Chapter 8 #2
Instead, I stand there with my wrist in his hand, breathing too fast, every nerve in my body already tuned to him. Because the truth is I did call Talia to ask who he was, but I already knew the answer that mattered. Dangerous. Powerful. The kind of man you do not survive cleanly.
And still, some ruined part of me aches for him in ways I don’t understand.
Not sensibly. Not well. Not for any reason I could defend. But there it is, raw and humiliating and impossible to deny, living beside fear and anger and desire like they were made to share a home.
“We should stay away from each other,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you?”
His hand slides from my wrist to my jaw.
Of all the things he could say, all the smooth or brutal or clever answers I half expect from him, the truth in his face is what undoes me first.
“Because I can’t,” he says.
Then he kisses me.
Hard.
Not rushed. Not careless. Just with the full weight of a man who has decided not to hold himself back any longer.
I make a sound into his mouth, half protest, half surrender. He takes it all the same, one hand at my jaw, the other coming around my waist to pull me closer. I push once at his chest because I need the motion, need to feel I tried, but there’s no conviction in it, and he knows it.
He knows me too well for a man who should barely know me at all.
My resistance breaks almost at once. I hate that too.
I hate the way my body melts into his like it was waiting for him.
The way my mouth opens for him. The way my hands clutch at his shirt instead of shoving him away.
I hate how familiar he feels. How right.
How the whole world narrows down to his mouth and his hands and the rough sound he makes when I kiss him back like I mean it.
Because I do mean it.
God help me, I do.
He backs me toward the wall in two slow steps, his body close, his mouth leaving mine only to drag along my jaw, my throat, the sensitive skin below my ear. Every touch feels like a match to something already burning.
“Sienna,” he says against my neck.
The way he says my name almost makes my knees give out.
I tangle my fingers in his hair and pull him back to my mouth. He kisses me deeper for it, one hand spreading over my side, then lower, over the soft curve of my waist, like he can’t stop touching me now that he has started.
“I should hate you,” I murmur.
He lifts his head just enough to look at me. “Do you?”
“No.”
The answer is barely sound.
Something dark and hungry moves across his face. “Good.”
Then he drops to his knees.
I gasp. “Viktor—”
He looks up at me once, his expression already set in that terrible, focused way that means I’m about to lose any remaining grip on myself.
“Lift your skirt.”
I stare at him. The command should offend me. It should shock me. Instead, it goes through me like heat.
He waits.
Hands shaking, I gather the fabric up.
His eyes darken, and he slides one hand up my calf, then my knee, then farther, slow enough to make me ache before he has even touched where I need him.
I’m already wet. Desperate, really. My whole body has been on edge since I opened the door to Ethan, since Viktor stepped in, since the breakfast shattered, since I heard the word mafia in Talia’s voice and turned to find him standing there.
When his palm finally settles high between my thighs, I bite back a cry.
“So wet,” he says, like it pleases him. “For a man you should stay away from.”
I let my head fall back against the wall.
He kisses the inside of my thigh once, then again, and the simple tenderness of it is somehow worse than hunger would be. Then his mouth finds me.
I break, but not all at once. In waves. My fingers lock in his hair. My knees tremble. He licks me slowly first, like he’s learning me all over again, and then with more purpose, more pressure, until my breath turns ragged and I stop being able to think in full sentences.
“Please,” I whisper.
He hums against me, the vibration dragging a helpless sound out of my throat.
One arm wraps around my thigh and holds me open for him.
I feel utterly possessed by the care of it, by the certainty in the way he touches me, like my body is not a problem to solve but a place he already knows how to worship.
The room falls away. The wedding, the ambulance, Ethan, the lies, all of it.
There is only his mouth and the wall at my back and the fact that I’m trembling so hard I can barely stay upright.
He slides two fingers over me, teasing, not entering, just gathering more wetness, making me feel exactly how far gone I am for him. Then his tongue circles my clit and I cry out before I can stop myself.
“That’s it,” he says softly. “Give it to me.”
I do.
The orgasm comes fast and fierce, tearing through me so hard my legs nearly fold. I come with both hands in his hair and his name in my mouth, hips shaking, body wide open and helpless under the steady, devastating work of his mouth.
He doesn’t stop until I’m oversensitive and gasping. When he finally rises, he kisses me once more, tasting me on his own mouth, and for a second I let myself sink into him completely.
Then the room comes back, along with the horror of what happened.
I’m still shaking when it hits me. I just came. Hard. In a side room at my ex’s wedding weekend while his father was on his knees in front of me.
My knees feel weak. My skin is too hot. My skirt is still bunched in my fists. For a second I can only stand there against the wall, breathing like I’ve run a mile, staring at him in stunned silence as he rises to his feet.
He looks at me once, then drags his thumb over his mouth and licks the taste of me from it. The sight nearly knocks the air out of me all over again.
This man is impossible.
This man is dangerous.
This man is going to ruin me.
“This can’t happen,” I say, and my voice comes out broken enough to embarrass me. I try again. “We can’t do this.”
He doesn’t move back. He stands close, one hand braced beside my head, his face calm in that infuriating way it always is when mine is falling apart.
“I’m pregnant,” I say.
The words come out like they should stop him. Like they should end this. Reset the room. Restore some kind of order to the morning.
Instead, he glances down once, briefly, then back up at me. “I can see that.”
My breath catches.
What is wrong with this man? Why is he so calm? So steady? Why does everything about him feel even more dangerous when he lowers his voice instead of raising it?
I let go of my skirt and drag it down with clumsy hands. “No, I mean it. I’m pregnant. You can’t just…” I shake my head, still breathless, still trying to find the floor under me. “You can’t do that and act like none of this means anything.”
His eyes stay on my face. “I am not acting like it means nothing.”
That should help. It doesn’t. Because there’s something in his tone now that reaches much deeper than lust, and I don’t know what to do with that.
Lust I understand. Lust is simple. Lust is what happened on the plane.
Lust is what just happened with his mouth between my legs while the house on the other side of the door went on pretending to be civilized.
This feels like the opposite of simple.
I press my back harder against the wall as if it might steady me.
“Then stop looking at me like that,” I whisper.
“Like what?”
“Like—” I break off because I don’t even have words for it. Like he already owns some part of me. Like he’s trying to read me through skin. Like he knows I’m lying and is waiting for me to run out of places to hide.
My breath hitches. His face changes just a little at the sound.
Then he says, very quietly, “I’ll ask you again.”
I look at him.
He holds my gaze without flinching. “Who’s the father, Sienna?”