Page 65 of Defiant Devotion

I nodded, glad she was ready for a break. “I am tired.”

“I can only imagine,” Eva said.

We promised to catch up tomorrow, and they left. No sooner had they filed out of the room than Ben entered.

“How did it go?” I asked him once he closed and locked the door.

“Fine.” He strode further into the room, shedding his clothes as he went. Aiming for me on the bed, he made his intentions clear.

Just like I’d imagined, he was impatient with this distance between us. Now that he was here and staring at me with that hungry gaze, all my fatigue faded. I was alert, with my blood coursing through me faster, pushing my desire higher. My heart thumped quicker, increasing my excitement. Since I’d only put on loungewear that the other women had found for me to borrow until I got my own things, I felt exposed as it was. No bra or panties. Just soft, thin terrycloth.

When I sat up and climbed to my knees, never taking my gaze off his, I reached for the hem of my shirt.

“No.” He tossed his shirt aside and unzipped his pants. “Let me.” A gentle push of his fingers on my shoulder urged me to fall back onto the bed, and I smiled up at him. Relaxing was the last thing on my mind as he leaned down over me. As he slowly and deeply kissed me, full of need and demand, he pulled off my clothes.

All that was on my mind washim.

“I can’t wait another minute to finally see all of you.” He kneeled back on the bed, rising up so he could rake his gaze over me. Feasting his eyes on every naked inch of my body, he growled and lowered his hand to rub along my folds.

“You’ve seen me,” I replied breathily.

“Not like this. Relaxed. Safe. Without a worry about returning home or someone trying to kill you.”

I laughed lightly as he pressed his fingers deeper, penetrating me with a wicked lightness. I wanted him to pound into me and fill me like he did before. I wanted the friction and the grind. He was teasing, and I accepted it, knowing he’d treat me so well.

“Someone willalwaysbe trying to kill me. That’s part and parcel of being a Baranov.”

“And when you’re a Warner, too,” he added.

Hold on.Did he mean whenIwas a Warner, as in he planned to make this official between us with marriage? Or did he mean he was a Warner and he could sympathize?

“You’re thinking too much,” he taunted, lowering to kiss me again.

I gave up deciphering what he’d said and resorted to only feeling him. All of him. His drugging kisses and the stroke of his tongue alongside mine. His hands so callused and firm as they kneaded and teased my breasts. His fingers returning to my pussy where he swiped them through the wetness I couldn’t stop him from finding. This rugged man would never fail to arouse me, and it was a sweet surrender to lie back and accept it.

As he pulled back from kissing my lips, he trailed wet, hot kisses down my neck until he could suck on my nipples. I arched up, alert and surprised. “Oh!”

“Sensitive?” he teased with a naughty smirk. Still, he kissed and played with me, turning me on until I’d be on the edge of begging him to let me come. And that was just from foreplay alone. He truly was proving to be the master of my body.

“Very sensitive.” I spread my legs further apart, pushing my hips up to encourage him to focus on me there.

“Patience,” he chided.

“I don’t want to be patient.”

“But you can be. We will have all the time in the world to make love.”

I smiled, watching him as he kissed my baby bump. “Love?”

He locked his intense stare on me as he crawled further down the bed. “Yeah. Because that’s it—you’re it—for me. I love you, Sonya.”

“And I love you, Ben.” Damn, did it feel so good to say it. As sudden as it happened, it was right. “And I will never stop being grateful that you’ve saved me. In more ways than one.”

He lowered his face between my legs, kissing around my pussy as he gripped the undersides of my thighs. “And I’ll never stop being grateful that you’ve saved me too. That you’ve shown me where I belong, what my purpose is.”

At the first touch of his tongue on my clit, then his warm lips pressing against me and sucking, I hoped he didn’t intend to keep this conversation going. I couldn’t reply. Only with moansand pushing my hips up into his face as he licked and sucked at me. Those were my replies. In the show of his actions, loving me and pleasuring me, I didn’t need to ask for clarification of what he thought his purpose was.

He pushed me to come too soon. With cries of euphoria, I trembled and lay on the bed. Yet my heart was soaring, my soul was free, and I felt like I was on cloud nine.

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