Chapter Four #5
Her fingers wrapped around me carefully, not nearly tight enough, and I nearly embarrassed myself anyway.
I closed my eyes.
She noticed. Of course she did.
“Like this?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You look like you’re in pain.”
“I’m trying to remain a gentleman.”
“Is that what this is?”
“This is the closest I get.”
Her thumb moved over the head of my cock, spreading wetness there, and my hips jerked once before I caught myself.
Nadia’s eyes darkened.
My breath shortened. My grip caught in the bedding instead of on her wrist, and she saw exactly what her hand could do to me.
Good.
Let her feel it.
Let her know I wasn’t the only dangerous thing here.
She stroked me again, firmer, watching my face while she learned what her touch did. I let her. I let her see my jaw tighten, my breathing roughen, my hand grip the bedding instead of her.
“You want to be careful with me,” she said.
“Yes.”
Her hand moved again. “But you don’t feel careful.”
“No.”
“What do you feel?”
“Close to losing my mind.”
Her grip tightened.
I caught her wrist gently.
She froze.
I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed her palm. “If you keep touching me, I will come in your hand, and I want my first time with you to end inside you.”
Her breath caught at that.
I waited.
I had put the want on the bed between us. Ugly or beautiful, it was hers to answer.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“Some. I’ll go slowly.”
“I don’t want slowly the whole time.”
My control frayed another inch.
“No?”
Her chin lifted. “I don’t want to feel like glass.”
“You’re not glass.”
“Then don’t treat me like I am.”
I moved over her.
She lay back as I came down, thighs parting to make room for me. I braced my weight on one forearm and guided myself with the other hand. The head of my cock pressed against her wet entrance.
Nadia went still.
I kissed her. “Look at me.”
She did.
“This is still your choice.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
Her fingers dug into my shoulders. “I want you inside me.”
I pushed in an inch.
Her breath stopped.
I stopped with it.
Her nails bit into my skin. Her eyes squeezed shut, and I kissed her cheek, her temple, the corner of her mouth.
“Breathe, Nadia.”
“I am.”
“You’re lying.”
She gave a shaky laugh that turned into a gasp when I eased in another fraction.
“Telling jokes right now is rude,” she said.
“I wasn’t joking.”
“Then you’re worse than I thought.”
“I warned you.”
Her body softened around me by tiny degrees. Wet heat gripped me so tightly I had to hold still and keep my attention on her breath, her hands, and the fact that she’d said yes.
I pushed deeper.
Her mouth opened. No sound came.
“Pain?” I asked.
“A little.”
I stopped.
Her eyes opened, angry again. “I didn’t say stop.”
“You said pain.”
“I said a little. Don’t make me feel like I failed something.”
That nearly killed me.
I lowered my forehead to hers. “You could never fail this.”
Her grip changed on my shoulders.
“I hate how you say things,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t.”
She bit my lower lip.
A harsh sound tore out of me.
Her eyes flared.
I thrust the last inch home.
Nadia cried out, both arms locking around my neck. I held still, buried fully inside her, my cock surrounded by the tight, wet pulse of her virgin body taking me for the first time.
Mine roared through me again.
This time, I let some of it reach my mouth.
“My wife,” I said against her cheek. “My brave, furious Nadia. You feel what you do to me?”
Her breath broke. “Vadim.”
“No man in that room gets this. No man who bid. No man who looked. No one who thought money could make you soften for him.” I drew back slowly, then pushed in again, careful enough to feel her stretch, hard enough to make her nails score my back.
“This is yours. You give it. I take it because you want me to.”
Her legs wrapped around my hips.
I lost another piece of myself.
The rhythm built slowly because she needed it, then deeper because she asked for it with her heels, her hands, her mouth opening against my throat. I watched every change in her face. The first flinch fading. The shock giving way. The heat rising.
When her body began to meet mine, I put my hand between us and found her clit.
She gasped. “Again?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I hate that you know.”
I kissed her hard enough to swallow the next sound. “Then prove me wrong.”
Her laugh broke into a moan.
I fucked her deeper.
The word fit now. Not the auction’s clean lies. No contract language. No settlement. This was sweat and breath and her nails in my skin, her pussy taking me wetter with every thrust, her voice saying my name like accusation and need had become the same thing.
I kept my fingers on her clit.
Her body tightened around me.
“That’s it,” I said. “Take what you need from me.”
Her eyes opened.
I felt the moment she heard the difference.
