Chapter 22
Jordan
I arch up, chasing him, desperate for the way he fills me.
He answers with a sudden withdrawal, leaving me empty for a breathless half-second before he slams back in.
We both cry out as he sets a brutal but flawless rhythm. The sweet, salty air drips with sweat and lust.
He stretches me, each thrust both a promise and a demand. An exquisite ache builds in my core.
Our moans tangle, blocking out the world. I bite my lip, but the feral noises escape anyway.
I’m coming apart under his hands, under his body, every part of me breaking and melting into pure sensation.
He’s crumbling too.
His arms shake. His hips stutter against mine. The headboard thumps against the wall in time with our frantic bodies as we race, side by side, toward oblivion.
All I know is the heat of his skin, the taste of his mouth when he crushes his lips to mine, and the slick press of our bodies, every inch of me branded by him.
Our eyes meet, and I suck in a sharp breath when I find that dark void. That flat, dangerous emptiness he brought into my world the moment he materialized in my apartment and upended my life.
Only now the void shifts, cracking open like ice splintering under a spring thaw. Beneath the danger, I catch glimpses of a wounded man with a soul-deep hunger and spy glimmers of hope shadowed by hints of fear.
My heart stutters. This is why the universe sent him into my life.
Why I chose him.
Why, when the detective offered the allure of freedom, I retreated back into the cage. Not just for the sex, the violence, or the release coiling at the base of my spine.
But for him.
For the truth. For the brutal honesty of what we have.
Kirill doesn’t fake anything.
He doesn’t soften his words or sand down his edges for anyone else’s comfort. He’s brutal and real. Around him, everything else feels like a cheap imitation.
And now, he’s letting me see more. Not with words I doubt he understands, but with his body. With the way he shakes while holding himself over me. The pulse of him inside me, his breath hitching every time I move. The way his hands grip my hips, gifting me bruises I’ll wear for days.
I want him. I crave his touch, his voice.
All of him.
He slows to a deep, grinding rhythm that drags over every nerve ending. I wrap my legs around his waist, desperate to lock him in. He controls the pace, each thrust measured and devastating. He finds every spot inside that sends me gasping, like he’s mapping me and memorizing what breaks me apart.
I dig my nails into his skin. I’m sure I leave welts. “More.”
His eyes narrow as he focuses entirely on my pleasure, as if only that matters.
And that realization only raises the intensity to level ten.
After he shifts my leg higher, his next thrust hits that perfect angle and detonates stars behind my eyelids.
“There. You like it there.”
I whimper my agreement as my nails continue to scrape his back.
Again and again, he keeps hitting that spot, relentlessly pounding me into the mattress. I claw my nails in deeper, intent on marking him more.
To claim him, to remind him he’s not alone in this.
I’m his, and he’s mine.
I force my eyes open because I need to see him.
He’s watching me, the emptiness thawed away and replaced by a wild, molten heat.
He’s inviting me in. For the first time, I see the whole of Kirill, real and alive.
Why he’s dangerous, even broken, in a way nobody else understands.
Deep in my soul, I know nobody has ever seen this. He’s never shown anyone else the raw core of himself.
And I’ve never done this either. Never connected, never been seen or stripped bare or wanted. Not by a lover, a teacher, or anyone else.
This isn’t some cheap but pretty illusion about souls or about New Age enlightenment. This is flesh. Bone. Sweat and blood and truth.
This is everything.
Pressure gathers, drawn taut as a bowstring, each snap of his hips winding me tighter, tighter, until I’m strung out on the edge.
My release shudders through me, trembles in my spine, and steals my breath.
He’s chasing the pleasure too.
He tenses inside me, his rhythm hitching, the muscles of his stomach and thighs pulled taut beneath my hands. His breath rasps against my neck. We’re both so close.
But I want to give him something. I want to mark this moment of him exposing vulnerability I never expected to discover in his shadows.
“Wait.” I brace against his chest, gasping. “Stop.”
He freezes.
Just like that.
Every inch of him locks in place above me, and uncertainty flickers in his eyes. I catch no hint of anger or even annoyance. No, his expression is much more breakable.
Almost like he’s afraid he’s crossed some invisible line and hurt me in ways he can’t take back.
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.
A slow smile, feral and unfamiliar, tugs at my lips. He watches from above, all curiosity, as I twist beneath him, sheets winding with me, silk clinging and slipping against too-hot skin. “My turn.”
I push at his chest until he falls back and reclines on the mattress.
He arches one dark brow. “Your turn?”
“You’ve had enough.” My hands flatten against his chest. “I want to taste you now.”
His eyes widen, the blue deepening to black. He watches me like I’m the only thing in the world, everything about him coiled and absolutely motionless save for the barest flicker of his pulse at his throat.
That heat in his skin radiates up through my hands, then my mouth, as I slide down his body.
Though too masculine and harsh for Hollywood, he’s beautiful in a rugged sort of way. Kirill’s built for violence rather than show. Scars map his torso. Textured stories I know nothing about.
