Chapter 23 #2
“Risking my life for just a taste,” he says. “Even if it costs my life, it’ll be worth it to ruin you for every other man who even dares to look at you.”
The words land like a live wire in my chest.
Something inside me that has always been wary of devotion, of people staking claims they don’t mean, shies away. But this is Bran. He doesn’t waste phrases like that. He’s not poetic. He’s precise.
With that vow, he dips his head and slams his mouth against mine.
There’s nothing tentative or hesitant about the way he claims my lips.
This kiss is…more…than the others we’ve shared.
I taste decision on his lips. It’s bigger.
Hotter. Hungrier. In the space it takes my heart to give a single hard thump in my chest, my eyes fall closed and my head tilts back, surrendering to the hot press of lips, the scratch of his beard, and the punishing demands of his tongue.
He surrounds me.
Not just physically—though he does that too, boxing me in with his arms, standing firm between my thighs—but in the way he envelops me in his scent and taste and strength. Every point of contact feels like he’s stamping his name into my skin.
And holiest of all things holy, I am here for it.
A sound escapes me, thin and high-pitched. A whimper of need and a plea all rolled into one. Bran seems to understand exactly what I need.
He grasps my thighs and lifts them, guiding my legs around his hips. I go willingly, instinctively, ankles crossing at the small of his back. He pulls me forward until my core is pressed against the solid length of him, and oh.
Oh.
I feel him, hard and thick against me through the thin barrier of my leggings, and I can’t stop myself from rocking against him.
More. I need more of that delicious friction. Heat and pleasure lick up my spine as he rocks into me, perfectly in sync, and I know he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
Panic flickers, cold and sharp, intruding on the heat. He’s so much older than I am, so much more experienced. I’ve had one orgasm with him in a bed while half-asleep and suddenly I’m supposed to know what I’m doing here? What if he doesn’t like—
“What if I don’t what?” he murmurs against my mouth, like he’s reading my mind.
I freeze. Did I say that out loud?
His gaze feels heavy as he pulls back just enough to look at me properly, measuring my responses, like he’s studying me, finding the best way to take me apart and put me back together again.
I lift my chin. How hard can it be? I’m a fast learner. I taught myself three programming languages before I was sixteen. This is just…biology.
“Right here,” I murmur. My teeth sink into my bottom lip as my fingers twist into his shirt and give a tug, a silent demand with no margin for misinterpretation.
His eyes flare.
Bran complies, stepping back half an inch to get the leverage he needs to pull his shirt over his head in one smooth motion. He throws it somewhere to the side without looking.
His skin is hot and tensile, silk over acres of hard muscle with just the right amount of hair. He’s such a man, in a way I’ve mostly only seen in movies and on bad romance covers.
I hum in appreciation and take my time running my fingers over his skin, mapping him with slow, greedy strokes. The muscles in his shoulders flex under my touch; his abdomen tightens when I drag my nails lightly along the ridges there.
He lets me explore him for a moment, watching me with hooded eyes, then his hands slide under my sweater. The first brush of his palms against my bare waist makes me gasp.
He tugs the sweater up and over my head. I lift my arms without thinking, letting him strip it away.
I go still as he studies me almost reverently, taking in the plain black cotton cupping my breasts. The bra is nothing special, just a practical piece of armor I threw on the other day, but under his gaze it feels like something else.
I fight the urge to cross my arms over my chest. It was dark last night. I was shielded by shadow.
There are no shadows to hide behind now.
Does he like them? Are they too small? Too big? Asymmetric? Average in a way that isn’t enough?
I can’t tell what he’s thinking, and it’s driving me crazy.
“I—” I start, ready to deflect with a joke.
“You’re so fucking perfect, baby,” he says, voice gone wrecked.
The words knock the breath out of me.
Leaning down, he closes his mouth over one breast, suckling through the bra, tugging my nipple into the heat of his mouth.
I arch against him as a moan of pleasure spills out of me, unfiltered and too loud in the small kitchen. I wind my fingers in his hair and hold on, pressing him closer, silently begging him not to stop.
His hands slide around my back, fumbling briefly with the clasp, then finding it. He unhooks it in a practiced twist, and the bra loosens. He pulls back just long enough to yank the offending fabric out of the way and toss it aside.
Cool air hits my bare skin for a beat before his mouth returns, this time with nothing between us.
One of my hands stays tangled in his hair while the other roams his shoulders, tracing the long lines and thick muscles. He shouldn’t be making me feel this safe while also making me feel like I’m about to come apart.
We shouldn’t be doing this at all.
I don’t want to stop.
Nothing has ever felt so good.
His hands slide down my sides again, leaving a trail of warmth and electricity. When he reaches the waistband of my leggings, he hooks his thumbs there and looks up at me.
I should stop this. I should stop him. At the very least, I should tell him—
Tell him what? That I’ve never done this all the way? That the only experience I have is clumsy teenage groping and the occasional ill-advised makeout session that never went past second base?
No.
When he looks at me with those intense eyes, my mouth goes dry. All I can see is my own lust and determination reflected back at me.
I give a small nod.
The tacit agreement hums between us like a live wire.
With one hand at the small of my back, he pulls me up just enough to slide the leggings over my ass, taking my panties with them. The fabric drags against my skin, a slow reveal, and then cool air licks at my bare thighs.
He yanks them down and off, over my feet, and sets them aside with more care than I deserve, considering the state of my self-control.
