Page 18 of Dirty Game (Broken Blood #1)

He cups my face in his hands, thumbs tracing my cheekbones with a gentleness that makes my eyes sting. "If we do this, we go slow. You tell me to stop, I stop. No questions, no anger, no consequences. You understand?"

I nod, but he shakes his head.

"Words, little mouse. I need words."

"I understand. If I say stop, you stop."

He kisses me then, soft and careful, nothing like the desperate kisses we've shared before.

This is a promise, a question, a beginning.

His lips move against mine slowly, teaching me a new rhythm, and when his tongue traces the seam of my lips, I open for him immediately.

When he pulls back, we're both breathing harder.

"Come with me."

He takes my hand, leads me to his bedroom.

I haven’t been inside his bedroom here at the safehouse. Varrick’s been pushing me away.

It's simple, masculine, dominated by a large bed with dark sheets. He turns on a single lamp, casting everything in warm gold that makes his skin glow and throws the planes of his face into sharp relief.

"Sit," he says, guiding me to the edge of the bed.

I sit, hands twisting in my lap, suddenly nervous.

My whole body is trembling—not from fear but from anticipation, from need, from the weight of what's about to happen.

He kneels in front of me—Varrick Bane, who kneels for no one, on his knees before me.

"We're going to go very slow," he says, hands resting on my knees, not moving higher. The heat of his palms burns through the shirt. "I'm going to worship every inch of you, learn every sound you make, every way you respond. But first, I need you to understand something."

"What?"

"No one takes from you here. Everything that happens in this bed is something you give. You don't want something, we don't do it. You want to stop, we stop. You want more, you ask. This is about you learning for your own pleasure as much as me giving it to you."

"I don't understand giving in... in sex," I admit quietly, my voice barely a whisper. "My family always made it seem like something that would be done to me. Like violence with a different name."

His jaw clenches, and for a moment, rage flashes in his eyes—not at me, but at them. "Your family was wrong. About everything, especially about this." His hands move slightly higher, just above my knees, still over the shirt. "May I?"

The request surprises me. "You're asking?"

"I'll always ask, until you tell me I don't need to anymore."

Something in my chest cracks open, warm and overwhelming. "Yes."

His hands slide higher, pushing the shirt up slowly, revealing my thighs inch by inch.

When he sees the faded bruises—old ones from Marco, nearly gone but still visible in the lamplight—his movements stop.

"These are from your brother?"

"Does it matter?"

"Everything about you matters." He leans down, presses his lips to the first mark, so gently I barely feel it. "Every mark they left, I'm going to kiss away. Every bit of hurt and pain, every moment they made you feel less than precious."

He works his way up one thigh, lips brushing over each shadow of violence.

When he reaches a particularly dark bruise near the top of my thigh—one I'd forgotten about, from being shoved into a table corner—he spends extra time there, his tongue soothing the ache I didn't know still lingered.

"Beautiful," he murmurs against my skin, and I realize I'm trembling harder now, my breathing coming in short gasps. "So fucking beautiful."

"I'm not?—"

He looks up at me, eyes fierce. "You are . Every scar, every mark, every part of you. Beautiful."

He continues his worship, kissing across to my other thigh, finding bruises I'd forgotten existed.

When he reaches the edge of where my thighs meet, he pauses and looks up at me.

"I want to taste you," he says, voice rough. "Want to show you how good it can be. Will you let me?"

My face burns. "Is that... is that normal?"

"Fuck normal. This is about what feels good. What you want. Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Then lie back. Let me show you something."

I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, my whole body tense with anticipation and nerves.

I feel him push the shirt up higher, exposing me completely from the waist down, and I fight the urge to close my legs.

"Breathe," he instructs softly. "Just breathe and feel."

Then his mouth touches me—just the lightest brush of lips against sensitive flesh, my back arches off the bed, a sound escaping me that I've never made before.

"That's it," he encourages, hands on my thighs, keeping me steady but not restraining. "Let me hear you. Your sounds are beautiful."

He starts slowly, gently, learning what makes me gasp, what makes me moan.

His tongue explores, maps, and discovers.

When he finds a particular spot that sends lightning through my body, I cry out, hands flying to his hair—not to push away but to hold on, to ground myself in sensation that threatens to sweep me away.

"Varrick," I gasp, his name broken on my lips.

"Say it again."

"Varrick."

"Show me," he says against me, the vibration of his words making me shudder. "Show me how to give you what you need. Pull my hair if you want me closer. Push if you need me to ease up. Your body knows what it wants."

"I don't—oh god—I don't know?—"

"Yes, you do. Listen to your body. What does it want?"

"More," I hear myself say, surprising us both. "Please, more."

He gives me more, increasing the pressure, the speed, and suddenly I'm climbing toward something, a peak I can feel approaching but don't understand.

