Page 53 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heiress

I go in. Not all at once. She’s wet, but not ready, and I feel the stretch of her, the way her whole body tightens around the head of me, the intake of her breath. I push in a little more. Her hands come to my hips, her nails digging in. I push in a little more. Her head goes back, her throat a long line of pale skin.

“Look at me,” I say.

She does. Her eyes are dark, her pupils blown. She’s in there. She’s not hiding.

“Okay,” she says.

I push the rest of the way in. Bottom of her. Her whole body arches, a bow pulled taut, and I feel her all around me, hot and tight and mine. My hands go to her face, thumbs on her jaw, and I hold her still.

“You’re a terrible liar,” I say.

“I’m an excellent liar,” she says, her voice breathless. “I’m just out of practice.”

I move then. Not fast, not slow, but deliberate. Long strokes, all the way out, all the way in. Her hips meet mine, and we find the rhythm of it, the way two bodies do when they stop thinking about it and start talking to each other.

I want to fuck her, I really do, but looking into her eyes, I want nothing more than to be gentle with her, to feel her, to make love to her. So I slow it down. I’m slow with her, and she doesn’t fight it. She meets my pace. My thumb goes to her clit, and I circle it, once, twice, three times, and her whole body shudders, and she comes, a quiet, breathless gasp against my mouth.

“Lev,” she whispers.

I keep my thumb there, and I keep my pace, and I watch her face, the way her brows draw together, the way her lips part. She’s not thinking about anything but me. About my thumb on her clit. About my cock in her.

“Again,” I say.

“Again,” she says.

And she does. It’s a bigger one this time. Her whole body goes rigid, and she cries out, a sharp, beautiful sound that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life.

“I love you,” I whisper. “I love you, Vasilisa.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers back.

That’s it for me. The control I’ve been clinging to, the last of it, it shatters. My hips piston, and I bury my face in her neck, and I come, hard, deep, and long. I fill her up, and I keep moving until I’m spent, until I’m empty, until there’s nothing left of me.

I don’t pull out. I stay inside her, my weight on my elbows, my face in her hair. Her arms are around my back, her hands flat against my skin. We’re both breathing, hard and ragged.

“Okay,” she says. “That was honest.”

I laugh. A real laugh. The kind I haven’t had in months, maybe years.

“It was,” I say.

I roll us, so she’s on her side, and I’m behind her, still inside her. I pull the blanket up over us, and I wrap my arms around her.

“Now what?” she asks.

“Now we wait,” I say.

“For what?”

“For the second coat to dry.”

She laughs. I love her laugh. I love the way her whole body shakes with it, the way it sounds in my ear.

“You’re a romantic, Lev Etush.”

“I’m a patient man, Vasilisa,” I say. “I’m not a gentle one.”

She turns in my arms, so she’s facing me. Her eyes are soft, the morning light catching the gold in them.