Page 83

I bend, grip her thighs, and lift her.

She gasps, arms locking around my shoulders, but she doesn’t pull away. Her mouth finds mine again before I even straighten, desperate now, less careful than before. I carry her into my study with her legs wrapped around me and one hand braced under her ass, keeping her close while I shove the door shut behind us.

I set her on the edge of the desk and step between her knees before she can slide away. She looks up at me, flushed and silent, and for once there is no joke waiting behind her mouth. She knows exactly why she is here.

So do I.

I catch her jaw and kiss her hard.

She opens for me immediately, fingers digging into my shoulders as I take her mouth. The desk shifts under her. Papers slide somewhere beside us. I don’t care. I kiss her until her body softens and her legs part wider around me, until she is breathing into my mouth like she cannot get enough air unless I give it to her.

My hand slides under her sweater.

Her skin is warm. She shudders the second I touch her.

I drag the sweater up, and she raises her arms without a word. I am careful with her shoulder, but I am not gentle in the way I was before. I am not treating her like glass. She is not asking me to.

The sweater comes off and lands on the floor.

Her bra is plain, soft cotton, and her nipples are already hard beneath it. I pull the cups down and bare her tits to me. Her breath shakes when the cool air touches her nipples. I watch them tighten, then lower my mouth before she can think too much.

The first touch of my tongue makes her jolt. I close my mouth around one nipple and suck.

Her hands fly into my hair. “Nikolai.” It comes out broken.

I suck harder, and her hips move against me, small, helpless, honest. I hold her back with one hand and use the other to cup her other breast, thumb dragging over the tight nipple until she moans again.

That sound.

That’s what I have been trying not to imagine for five days.

I switch to the other breast, licking first, then sucking her nipple deep into my mouth until her head tips back and her thighs tighten against my hips. She is trying to stay still. Trying to be quiet. Failing at both.

I like watching her lose that fight. My hand slips beneath the waistband of her trousers. She goes still for one second.

Then she leans back on her palms and lets me.

Just her watching me with dark, nervous eyes while I unfasten her trousers and pull them down carefully over her bruised hip. Her panties come with them, damp already, and when I see that, my control gets thinner.

“Elara.”

Her face burns red. I pull the clothes down her legs and drop them on the floor. She sits on my desk with her bra shoved beneath her breasts, her sweater gone, her thighs parted, and her pussy wet for me.

I put my hands on her knees and spread her wider. Her breathing turns shallow. I kneel.

Her fingers grip the desk. I kiss the inside of her thigh first. She trembles. Then higher.

Another kiss. Another.

By the time my mouth reaches her pussy, she is shaking for a reason that has nothing to do with fear.

I lick her slowly. Her whole body jerks.

A rough sound leaves her throat, and she clamps one hand over her mouth.

I grab her wrist and pull it away. “No.”

Her eyes snap open.