Page 26 of Savage Love

Even as devastated as I feel with every word he says.

“I almost think I would rather have ended up married off to someone I knew I could never love,” I say softly, wrapping my arms around myself. The lace of my dress chafes against my arms, feeling scratchy now rather than soft. “At least then I could have turned all my emotions off and just stopped feeling. But now—I feel everything. It’s too much, all of it. You say you’re trying to make me happy—but what I need, you can’t give me. You’ve said over and over again that you never will. I want to say that I don’t know how we got here, but I do. And I–I still feel like I would do it again.”

The tears start to spill over then, snagging on my lower lashes, threatening to smear my carefully done makeup. Levin stands up, setting his glass aside and crossing the room to me in a few quick strides, his hand pressed against the side of my face as he quickly brushes them away.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Elena.” There’s pain in his own voice, but I don’t know if it’s for me or for the memory of what he used to have and lost. “God, all I’ve wanted all this time was to keep from hurting you. And I can’t seem to fucking stop, any more than I could stop—”

His words catch at that last, and I can see his face go taut with desire, a look so familiar that it fills me with hope and hurt all at once. “All of this is my fault,” he says softly, his other hand settling on my waist, pulling me closer. “And even knowing that, I still think about the rest of tonight, and I want—”

He doesn’t need to tell me what he wants. I already know, and even as hard as all of this is, even though I’m torn between anger and tears, I want it too.

Levin’s hand on my face slides into my hair, his fingers sliding through the strands beneath where Isabella pinned the first half back. He tips my chin up, his hand cupping the back of my head, and he lowers his mouth to mine.

The kiss is soft at first, but still different from the way he kissed me in the church or on the dance floor. This kiss feels like a promise of more, his lips brushing over mine lightly, remembering me. It feels like it’s been so long since he kissed me like this—and it has been weeks. Weeks without the feeling of his hand tightening against my waist, the steadily increasing pressure of his mouth, the way his tongue finally flicks out across my lower lip, urging my mouth open for him as I breathe in sharply and he pulls me closer.

His hand slides to the back of my dress and finds buttons instead of a zipper, and the low groan I hear deep in his throat makes a laugh bubble +up out of mine. “They don’t take as long to undo as it seems,” I manage, and Levin narrows his eyes at me as he pulls back.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he growls, turning me so that my back is to him, and when his hand slides across the upper part of my shoulders and the nape of my neck, brushing my hair aside, a shiver runs all the way down my spine.

I feel him undo the first button, and then another, and another. His lips brush across the nape of my neck as the buttons slip free, and my eyes flutter closed, tremors of pleasure electrifying my skin as his fingertips graze down the center of my back with each button.

Why does he have to be so good at this?It would be one thing if he weren’t, if the sex were quick and perfunctory, if he didn’t care about my pleasure, about making every second of it so excruciatingly good.But then again, if that were the case, we might not have ended up here.

The dress begins to slide down my shoulders as the buttons come undone, and Levin’s mouth brushes a little lower, his fingers still sliding over my skin. My breath catches in my throat as he reaches the last button at my lower back, and then I feel his hands press against me, his palms sliding upwards to my shoulders as he pushes the dress off and down my arms.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs softly, his lips finding the side of my neck. “So fucking beautiful—”

There’s a longing in his voice that shouldn’t make sense, but to me, it could. It could if it means that he’s wishing that this could be more, that he could give me what I want, that this doesn’t have to be the way he’s made it. That’s what I want it to mean, and what I tell myself that it does, as the dress slides lower to my hips and his hands skim up my ribs to cup my breasts.

My head falls back against his shoulder as his fingers toy with my nipples, his lips sliding up my throat to find the soft spot at the corner of my jaw, and my lips part with a gasp as he sucks softly at the skin there.

