Page 29 of Wild Heart
His touch was heaviest when it sought my bare chest, dipping beneath the shirt I wore and rubbing circles over the space where my heart beat. A thunderclap of emotions rolled through my body, making me shudder and gasp. I hadn’t ever been touched like this before.
Like I mattered.
Like I belonged.
Thick fingers made patterns across my skin, and though I knew they were capable of danger, they’d quickly become mysafe.
“You’re so fucking pretty when you tremble for me,” he whispered, dragging his teeth over my jawline. “Swear to god, baby, if I knew you existed, I would’ve come to find you sooner.”
It was a potent feeling, one that left me dizzy and panting. I was starting to think I belonged to him long before I ever met him—that maybe I was always supposed to wear his blood on my hands.
“Papa,” I begged, but I wasn’t sure what I was asking for.
His left hand hovered just below the waistband of my briefs, fingers tracing the sensitive space just above my cock. The skin along my inner thighs rippled as he explored, tracing the veins along my shaft and groaning each time I shivered against him.
“You let me know if anything becomes too much, yeah? Just say no, Solnyshko, and everything stops.”
“If you stop, I’ll cry,” I said, nearly choking on my own vulnerability.
“Alright now, baby, I’ve got you.”
His lip folded over mine in the most tender of ways. It was a softness I didn’t know he was capable of, and I sort of just liquified right there in his lap. Whimpering into his mouth, my hands found purchase in his beard, and I rubbed the pads of my fingers against the coarse stubble.
He stood then, forehead pressed against mine as he walked us through the apartment. Against my back, I felt the muscles in his arms move with each step he took. When I closed my eyes to savor the touch, he kissed both my eyelids.
I fucking purred.
Our connection was severed when he placed me in the center of the couch, cushions dipping beneath my weight. His touch was gone for only a moment but still my throat quivered, and I reached for him with desperate hands, opening and closing my fingers in a grabbing motion.
“Papa!” I complained.
He chuckled, low. Hands on my waist, he squeezed hard enough to make me gasp, and then he tugged.
My spine arched as he dragged me across the suede cushions. Kneeling between my legs, he rubbed a palm across his jaw, eyes dark and eager. I felt their weight move across my body, stopping to linger at the sliver of exposed skin between the bottom of my shirt and my waistband.
“Krasavitsa,” he muttered. “Beautiful.”
His scarred hands held a lifetime of violence, but they handled me like I was the most delicate of treasures.
Icy, intense eyes dilated, and I watched his nostrils flare as he drew my pants down my legs, exposing more and more of my skin.
I felt the faintest lick of pain as he dug the blunt edges of his nails into the tops of my thighs and dragged them downward.
A guttural sound left me when he placed his tongue against the scars rising to the surface of my skin and lapped over each one of them as if he was trying to soothe the sting.
“Mine,” he growled, andgod,it took my breath away.
An insurmountable need welled up inside me, and it was almost too much… how exposed I felt.
With a smooth flick of his wrists, he tore my pants from my ankles and tossed them over his shoulder. My briefs came next, but instead of discarding them, he balled them into his fist and stuffed the fabric down the front pocket of the sweatpants he wore.
“Spread your legs for me, baby.”
His tone wasn’t nearly as impatient as his eyes were, and he waited, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the marks he’d made.
“My little butterfly is all marked up,” he murmured.
Leaning forward, he spit against those lines and continued rubbing my skin like he was trying to brand me with his scent. Palms settling on the backs of my thighs, he helped guide my legs exactly where he wanted them.
