Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(45)
He picks up the pace of his thrusting, and I get that he wants me to watch him climax. When he comes inside me, he wants us both to have our eyes wide open so we can see everything plainly, all there is between us as we share our bodies and breath.
He said it, but he wants me to know it: I belong to him now.
Just as he belongs to me.
I reach up and touch his face. I murmur, “All those years I spent waiting…I don’t think it was for him anymore. I think it was for you.”
He shudders, moans, drops his hot forehead to my neck. Then he empties himself inside me with a series of short, jerking thrusts, gripping my hair and whispering brokenly in Russian.
I wrap my arms around his back and my legs around his waist and close my eyes, feeling like I’m flying.
Feeling like I’m finally, finally home.
We doze.
After a while, Kage rouses from my arms and gets undressed, standing at the side of the bed and quickly peeling off his jeans, briefs, and boots, impatient to return to me. He crawls back into my arms and nuzzles my breasts, pulling me against his big, warm body. Tangling his strong legs between mine.
“Why are you laughing?”
I open my eyes and look at him. Even sweaty and disheveled, his messy dark hair falling into his eyes, he’s so handsome, it takes my breath away.
“Because you left your shoes on.”
He crinkles his nose. It’s adorable. “I was in a hurry.”
“You don’t say?”
He quirks his lips and examines me from under lowered lashes. “Is my woman trying to tell me I left her unsatisfied?”
“My woman.” A little thrill runs through me, hearing those words.
This relationship is probably going to be a total disaster, but right now, I’m so happy, I could burst.
Smiling, I stretch against him, pressing my breasts to the hard expanse of his chest. I love how hard he is.
Hard everywhere except for his eyes, which are achingly, adoringly soft.
“Nope. Just making an observation.”
He pulls me closer. We’re lying on our sides. I’m tucked into him, perfectly safe and warm, his scent in my nose and the slow, steady thump of his heart next to my ear. I could stay in this exact spot forever.
Into my hair, he whispers, “I have an observation, too.”
“Which is?”
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you when you come.”
My face flushes. I can’t tell if that feeling in my chest is pride or embarrassment, but I kind of like it.
“Ditto.”
He pauses. “Ditto? That’s my postcoital compliment?”
“Postcoital? We’re breaking out all the big words, I see.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m just a pretty face.”
He’s teasing. I love it when he teases me. It happens so infrequently. I say lightly, “Oh, no, I don’t. You have all kinds of impressive qualities besides your ravishing beauty.”
Another pause, this one longer.
I say, “You’re thinking the term ‘ravishing beauty’ doesn’t gel with your blistering machismo, am I right?”
“I mean, I guess it’s flattering.”
He sounds disturbed. I stifle a laugh, trying to play serious. “Except?”
“Except it makes me sound like a debutante in a Regency romance novel.”
It’s my turn to be disturbed. “How the hell do you know what a Regency romance novel is?”
“I have eclectic taste in literature.”
Incredulous, I rear up onto an elbow and stare at him. He’s smiling at me lazily, looking smug.
I say flatly, “You read romance.”
He pretends innocence, widening his eyes. “Why? Is that not something a ‘real’ man should do?”
I smack him on his brick wall of a pectoral muscle. “You’re pulling my leg.”
He goes from teasing to smoldering in the blink of an eye, growling, “I’d rather be pulling your hair as I fuck that delicious cunt of yours again.”
My god, the way he talks. The man is the Shakespeare of smut.
“You just did that.”
“Eons ago.”
“It was like twenty minutes.”
“Like I said. Eons.”
He grabs me and growls into my neck, making me squeal. Then he rolls on top of me, giving me all his substantial weight. I exhale with an audible oof.
“You weigh a ton!”
“You love it.”
I think for a moment, feeling him all over me. He’s a huge, all-man blanket, surrounding me and keeping me safe. Smashing me, but also keeping me safe.
He’s right. I do love it.
His chuckle shakes his chest. “Told you.”
“Quit being smug, you big—”
He captures my mouth before I can sass him more and kisses me deeply. I sink into the mattress, luxuriating in his taste and the heat he’s generating, until my lungs are about to collapse.
Slapping weakly at his back, I bleat, “Help. Suffocating. Death is imminent.”
“Drama queen.” He rolls over to his back, taking me with him.
I stiffen in surprise, then relax. Splayed on top of him, I grin down at his face. “Ah-ha! Now I’ve got you exactly where I want you.”