I lift my head, meeting her gaze. “Good. Then you know exactly how I feel and what you do to me.”
Her pants go next, peeled off with agonizing slowness as I tease her, leaving her bare under me. I hold her thighs apart. When my tongue slides over her dripping sex, she breaks.
Her hips buck, a strangled moan spilling from her lips as I taste her. I keep her in a tight hold as I circle her clit, teasing the sensitive bud, then pressing my tongue flat against it until her back bows off the couch. Every sound she makes coils tighter in my gut.
Her fingers clutch my hair, tugging, urging me faster. I give her what she wants, relentless now when my tongue plunges into her over and over again until she’s panting my name. When she comes, she chokes on my name again.
I crawl back over her body, kissing her hard, making her taste herself on my tongue. She whimpers, wrapping her legs around my waist.
“I need you… please,” she begs.
I don’t make her ask twice.
I free myself from my clothes and guide my cock to her entrance. I push inside, inch by inch, until her walls are fully wrapped around me. We both groan as soon as I’m settled. She grips me like she never wants to let me go.
“Fuck,” I whisper against her ear. “You feel like home.”
She clings to me again, arms locked around my shoulders, her legs tightening around my waist and urging me deeper. I thrust slow at first, savoring the stretch of her opening up to me, the way her breath catches with every movement. Butwhen she bites my neck, hard enough to leave a mark, I lose control.
I pound into her, hard and fast. She cries out, nails raking down my back, her voice breaking on my name as it spills out of her mouth like a prayer. I kiss her through it, swallowing her moans.
Her walls flutter around me, tightening, pulling me closer to the edge.
“Say it,” I growl. “Say you’re mine.”
I thrust harder, hitting that spot that makes her scream and gives in.
“I’m yours, Maksim… I’m yours!” she cries.
That does it.
I explode inside her, groaning her name and spilling deep, holding her tight as if I can anchor her to me forever. She comes again, clenching around me, trembling in my arms.
When it’s over, we collapse together onto the couch, panting and sweat-slicked. I press kisses into her hair, down her temple, over her cheek. I can’t stop even if I wanted to.
“I meant what I said,” I murmur, my hand rubbing slow circles on her back. “You’ll be the safest woman in all of Russia. You and Leo. No one will ever touch you again.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her face is buried in my chest, her body still trembling. Finally, her voice drifts up from the junction of my shoulder.
“Then take me home.”
28
MAKSIM
For a second, I’m sure I’ve misheard her words. That my own desperate hopes have twisted them into what I’ve longed to hear. But then she lifts her head to look at me, one hand coming up to trace along my jaw. It’s when she smiles that I know she means it.
The rush of relief that tears through me nearly knocks the air from my lungs. Elation, sharp and wild, fills every part of me.
“You don’t know what you’ve just given me. You’ve made me the happiest man alive, Ivy. The happiest bride…” I murmur, kissing her jaw, her throat, tasting salt and warmth.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, surprise dancing in her eyes.
“Bride?” she repeats, laughter bubbling up in her voice, soft and incredulous.
I freeze. I hadn’t planned to say it. Not yet… Maybe not at all. But as soon as the word leaves her lips, I know there’s no taking it back. So I lean into it and cup her face to whisper against her lips, “Marry me, Ivy.”
Her eyes widen. “Maksim…”