36. Sloane #2
Then he closes his mouth over my nipple and sucks until my head tips back against the bed.
Pleasure blooms hot and deep, so intense it feels almost unfair.
His tongue works slowly, circling, flicking, soothing after every pull, and his hand kneads the fullness of my other breast with enough care to make my eyes sting.
I’m not used to being treated like this.
Not by him. Not by anyone. As if I’m desirable and fragile at once.
As if wanting me doesn’t make him forget that I’m carrying his child.
My breathing turns uneven. His free hand slides from my stomach to my thigh, stopping there. Waiting.
I look down at him. “Vadim.”
“Tell me.”
The words come out quieter than I mean them to. “I need you to touch me.”
His jaw tightens. For a moment, he closes his eyes like he’s praying for restraint he doesn’t actually believe in.
Then his fingers move under the hem of my dress. He pushes the soft fabric up inch by inch, his knuckles brushing the inside of my knee, then higher, over skin that feels too warm, too sensitive, too ready. When he reaches the edge of my underwear, he stops.
“Here?” he asks.
I nod.
“No.” His voice is rough. “Words.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “There.”
His fingers slip beneath the fabric.
The first touch makes me jolt. I’m already wet, embarrassingly so, and Vadim’s breath leaves him in a hard, quiet sound when he feels it. His hand stills for a second against me, as if he needs to master himself before he can master me.
“Sloane,” he says, and my name sounds wrecked in his mouth.
“Don’t tease me.”
His eyes lift. “I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“You’re not.”
“I could.”
The words are quiet, but there’s something beneath them that makes my chest tighten. The old fear in him. The old belief that everything he wants is dangerous because his hands have done too much damage in the world.
I touch his face. “You won’t.”
That does something to him.
His fingers move. Slowly at first, stroking through the slick heat of me, parting me with a care that makes my thighs tremble.
He finds the place that aches most and circles it with the pad of his finger, soft, steady, maddening.
My breath catches. My hand drops from his face to his shoulder, gripping hard.
He watches me while he touches me. Watches my mouth part, watches my lashes flutter, watches the way I struggle to stay quiet because we’re in a hospital suite and there are men outside the door who would die before admitting they hear anything. The thought should embarrass me enough to stop.
It doesn’t. It makes everything hotter.
Vadim’s mouth returns to my breast, and I nearly lose the last of my control.
He sucks my nipple while his fingers stroke between my legs, and the combination is unbearable.
My body is too sensitive now, too full of hormones and heat and months of wanting him while being furious with him.
Every gentle pull of his mouth sends pleasure straight down to his hand.
Every slow circle of his fingers makes my hips lift helplessly, even with my belly heavy between us.
“Careful,” he murmurs against my skin, though he is the reason I’m moving at all.
“I’m trying.”
“No.” His mouth brushes my nipple as he speaks. “Let me.”
Then he shifts his hand, angling his wrist so I don’t have to move, so I don’t have to chase anything. He gives it to me.
I close my eyes. He stops.
My eyes fly open. “Vadim.”
“Look at me.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Yes.”
I would laugh if I had enough air.
His fingers move again, and the laugh turns into a broken little sound I trap behind my teeth. His mouth lowers to my breast once more, and this time when he sucks, there’s the slightest scrape of teeth, so soft it’s barely there, but my body reacts as if he has set fire to my blood.
“Oh God.”
His hand on my thigh tightens. “Quiet, moya devochka.”
The Russian slips out of him like a possession, like a secret.
I come apart.
It’s deep and rolling and almost too tender, pleasure spreading through me in waves that make my stomach tighten and my thighs shake around his hand.
I clutch at his shoulder, then his hair, then the couch beneath me because I don’t know where to put all of it.
Vadim keeps his mouth on my breast and his fingers between my legs, gentling me through it, slowing only when I start to tremble too hard.
When it finally passes, I slump back against the couch, breathless and stunned.
He withdraws his hand carefully and fixes my underwear first, then draws my dress back down over my thighs. Only after that does he ease my bra into place, covering my breasts with a restraint so meticulous it almost makes me blush more than being exposed did.
I stare at him.
He wipes his fingers with a handkerchief from his pocket like a man who has just handled something sacred and dangerous at once.
“You carry handkerchiefs?”
His mouth twitches. “You have complaints?”
