and thrust of her tongue confessing how much she’d longed for him. It reminded her how much she’d lost, how much she’d lose again.
But she had him now, and she would hoard all she could of him.
She’d barely started when he tore his lips away. Crying out, she surged up, desperate for his breath so she could breathe, for his heartbeat so her heart wouldn’t stop, needing his taste to fill her up for the desolate future without him.
But he’d only broken the kiss to melt more down her neck, her breasts. His growls of pleasure and need were elemental, set off jolts of hunger in her core.
He wanted her now. She knew he did. With all his indomitable, magnificent being. For now. And she wanted to have every spark of his desire, needed it. Had to have it. If even for one hour.
Too weak still to climb him and wrap herself around him, she could only stand on tiptoe and arch back, offering all of her. Her legs buckled when his erection pressed into her core through their clothes. Moaning, she ground against him, pressing his head harder into her aching breasts. He opened his mouth over her sweatshirt-smothered flesh, nipping one of her nipples.
A cry tore from her as she bucked with pleasure, losing all coherence. “Ivan, please, just take me.”
With another growl, he picked her up again and carried her where she’d never thought she’d have him—her bed.
His gaze raked every inch of her, igniting her skin wherever it lingered, then he came down over her, his arms a prison of muscle around her. She breathed in the scent of his maleness and protectiveness, fiery and clean and musky. Her mouth watered then her stomach rumbled.
“You’re hungry.” He pulled back, gaze sharp, tone accusing. He’d constantly worried she didn’t have enough food, kept urging her to eat more.
He started to get up and she clutched his hand, the hand that had snatched her from death’s jaws, that had taught her what pleasure really was. “Not for food, Ivan.”
“Anastasia...” he groaned as he sank back into her arms.
She singed her lips with his heat as she ran them over his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck, loving the feel of the few days’ worth of beard he now wore.
At its soft abrasion, she moaned into his skin. “All I want is to feast on you.”
And she did, trembling with the enormity of having him in her arms again. Her hands roamed the breadth of his back, reveled in the leashed power of his arms, her lips and tongue delighted in skimming every inch she could reach, every touch and taste everything she’d craved for years. Years.
But he broke away from her again, to blaze a possessive trail down her body. He had her writhing in pleasure as he seemed to melt her clothes off. It was only when she found herself naked beneath him in what felt like seconds that self-consciousness assaulted her.
Dr. Balducci had done a masterful job on the scar that traversed her abdomen. It reminded her she’d been taken apart and put back together inside, but she’d gotten used to seeing it, mostly dismissed it. But having Ivan’s hands and eyes on it, she felt as if it was the ugliest thing ever, and that it covered her from head to toe.
On a mental level, she knew Ivan would sympathize. But on the sensual one, the male in him, what she knew from ecstatic experience was ferociously carnal and exacting, had to be put off by it.
But as she tried to reach for her comforter to cover herself, Ivan, still fully clothed, captured her wrists. He pinned them beside her head, his knees imprisoning her thighs.
“Don’t hide from me, moya dusha.”
At hearing him call her my soul, one of the extravagant endearments he’d used to lavish on her, she sobbed, “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
Letting go of one of her wrists, his hand went to her chin, making her meet his gaze. “This scar?” His other hand shook as it traced it. “It pains me to see it, as a reminder I could have lost you. But it’s also precious because it’s proof you survived. And it’s beautiful, like every other part of you.”
Unable to bear him taking pity on her, she turned her head away as tears of inadequacy slid down her face onto the sheets.
One hand pressed her head persistently, making her look back at him, as his other one took her hand and slid it down his body until it reached the potency tenting his dress pants. Feeling him, so hot and hard and huge, made her whimper.
“That is how beautiful I find it, and you,” he whispered.
Arousal overcoming distress, she twisted restlessly beneath him, moaning, “I don’t even have words for how beautiful I find you. Please, Ivan, don’t take it slow. Show me how much you want me, make me grateful I’m still alive.”
His gaze filled with storms, but it was absolute care that filled his hands as he settled her back and slid down her body. Realizing what he intended, she was overcome by memories and, weirdly enough, embarrassment.
When she tried to keep her legs closed, he raised his head, his chiseled face flushed, his eyes coaxing. “Open yourself to me, Anastasia. Let me feast. Let me heal you.”
“I’m healed,” she cried out. “Please...”
“Your injuries, yes, but you’re far from strong enough to withstand me.”
The words withstand me unleashed a flood of memories, every sensation of every time he’d ridden her to screaming satisfaction. Though she was dying for him to do so now, to hold nothing back, she knew she wasn’t ready for that.
“You can be gentle.” She knew he could be, as he had been, heartbreakingly so, that first time he’d taken her. And every time, after their first explosive arousal had been assuaged, when he’d savored her in thorough, tender leisure.
But she saw it in his eyes. He had no intention of taking her that way. He came up to silence her protest before she uttered it, his mouth on her lips as his fingers sought her entrance. She lurched with stimulation as he dipped in, each slow inch a red-hot probe of mind-melting pleasure.
But though she was going to pieces with arousal, after her trauma and after being so long without him, her body felt too tight. Even two of his long, thick fingers felt like too much. He held her eyes as he pumped them fully inside her, drawing the admission that there was no way she’d accommodate him right now.
Rising to singe her in the possessive flames of his gaze, he started sliding down her body again, burned his way in licks and nibbles and ragged words down to her core. Her efforts to pull him up ended when his magnificent head settled between her thighs. Every nerve in her body loosened as his lips and tongue soothed and scorched the intimate flesh she could surrender to no one but him.
He strummed her to one body-and soul-racking climax then another, and another, holding her eyes all through. She was lying stunned, sated, unable to move a muscle when he finally came up to stretch against her, cupping her, crooning to her, completing her bliss.
But she felt every inch of him like cabled steel, coiled on his unspent arousal. Needing to give him relief, she started stroking him, but he captured her hand. Burying kisses in her palm, he tucked her more securely against his massive body before taking her lips.
“Shh,