Nadia held my face in both hands and kissed me like she was angry enough to survive wanting me.
Then she came again.
Her pussy clenched around my cock, and I had to stop moving or finish too soon. She shook under me, crying out into my mouth, her heels digging into my back as pleasure took her hard enough to pull tears from the corners of her eyes.
I kissed them away before I could think better of it.
She was still pulsing when I began to move again.
This time, I didn’t stay gentle.
She didn’t want glass. I would not give her glass.
I drove into her with controlled, deep thrusts that pushed her up the bed. Her breasts moved against my chest. Her hair spread over the pillow. Her mouth stayed open, sounds spilling out of her with no auction room to hear, no men watching, no price attached.
Only me.
Only her.
Only the first moment of the Sorin future I wanted with a woman who had chosen me while she was still angry.
“I’m going to fill you,” I said, voice rough. “Because you chose me. Because I want my son made in your body, not as a debt and not as a price. As my wife. My family. My future.”
Her eyes locked on mine.
She slid one hand down my chest, over my stomach, to where our bodies joined. Not shy now. Wondering. Claiming her own proof.
“I know what it means,” she whispered.
I kissed her, and the last of my restraint went.
The bed struck the wall once. I caught the headboard with one hand and changed the angle, pushing deeper, watching her face as she took me. She moaned, and I felt her begin to tighten again, too sensitive, too much, exactly where I wanted her.
“One more,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“You can give me one more.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes.”
She came apart on a sobbed breath, body arching under mine, and I followed her over.
I buried myself deep and came inside her.
My hips locked against hers. Heat poured through me, every pulse dragging a rough sound from my chest. I held her there, filled her there, my face in her hair and my hand under her hip as if my body alone could keep the city away from her.
For several breaths, neither of us moved.
Then Nadia’s fingers stroked once over the back of my neck.
Small.
Uncertain.
Enough to undo me.
I lifted my head.
Her eyes were half-closed. Her cheeks were flushed, mouth swollen, lashes damp. She looked wrecked and alive and not one inch owned by the men who had tried to sell her.
I eased my weight off her without leaving her too fast.
She winced when I slipped out.
I saw it and went still. “Hurt?”
“A little.” Her voice was softer now. “Not badly.”
I kissed her shoulder. “Stay there.”
She made a face. “Bossy after all.”
“I’m going to get water and a warm cloth. You may object from the bed.”
“I object.”
“Noted.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t count as listening.”
I smiled before I could stop myself. “No. It counts as being warned.”
I went to the bathroom, wet a cloth with warm water, and brought it back with a glass from the carafe beside the bed. Nadia had pulled the sheet to her breasts. She watched me approach like she might still throw a lamp if I became the wrong man.
Good.
I sat beside her and held out the water.
She took it, drank, then gave it back.
When I reached for the sheet, her hand closed over mine.
“I can do it.”
“Yes,” I said, and gave her the cloth.
She looked surprised again.
I turned my back and stood.
Behind me, fabric shifted. Water moved softly. Her breath caught once.
I gripped the footboard and stayed where I was until she said, “All right.”
When I turned, she had the sheet around her again, chin lifted as if daring me to pity her.
I didn’t pity Nadia Yelchin.
I wanted stone walls around her and a weapon in her hand.
I took a clean shirt from the drawer and gave it to her. “This may be easier than the sweater.”
She took it.
I turned again while she put it on.
“You keep doing that,” she said.
“What?”
“Turning around.”
“You have had enough men look tonight.”
The room went quiet.
When I faced her again, she wore my white shirt with the sleeves rolled badly and the hem down to her thighs. The sight of it struck somewhere lower than lust.
I wanted that shirt on the floor beside her clothes for the rest of my life.
She sat against the pillows while I pulled on dark trousers and left my shirt off. I brought the tray from the living room myself: soup, bread, tea gone cooler but still drinkable, and fruit.
Nadia looked at the tray. “You’re serious.”
“You need food.”
“I just had sex for the first time after being kidnapped from an auction, and you brought soup.”
“Yes.”
She laughed, small and cracked.
I held the bowl out. “I’ll accept criticism after three bites.”
“You negotiate like a criminal.”
“I’m a criminal.”
She took the bowl. “At least you’re self-aware.”
“No,” I said. “I’m hungry, tired, and trying not to climb back into that bed until you’ve eaten.”
The spoon paused halfway to her mouth.
Color rose in her face.
“Three bites,” she said.
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Done.”