Page 78 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

“Mikhail.” I cup his face, feel the slight rasp of stubble against my palms. “I've never been more sure of anything.”

He exhales, long and slow, like he's been holding that breath for years. Then he's moving, sliding down my body with the fluid grace of a predator who's chosen gentleness. His lips map my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, the soft curve of my belly. Every inch of me is sacred ground and he crosses it like a pilgrim.

My fingers curl into the sheets. The cotton is cool against my heated skin.

His mouth hovers at my navel, breath warm. Hands sliding beneath my thighs, he lifts them over his shoulders with a reverence that makes my throat tight.

“Look at me,” he says.

I do.

The dim light paints his features in gold and shadow. Those vines around his throat seem almost alive, pulsing with his heartbeat. He holds my gaze as he presses a kiss to the inside of my knee. My calf. The delicate skin of my ankle.

I am undone.

Then his mouth finds my center, and everything else dissolves.

His tongue is slow, exploratory at first, Tracing the seam of me like he's learning a language only my body speaks. The sensation is liquid heat—spreading outward from where he touches, curling through my belly, loosening joints I didn't know I'd locked.

A sound escapes me, something between a gasp and his name.

“There you are,” he breathes against my wetness. “Come back to me.”

He licks again, deeper this time, parting me open. His tongue finds my clit and circles it with excruciating patience. Steadily and rhythmically attentive, a man who has all the time in the world.

My hips rise to meet him—involuntary, instinctive.

His hands press them back down, grounding.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs. “Feel everything.”

The vibration of his voice against my sensitive flesh sends a tremor through my spine. My hand finds his hair, fingers threading through the dark mess of it, and I hold on.

He alternates between long, flat strokes and precise, pointed flicks. Each pass builds something inside me—not the frantic climb toward climax that other lovers have chased, but a slow, spreading warmth, like honey poured into tea, the first sip of whiskey after a long winter.

“Mikhail.” His name is a prayer on my lips.

He hums in response, and the sound reverberates through me.

My thighs tighten around his head. He groans like he's the one being consumed, and the vibration tips me closer to the edge. But he doesn't let me fall. He pulls back, kisses the crease of my thigh, nuzzles against the soft skin there.

“Not yet,” he says. “I'm not done with you.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Not from sadness. From fullness. From the impossible tenderness of this man who carries violence in his bones choosing to be soft with me.

His fingers replace his tongue—one pressed inside me, then two, curling forward to find that spot that makes my vision blur. His mouth returns to my clit, sucking gently, and my back arches off the bed.

“There,” I gasp. “There.”

He doesn't change rhythm, doesn't speed up or slow down. Just keeps me balanced on that knife's edge between pleasure and something too vast to name. His free hand strokes my hip, my ribs, the underside of my breast. Grounding touches that sayI have you.

I look down at him, his dark lashes fanning against his cheeks, the glisten of my arousal on his lips, and the vines tattooed around his throat that seem to cinch tighter with every breath he takes.

“You're beautiful,” I whisper.

His eyes open to find mine. And in them I see my own reflection—not as I've been, broken and guarded, but as he sees me. Whole and worthy, safe enough to unravel completely.

He pulls back just far enough to speak. “You're everything.”