Page 46 of Reckless Bratva Daddy

He kissed me instead of answering, slow in a way that had nothing urgent behind it, no clock running out anywhere, no phone about to ring, just his mouth on mine and the water holding both of us up while everything else in the world stayed exactly where we'd left it at the end of the driveway. I wrapped my legs around him without thinking, and he carried us both toward the shallows where he could stand, laughing against my mouth when I nearly slipped straight out of his grip.

"You're going to drown me," he said.

"I'll consider it a team building exercise."

"I've survived worse things than you."

"Have you though? Really?"

He didn't answer that one either, just walked us both up onto the grass at the edge of the dock where the light had gone properly dark now, stars starting to show through the trees, and set me down slow enough that I felt every inch of the transition, water sluicing off both of us, his hands finding my waist, my jaw, in no hurry at all, like its own kind of luxury after everything we'd both spent the last few weeks bracing for. There was laughter in it still, softer now, his mouth curving against mine every time I said something ridiculous, which, given the circumstances, was often.

"I have grass in places grass should never be," I informed him, somewhere between one kiss and the next.

"I'll take responsibility for that later."

"You'd better."

He made good on it, deliberate and thorough and grinning the entire time like a man who had genuinely forgotten, until today, that this particular version of himself still existed, the one who teased and laughed and took his time because nothing in the world was chasing him for once. His mouth found the curve of my shoulder first, patient, tracing the line of a strap he hadn't bothered removing yet, and I felt the warmth of his breath against skin still cool from the lake, a contrast that made me shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature. When his fingers finally worked the strap down, taking their time about it in a way that felt almost like punishment, I heard my own breath catch before I had time to be embarrassed about it.

"You're stalling," I told him, my voice not nearly as steady as I wanted it to be.

"I'm appreciating." His mouth moved lower, tracing my collarbone, and every clever thing I might have said dissolved somewhere behind my ribs. "There's a difference. You taught me that yourself, twice, today."

"I regret all my own lessons."

"No, you don't."

He was right, and I didn't waste breath arguing, not with his hands finding the rest of the fabric between us and easing it away with a patience that felt almost unfair given how long I'd wanted this exact thing without letting myself think the words. The night air should have been cold against wet skin, and for a moment it was, and then it wasn't, because he covered me with the whole warm weight of himself and every nerve I owned rearranged its priorities at once. I got my hands under his shirt, impatient in a way he wasn't, dragging it up and off until there was nothing left between us but grass and starlight and the low, steady sound of the lake keeping time somewhere off to the side.

"Slow down," he murmured against my jaw, laughter still threaded through his voice even now, even here.

"I don't know her. I've never met slow down."

"You're about to."

He proved it, infuriatingly, thoroughly, mapping me with an attention that took its sweet time about everything, making a liar out of every clever thing I'd ever said about efficiency, his mouth finding my throat and then lower, learning exactly which shift of his weight made my hips rise to meet him, which press of his palm against my ribs made my breath stutter, filing every reaction away and using it against me with a precision that would have been infuriating if it hadn't felt so unbelievably good. I gave up trying to narrate any of it somewhere around the time his hand slid between us, slow and certain, finding the exact rhythm that turned my usual running commentary into nothing but his name and a sound I didn't recognize as my own voice.

"Dmitri." It came out half question, half plea, both of us already past the point where either of us needed the other one to answer with words.

He answered anyway, low against my ear, something rough and half Russian and entirely unguarded, the kind of thing I understood by tone alone even without the translation, and it undid something in me faster than anything English could have managed. When he finally settled over me fully, when there was nothing left of the distance either of us had spent years perfecting, he went still for one long second, forehead against mine, both of us breathing like we'd run the whole way from the dock.

"Still sure," he said, an echo of another night in another bed, except this time there was nothing careful left in the question at all.

"Extremely."

He reached down between us, guiding himself to where I wanted him most, and paused there a moment, just the blunt press of him against me, watching my face with an attention that missed nothing, memorizing whatever it was doing to me before he'd even moved. I lifted my hips into him, out of patience, out of every last scrap of restraint either of us had left, and he sank into me slow, inch by inch, giving my body time to open around every part of him instead of taking what I was already offering. The stretch of it pulled a sound out of me I didn't recognize, half gasp, half his name, and he stilled completely once he was fully seated inside me, forehead dropping to mine, both of us breathing like the last few seconds had cost us something neither of us minded paying.

"Okay?" he asked, rough, still checking on me even now.

"More than okay." I tightened around him on purpose, just to watch what it did to his face. "Move, Dmitri."

He moved then, slow at first, deliberate, like a man determined to memorize every second of it rather than rush toward the end, withdrawing almost entirely before sinking back into me with a control that made my whole body arch up to meet him. I met him with everything I had, my hands dragging down his back, my legs locking around him, both of us finding a rhythm the grass and the stars and the whole quiet lake seemed to hold their breath for. It built the way the whole day had, easy and unremarkable right up until it wasn't, his mouth back on mine to catch every sound I couldn't help making, his palm braced flat against the ground beside my head like he needed something solid to hold onto too. When it finally broke over both of us, it broke seconds apart, his own release chasing mine so closely I felt the tremor of it move straight through him and into me, and for a long, wrecked, wonderful stretch afterward neither of us moved at all, just lay there tangled in grass and starlight and each other, the lake lapping quietly against the dock a few feet away, patient, unbothered, the only witness either of us needed.

"I have grass in new places now," I said eventually, into the dark, my voice wrecked in a way that made him laugh against my hair.

"I told you I'd take responsibility."

"This is not what I meant by that."