Chapter 19
Nadia POV
The cold blue light filtering through the frosted lake-facing windows touched the dark navy cotton of Killian’s bed sheets, but beneath the heavy shelter of his body, the air was a suffocating furnace.
Two hundred and twenty-eight pounds of dense, functional athletic mass rested braced over mine.
His forearms, thick and corded with vascular lines, framed my head on either side of the pillow.
His chest hovered inches above my breasts, radiating a steady, feverish heat that made the sub-zero chill outside the saltbox walls feel like a rumor from another lifetime.
The radiator clicked low and rhythmic in the corner, keeping time with the frantic, deafening thump of my pulse against the base of my throat.
Killian didn't break our gaze.
His dark eyes, black pupils drowning the amber rings, tracked the rapid, uneven rise of my ribs. His jaw was set in that hard, square line, but the cruelty was gone, replaced by a dark, unhurried focus that stripped away the last remaining defense I had ever possessed.
Slowly, his right hand left the mattress.
His broad, calloused fingers caught the bottom hem of my white tank top, the rough pads of his knuckles grazing the sensitive skin over my hip bones.
"Up, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that settled deep in the hollow of my stomach.
My breath hitched in a sharp, shallow gasp. I lifted my hips slightly, lifting my arms above my head, surrendering to the slow, reverent drag of the cotton as he pulled the shirt over my shoulders and tossed it into the shadows at the foot of the bed.
The sub-zero draft skimmed across my bare chest for half a second.
Then Killian lowered his upper body, settling his weight flat against mine.
Skin met skin.
The contact was an overwhelming shock of raw thermal friction.
The heat of his broad chest, scarred and heavily muscled, pressed directly against the soft swell of mine, crushing the breath from my lungs in a ragged, broken whistle.
The dense hair on his pectorals brushed against my sensitized nipples, sending a sharp, sweet ache straight down into my pelvis.
My hands came up on instinct, my palms spreading wide across the massive shelf of his back.
He felt enormous. Indestructible.
Beneath my fingertips, the ridges of his shoulder blades moved with heavy, controlled power, the muscle dense as iron.
I felt the jagged two-inch line across his right collarbone, felt the fever burning in the hollow of his spine, felt the violent, runaway cadence of his heart hammering against his sternum in the exact same frantic rhythm as mine.
"Look at you," he rasped, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch above my cheek. His lips were burning hot, wet with ragged breaths that washed over my jawline. "Look how you fit under me."
"Killian," I breathed, my fingernails digging into the thick muscle of his shoulders, my toes curling into the heavy weave of the sheets.
"Stay with me, Nadia," he commanded, his voice dropping into that dark, gravelly register that made every muscle in my body go soft and heavy. "Don't look away from me."
* * *
He reached down, his large, scarred hands sliding slowly along the length of my arms.
He didn't grab; he threaded his thick, calloused fingers through mine, tangling our hands together until our palms were welded flush. With a slow, deliberate pressure that brooked no resistance, he pressed my hands flat against the dark pillows on either side of my head, pinning me beneath him.
The physical dominance of the posture stole whatever air remained in my chest.
He shifted his hips, his heavy thighs nudging my knees wider, settling his massive frame into the cradle of my parted legs. The rough, unyielding weight of him pressed flush against the soft, burning junction of my thighs, sending a jagged lightning bolt of heat straight up into my throat.
My head arched back into the linen, my eyelids fluttering as a ragged gasp tore from my lips.
"Look at me, Gregory," he rumbled, his thumbs rubbing firm, grounding circles over the backs of my knuckles where our fingers stayed locked.
My eyes dragged open, locking onto his ruined, beautiful face. His silver eyebrow scar gleamed pale in the winter moonlight, his cheekbones flushed with dark, savage heat, his lips parted in a heavy, uneven pant.
He didn't rush. He held my gaze as he pressed forward, slow, heavy, and inexorable.
The initial stretch was a sharp, localized burn that made my hips flinch upward against his, a tiny, involuntary whimper catching behind my teeth. My fingers clenched around his, my knuckles turning white against the pillows.
Killian froze instantly.
Every tendon in his thick neck stood out in sharp relief; a muscle in his jaw locked so hard I could hear the microscopic grind of his back teeth. He stayed motionless, bearing the full brunt of his own raging hunger, his forehead lowering until it pressed hard against mine.
"Breathe, sweetheart," he rasped, his voice rough and thick with a desperate, shaking restraint that vibrated against my mouth. "I've got you. Just breathe for me."
