Page 128 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

“Are you, Artem?” I ask in a muted voice. “Are you a monster?”

“Aren’t we all? At the end of the day, we’re all just beasts.”

That’s a coward’s answer. He knows it. I know it.

I want more truth.

“And what kind of beast are you?”

“The kind that would die to protect you.”

Then he crosses the space between us and pulls me to him, his mouth slamming down on mine with the intensity that’s been building between us for weeks.

I let out a strangled moan, but my hands are already on him, clawing at his shirt. My body pushes up against his as his fingers tangle in my dark, velvety hair.

Together, we pull his shirt over his head, discarding it in the sand at our feet. My eyes scour over his body with naked longing, fingers trailing over his pecs and then his abdomen with deliberate sweeps.

Then I dip further down and reach for the swell of his erection. I brush over it a few times, teasing him, working him up until his hands are on me again, tearing at my clothes as if they’d personally offended him.

The dress I’m wearing comes off easily. I’m wearing only a thin black thong on underneath. Artem’s cock throbs in my grasp at the sight.

He reaches around me, squeezing my ass as his other hand gropes my bared breast. My nipples are achingly hard, and when he leans down to take one in his mouth, sucking and pulling at it with his tongue and lips, I let loose a frantic gasp.

We collapse to the sand together, our bodies entangled and desperate to be joined.

Artem slides my thong down my thighs, spreads my legs, and feasts his eyes on the slit between my legs.

I don’t look away. Don’t even blink, like he owns my very gaze, as he moves down my torso, pushes my thighs wider, and then runs his tongue over me.

It feels like fucking heaven. Salvation. Redemption.

I moan loudly, my back arching against the sand as my husband starts eating me out like he’s been starving for a year, for a lifetime.

But it’s not enough. I need more.

I need all of him.

I scrabble at his shoulders with my fingertips and he responds at once. Pulling himself up, he settles over my body, pressing his chest down into mine.

We’ve never been skin to skin before and the sensation leaves my mind numb for a second before another wave of desire jolts us both into action.

“Please…” I whisper in a strange, husky, desperate voice.

In response, he spreads my legs more with his hips and I widen for him. He looks like a dream, framed against the sky with wild, sandy hair and those dark eyes staring down at me like a promise of what’s to come.

He places the tip of his cock at my opening and moves it up and down my lips while I writhe underneath him.

My hands flutter at his waist, trying to spur him into me. I can’t wait a second more to be filled. Claimed. Owned. Loved.

“Please…” I gasp again.

But he waits more, and more, and more. Prolonging the moment. Building the anticipation.

It’s exquisite torture.

“Artem!” I moan.

And just like that, he crosses the final distance.

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