“You liked it,” he said, voice velveted with certainty.
She didn’t bother pretending not to understand. “No one’s ever looked at me like that.”
“Like you’re mine?”
Her breath caught. Only a flicker, but he noticed.
Ashar pushed off the door and crossed the room with the grace of something that had never tripped in its life. Not a walk. A prowl. Controlled. Sure.
Predator. Lover. Both.
“You are,” he said.
Not because he’d taken her, but because he saw her, every sharp edge, every soft ruin, and claimed her anyway.
“Ashar…”
“You don’t have to say it back,” he murmured. “But I need you to know it.”
Her back met the wall before his hands ever touched her. His presence pressed her into it, thick and inescapable. And when he did touch her, when his hands landed with firm reverence on either side of her head, boxing her in, it was more than desire.
It was recognition.
“You don’t flinch when I touch you,” he said, his voice low and rough. “You don’t pretend you’re not burning inside. No one’s ever wanted you like I do, have they?”
Words wouldn’t come. Because his mouth was already on hers, fierce, claiming, relentless.
And she let him.
Part of her wanted to pull back, to crack a joke, to make it safe again, but his hands weren’t just asking for her body. They were asking for the part of her that always stayed hidden. And foronce, she wanted to say yes.
No games, just raw, open hunger. She kissed him back with everything she had, everything she’d never let anyone see, every cracked-open piece of her she didn’t have words for.
It wasn’t soft or patient. It hit like a storm breaking its spine against a mountain.
Ashar lifted her like she weighed nothing, her legs wrapping around his waist as he pinned her to the wall, his hips grinding into hers with the promise of more. She could feel him through his jeans, hard, thick, demanding, and she arched toward him with a strangled moan.
Clothes didn’t come off. They were shed, torn off, destroyed. The hem of her shirt ripped. His buttons were scattered across her tile floor. Her bra snapped like it had been waiting to be undone.
His hands mapped her like a territory, rough on her ass, reverent on her hips, worshipful where he dragged his fingers across her stomach.
He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her shoulder, and then he bit down, just hard enough to make her gasp. She didn’t just feel wanted. She felt devoured.
And when he lined up, eyes burning into hers, and thrust inside her in one brutal, perfect motion, she came apart around him, crying out, clawing at his back, her body stretching to take all of him.
He didn’t move.
Not right away.
He stayed there, buried, thick and pulsing and full, letting her feel every inch of him, every breath, every heartbeat.
“This,” he growled into her ear, hisvoice guttural, primal, “this is what you’ve needed.”
Her mouth tried to form a denial, but her body knew better.
She arched against him like her spine had a mind of its own, legs tightening around him, muscles clenching as if to keep him there.
He began to move, hard and deep, in rhythmic motion. The sound of skin on skin filled the room, echoed off the walls, and merged with the rough gasps and broken cries spilling from her lips.
