Chapter 15
chapter
fifteen
The shift in Luka was tiny—a blink, a breath—but it cracked through him like a fault line. His shoulders, always squared to the world like he expected everything to be a fight, dropped. Barely, but enough that I noticed.
He searched my face—no hunger, no edge. Just lost for a second. Something soft—unguarded and wretched—broke across his features, and for the first time, I saw the man beneath the armor, trembling and starved.
If I’d slapped him, he would have known what to do.
But I’d gone and said the thing: I’ve got you.
I should have been afraid of the way he looked at me—like I’d shifted something fundamental in him. Instead, I felt myself cracking open right back.
He lifted a hand to my cheek, his touch careful where it was usually rough—no pressure, no claim. Just his palm, warm and steady, like he needed to know I was real. His thumb feathered across my jaw, skimming the ridge of bone, then the edge of my mouth.
He kissed me. Soft, at first, barely a landing. Then again, deeper, the faint tremor in his mouth passing into mine. I opened for him, breathing him in until the shared air felt like it belonged to both of us.
The sheets rasped under my thigh as I shifted closer. Luka brushed my hair aside and tucked it behind my ear with an awkwardness that might have been gentle if he’d ever practiced the motion before.
He slid his hand under my T-shirt, slow and careful. Rough heat skimmed my ribs, his knuckles grazing each breath I pulled in. When he cupped my breast, I felt the shudder in his palm.
He drew back long enough to lift the shirt over my head and tossed it aside, then bent to my neck, breathing me in. He moved down in an unbroken line, trailing kisses down my neck, along my collarbone, down my sternum.
Each press of his lips was a question:
Do you want this? Do you want me?
His hand settled across my sternum, warm and shockingly light.
He traced circles around my nipple, feathering in until it tightened, then closed his hand and squeezed—firm, complete.
He lowered his mouth to my breast and drew the nipple in.
His tongue flicked once before he sealed his lips and pulled—at first gentle, then greedy.
The sensation arrowed straight through my chest, nerves sparking along the underside of my skin.
A moan ripped out of me, flaring up my spine until I shivered under him.
He kneaded my other breast, his thumb rolling the nipple until it ached. The pressure was perfect. Not urgent, not a means to an end, just pure want—his, mine, it didn’t matter. His lips and tongue and hands moved in sync, rolling and teasing, the heat of his breath pooling against my skin.
Luka’s thigh was already between mine.
The pressure built, steady and insistent, until the ache turned sharp enough to make my hips shift toward him.
I needed more. God, I needed him closer.
I shifted, grinding against the muscle of his thigh, desperate for friction. His bare skin glided against mine, and I felt the solid length of him, already hard, already wanting.
He groaned into my breast, the sound vibrating through my ribs, his body shuddering like he didn’t know how to accept what I was giving him. He moved lower, his mouth tracing down my ribs, across the small hollow of my belly.
Luka could manhandle me, yes—rail me to the breaking point. But this—slow, tender, almost worshipful—fractured me.
I opened my thighs, invitation and plea.
Luka moved between them without hurry, his jaw brushing the line from hip to thigh with an unguarded focus that made my pulse jump.
The look in his eyes was terrifying in its candor—no mask, no walls.
I let him see me, let my body open for him, without holding anything back.
His breath hovered, hot and damp on my skin.
I didn’t dare look away from his gaze as he pressed a kiss to the apex of my thigh, tongue flattening over the throb of my pulse there.
Another kiss, closer, heat burning through me.
And then finally his mouth was on me, hot and unfiltered, licking a long, unbroken stripe right up the center.
I jerked, a full-body shudder, every muscle tensing as the sensation hit. Luka latched on, tongue circling my clit in slow, relentless strokes, suction building until the entire world funneled down to that single, wet point of contact.
He didn’t speak. No commands, no rough praise. Just a hum of hunger vibrating from his chest, lips locked like he needed to breathe through me.
He took his time, working me open until my thighs trembled around his jaw.
I pressed my fist to my mouth to keep from crying out, heat searing up my spine as he held me right at the edge.
I clamped my other hand to the back of his head, fingers digging into the soft burr of his close-cropped dark hair, holding him tight, desperate for more.
He obliged, flattening his tongue and swiping from slick opening to aching clit, again and again, until the pressure mounted past ache, past pain, past thought.
I bucked against him.
He didn’t pull away or slow, just pressed his mouth flatter, harder, and let me chase the friction until the tension broke.
Pleasure hit hard enough to erase every other sense. My hips snapped up, and Luka anchored me with his hands on my thighs, holding me open, devouring every spasm.
Before I could catch my breath, he was moving up my body, kissing a path from navel to sternum. Each glancing touch felt as electric as the first. He braced himself on his forearms, his heat and weight heavy over me, and searched my face—for fear, hesitation, regret maybe.
I nodded.
The relief that flashed across his face was quick, almost painful to see.
He reached for the nightstand, fingers closing around a foil packet.
A soft tear, a quiet shift of his hand. Then he positioned himself and pushed inside me, slow and deliberate, the stretch a perfect agony that stole the breath from my lungs.
Inch by inch, he filled me, careful not to rush—letting me pulse open around him, letting my body relearn the shape of his, holding me in that impossible fullness, his gaze never leaving mine.
He stopped. Just held there, buried deep, his chest shuddering against mine.
A sound escaped me—half sob, half moan. He flinched, like the noise might cut him.
That’s when I realized that Luka was afraid—of the feeling, the wanting, or maybe of what it might do to us both if we let it out in the open air. But he didn’t look away. His gaze stayed locked on mine, steady and exposed, and something in my chest tightened for him.
He began to move. Not the usual brutal drive, but a slow, deliberate roll of his hips—a rhythm that felt more like dancing than fucking.
Each forward glide filled me. Each retreat left me aching.
The movement deepened, the pressure building where our bodies met, friction turning sharp and insistent.
His mouth landed on mine, open and starving, tongue sliding deep as he drove into me.
The kiss and the sex blurred together—the same urgency, the same hunger, the same dangerous feeling of being seen all the way through.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and locked my ankles at the base of his spine, drawing him deeper. The angle shifted, and a bolt of pleasure spiked through me.
Luka groaned, the sound shredded and unguarded. He pressed forward harder, grinding between each stroke, and my body answered without restraint.
He was losing himself. I could feel it—the way his control bled out, the way his hands shifted from careful to desperate, fingers digging into my hips, mouth crushing mine. I raked my nails down his back and felt the shiver ripple through him.
He was close—fighting to keep it together, to keep me on the edge with him.
But I was already there. I lifted my hips to meet him, the pressure building, higher and higher, until it broke. I braced my hands on his shoulders, nails digging half-moons into his skin, as the orgasm tore through me, ragged and hot and overwhelming.
Luka’s grip on my hips went vise-tight. He growled—a guttural, animal noise that vibrated through my whole body—as he drove into me, once, deep and final. I felt the exact moment he let go—the long, shuddering surrender.
I clung to him—legs, arms, everything—holding him there as the tremors worked through us both.
I pulled his head down and pressed my lips to his temple, his cheek, his lips—anything I could reach.
“Luka,” I whispered, my voice unsteady.
He shuddered against me, breath breaking low in his throat. Then he spoke—one word, the syllables rolling off his tongue like music.
“Alexandra.”