Page 82 of The Bratva Sinner
“I didn’t say that.” I turn my face slightly into his hand without meaning to. “I’m terrified. But I want to be terrified of this instead of everything else for a while.”
He smiles, then his forehead drops to mine. His hands frame my face. My hands find his waist.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he whispers. “You’ve upset the balance in my life.”
“Bad or good?” I whisper.
“I don’t know yet.”
He kisses me again, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth. I taste the whiskey. On him, I like it.
He takes his time. He’s impossibly gentle. Maybe too gentle. Every time I tense, his hands slow. Every time I make a sound, he stops and checks my face. He’s patient. Watching. Waiting.
At one point, I pull back and look at him, flushed and overwhelmed, but I need more.
“Still okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Stop asking. I want to do this. I’m not fragile.”
He smiles. “Message received.”
He pulls me back in, and the gentleness is still there, but something underneath it has shifted. He kisses me deeper, one hand sliding into my hair, the other at the small of my back, pressing me flush against him. I feel how much he wants this. He wantsme.
His mouth moves to my jaw and my throat. I tip my head back and let him support my body with his. I give myself to him.
He walks me backward toward the bed, slowly enough that I don’t stumble. When the backs of my knees hit the mattress, he lowers me onto it.
He reaches behind him and pulls his shirt over his head. I’ve seen him without it before, but not like this; not with permission to look. To touch.
He comes down over me, bracing his weight on his forearms, and kisses me again. Slower this time. His hand traces down my side and then under my shirt. He pushes it up while he continues to kiss me. His thumb brushes over the underside of my breast.
I gasp, but he doesn’t stop. Good. I want this. And then my shirt is up, and cool air brushes across my bare breasts. He breaks the kiss and pulls the shirt over my head.
He goes up on one elbow and looks down at me.
“You have no idea how fucking beautiful you are, do you.”
How many women has he looked at like this? Women who know what they're doing. Do I even compare?
"You're perfect, Lila. Every inch."
He says it like he can read my mind. Like he already knows exactly where my head just went.
He presses his mouth to my collarbone, my sternum, and the soft skin below. His stubble drags across my sensitive flesh. I feel it everywhere. When he reaches my stomach, I flinch, but his hands tighten briefly on my hips to settle me.
“Relax,voinitsa.”
“What’s that? What did you call me?”
His soft chuckle pushes his hot breath across my belly.
“Warrior,” he answers.
And then, he’s pulling down my shorts and panties.
His mouth returns to mine. He’s watching my face, not my body, and there’s something steadying about that.
“Still with me?” he murmurs.
