He sounded so unlike himself that Jas smiled. And the man thought he didn’t have tenderness in him. “But it doesn’t anymore.”
She dug her fingers into his taut buttocks and squeezed in closer, anchored herself on his rock-hard thighs. The hair on his thighs rasped against her palms; the leashed power in his body made everything thrum. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t get enough of what he was doing to her. Couldn’t breathe when she imagined all the things he could do to her with that powerful body, couldn’t breathe at how fragile and delicate and precious she felt trapped under him. “And I trust you to make it better.”
Tangling her hands in his hair, she took his mouth in a soft kiss that soon morphed into something else.
He met her gaze. He was incredibly still, almost crushing her into the mattress but he was gorgeous. “I can’t go slow. You’re incredibly wet and hot and I...just don’t have it in me to be... I’m a selfish man, Jas.”
“Selfish man who just made me see the stars and the sky? You’re not too bad, Dmitri. And believe me, I won’t break.”
And to prove it to him, she thrust up experimentally. His hands on her hips holding her down, he withdrew almost all the way and then thrust back in.
Jasmine was in heaven or hell or someplace in between as he moved in and out with slow, measured thrusts that seemed to be for the express purpose of driving her out of her skin. “Faster, please,” she said, and when he didn’t oblige, she bit his shoulder.
The pace of his thrusts became faster, more desperate, less measured, one hand on her hip and one in her hair, his tight grip adding an edge of pain to the scorching pleasure.
The faster and rougher he got, the hotter and higher she climbed, his swift strokes wrenching arousal from her again.
Just for a second, he paused and sneaked his fingers between them and pressed down. And she fell apart. He took up his rhythm again as she came, his face a study in passion and need.
This time she didn’t close her eyes.
She didn’t want to miss the intensity of his passion, the gray fire in his eyes, the tightness of every feature, the corded stillness of his shoulder blades, the tiny beads of sweat along his upper lip, the growl that fell from his mouth as he pumped into her one last time and collapsed over her.
Wrapping her hands around him, Jasmine bore his crushing weight willingly.
She was now irrevocably a woman. And she liked all the perks that came with it. And the man who had taken her there with such an all-consuming passion, the man who claimed to possess no tenderness and did no emotions, who took on blame for her brother’s sins, who made an art of the mask he showed the world... She was falling fast for him.
But whether it was the postcoital haze or the happy hormones their session of lovemaking filled her with, Jasmine couldn’t care.
CHAPTER TEN
DMITRI PULLED JAS with him as he lay back on the bed. The echo of his release still pumped aftershocks through him, a climax that had been as emotional as it had been intense.
Her dares and her questions, the pleasure and pain and joy in her eyes... It wasn’t just her body she had shared with him. Just like the little girl she had been, Jasmine gave whatever she had with generosity, felt everything she did with a sharp hunger that was so incredibly beautiful to watch...
For the first time in his life, sex for him hadn’t been just about animal release but connection and intimacy, about kisses and sweet promises, about give and take of more than just release.
It was impossible to make love to Jas without taking a part of her.
Without a part of him wrenching away from him whether he willed it or not.
He had never felt this satisfaction, the visceral rightness of what had happened. This...sense of joy at a woman draped over him with such possessive pleasure. It went bone deep and he felt absolutely no inclination to get up and move, even though he usually headed directly to the shower after sex.
Her skin was damp to his touch, her breaths coming in panting pulls against his shoulder. Delicate fingers spread out over his chest, she kept her eyes closed.
She looked and felt perfect against the length of him, her hair spilling over his forearm.
He pulled the duvet up to cover them, his mouth going dry at the sight of her round buttocks, the flare of her hip. Still her breasts were flush against his side, and the thought of rolling those plump nipples on his tongue made him hard again.
“You are fine?” His voice came out gruff and growly.