Only then does he let his gaze drop to my core.
“Liar,” he murmurs, smirking as he takes in the evidence that I am not, in fact, a yeti.
Heat flares in my cheeks. “I could’ve grown it back since yesterday,” I say weakly.
He huffs out a rough little laugh and steps closer again, hands sliding up the outsides of my thighs before running over my bare pussy lips, spreading them with his index and ring finger. The touch is gentle and filthy at once, exposing me completely.
I am practically shaking with need as his middle finger slides through my slit, feeling the obvious evidence of just how incredibly turned on he’s made me, and circles my clit.
A jolt of pure pleasure shoots from my core up my spine, making my vision blur for a second.
With his other hand, Bran grabs my hair, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to angle my head. He hauls me into another deep, filthy kiss, his tongue plunging between my lips and taking what it wants as he circles my clit with just the tip of his finger.
My thighs tremble around his hips as more and more pressure builds in my core. I’m not sure whether I’m trying to get closer or get away; either way, I’m not going anywhere.
Bran breaks our kiss and moves to my neck, kissing and biting his way down the column of my throat, then back to my breasts. He lavishes them both with his tongue, laving and sucking at my nipples before kissing his way down my body—sternum, ribs, the soft curve of my stomach.
His finger never stops. It’s a constant, steady rhythm against my clit, never quite enough, always almost.
Then he pulls away entirely and I make a desperate little sound that would embarrass me if I had any dignity left.
He drops to his knees.
The sight alone nearly finishes me.
He replaces his finger with the tip of his tongue, a soft, testing lick that makes my entire body jerk in surprise.
“Bran,” I gasp, hands flying to his shoulders for something to hold onto.
His hands go to my hips, fingers digging in, holding me in place while he does things with his mouth that I had no idea men like him actually did.
Especially men like Bran. A tough guy. The enforcer. The one who’s supposed to be unconcerned with shades of gray or a woman’s pleasure.
He always struck me as the type who would put a woman on her knees to suck him off before fucking her into oblivion. Efficient. Goal-oriented. Little regard for nuance.
Seeing his head bent between my thighs, feeling his mouth on my pussy, licking and sucking with a focus that betrays his utter devotion to my experience…
A feeling like power roars through me, mixed with shocked recognition.
Maybe there’s more to him than I ever guessed.
“Bran, please,” I whine, hips rocking helplessly.
I need more. The feeling building low in my belly is almost unbearable now, tension coiling like a spring wound too tight.
Bran adds a finger to his tongue, sliding it into me and curling it upward against my inner walls with infuriating precision.
“Come for me, Tally,” he demands, voice muffled against my skin.
My body obeys.
It’s like he flipped a switch. The tension snaps, releasing all at once. I can’t stop it even if I wanted to, and I don’t. Pleasure crashes over me in wave after wave, hot and overwhelming. My hands tighten in his hair, my spine arching, a cry ripping free of my throat.
He keeps licking me through it, unrelenting, drawing out every last aftershock until I sag against the cabinets, boneless.
When I finally come back to earth, Bran is standing in front of me again, chest rising and falling, expression smug and something else I can’t name.
He looks…proud. A little wrecked. Very, very pleased with himself.
I make a face at him because I don’t know what else to do. “Not half bad,” I mutter.
His mouth curves slowly. “You’re a menace,” he says.
I reach for the waistband of his jeans, fingers fumbling with the button. “Turnabout is fair play,” I say. “I’m a fast learner, remember?”
His hand closes gently but firmly around my wrist, stopping me.
“Not this time,” he says.
I blink. “You can’t just— That’s not how this works. Reciprocity is a thing.”
His jaw flexes. I glance down—he’s hard, straining against denim, very obviously not unaffected. A flush climbs his chest.
“Trust me, I want to,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “But if I let you put your mouth on me in the middle of this kitchen, we’re not stopping until I’ve fucked you six ways from Sunday, and Kael’s ghost will rise out of the floor to strangle me with his bare hands.”
“He’s not dead,” I say faintly.
“Feels like he might be if we keep this up,” Bran mutters.
I should be offended. I’m not. I’m…weirdly flattered.
“Besides,” he adds, thumb brushing the inside of my wrist. “This one was for you.”
Emotion swells in my chest, inconvenient and hot. I look away, swallowing hard.
“Show-off,” I say.
“Always,” he says.
He leans in and kisses me again, softer this time, tasting of salt and something uniquely me, and for a second the world goes quiet.
Then the timer on the stove beeps, shrill and insistent.
Bran pulls back with a low curse. “Of course,” he says. “Lasagna.”
I stare at him. “You just gave me the best orgasm of my life and now you’re going to pull a Garfield?”
He laughs, the sound rough and disbelieving. “Sit there and don’t move,” he orders, kissing my forehead once for good measure. “You try to get off this counter before your legs work again and you’re going to fall on your ass.”
He turns back to the oven. I watch the play of muscles in his back as he opens it and pretends to care deeply about Italian-American comfort food.
My legs are, in fact, jelly.
My heart is worse.
Because somewhere between the boredom and the argument and the way he dropped to his knees in front of me like it was the most natural place in the world for him to be, a line shifted inside me.
Henry is still out there. We’re still hiding. None of that has changed.
But something between Bran and me has.
And for better or worse, I have a feeling there’s no going back.