Page 117 of Ivory Ashes

More of him. More of this.

As if he can read my mind, Mikhail grips my hips and slams home in me.

“Fuck!” I fist the sheets and try to crawl away from him.

This was obviously a mistake. The more of Mikhail I get, the more I want. Falling apart around his cock isn’t going to fix anything; it’s going to make everything worse.

“Don’t run. You asked for this,” he growls, tightening an arm around my body. He hauls me against him, sliding deeper. “Now, you can’t take it?”

His hand crawls up my stomach to my neck, bending me so my back is flush against his chest. Every stroke of his cock lights me up and I can’t fight back another moan.

“I hate you,” I pant, even as I slam my hips back to take more of him. “You’re a fucking monster.”

His other hand slips between my thighs, circling my soaked clit. He digs his teeth into my neck and I cry out.

“I’m your monster,” he snarls in my ear. “And you love it.”

Mikhail drives himself deep inside of me again and he’s everywhere. His warmth and touch and smell are all around me and I can’t resist him. My resolve splinters and then shatters.

I cry out again and again, waves of release I’ve never experienced before crashing over me until I can’t breathe.

Mikhail groans as I clamp down around him. He throws me on the bed and digs his fingers into my hips. He thrusts into me harder and harder and harder before he finally just stays there, buried in me and roaring through his own release.

I feel his heat explode inside of me.

He stays there for a long time. When he slides out at last, I assume he’s going to leave. I wait for the door to slam and for the room to go quiet.

What we just did terrifies me. Sex has never been like that with anyone—so rough… so good. Every time Mikhail and I venture into a vulnerable place like this, he pulls away.

He’s going to leave me here, bruised and spent and used.

And I’m right. His footsteps recede. A door opens, then closes. The room goes quiet.

And then… the door opens again?

More footsteps, growing closer. I can barely summon the energy to look over my shoulder, but when I do, I see Mikhail come out of the bathroom with a damp washcloth. He pulls me closer to the edge of the bed and sets to work cleaning me up. He trails his gentle touch over the tender skin he spanked not even ten minutes ago. He wipes the soaked inside of my thighs, the mess he made of my pussy, dabbing away all the evidence he left behind with one careful stroke after the next.

Then he settles me under the blankets and slides in beside me, his hand finding the curve of my waist under the sheet.

“Do you feel better?” he rasps quietly, the first words either of us have spoken in several long minutes.

I see the options floating in front of me—yes; no; maybe; better than I’ve ever felt in my life—but I can’t circle just one. I’m feeling everything at once. Way too much to sort through.

So I settle on the truth instead. “I hate that you’re engaged to that woman. That you’ve been with her and?—”

“I’ve never touched her. Marrying Helen was only ever going to be a business deal.”

I frown. “That’s what this is, though, isn’t it? A business deal?”

What we just did doesn’t feel like business. The way I want to curl against Mikhail’s chest and let him hold me until the sun comes up definitely doesn’t feel like business.

Mikhail must not know what to call it, either, because he doesn’t say anything. He just folds his arm behind his head and stares up at the ceiling. “There are no more secrets, Viviana. I’ve told you everything.”

There’s so much I haven’t told him—what happened to Matteo, how I wanted Mikhail the first time I saw him, how I still want him. There’s even more I can’t ever tell him.

Mikhail is coming clean with me and I can’t promise him the same.

Maybe that’s why I settle on something I can tell him.

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