Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
“Aivan...” Her voice was breathless, uncertain as she took in his size. Those dark eyes traveled down his body and widened further. “I don’t know if...”
“You’ll take me,” he said with complete confidence, settling between her thighs. The heat of her against him nearly undid his control. “All of me.”
“Look at me,” he commanded when her eyes closed.
Her eyes opened, locked with his, and the naked adoration blazing there hit him like a downshift at two hundred kilometers per hour.
She didn’t need to say the words. He could read them in every line of her face, every catch of her breath. It was written in the way she touched him with trembling hands, the way she opened for him without reservation, the way she surrendered everything without holding back. Those three words she wanted to say but didn’t burned in her gaze with the intensity of a thousand suns.
I love you.
The knowledge should have made him pull back. Should have reminded him this was a business arrangement, that emotions were dangerous, that his mother’s death had taught him the price of caring too much.
Instead, he positioned himself at her entrance, feeling her body tense with anticipation and nerves. “Breathe,” he commanded, and she obeyed, her chest rising and falling as she tried to relax muscles gone rigid with virginal fear.
The first push met resistance, her untouched body fighting the invasion even as she whimpered with need. He was bigger than she’d expected. He could read the shock widening her eyes, the gasp that escaped her was half pain, half wonder.
But he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, pressing forward with relentless pressure until he breached her completely.
She cried out, the sound echoing off the bedroom walls, her nails raking down his back hard enough to leave marks. But she didn’t try to push him away. Instead, she pulled him closer, her legs wrapping around his waist as if to anchor him inside her.
“A-Aivan!”
He could feel her body working to accommodate him, stretching around his length in a way that made his vision blur with pleasure. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but she was nodding, encouraging him without words.
He held still through sheer force of will, watching pain and wonder war across her expressive face. She was so tight it bordered on painful, virgin muscles gripping him like a vice. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of not moving.
He began to move once he finally sensed her relaxing. Shallow thrusts that made her gasp and arch, each withdrawal and return earning sounds that went straight to his primitive brain. She was liquid fire beneath him, around him, her body learning his rhythm with single-minded focus.
“Please,” she whispered, though he doubted she knew what she was begging for.
But he did.
Angle, pressure, speed...he’d mapped a thousand racetracks, memorized every apex and braking point. Her body was just another course to master, and he was very good at finding the perfect line.
When he found that spot inside her, her whole body went rigid, and the sound she made echoed off the walls. He hit it again, and again, until she was writhing beneath him, English and Italian tumbling from her lips in an incoherent stream.
Her climax was a sigh to behold. Her back bowing off the bed, inner muscles clamping down so hard he saw stars. His name on her lips was music, beautiful but also terrifying because it was just too, too sweet.
And when she whispered it again...
He came with a growl that started in his chest and ended in her name, spilling deep inside her as she convulsed around him.
Through it all, those eyes stayed locked on his, the adoration and love in her gaze so pure that it burned.
He’d never said the words she was waiting to hear. Never would. That kind of emotion was for people who could afford to break, and Aivan had learned at five years old, standing at his mother’s graveside, that breaking was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
But as he collapsed beside her, pulling her trembling body against his, he thought maybe this was enough. She could love him for both of them. He could give her pleasure and protection and every material thing she could dream of.
It would have to be enough.
Because three words—
Those particular three words—
They were the one thing he’d never give anyone.
Not even the girl who looked at him like he was her whole world.
Not even his wife.
Sienah
“IS THAT THREAT SUPPOSED to make me change my mind?”
Cold. Businesslike. The words hang between us like I’ve presented a bad contract instead of shattered our marriage with three small words.
I blink. Once. Twice.
Waiting.
But there’s nothing in his eyes, nothing in his voice, nothing but that tone he uses for incompetent mechanics who’ve failed to meet his standards.
A laugh escapes. Wrong. All wrong. Too high and shaky and broken, nothing like the woman who spent hours making everything perfect for tonight.