Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(51)

His words blur as I focus on the way he grips my hair, keeping my face turned to his. Ropes to the head, like a rider directing a horse.

“You’re making it up,” I say breathlessly.

He draws his face to my ear. My heart pounds. He whispers, warm and low, “You liked this.”

Warmth blooms inside me. That sort of wanting belongs to another life.

Again he whispers, so close to my ear, it feels like a tongue. “Pomnish?” “Do you remember?” His words go through me like electricity, warm and good. He tightens his hold on my hair. I feel like I’m moving further from Jesus.

Suddenly I don’t care. I want him to hold my hair more tightly. I want him to whisper something more. My heart hammers as I wait for him to show me that he has me.

He pulls away and looks into my eyes.

My gaze drops to his neck. His neck would be warm against my lips. I shake the thought from my head. I’m dangerously far from Jesus now. I can barely remember the light that came from his eyes. It feels like nothing more than a cartoon in my mind now. “I can’t.”

He lets go. I feel the loss of it deeply. He takes the glass from my hands. I allow it. I feel cold now—nothing in my hand. Viktor out of my space. Cold. Lost. I hate it. I hate being cold.

But then he turns back, and the look in his eye warms me.

“Viktor,” I say.

He puts his hands over my eyes. “Where am I?” he whispers.

I smile. “What do you mean, where are you? You’re right here.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says. “Stay still, okay?”

I find I can’t stop smiling. I have the strange sense that I’m waiting for something…something good, magical. I don’t know why I should think it.

A tickle on my cheek.

Shivers slide over me as some deep, buried part of me thrills to attention. This is the game he described where he draws his lips near to my skin and I have to feel him before he has a chance to kiss me. He’s playing the game.

“My cheek. You must not—”

“Come on. Once more.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll win.”

“No, you won’t.”

A tickle of aliveness on my cheek. “Cheek. You think I’m stupid.”

The tickle goes away.

“One more try,” he says. “Please?”

“Fine.” I wait.

Nothing happens, aside from my heart pounding madly in my chest. The waiting is so tense that I laugh. It seems to last forever, the waiting. And then I feel warmth on my neck.

“Neck,” I breathe. And then I feel his lips touch my skin there. I hiss out a breath. “It’s not fair. You can’t kiss me after I caught you.”

“Sorry,” he whispers, pulling away. “Another,” he says. “Feel me, little fox.”

I breathe in. He’s not touching me except for where his hand covers my eyes, but I feel him with every sense. I feel him stir the air around my body. I smell his sweat, and I see him strong and savage in my mind’s eye. Most of all I feel him with my heart. The love and the fear I have for him spins wild. It seems too big, suddenly.

And then the space between our lips thrums with life. The space is empty but full. Excitement grows in my chest. I wait. It’s excruciating, this waiting. It doesn’t feel like sinning when his hand is over my eyes.

“Guby,” I whisper in the moment before he takes my lips in a warm kiss. A single kiss. He pulls away, but I feel him hovering near. He sucks in a breath, as if to breathe me in.

I don’t want him to breathe me in. I don’t want the blank space. I want him around me. “Once more.”

Suddenly his lips are on mine again. He kisses me hard and hungry, consuming me roughly. It feels ancient and familiar, and in that moment, I’m not lost. I’m clinging to him.

I slide my hands to his hair, so smooth. I pull. “Yeshche,” I say into the kiss. I don’t know why I should ask for more like that. The want comes from somewhere distant. From the moon, from the pink bubbles in my glass. I set my hand over his, still covering my eyes. “And keep your hand there.”

“No.” He removes his hand from my eyes. “I want you to see what I am. What we are. You used to like when I was hard, when I truly gave you more. You liked when I played the bad man while f*cking you.”

My pulse races. “I would never like that.”

“You used to say that sex is not a place for smiling faces.” He slides an hand over my hair, smoothing it down. “You never wanted smiles as we f*cked.”

“I would not…” I trail off, unsure what I meant to say.

“You would,” Viktor says. “Oh, you would. You’d say, ‘Take everything.’ You wanted me to be hard, to be other. You liked it when I had clothes on and you did not.”

I shiver, remembering how I’d felt the night he touched my bare skin, telling me about my scars, the night he ripped my tunic. He was clothed, and I wore only a slip. I used to like that?

“You enjoyed when I acted like I wanted to use you, as though you were a beautiful, tender offering for me to heartlessly devour. That was very pleasurable for you.”

My face feels hot. My neck feels hot. All of my skin so hot. “That’s not that kind of woman I am now.”