“Levin—” I breathe his name, my back arching as I press myself into his hands, wanting more. His fingers skim under the curve of my breasts, teasing my nipples until they’re stiff and hard and aching. I both want him to go faster and to never stop because suddenly, I don’t want tonight to be over. I’d forgotten that we might not have been doing this at all if he hadn’t been told to, that a short while ago, he told me that he had planned not to touch me again. Later I’ll remember, but for now, it’s washed away on a tide of desire, and as my pulse quickens, all I want is more. More of him, more of the pleasure, more ofeverything.

His tongue trails over the shell of my ear, his breath warm against it, and my breathing turns to soft panting. “Please—”

“Please, what,malysh?” he murmurs against my ear, and that’s when I know he’s lost too, when I hear the whispered endearment.

He turns me in his arms then, his lips capturing mine again as he pushes the dress down my hips, leaving me in nothing but white lace panties, standing in a sea of more white lace. His hands slide down my waist, my hips, and I gasp softly as he sinks to his knees on the floor in front of me, his fingers sliding down my thigh and over the curve of my calf as he reaches for the straps of my high-heeled shoe.

No one has ever made me feel as worshiped as Levin does. It’s as if, once he decided to do this with me tonight, he gave himself over to it—or, as I think is more likely the case, he couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t stay detached, couldn’t hold me at arm’s length, and that’s never more clear to me than when his lips slide up the side of my leg as he lifts it up, drawing my shoe off and tossing it aside.

He repeats the same motion with the other shoe, my other leg, and then he leans up, his fingertips hooking in the white lace of my panties as he draws them down my thighs.

I don’t need to hear his low groan of arousal to know I’m soaking wet. I can feel it, the ache settled, throbbing between my legs as his mouth slides upwards, tongue trailing a pattern on my skin as it reaches the apex of my thighs and his fingers spread me apart, his tongue finding my clit as I cry out and my hand wraps in his hair.

My knees feel instantly weak. The moment his mouth presses between my legs, it’s almost too much. It’s been too long, and I’ve needed this every second that he’s been away, ached for it and dreamed about it, and imagined a moment I thought would never come again. I gasp again as his tongue circles around the most sensitive spot, fluttering, licking, not keeping the same rhythm for too long, as if he’s purposefully keeping me on the edge.

His other hand is on my hip, trying to steady me, but it’s not enough. When he sucks at my clit, drawing the sensitive flesh into his mouth, my knees nearly buckle, and Levin pulls away.

“Maybe we should do this in the bed,” he murmurs. “As much as I enjoy being on my knees for you,malysh.”

I suck in a sharp breath as he scoops me up into his arms, carrying me to the huge bed. He lays me back against the pillows, and I get one glimpse of his straining erection against the front of his suit trousers before he follows me onto the bed, the sleeves of his dress shirt pushed up and baring his inked, muscled arms as he spreads me wide for him, like a feast he can’t wait to devour.

His hands grip my inner thighs as he delves between them again, his tongue running up my pussy from my entrance to my clit and back down again, pushing inside of me as I let out another cry of surprised pleasure, my nails grazing his scalp. His tongue is stiff as he pushes it deeper, licking me, his nose bumping against my clit as he fucks me with his tongue, and it’s a sensation that’s shocking and pleasurable all at once. It’s not enough to make me come, but it’s enough to drive me crazy, pushing me higher until he finally slips his tongue free and slides it upwards to where I need it most again, fluttering it over my clit as I gasp with relief.

My head falls back against the pillows, my entire body tightening as I feel his tongue exactly where I need it the most, right on the perfect spot, and as he sucks my clit into his mouth again, the orgasm crashes over me with a force that feels as if I’m unraveling.

I buck against his mouth, writhing as I ride his tongue through my climax, my hand gripping the back of his neck as if I want to hold him there forever. I feel as if I’m coming apart at the seams, the pleasure that I needed so much crashing over me again and again. I cry out his name, gasping and moaning as he keeps going, not stopping until every last second of my orgasm is wrung out of me.

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