Page 79 of Little Blue

“You would be safe.”

“You would leave me with Luka?”

A low and almost menacing growl rumbles in his chest. I feel the sound echo inside my own body. The hands he rests on my belly curl into tight fists in the blanket.

My heart quickens along with my breath.

“No, I wouldn’t leave you with him. But I do have specific instructions my brother would follow to ensure you were set up to live the rest of your life safely, and without ever needing to work again.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you are mine.” His lips wander the skin of my temple. Shivers slither under my skin. “It is my job, and my honor, to take care of you.”

I tilt my head, so his lips have direct access to my forehead, then I tilt my head back a bit more. I can taste the intoxicating blend of his kiss only a breath away.

Then I push him. “Does it matter that I might not want to be yours?”

“No.”

“What if I take to flirting with other men?”

His fisted hand splays wide on my belly, then it begins a slow and claiming travel up my torso to the parting of the blanket at my breastbone. His fingertips whisper against the skin there, a slow and oddly arousing back and forth, before he says calmly, “I would kill him, likely in front of you.”

He continues his calm administration, a swarm of butterflies bursting inside my belly.

“You must know I’ll never stop trying to run from you. Every chance I get.”

His pitch drops low as his hand moves, his fingertips slipping under the part in the blanket that covers my breasts. I gasp, and he speaks against my lips. “And you must know that I will always chase you. And I will catch you. Every. Time.”

I don’t know what possesses me. Maybe I’ve lost a little of my mind in the insanity of it all, because I tilt my head just enough to brush my lips over his. The contact is enough to set off fireworks inside my body. The sparks rain down on the swarm of butterflies, their wings catching fire as they burn deep within me. That little brush of my mouth against his set something loose inside him.

With a growl that is nothing short of animalistic, Ilya claims my mouth in a brutal, bruising, deeply claiming kiss. His hand moves with intent to my breast, palming the swollen flesh.

I whimper into his mouth.

When finger and thumb roll one peaked nipple, I find my sanity. I try to pull away, but Ilya’s other hand works at the part of the blanket I clutch around my body, tearing it from my hold to flip it wide open.

I gasp, wrenching my mouth from his as I attempt to reach for the blanket, or to escape his lap. I fail in both as he pins me in place against his body, my own entirely bare. A warm orange glow ignites my flesh as the fire dances in the hearth.

His fingertip traces my navel. “Do you like the idea of driving me mad with jealousy? Does it turn you on, the idea that if you ran, I would hunt you? That I would chase you?”

I suck in a sharp breath. As much as I can’t seem to reconcile the woman, I know myself to be, with the way I ache at his words, I can’t deny that I do, in fact, ache.

So, I say nothing at all.

“Does it make your pretty little cunt wet, Little Blue, the thought of me capturing you all over again?”

Oh God. A pulse of wet heat follows his words. I have to fight hard not to clench my thighs together. I’m so exposed to him like this, any movement now would be telling.

“Tell me, would you fight me?” His hand on my breast gives me a firm, almost painful squeeze. “Would you scream when I caught you? Would you come all over my hand as I punished you?”

When I still refuse to speak, he taunts me. “Tell me, Little Blue, does the thought turn you on?”

“No,” I lie, aching to roll my hips now. So, I do—into the hard bulge at my back. “But you are.”

“You have no idea how turned on I am at the thought of hunting you. Of showing my disobedient little runner just how much, she belongs to me.”

If I thought I could shame him for his desire, he’s quickly proven me terribly wrong.

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