My thighs start to shake, my breathing becomes erratic, and sounds pour from my throat that I didn't know I could make—whimpers and moans and his name, over and over.

"That's it," he encourages. "Let go. Let it happen. I've got you."

"I can't—I don't—it's too much?—"

"It's not too much. You're perfect. Let go, Rosalynn. Give it to me."

Something about the command in his voice, the plea underneath it, breaks my resistance.

The wave crashes over me, and I shatter into a thousand pieces.

His name tears from my throat like a prayer.

The first time I've ever said it without fear, with nothing but pleasure and need and something that might be love. "Varrick! Oh god, Varrick!"

He works me through it, gentle now, until I'm trembling and oversensitive, pushing weakly at his shoulders.

"Too much," I gasp.

He immediately pulls back, kisses the inside of my thigh once more, then moves up the bed to lie beside me.

That's when I realize I'm crying.

Great, gasping sobs that I can't control, tears streaming down my face.

He immediately gathers me into his arms, pulling me against his chest.

"Too much?" he asks, concern clear in his voice. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," I manage between sobs. "No, it's not that. I just... I didn't know. I didn't know it could be like that. That you would... that anyone would..."

"Would what?"

"Care about my pleasure. Make it about me instead of them." I bury my face in his chest, breathing in his scent, feeling the solid warmth of him.

His arms tighten around me. "That's what you deserve. Worship. Reverence. Pleasure given freely, not taken forcefully."

"I want to give you pleasure too." I pull back, wiping my eyes, and reach for his belt. "Show me how to?—"

He catches my hands gently, but I see the war in his eyes.

"I want all of you," I whisper. "Please. I want to be yours completely."

"Rosalynn—"

"I'm choosing this. Choosing you." I pull my hands free, reach for him again. "Please don't make me beg anymore."

Something shifts in his expression, and he’s going to give in. I can feel it. "You're sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything."

He sits up, pulls his shirt over his head, and I lose my breath at the sight of him.

The lamplight plays across his chest, highlighting every scar, every mark that tells the story of his life.

I sit up too, reaching out to trace a knife wound across his ribs, a bullet graze on his shoulder.

"So many scars," I murmur.

"Does it bother you?"

"No. They're part of you. Part of what made you strong enough to protect me."

When my fingers find the S.C. carved into his hip, he tenses.

I lean forward, press my lips to the scarred initials, and he groans.

"She hurt you," I say against his skin.

"She's the past. You're my present. My future." His hands tangle in my hair, pull me up to kiss him—deep and desperate and full of promise.

He lays me back gently, his weight settling over me, and I feel the difference immediately.

"This might hurt," he warns, positioning himself. "I'll go slow."

"I trust you."

He enters me gradually, watching my face for any sign of pain.

There's pressure, stretching, a sharp sting that makes me gasp.

He freezes.

"Breathe," he murmurs against my lips. "Just breathe. Your body will adjust."

It does, slowly.

The pain fades, replaced by something else—fullness, connection, the sense of being completely his.

When he begins to move, carefully at first, then with growing confidence as my body responds, I understand what Maria meant about giving and receiving.

"Varrick," I gasp.

"Say it again."

"Varrick. My Varrick."

The possessiveness makes him groan.

His movements become more urgent, and I rise to meet him, instinct guiding me.

When he slips a hand between us, finding that sensitive spot he discovered earlier, I shatter again, crying out his name like a prayer.

He follows me over, my name on his lips.

Afterward, he holds me while I tremble, while tears leak from my eyes—not from pain but from the overwhelming intimacy of it all.

"Are you okay?" he asks, concern clear in his voice.

"I didn't know," I whisper. "I didn't know it could be like this. That I could feel so... complete."

"Neither did I," he admits, pressing kisses to my hair. "Not until you."

"Was I... was it good for you?"

He pulls back to look at me, incredulous. "Good? Rosalynn, you just gave me something precious. Something no one else will ever have. You trusted me with your body, your innocence, your heart. Good doesn't begin to cover it."

"Will you tell me about her? About S.C.?"

He's quiet for a long moment. "Sienna Cross. I was cocky and a little stupid with it. Her father was an enemy of mine, and she was an assassin sent to kill me. Only, I fell for her, and she fell for me. It’s complicated."

"But you don't belong to her."

"No. I belong to you now, just as much as you belong to me." He traces my face with gentle fingers. "You've given me something she never could—genuine surrender, honest desire, real trust."

I curl against him, and he wraps an arm around me, holding me as close as ever.

Tomorrow, there will still be a price on my head.

Tomorrow, he'll still have to deal with the Corsinis and whoever else is against us.

Tomorrow, the real world will intrude again.

But tonight, I’m going to drift asleep peacefully in the arms of the only man who matters.