Not tenderness, though. I don’t do tenderness. But something close enough to be dangerous.
I slide one hand down her thigh, beneath the hem of her skirt. Her breath stops, and I pause.
Her hand closes around my wrist, not to stop me, but to guide me higher.
The blood pounds in my ears.
Her skin is warm and soft beneath my palm. I move slowly, giving her time, my fingers tracing the inside of her thigh until I feel the tremor there.
She’s shaking.
“Roman,” she whispers.
“I know.”
My mouth returns to her neck as my hand moves higher.
She turns her face into my shoulder to muffle the sound she makes, and that small attempt at control almost finishes me. I want her loud. I want her shameless.
“This is a very bad idea,” I say.
She smiles against me.
It’s wicked and trembling and nothing like the woman who nearly cried at the check-in counter.
“I know.”
Then she rolls her hips against me again.
And I stop pretending I have any intention of behaving.
Every inch of her is pressed to me. Soft breasts against my chest. Round hips in my hands. Her thigh hooked uncertainly against mine as she tries to get closer and cannot, not with the cramped space, not with the clothes between us, not with me still holding back by some thread of sanity.
I want that thread gone.
I kiss her harder. She moans into my mouth, and I feel it everywhere.
“Katerina,” I say against her lips.
“What?” The word is breathless. Impatient.
I grip her chin and force her eyes to mine. “Last chance.”
Her pupils are huge. Her mouth is swollen from me. Her cheeks are flushed, but her gaze is clear. Wanting. Furious with wanting.
“I don’t know if I wasn’t clear enough,” she says. “But I want you to fuck me.”
I reach down, catch the hem of her skirt, and pull it up.
Her breath catches.
My hand slides over the warm curve of her thigh. Smooth skin. Trembling muscles. Lace at the edge of her panties. She grips my shoulders, nails biting through my shirt, as if she needs something to hold on to before I even touch her properly.
I look down.
White lace. So innocent, it’s obscene.
A dark, wet patch at the center.