I swallowed the dry heat in my throat, forcing my ribs to expand against his heavy chest. I dragged in a deep, shaking breath filled with the scent of him—crushed cedar needles, salt, and warm iron.
Slowly, the defensive tightness in my pelvis began to yield, melting under the unshakeable furnace of his body heat. The initial sting softened into a heavy, deep, pulsing ache that demanded more.
"Killian," I whispered, my voice breaking on his name, my hips shifting an eighth of an inch forward, seeking him.
A low, guttural sound tore from the base of his throat—a broken, animal growl of pure relief and unchecked possession.
"Good girl," he rumbled, the praise thick, dark, and heavy as molten lead. "That's my girl. Take it for me."
He moved.
The rhythm was slow, unhurried, and devastatingly deep.
With every forward press of his hips, his massive weight sank into me, driving the breath from my lungs, filling the hollows of my body until there was not a single millimeter of separation left between us.
His fingers stayed locked in mine, pinning my hands to the bed, anchoring me to the mattress as the world dissolved into pure, rhythmic friction.
A high, breathless sob escaped my lips. My legs wrapped instinctively around the thick curve of his hips, my heels digging into the backs of his thighs, pulling him deeper, demanding the full, crushing weight of his frame.
Killian groaned, a raw, tormented sound that vibrated straight through my breastbone.
"Nadia," he choked out, his mouth finding mine in the dark.
The kiss was desperate, starved, and deep, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, tasting my breathless cries, drinking in every small, broken noise I made. He moved with a heavy, relentless cadence that shattered the last fragments of my analytical mind.
I wasn't a researcher. I wasn't an academic calculating torque vectors or joint angles.
I was a woman coming apart beneath the hands of the only man who had ever seen through the armor to the soft, ruined heart beneath.
* * *
The heat coiling low in my belly tightened into a violent, unbearable knot.
Every stroke of his hips, every drag of his chest against mine, wound the spring tighter, pulling my nervous system to the absolute edge of an abyss.
My lungs burned with oxygen debt, my skin flushed fever-hot, slick with a fine sheen of sweat that bound our bodies together with every friction-heavy movement.
"Killian... please," I gasped against his mouth, my head thrashing weakly against the dark pillow, my fingers tightening on his until our bones ground together.
Killian broke the kiss, lifting his head. His eyes were wild, black, burning with a lethal, unvarnished hunger as he watched the unraveled, desperate surrender on my face.
"I've got you, Nadia," he rasped, increasing the tempo, his hips driving home with fierce, unyielding precision. "Let it go. Come for me, sweetheart. Good girl... give it to me."
The command snapped the final thread.
The world detonated behind my eyes in a blinding, white-hot burst.
My ribcage locked on a silent, breathless scream as the climax hit my body like a freight train, tearing through my pelvic floor in long, violent, rhythmic contractions that rippled straight up my spine.
My toes curled hard into the sheets, my back arching off the mattress, pressing my chest so hard against his that my heart seemed to beat inside his ribs.
Killian’s jaw dropped, a ragged, strangled roar tearing from his throat as the spasms of my body clamped down around him.
His restraint shattered into dust.
He drove into me with three heavy, desperate thrusts, burying himself to the absolute hilt, his hands releasing mine to wrap like iron bands around my waist. He hauled my hips off the mattress, sealing me flush against his pelvis, his face burying into the crook of my neck as his own release tore through his massive frame.
I felt the violent, shuddering tremors wracking his broad back, felt the hot, rapid surges of his breath scalding the skin beneath my ear, felt the absolute surrender of a man who had finally put down his weapons.
He held me suspended against his chest for three long, agonizingly beautiful seconds, both of us trembling, both of us locked in the aftermath of a ruin we had built together.
Slowly, his weight settled back onto the mattress.
He didn't pull away. He stayed buried deep inside me, his massive arms wrapping around my shoulders, his face remaining pressed into the damp curls at my neck. His chest rose and fell in heavy, shuddering heaves that rattled against my ribs, his heart pounding like a muffled drum.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers burying into the thick dark hair at his nape, holding him close as the sub-zero wind howled harmlessly against the dark glass of the window.
The silence settled over the room, thick with the scent of cedar, salt, and the sweet, heavy aftermath of our bodies.
I closed my eyes, breathing in the heat of his throat, feeling the steady, possessive weight of his body keeping me anchored to the earth.
The mandate was meaningless. The ice was gone.
I belonged to him, body and soul, and there was no power in the world that could ever tear us apart.