Page 63 of SINS & Riley
My chin snaps up. “Bartering my sister’s life is not protection.”
His jaw clenches, and for once, the big bad wolf has no clever retort. Just a low, angry huff. “Very well. We had a deal. You lost.”
He’s right. The room shrinks. And instead of answering, or arguing, I bite my tongue and do the only thing left.
I curl my fingers beneath the hem of my shirt.
And pull.
Fabric wisps down my skin, pooling at my feet. My bra follows, my flimsy armor stripped away.
The cold air teases my nipples into hard points. Instinct screams to cover them up.
I don’t.
Yes, Zver’s touched me before. Tasted me, too, in that intimate way that crawls into my dreams every single night.
But this… this is different.
His gaze is all over my body and I feel so…
Exposed. Vulnerable. I’m bare and still soaked from my orgasm, and if there’s a god, the floor will crack open and swallow me whole.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just drinks me in—curse and cure wrapped in one bare body.
The longer his stare holds, the more the goosebumps scatter across my skin.
Then, without a word, he turns and crosses the room, then drops into the leather chair. A dark king taking his throne.
Legs spread wide. The muscles of his chest lifting and falling in controlled breaths. Possession carved into every line of him.
He owns this moment. He owns me.
And all I want to do is own a sliver of it, too.
No one has ever looked at me like this. Not once. His eyes trace over me like he’s committing every curve, every flaw, every inch to memory. The heat of it sinks into my skin, branding me until I’m burning from the inside out.
Then he reaches back, pulls a pillow into his hand, and lets it drop at his feet.
My lungs seize. The room tilts.
Dante?
A rush of déjà vu hits me so hard I nearly sway. The night I got knocked up. The night Dante died. He did this exact move.
Only with Dante, it had been, I don’t know, teasing. Light. Almost playful to get a rise out of me.
The kind of move that nearly earned him a nut-punch.
I blink and shake it off.
This isn’t Dante. Get a grip, Riley. It’s just in my head.
What Zver’s doing is nothing more than a stupid caveman ritual. Grunts optional.
And yet… it feels different. A heady mix of dangerous and intoxicating, like something I shouldn’t want but can’t ignore.
Or maybe that’s just in my head, too.
