CHAPTER TWENTY
RACHEL SLID OFF his lap to put some music on. She felt lighter, a combination of not having this conservatorship hanging over her head any longer and having someone else’s troubles to try to soften.
“Pistol” by alxxa played as she held a hand out his way. He got up, slow and graceful like a big cat.
“Can I tell you something slightly embarrassing and I’m really hoping you don’t think it’s too weird?” she asked.
He got close enough to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her close as they started to dance.
“Please do,” he teased after she’d been quiet for so long it was clear she was waiting for an answer.
“I made you a playlist,” she said, blushing furiously.
His smile widened. “You did? That’s...well that’s sexy as fuck.”
Kehlani’s “Do You Dirty” came on and she allowed herself to be pleased he liked it so much.
“A playlist for a music lover is an intimate gift,” he said as he nuzzled his way from her temple down to the place where her neck met her shoulder. He blew over the skin there and she gulped in air like a drowning woman. “I’m certain no one has made me one in at least a decade.”
How could she explain how silly and light he made her feel? How stupid in like—it was more, she knew it but she was still dancing around it—she was with him.
“You put an extra lock on your door and you fixed your window latch. For me. So I’d come over here more often. That’s pretty intimate too.”
He hummed and then licked her collarbone. How he made such a simple thing so ridiculously hot she didn’t know. But he just...well he just swamped her with so much pleasure she held on and tried to give as good as she got.
But damn it, she’d started this and he was taking over. Not that it was a bad thing, but she had plans.
She whipped his shirt off and skated her open mouth over the tendons in his neck as she backed him against the wall, dragging her nails up his sides and over his belly.
He snarled a curse as he let her lead.
She licked over his ink, pausing at his piercing. So fucking sexy. The totality of him was overwhelming and all she wanted to do was roll around with him. The beauty of it was that she could.
“Mine,” she said, nibbling over his ribs.
“Most definitely yours,” he told her as he grabbed two handfuls of her ass, hauling her close. “And you, my beautiful tiger, are all mine.”
She let her head tip back on a laugh. “Lucky you.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that point. I am very lucky.”
She was totally sure it was the other way around but it didn’t matter. They were together.
And she wasn’t going to question it. Not that night.
She wanted to show him what she thought of him. How she saw his sexiness. How much she wanted him.
His intake of breath as she dropped to her knees thrilled her. She knew what it felt like to be the one standing.
Her gaze locked with his, she unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, carefully pulling them past his cock and then once the metal was at his ankles, she drew his shorts down as well, freeing all the bounty she’d just openly claimed just a few minutes before.
It was her turn to hum her satisfaction as she rubbed her cheek against that velvet-soft skin, turning her mouth so she could lick around the head and crown.
She stayed there for some time, simply licking and kissing him, slowly building him up to climax. Rachel loved the way his skin smelled, the way the heat of his body seemed to stir a new scent, one heady, laced with sex.
It made her eyelids heavy, her limbs warm.
Both his hands gripped her skull, his fingers wrapped in her hair. For a moment it was too much. She froze, her muscles locked up. Memory threatening.
He leaned down, gentling his hold. “Come back to me, tigryonak.”
“I’m here,” she managed to say as she fought her way off the ledge of her memories. “I’m here,” she repeated.
He got to his knees to face her. “Tell me what you want. I need you to be right here or we have to stop.”
“Stop being so fucking perfect,” she said.
He grinned. “I can’t. I was born this way.”
Rachel reached out to grab his cock. “I’m here. I’m good to go. I want you, Vic. Right now.”
He studied her face for long moments. “Not here in the living room. You deserve a bed with soft blankets against your skin.”
“Sometimes a girl might want a little rug burn on her knees,” she said.
“Jesus. Now who’s perfect, eh?” he teased as he pushed her back to the rug she’d been kneeling on. He unbuttoned the front of her sweater and popped the catch to free her breasts.
“The answer hasn’t changed from my perspective,” she wheezed out as he dived in, kissing and licking her neck and chest and then down to her nipples. His weight—weight he was normally very careful not to rest on her fully—kept her pressed in place, the rough weave of the carpet pressing into her back.
