me into an orgasm so good it briefly rebooted my nervous system, then licked me as though I was his final meal and savored every morsel.
Now, I’m in my bed. Alone. Which, to be clear, is not where I remember falling asleep.
The last thing I recall is that drugging kiss Soren gave me right after he made me see a whole other universe with two of his fingers.
And…
His words.
His tongue.
My body ached for something I’ve worked very hard at blocking out. Basically, Soren said, Hey, I’m going to annihilate your pussy. Hope that’s okay. And I’m not even going to take my clothes off to do it.
Apparently, I passed out after that. And “The Blade” tucked me in.
I sit up, the blanket slides down my naked chest, over my fluttering heart. I’m wearing my leggings–which he helped me back into–but nothing else.
Bacon sizzles in the kitchen. Pans clank together.
He didn’t leave?
What do I look like right now?
Bolting upright, I snatch a shirt from the laundry basket and power-walk to the bathroom, boobs bouncing with every step.
The mirror does not offer comfort. My hair is a disaster. My mascara is smudged completely, suggesting to the naked eye that my night was either full of sex or sobbing, and my lips are still swollen. From him.
Holy Lord in heaven.
After frantically brushing my teeth, I splash my face, tame my hair, swipe on concealer, lip balm, deodorant.
Am I prepping for battle? Or brunch?
I take a breath and head toward the kitchen, but don’t make it far.
There he is. Leaning against the doorframe.
Pajama pants.
Bare chested.
Barefoot.
Holding a steaming mug of coffee and wearing a smirk that makes me want to ride his face again, and then expire right there on the tile.
“Awe,” Soren’s voice is warm with swaggering delight, “were you trying to primp yourself before facing me, Bells?”
I say nothing.
“If so...you missed a spot.”
I peek down at my shirt. It’s inside out.
I want to die.