Page 46 of Essence of Fear

Over his shoulder, his gaze locked on hers before trailing lower, taking in the shape of her hips and the length of her legs covered by the jeans she’d pulled on earlier.

“Undress,” he said.

Viktoria bit her lip. “You don’t want to help?”

“I want to watch. Just like you did.”

Oh.

She was all too aware that he watched her undress, one piece of clothing at a time just like she had gawked at him. She understood, too, why he wanted to because the sensation that drove through her body the longer he stared was … intoxicating. She caught the way his jaw tightened when her jeans dropped, and how his gaze darkened when she tugged her blouse over her shoulders and tossed it to the floor.

Like he couldn’t get enough.

Viktoria said nothing until she was naked at the foot of her bed, and he had turned to face her entirely, closing the distance between them one slow step at a time. A shiver raced through her entire body as he lifted one finger to trace the only other tattoos she had, other than the cursive B on her finger.

Two eight-pointed stars.

Bratva stars.

Right under her breasts.

That was what he touched first—not her pussy, her breasts, or any other part of her body that he’d stared at so intently as she undressed. No, he went for those stars.

“Why?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. “Someone thought I needed protection after … something happened.”

Yes, that was as good of a way to explain it as any, she supposed. That was easier to say than explaining that after a man attacked her, Vadim forced the tattoos on her. Like those stars were somehow going to magically stop a man from sticking his cock in her body when she didn’t want it.

Thankfully, Pavel didn’t ask for more information because that really wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have. He dropped his attention on the tattoos and his gaze came back up to her face as that finger of his drifted down her clenching, toned stomach.

“Do you care to find out what I can do with just my hand?”

Right then, her body was screaming for it.

“Show me.”

Pav smiled. “Good.”

His finger trailed lower, over her navel, then her pubic bone, and came to a stop just above the junction of her thighs. She hadn’t opened her legs for him yet, after all. His gaze lifted to hers as a war raged on in her mind—it was silent, and he couldn’t hear the warnings screaming at her to stop before she found herself in a world of trouble with this man, or spent the night lost in nightmares she couldn’t escape.

She battled it.

Warred the fear.

It didn’t own her.

She had to stop letting it rule her.

“Viktoria?” he asked gently.

That finger of his didn’t move. It didn’t lift or try to lower more. He simply stayed still, and she was grateful. It took a moment, but when she opened her legs for him, he shot her a grin that had her stomach doing summersaults from the silent promise that smile alone offered.

First, it was just a graze of his knuckles against her clit as his hand brushed between her thighs. Then, it was the way his hand cupped her sex, covering it entirely with his palm, and squeezing hot, sensitive flesh in such a way that her thighs clenched, and she let out a whimper.

“I like that sound,” he told her.

“You’re teasing me.”