24. Karla
KARLA
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Brayden asked me for the third time.
His voice wasn’t teasing anymore. There was that low, worried rumble in it—raw, protective, almost reverent—and it hit a part of me I didn’t know still functioned after James.
I grabbed his belt and started fumbling with the buckle before my nerves talked me out of it. “I have wanted this since the first time you got me into this bed.”
That earned me the flicker of a grin—soft around the edges, like he was battling his own anticipation. He pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it somewhere behind him.
“How do you want it, baby?” he growled against my ear, then let his teeth sink gently into my neck.
My breath hitched—sharp, involuntary, my body reacting before my mind could.
He pulled back immediately. “Too much?”
I reached for him, pulling him right back into my space. “No. Just… not used to someone biting me.”
His hand cupped my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek like he needed me to feel how gentle he could be. Then his mouth found mine, soft and slow, until the kiss melted into something deeper—something I’d forgotten existed.
It had been so long that I swear Madonna should have cued up somewhere in the room. Like a Virgin playing ironically in the background as a soundtrack to my long-overdue sex life.
He kept kissing me while his fingers worked at the clasp of my bra, sliding it away before he eased me back on the bed. I felt stripped in more ways than one—exposed, vulnerable, seen—but not afraid. Never afraid with him.
By the time my jeans hit the floor, I was in nothing but my black lace thong. And he—God—stood at the edge of the bed, chest rising and falling, eyes devouring me. He pushed his jeans down, then his shirt, until he was in boxers, every inch of him sculpted and warm and so very masculine.
“How long has it been, Karla?” he asked, voice dropping into that husky bedroom range that made my toes curl.
I bit my lip. “Too long.”
His expression softened with something like understanding. “Was he the last one?”
James. Of course that’s who he meant. And it was sad that yes, the only person I’d been intimate with in more than two years was the one who broke me. My orgasms since then had all been battery-operated and depressingly predictable.
I nodded.
Brayden knelt on the bed in front of me, the mattress dipping under his weight. He cupped my hips and pulled me closer until our knees touched and our faces were only inches apart.
“I’m going to give you something I’ve never given any woman,” he murmured.
My brows furrowed. “What’s that?”
He kissed me once—soft, slow, grounding—before whispering, “My submission.”
I blinked at him, confused.
He read it instantly. “I’m a very dominant lover, Karla. I’m usually rough and vulgar and pull pleasure out of my partner by pushing their limits first. But tonight? You’re in complete control. You decide everything. You can tell me what you want and how you want it. I’ll follow your lead.”
His honesty hit me harder than anything physical ever could. There was no expectation, no pressure, no performing—just a man laying down his weapons, saying I mattered enough for him to do it differently.
I slid my palms over his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the hard lines of muscle. My fingers followed the swallow tattoo over his heart—the one he’d gotten for his mom after she passed. It was delicate in contrast to everything else about him.
“What if,” I whispered, “I just want you to make love to me? Gentle and sweet.”
His eyes softened, his smile small but genuine. “Your wish is my command.”
He eased me onto my back, moving slowly, like he was memorizing the moment. My lace underwear slid away with a soft brush of his fingers. His lips traveled from my mouth to my jaw, down my neck, over my collarbone—each kiss a promise of gentleness he wasn’t known for.
Without stopping, he reached toward the nightstand and opened the top drawer.
“Wait,” I said, shifting. “Don’t use a condom.”
His head lifted sharply. His gaze locked onto mine, searching, serious. “Are you certain?”
I leaned up and kissed him softly. “I want to really feel you. I’m on the pill. I trust you.”
He closed the drawer without breaking eye contact. Trust hung between us like something sacred.
He lowered his mouth to my chest, kissing slowly, tasting my skin. “May I go down on you?” he asked, voice low as he sucked gently on my nipple.
“Yes,” I breathed. And when his mouth moved downward, dragging heat through me with every kiss, I felt something inside my chest crack open—all that old fear, all the ways my body used to shut down—they all faded under the warmth of him.
When his tongue first touched my clit, pleasure shot through me so sharply I cried out, “Holy fuck!”
“That good?” he murmured, laughing slightly against my skin.
“Don’t stop,” I moaned, arching my hips to him, the world narrowing to his mouth, his hands, the gentle control he’d given me.
My body shook, building fast.
Then Brayden pulled away.
“You’re going to have to save that orgasm for my dick, babe.” He kissed the inside of my thigh slowly, reverently. “I really want to feel all of it.”
Heat flushed through me—want, need, disbelief that someone like him wanted me like this.
He moved over me, bracing his weight with one hand as the head of his cock rubbed softly over my clit, sending sparks through me.
Then he slid into me—slow, deep, filling every inch of me until I gasped.
The stretch, the heat, the way he fit—it was overwhelming in the best possible way.
“Fuck,” Brayden groaned in my ear. “You’re so damn tight.”
He rocked into me slowly, every movement sweet and careful, nothing like the rough, impulsive image he projected to the world. He kissed me between thrusts, held my face in his hands, watched me like he was making sure every second felt good.
He read my body like he’d studied it.
He moved like he wanted to worship it.
And this—this wasn’t fucking. This wasn’t performance or power. This was connection.
My breath hitched as our bodies found the same rhythm. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the tremble in his muscles, the tension building.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I did.
And when we came—together, tangled, shaking—it wasn’t just release. It was relief. Hope. Something new breaking open in the spaces where old pain used to live.
When he collapsed against me, holding me close, his breath hot against my neck, my heart recognized something before my brain did.
Right then, wrapped in his arms, I fell in love. Completely. Quietly. Unstoppably.
And I knew—I was going to be Brayden Cox’s for the rest of my life.