“I have questions.”
“You always have questions.”
“You like that too.”
His eyes lift to mine. The softness vanishes slowly, not because he becomes cold, but because the moment becomes too honest.
“Yes,” he says. “I do.”
My heart turns over.
I hate it.
I hate how easily tenderness becomes a trap with him.
How quickly my body forgives what my mind is still trying to survive.
How one gentle touch can make me forget every locked door, every guarded hallway, every truth he has withheld because he thinks keeping me safe matters more than letting me choose.
The room feels too small suddenly.
His hand comes back to my stomach, his palm settling over our daughter again. I know he means to comfort me. I know he does. But I look at his hand and all I can think is that he touches us like we belong to him.
Maybe we do.
Maybe that’s exactly why I need to move.
“I need some air,” I say.
His gaze sharpens immediately. “I’ll call someone.”
“No.” I sit up a little straighter, adjusting my dress with hands that are not as steady as I want them to be. “I need a few minutes alone.”
His expression closes by degrees.
“Sloane,” he says, softly, “I know you’re upset.”
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“With me.”
I look at him then. Really look. At the silver hair, the tired eyes, the beautiful brutal face of the man I love more than is sensible.
The man who can be so gentle with my body and so ruthless with my life.
The man who has learned how to touch me without hurting me but still has not learned how to let me breathe.
“Yes,” I whisper. “With you.”
He absorbs that without flinching, but something in his eyes changes.
“I will walk with you.”
“No.”
“The guard will walk with you.”
“I said alone.”
“You are seven months pregnant.”
“I know how pregnant I am, Vadim.”
“And I know what waits outside rooms when I’m careless.”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then I push myself up from the bed, slower than I want to, one hand braced on the mattress and the other under my belly. Vadim rises instantly, reaching for me, and I lift my hand before he can touch me.
He stops.
That tiny obedience almost breaks my heart.
“I’m not running,” I say, though it feels like a lie. “I’m walking down a hallway.”
His eyes hold mine. “You never only walk away,” he says quietly.
My throat tightens.
Maybe that’s the most honest thing either of us has said all night.
I reach for my phone from the small side table and slip it into my pocket. “Then maybe you should ask yourself why I keep needing to.”
He says nothing.
I turn before he can.
Because if I keep looking at him, if I let myself see the hurt he’s trying not to show, I will sit back down. I will let him put his hand on my stomach again. I will let him kiss my breast and my mouth and all the places where I’m weak for him, and I will pretend tenderness is the same as trust.
The guard outside straightens when I open the door. “Miss Mercer.”
“I’m walking,” I say.
His gaze flicks past my shoulder, toward Vadim.
For one long second, no one moves.
Then Vadim’s voice comes from behind me, quiet and controlled enough to make the air feel colder. “Let her.”
The guard’s hesitation is almost comic. Poor man. Caught between a pregnant woman who looks ready to commit a small crime and a Pakhan who sounds like he’s already considering a large one.
Finally, he steps aside.
I walk out before Vadim can change his mind.
The corridor is too bright after the dimness of the private room.
It’s quiet. The kind of hospital quiet that makes every sound feel disrespectful: the soft squeak of my shoes, the low murmur of nurses at the station, the distant beep of some machine behind a closed door.
I move slower than I want to, one hand under my stomach because walking at seven months pregnant has become less movement and more negotiation.
My body is still warm from him. My breasts still ache from his mouth.
My thighs still feel unsteady from his hand.
My lips still remember his restraint, the way he kissed me like he was afraid of hurting me and desperate enough to do it anyway.
Every step I take feels like I’m walking away from the softest version of him, and I hate that the softest version of him may be the most dangerous one.
Because it makes me want to forget.
The elevator is at the end of the hallway.
I press the button and wait with my back straight, even though my lower back aches and my stomach feels too heavy and the baby shifts under my ribs as if she doesn’t approve of any of this.
The guard remains by the room. I can feel him watching me.
I can also feel Vadim behind that closed door, like a storm contained by glass.
The elevator arrives with a soft chime.
I step inside. For one second, I expect a hand to slide between the doors before they close. Vadim’s hand. His voice. His impossible command.
Nothing comes.
The doors shut.
My breath leaves me too quickly, and I press my palm to the cool metal wall. “Just air,” I whisper to myself. “That’s all.”