“Tell me,” he urged again.
I swallowed heavily. I shouldn’t be doing this. I had to start pulling away. I couldn’t keep relying on him because in the end, we would crash and burn just like everything else.
And I didn’t want to be the person to hurt him.
But I was feeling selfish and afraid and angry, and he was offering to make it better. Would it really make me a monster if I accepted?
“Kiss me.” I meant it as a demand, but the words came out begging and plaintive.
His grip on my jaw tightened, and then he pulled me forward. The kiss wasn’t sweet or soft. It was demanding and sharp—everything he knew I needed from him. His teeth dug into my bottom lip before his tongue soothed the sting, and he moved his lips from mine, down my jaw, to the place my pulse was hammering.
He bit down, making my cock jump and my back arch, and his other hand went between my legs.
He laughed against my skin when he felt how hard I was. “You were just waiting, yes? For me to make you needy?”
“Fuck—”
“Ah, pretty goalie,” he warned, cutting me off. “Be nice to me tonight.”
I held back what I wanted to say. His words weren’t only for play. He was giving me room to push back, but I could hear it in his tone: he needed softness too.
This was also a lot for him.
I turned, winding my arms around his neck, and drew him in for a kiss. “Thank you, Vanushka.”
I wasn’t sure if I said that right—if I even remembered right when he’d gotten upset with me for calling him Ivan. But the way he sucked in a breath and then melted against me said I’d at least come close.
“I want to take you to bed. Please, pretty goalie…”
“Yes,” I murmured. “Take me to bed. I need to forget. And…” I hesitated, the words dancing on my tongue. It would always be dangerous, being vulnerable with anyone. They could twist my words and use them to haunt me, just like Hunter was doing now. But I trusted Vanya. With my life. With my heart. “And I want to be with you.”
He turned his head and kissed me, no less possessive, but slightly softer, and then he eased back. “Come. I will make you forget everyone but me for as long as you need.”
Forever, I wanted to say. But that was one thing I’d keep to myself.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
VANYA
Micah waswarm beneath my hands. Pliant and smelled like a field of wildflowers. He was also still a little anxious. Every now and again, I could see a tremor running through his body, but every time I followed that with a pass of my hands, he’d let out the smallest sigh and collapse a little further into the mattress.
I knew what he needed: control.
Tocontrol. Tobecontrolled. He felt off-kilter and unsafe after his home had been violated. What this man—this stalker—thismonsterhad done was the worst sort of violation.
I hadn’t realized how cruel the action was. From a person who didn’t need their hands to see, I hadn’t realized what Hunter had actually done to Micah until I’d watched him nearly fall apart when he couldn’t find his own sofa.
And then it all clicked.
Then I understood the abusive action the manhad taken. He’d ripped Micah’s world out from under him. His safe space. His home. His sense of security.
The only place he didn’t need to rely on anyone else to verify the world around him.
It didn’t take me long to get him panting and begging. Two fingers, a large dollop of lube, and his legs spread in a wide V over my mattress. His fingers clawed at the sheets as I, once again, walked him to the edge, then pulled back.
Over and over until the gorgeous flush in his cheeks had spread to his neck and shoulders. He was desperate, humping his beautiful cock against the bed under him, just enough friction to work him up, but not enough to tip him over.
“Please,” he begged, his breath wheezing.
