19. Sofia #3
The words send heat pooling low in my belly. I slide my hands down his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart beneath my palms, the tension underneath his muscles as he holds himself back from taking everything I’m already offering.
“I see you,” I whisper. “All of you.”
He lifts his head then. For a heartbeat, vulnerability flashes across his face before he kisses me again.
This time there’s no restraint—his mouth claims mine with a hunger that borders on desperation, tongue sliding against mine in a rhythm that makes my core throb with need.
His hand at my waist slips beneath my shirt, calloused palm gliding up my bare skin and leaving trails of fire in its wake.
I moan into his mouth when his thumb brushes the underside of my breast. My own hands grow bolder, pushing his jacket off his shoulders with one and tugging at the hem of his shirt with the other until I can feel the warm, scarred skin beneath.
I trace the ridges of old wounds with my fingertips, mapping the history written across his body and the proof of every battle he’s fought in Ivan’s name.
He shudders under my touch. “You undo me… every wall I’ve ever built, you tear them down like they were never there.”
“Good,” I breathe out, nipping at his bottom lip. “Because I don’t want them between us anymore.”
His response is a growl that vibrates through me.
Rowan turns me suddenly, spinning me to face the cold stone wall.
Both of his hands come down to grip my hips in a tight, possessive hold that borders on bruising.
The new angle presses the hard line of his cock right against my ass, and I rock back against him shamelessly.
He curses under his breath, a rough, broken sound that makes my stomach flutter. His hips roll forward to meet mine, grinding against me to let me feel exactly how much he wants this—wants me—too.
My hands splay out on the cold stone to keep myself upright, palms pressing hard against the unyielding surface to anchor me in place.
The chill is a sharp contrast to the scorching heat of Rowan’s body at my back.
His chest is solid against me, his breath hot at the nape of my neck, every ragged exhale sending shivers racing up and down my spine.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs into my ear, his voice rough with emotion. His lips brush the sensitive shell, teeth grazing lightly before he continues. “Too beautiful for a man like me.”
Those words hit me deep inside my chest, my eyes burning with unshed tears.
I can hear the self-loathing in them, the years of seeing himself as nothing more than a weapon and a tool forged in blood and through unquestioned obedience.
Years of Ivan’s hand shaping him into exactly what he wanted, teaching him that usefulness has always mattered more than tenderness.
That loyalty meant being willing to bleed without asking whether the wounds were deserved.
I hear the boy he must have been before all of this, hungry and furious and alone in this world with no one else to turn to until a man with money and power offered him a way out.
Giving him purpose with a price tag including his undying loyalty and soul.
Honoring a man powerful enough to make ownership look like salvation.
My throat tightens.
I refuse to allow him to see himself that way any longer.
He is more than just my uncle’s weapon, more than just a soldier who notices everything and pretends he feels nothing.
He is brutal and dangerous, absolutely, but he is not only those things.
He is a man who has taken risks to allow me to find my own truth despite initially wanting to protect me from them.
He has allowed me to fight him with every fiery, passionate bone in my body and encouraged me to give him more.
And now he stands here trembling against me because he wants something for himself and doesn’t know how to ask for it.
I turn my head just enough to meet his gaze over my shoulder, my voice a breathless whisper filled with every ounce of truth I feel. “You’re the only man I want. The only one I’ve ever wanted like this.”
Something raw and devastating flashes across his face, a kind of desperate longing that makes my heart ache for him. His grip on my hips tightens, fingers digging in as he presses me harder against the wall, his cock grinding against my ass with renewed fervor.
“Fuck, Sofia…” One of his hands slides around to my front, slipping beneath the hem of my shirt to palm my breast under my bra, thumb brushing over my nipple until it pebbles under his touch. I arch into him with a soft moan, my head falling back against his shoulder.
He kisses the side of my neck open-mouthed while his other hand works the button of my pants open. The zipper sounds obscenely loud in the quiet hallway, but I don’t care. I’m too far gone at this point.
When he finally slips beneath my pants, his fingers dip down to my panties, finding me already soaked.
A low, satisfied sound rumbles inside his chest as he strokes his fingers through my folds, circling my clit with just enough pressure to make my knees buckle.
I moan his name, pushing back against his hand and the hard length of him at the same time.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he growls in my ear, sliding two thick fingers inside me without warning. The stretch is perfect, overwhelming me to the point that I nearly see stars.
I gasp, rocking onto his fingers, chasing the pleasure he’s giving me so ruthlessly. “Only for you, Rowan.”
The confession seems to snap the last thread of his control. He withdraws his hand from my pants, making me whimper at the loss, only to shove them and underwear down my thighs in one impatient motion. I hear the sound of his belt being undone, quickly following the rasp of his zipper.
He grips the back of my neck with one hand. Then the hot, heavy press of his bare cock moves between my thighs. I spread them as much as I can until the wet tip rubs against my folds. He thrusts into me in one deep, powerful stroke, burying himself all the way inside me.