Page 85 of Santa Daddy
This was the man underneath—the one who hadn’t wanted any of this, who’d been handed a crown and a crime family and learned to live with blood under his fingernails.
My hands slid up his chest, over old scars and new tension, and around his neck. His hair was softer than I expected between my fingers. He groaned into my mouth, the sound pure need, and I felt it everywhere.
“Dani,” he breathed when he tore his mouth from mine for air. It was almost a gasp. “If we do this—this—there’s no going back.”
There had been no going back the night his bullets hit snow instead of me.
“I know,” I said. And I did.
What happened next wasn’t like the other times.
He didn’t throw me against a wall. Didn’t pin me with a bruising grip and fuck me like this might be the last time.
He touched me like he had all night. All year. Forever.
His hands slid under the hem of his T-shirt I was wearing, pushing it up, fingers spreading over my stomach, my ribs, my breasts with reverence. Every place he’d claimed before, he visited again—slower this time. Memorizing.
I pushed back, refusing to let this be just him owning me. I slid my palms over his shoulders, down his back, mapping every notch of spine and valley of muscle. Daring him to lower his guard. Daring myself to let mine fall too.
When he guided me back toward the couch instead of the bed, my chest tightened. The tree’s white lights reflected in the glass behind it, casting pale halos over the dark leather.
He sat and pulled me into his lap, turning me until I straddled him. My nightgown rode up; cool air kissed the backs of my thighs. His erection pressed hot and insistent against me, even through the thin barrier of his pants.
Too many clothes between us. Too many lies.
Somehow, my nightgown hit the floor. Then his pajama pants. I found myself naked in his lap, his hands shaking slightly as they slid up my sides like he was terrified and ecstatic at the same time.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
It sounded like a statement he’d finally allowed himself to say out loud instead of a line.
No one had ever touched me like this. Like they were learning me through their fingers. Like every reaction I had mattered.
City lights painted him in silver and shadow. The scars, the ink, the places I knew he kept knives. No armor. No shirt. No lies—at least not the easy ones.
He knelt between my legs a moment later, his body all coiled muscle and control, and drew me forward until I was centered above him, back resting against the cushions, legs open over his thighs. His cock nudged at my entrance, hot and heavy, a promise instead of a demand.
His eyes met mine.
Those winter eyes had dragged me into hell. Tonight they looked like they might be the only way through it.
He slid his thumb over my clit in slow, deliberate circles. Not a tease this time. A methodical unraveling. My hips jerked without my permission.
“Dani,” he murmured.
I needed to hear it again. Needed to save the sound somewhere inside me for when this all went to shit.
“Konstantin,” I breathed.
Saying his name felt like drawing runes on skin. Binding us with something invisible and irreversible.
“If we do this…” His voice caught. For once, the unflappable crime lord was having trouble finishing a sentence. “If we cross this particular line… I’m going to make you come so hard you’ll see stars.”
“Promises, promises,” I said, voice shaking, a little wild.
“I always keep my promises,” he said.
He held my hips and lifted, guiding me down on him one excruciating inch at a time. No hard thrust. No forcing.