“You asked what I wanted,” she said. “I want you to fuck me. No holding back. I want all of you.”
The intensity of his expression seared her.
“If I give you all of me, I demand the same of you. No more holding back. I might be easygoing with most things, Rachel, but I love hard, it turns out. Absolutely. You’re tough. Strong. You’re a survivor. Mine.”
He reared back enough to get at her button and zipper while she watched emotions play over his features.
She froze, feeling exposed. Not in fear. But in recognition.
But what really got her was the way he continued to pull her pants and panties free. Gaze still locked on hers.
That trust between them was always there. Time and again he’d only put his strength to use in her defense or in her favor. Never to harm her.
“Okay then,” she said at last.
* * *
TO VIC IT seemed sort of perfect that she’d given herself to him with an okay then.
Nearly as scorching hot as her comment about rug burn.
She was a continual delight. Surprising him. Underlining what a beautiful, sexy, intelligent creature he’d fallen for.
He teased the head of his cock around her clit as he dipped to kiss her. “Okay then for me too.”
He loved the way the light danced in her eyes as she snorted a laugh. A bolt of something pleasant but edged with a bit of terror hit his belly as he had a thought about telling the Okay Then story to their kids someday.
When he straightened again, she scooted quickly to wrap her legs around his waist.
Struck with the wanton beauty spread out before him, he paused to take stock of his blessings. A stream of Russian burst forth, lines of poetry about curves, shadow and fog, the bliss of woman.
She still wore the remnants of her sweater and bra, nipples hard and dark, standing out against the pale, unseen skin of the under curve of her breasts. Her eyes had gone glossy with pleasure.
The scent of her desire rose with the heat of her. Tickled and seduced his senses. In the entirety of his life he’d never encountered the like of it.
“Get that condom on, Vitya. You have a job to do.”
He bent back to dig around in a nearby drawer where he’d stashed some condoms once they’d begun dating. She unwrapped herself long enough for him to get the rubber on.
Then she was back, her long, lithe legs encircling him, holding him in place. The cant of her mouth told him she wanted what she wanted and he’d better deliver. Damn if he didn’t adore her.
When he didn’t immediately comply and thrust into her, she gave him a grumpy sort of growl, rolling her hips against him. Urging him on.
“Be patient. I want to be sure you’re ready,” he murmured as he slid the pad of his thumb from side to side over her clit.
She began to argue—naturally—but it died on her lips as she moaned softly instead. Bingo. His lovely Rachel did so enjoy climaxing. And heaven knew he loved to help her get there.
She arched, grinding herself against him as he slowly began to push inside. Even through the latex the heat of her shot up his spine. Moonlight cast silvery fingers over her skin and a fierce need to always keep her safe drove him to settle in to the root and then pull back nearly all the way.
Only to reverse and make that same sweet journey. Keeping time with slow sweeps over her clit.
Again and again as the heat between them built. As his need to come clawed through his gut so he clung by the barest margin. Needing her to come first. Wanting that clasp all around him as she hit her peak.
He craved that blindness that took over her gaze... Ahh, like she had now as she rocketed toward orgasm. All around his cock she superheated.
“More,” she whispered. “Harder.”
He obliged, adjusting the depth and force of his thrusts. A fire raged through him. The exquisite knife’s edge of perfect just-right between too much and not enough.
He danced there with her. With her body tightening around his as she began to come on a gasp and a snarl of his name. He waited as long as he could, savoring her pleasure until there was nothing left to do but follow her into climax.
Vic rolled up to his feet and returned shortly with a throw from the couch. “I’m all over moving to a bed when my legs work again,” she muttered as she pillowed her head on his biceps as they lay on his living room floor.
“Just let me know when you’re ready,” he said, amused.
“By the way, I totally have rug burn. I need to check that off my life list.”
“Me too,” he told her. “On my knees.”
“I’ll be checking that off my life bucket list too. Give supremely sexy man some action hot enough to give him rug burn. Boom.”
He kissed the top of her head, breathing her in. “Just part of the service I provide.”