Page 206 of Sweet Ruin

I’m brave enough to let that beast out of its cage, right?

I grab the hem and slowly peel the boxers down until he steps out of those, too. He springs out to meet me, flushed and throbbing. My mouth starts to drool automatically.

I’ve always been shit at assembling furniture, but even my spatially slow brain can’t help but look at the size of him and wonder how the hell he’s going to fit in me.

He’s just too big.

Thick through the middle, thicker than my grip would close around. The head is a deep purple and already wet at the tip. A vein runs up the underside and disappears where the shaft meets his body.

The ink stops just above it. There’s a clean band of bare skin at his hip where the tattoos give up, pale against all that darkness, and for some reason, that’s the piece that makes my thighs press together.

“This is unfair,” I say.

“What is?”

“You look this good naked, and I had to spend an hour choosing underwear.”

“Show me.”

Those two words fill me with anxiety, but we were gonna have to cross this bridge sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now.

I scoot back from him, leaving him standing naked at the foot of my bed.

I peel out of my outer clothes and toss them toward my closet. My bra and underwear match, which deserves acknowledgment because I have worked since before dawn and could easily have arrived in industrial shapewear and one orthopedic sock.

I start to reach behind me to unhook my bra, but I lose confidence halfway and revert to hugging my torso instead.

I’m just too curvy. He’s chiseled and perfect in every way, and I’m just… me.

There’s more of her every year.

Isn’t there? Weren’t they right? My boobs are too big and my stomach isn’t perfectly toned. My hips are wide, my thighs wider. My skin doesn’t gleam like flawless porcelain, the way Vivian’s did in the video that set my whole life ricocheting off-course.

He’s going to see all that and leave. And who could blame him?

I look into his eyes, bracing for The Shift. This time, it won’t be a shift toward anyone else. Just away from me. Toward the door, maybe. Mumbling excuses along the way. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come home with you. I don’t want you. You are not fuckable, loveable, any of it.

It’s coming in three, two, one…

“Don’t you dare hide from me,” Kane snarls. “You are a fucking masterpiece, Lilah. Look at these curves. This soft, gorgeous skin.”

He drops to his knees on the floor at the foot of the bed, though he’s so tall that he’s still head and shoulders above the mattress. He reaches out to cup one ankle in each hand.

I didn’t give him permission with my words, but he knows I need this. A push to keep things going in the right direction.

His hands slide up my thighs to cup my calves. He begins to worship me, his lips pressing kisses into the soft flesh, nibbling, nipping, pulling me a little bit closer to him with every flick of his tongue.

“I’m obsessed with you,” he mumbles against my skin. “I want to eat every single inch of you. I want to know exactly how you taste when you’re begging for me.”

He drags me toward him. My ass slides across the comforter. I’m still hugging myself, but when I’m close enough to him, he delicately takes my wrists, plucks them off, and sets them on the mattress at my side.

Then he touches my waist, stroking the edge of my panties. “May I?”

I nod.

As soon as he has my permission, he tugs my underwear down my legs. I gasp, my legs trembling as he exposes my dripping pussy to the cool air.

He doesn’t go for the kill immediately. Instead, he teases me. He uses his tongue to lick the outer lips, slow and deliberate, tasting the creaminess of my arousal.