Page 186 of What Blooms from Death

I should have been self-conscious, maybe, crossing the room wearing nothing except the bracelets that jangled at my wrists. But I had never felt more confident than I did in that moment, striding to that chair while Aleksander’s eyes drank me in. I felt his gaze like a caress. Sensed every slow, deliberate step he took after me. The air between us literally shimmered and sparked as he closed in—our magic still reacting to one another’s, despite all the work we’d done over these past weeks to better control it.

“Put your hands on the armrests,” he ordered.

I did, shivering with anticipation as he circled closer and admired me from every angle, occasionally brushing a hand over my displayed body; slipping it between my legs; tracing my curves; fondling my breasts and pinching their hardened tips.

He paused as he came close to my face, fisting a handful of my hair and using it to lift my lips to meet his.

“You are so godsdamn beautiful,” he rasped, in between kisses. “Just in case you weren’t aware.”

I regarded him from underneath my lashes, breathing hard, as he pulled away only to immediately bring his lips back to my skin, dragging them along my neck and up to my ear before growling out another command: “Now bend lower.”

I did, and I was rewarded with another touch—a slow, confident trailing along my spine, over the curves of my backside, into the dampness waiting between my legs. His fingers circled and teased through that dampness until my knees were in danger of giving out, my arms shaking despite the support of the chair.

Then he stepped away.

I felt his searing gaze still watching me. I heard the sound of him continuing to undress, of the rest of his clothes hitting the floor beside his discarded shirt. Then he was back to me, his hand trailing one last featherlight touch between my thighs before coming to rest on my right hip—steadying me for what came next.

I inhaled sharply as he guided his cock between my legs. Like his touch, the movement was smooth, just barely a brush of velvet and heat and hardness. He slid it back and forth, adding the slick of his own arousal to mine, while his hands guided my legs farther apart.

His touch skated down my body, shifting the hair from my back over my shoulder, leaving a bare expanse of skin for hisfingertips to slowly stroke as he asked, “Are you relaxing for me?”

My pulse was pounding, but I managed a breathyyes.

He let his length rest between my legs, pressing just close enough that I could feel every throb and twitch, every tiny movement that sent more coils of needy heat twisting through me. “Still mine to do whatever I wish with?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He drew a few more mesmerizing patterns along my back and shoulders. Gentle. Smooth. Precise. As if painting his name, his vows onto my skin, before finally letting his touch slide lower, grabbing my sides, digging his fingers in.

With a powerful thrust, he drove himself into me, jerking me back against him in the same moment. I cried out at the sudden, almost unbearable fullness of him. His hand was over my mouth an instant later. He kept it there as he continued to thrust into me, muffling my cries of pleasure and occasional gasps of pain.

I moaned against his palm when his pace slowed. He bent me back over while he leaned forward, drawing close enough that his lips brushed the curve of my shoulder as he teasingly whispered, “Quiet. We don’t want the guards outside thinking you need any help in here.”

The guards.

I’d forgotten they even existed.

And I didn’t give them another thought as Aleks twisted my arms behind me, pulling my body more upright before pushing into me once more.

He fell into a powerful, easy rhythm as he moved inside of me, each push and pull of his hips more devastatingly good than the last. I started off trying to match his movements, but the waves of euphoria rippling through me made it difficult to keep up. My knees still felt weak. My raspy attempts at breathing were leaving me lightheaded. I started to sink against him, and hehooked an arm around my throat, further arching my back and better supporting my body with his strength.

His free hand snaked around my waist, dipping between my legs, his fingers finding their way to the swollen bud that was desperate for his touch. He stroked until I was rocking against him, chasing the continued rise and fall of his hips with whatever desperate, chaotic efforts I could manage, all my inhibitions lost as I felt my release building.

I pushed against him with particular force, and a feral sound ripped from his throat—something caught between a growl and a groan. He jerked me tighter to him, nuzzling his face into the waves of my hair, his mouth moving over my neck with slow, slightly dazed kisses.

His strong hold merely supported me for a few minutes, letting me ride him however I wished—a breach in our agreement that didn’t last long before he was back in control, flipping me around, pinning me underneath him in the chair.

One of my legs draped over the armrest. He took hold of the other, moving it aside as he guided himself back into me. My eyes closed and my head tipped back as he sank in, and I grabbed for the armrests, clenching tightly as he found his rhythm inside of me once more.

“Open your eyes.”

They fluttered open.

He braced one hand against the chair, then caught my chin with the other, forcing my gaze up to his. “I’m the only thing you’re looking at right now. The only thing you’re thinking about.”

It wasn’t a question, but I found myself nodding anyways, completely mesmerized by the sight of him on top of me. By the way he moved with increasing fervor but never looked away. By the soft part of his lips; the breaths rumbling through his broad, sweat-slicked chest; the way his eyes seemed to shift throughevery shade of gold imaginable as they watched mine, studied them, memorized them.

“Keep them open,” he said, his hand moving from my chin to the small of my back, lifting it as he pushed even more deeply inside. “I want you to meet my eyes when you come for me.”

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