Yet.
My tongue follows the lines of his body, tracing that thin trail of hair downward, memorizing the taste and the shape of him one inch at a time.
When I reach that thick cock still coated in my juices, I don’t give him or myself the chance to hesitate.
I take him into my mouth, the motion certain and deliberate, and relish in the delicious groan I drag from him. Under my palm, the muscles in his thighs jerk. His hands twist in the sheets, his fists going bone-white in his effort not to seize control.
I want to snap his restraint and witness him spiraling into nothing just like I did only a few minutes ago.
I slow down so I can draw out every possible reaction. The twitch when I flutter my tongue just right, the way his breathing hitches when I use steady, tight suction, the deep groan he doesn’t bother hiding… Every sound, every reaction, drives me wild.
I keep him right on the brink before pulling back. Let the tension build almost to breaking, then deny him again.
Each time, the frustration thickens. His hand finds my hair, just resting there in a silent warning. But he doesn’t tug or push.
The third time I back away, his control shatters.
“Jordan.”
The ragged plea robs me of breath. I’ve heard my name in his voice before. A threat, a command, an accusation.
But never with raw, naked need.
The tone alone almost undoes me. I lift my head and meet his eyes.
I want him to see what he’s doing, how close I am to falling apart.
“Again.” The word slips out of me, more order than request.
His eyes sharpen, confusion slicing through him, but I don’t explain. I just take him in, slow and deep, inviting him to feel the ache unraveling inside me, the yearning.
“Jordan?” His tone is questioning.
I moan a response that’s impossible to misunderstand.
The next time my name leaves his mouth, there’s no indecision. “Jordan.”
The force of his voice thunders through me, ripping me apart from the inside. I press my thighs together, desperate for any kind of relief.
I suck him harder, faster. Every time he says my name, I barrel closer to losing control.
Suddenly, his hands clamp down on my arms.
I don’t have time to react.
He lifts me like I’m as light as air. The flex of strength shocks me. A moment later, he flips me onto my back and cages my body with his.
The balance of power has tipped entirely into his hands.
“You like when I say your name?” His rough voice is shredded velvet.
Finding forming words difficult, I nod. My body trembles, every muscle strung tight.
He smiles. Not the calculated, cold tilt of lip I know from before, but a dangerous grin that promises equal parts pleasure and ruin, and I’ll gladly accept both.
“I’m going to call your name while I fuck you into oblivion.” Every syllable sends tremors straight through me. “I want to hear you scream mine back.”
His hands shift, manipulating my body like he’s done so a thousand times. One hand digs into my hip while the other hooks under my knee, opening me wide. I’m totally exposed and powerless to do anything but take what he offers.
He slides into me in one relentless thrust, and I forget how to breathe.
Stars crowd my vision, and the unyielding grip of his hands erases every thought until only sensation remains.
“Jordan.” My name grinds from his throat, again and again, matching the punishing rhythm of his hips. “Jordan. Jordan.”
Every repetition draws me higher, closer to the brink. I’m utterly desperate, grabbing his arms, the sheets, anything to keep from coming apart completely as the pleasure climbs.
I need this, need him, but more than that…I want him.
I want this, over and over, until I can’t remember a time without him inside me.
Until there is only Kirill.
The shark’s caught his prey. And I’m eager to remain clenched in his jaws.
Our breath comes ragged, sweat slicking our skin. The whole world’s reduced to the shattering sound of my name, to the way he drives into me without restraint.
“Kirill!” My voice claws out of me, scraping my throat raw. “Kirill, please—”
He shifts just a fraction, angling deeper until I’m at the edge and staring down at release.
His rhythm stutters as urgency bleeds through and roughens his motions. Still, he chants my name, like a prayer or a curse. Or both.
It’s that litany—the sound of my name breaking loose from his lips—that finally unravels me.
The orgasm hits with no warning or mercy, just a flash-flood that wrecks every thought, every muscle, every last shield.
My body locks up so tightly, I swear my bones will break. I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. There’s only the rush of blood in my skull and the ghost of my name, echoing, echoing, echoing.
The room narrows to a black tunnel, and reality splits apart as euphoria smashes through me.
I register the unmistakable rip of his own release as he goes under with me. The world is muffled and distant, like an underwater signal that’s barely reaching me through the haze.
For a long second, I slip the leash entirely.
Gone. No thoughts. Just aftermath. Just floating.
Then I slam back into myself, my lungs scraping for air, every nerve buzzing. His solid arm across my waist is the only thing keeping me tethered to this planet.
Nothing else in my life compares to this.
I’ve never given in so completely, never been dismantled and remade in one blow. For the first time, someone knows me so fully, it’s nearly violent.
I’ve given him a weapon, a lever he can pull under my skin. My name in his mouth is a code that unlocks doors I never realized existed.
I should flee in terror.
Instead, I twist toward him, hungry for more, craving this magnetic connection. Even if he undoes me.