Page 118 of Savage Ambition

His cock twitched in my hand at the praise, a genuine response I filed away for later exploration. I scissored my fingers inside him, stretching him open with careful attention while I lowered my head to take him back into my mouth. My goal was to surround him with pleasure from all sides.

When his muscles tensed as he neared his release, I pulled back. “Do you trust me?” I asked, the question weighted with meaning he couldn’t possibly understand. Trust was a luxury I’d never been able to afford, a weakness Salvatore had beaten out of me years ago.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. The simplicity of his faith in me cracked open something I’d thought permanently sealed.

I returned to my task with renewed focus, working him with my mouth while my fingers stretched him open. I took my time, ensuring he felt nothing but pleasure as I prepared him.

When I added a third finger, he tensed at the stretch. I stilled, allowing him to adjust. “Breathe,” I instructed, pressing kisses to his inner thigh. I curled my fingers to massage his prostate with each thrust, watching his face transform with pleasure. His cock leaked against his stomach as he rocked against my hand. “That’s it. Show me how much you want it.”

His movements became more urgent while chasing the sensation. When I felt him getting close again, I took him deep into my throat, swallowing around him as I massaged the sensitive spot I knew would push him over the edge.

The combination proved too much. He cried out my name as he came, his body clenching around my fingers as I swallowed everything he gave me.

I continued to work him through his climax, gentling my touch as the tremors subsided. “See? I told you I wanted to make you feel better,” I murmured, still moving inside him to keep him open. “And that was just the beginning.”

“I’m not sure about this,” he whispered.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked, stilling but not withdrawing. He fluttered around my fingers, his body uncertain but overtly curious.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he said, even as his hips betrayed him by pushing back against my hand.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked.

“I’m not afraid.” Pride flared in his vivid green eyes.

“Then what’s holding you back?” I changed the angle of my fingers inside him, which earned me an interesting whimper. When he didn’t answer, I added, “I’ll stop whenever you want, Shaw. I’m not trying to force you into this.”

Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”

That single word contained more trust than anyone had ever placed in me other than my brother. I withdrew my fingers with careful slowness, not missing the small sound of loss he made. My hands trembled as I rolled on the condom and applied lube, shaken by the weight of what was happening between us.

Positioning myself at his entrance, I met his eyes, seeking final confirmation. When he nodded, I pushed forward, stopping at the first sign of resistance. “Breathe,” I coached him, stroking his thigh.

He nodded, focusing on doing as I suggested while I continued my careful advance. As I sank into his body, the tight heat of him tested my control. Each inch I gained broke down the walls I had constructed around myself for years.

His eyes never left mine. In my world of calculated risks, open vulnerability served as a weakness to be exploited. Here, his complete trust forged a strength I had never possessed.

Fully seated inside him, I pressed gentle kisses to his neck, jaw, and temple, to ground us both in a profound space that existed beyond Salvatore’s reach.

“You feel incredible,” I murmured against his ear, the words woefully inadequate. “So tight around me. Absolutely perfect in every way.”

My body trembled with the effort of restraint as I waited for him to adjust. I had waited years, and intended to savor the experience. For the first time in my life, sex was about connection rather than racing toward a climax.

Having so little to call my own left me violently possessive of the few things I had. I’d never expected Shaw to become one of those fiercely guarded things, but feeling him yield to me completely, I knew I’d slaughter anyone who tried to take him away from me, even Salvatore.

I studied the flush across his cheekbones and the open trust in his eyes. He was the boy who had watched me from across classrooms since high school, the man who had risked everything to be with me, and the only person who had ever seen Dante without Dragon’s scales.

But as Shaw’s body yielded to mine, Renato’s face flashed through my mind. I needed them both to be whole. Renato embraced my capacity for cruelty, while Shaw nurtured what little light remained in my soul. Each man held a piece of me the other couldn’t reach.

I had spent years calculating every move, treating people as assets to be leveraged. But Shaw and Renato had become my vulnerability and absolute strength. The thought of losing either gutted me, reducing Salvatore’s punishments to trivial inconveniences by comparison.

Somewhere between hatred and survival, I had finally found something worth living for rather than a brutal cause worth dying for.

The complexity of needing them both would eventually force impossible choices. But buried intimately inside Shaw, I allowed myself to believe I could build a life encompassing all my fractured pieces.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

SHAW