Page 44 of Forbidden Boss
“Okay?” he asks, his voice rough.
“Yes,” I say, pulling him closer. “Don’t stop.”
He moves with control, but it isn’t cold. He sets a pace that lets me breathe and feel every delicious inch of him. One of his hands laces with mine and pins it above my head on the pillow. The other steadies my hip. He watches my face for any sign of change, any trace of pleasure or pain. Every time my breath hitches, he adjusts the angle, the depth, the rhythm until I’m melting into the bed.
I hook my leg around his waist and pull him even deeper. He lets out a loud, exultant moan. I tighten around him and his jaw locks, but he doesn’t lose the rhythm. He keeps me right there and waits for me to climb. It’s new and patient and adoring.
“Tell me,” he gasps. “What you need.”
“You,” I say, because it’s the only word I can find.
His mouth claims mine again, and I open for him. He kisses me sloppily, deeply, breathlessly. His fingers squeeze my hand, and the crush of it lands in my chest. I’m his and he’s mine and nothing outside the door gets a say.
I roll my hips as he thrusts inside me. Heat begins its slow crawl again from my stomach to my throat. He feels it too, and slows just enough to draw it out. The pull tightens and tightens. He doesn’t rush me.
He murmurs my name, low and sure, and the sound tips me over the edge. I come hard, clinging to him, breathing his name against his mouth. He holds on for just a moment longer, then follows with a rough exhale before burying his face in my neck.
We stay like that for a long time. His weight keeps me grounded. My heart slows against his chest. The room goes quiet except for the soft shift of sheets and our breathing. He rolls to his side and pulls me with him so I’m tucked against him, my leg over his. His hand drifts to my stomach and rests there, barely a touch.
It’s not an accident. It makes my throat tight.
“That was new,” I whisper against his chest.
He studies the ceiling for a beat, then looks at me. His walls are still up, but a brick shifts.
“I don’t let people in,” he says. “You know that.”
I nod.
“I don’t love easily,” he adds quietly, like it costs him. “I don’t get attached. It’s safer that way. For everyone.”
“I know that,” I tell him honestly, stroking the skin on his pecs. “I don’t expect you to?—”
“I had a wife,” he says, cutting me off.
Whatever I was going to say dies on my tongue. I wasn’t remotely expecting this confession. I can’t even imagine him with a wife. In an instant, I have to recalibrate absolutely everything I knew about him.
“We were young,” he continues. “Before any of this was as big as it is now. I thought I could keep the business in one box and her in another. I couldn’t. People noticed that she mattered to me. They used it. She died because of me. That’s the simple truth. The softer version is I did everything I could and it wasn’t enough.” He shakes his head once.
I lie there, processing his words. It’s a heavy confession. There is nothing I can do or say to make this better. My heart begins to ache for him so deeply that the tears start falling of their own accord.
“I’m sorry,” I say. It feels small and insignificant in the face of what he’s just admitted.
He nods like he doesn’t need the words but hears them anyway.
“Since then, I don’t give anyone leverage. Not friends. Not women. Not even my own people. The only person who gets to slow me down is Yuri, and that’s because he’d shoot me in the leg if it kept me from walking into something worse.”
A corner of my mouth lifts. “I absolutely believe that.”
“I don’t talk about her,” he continues. “I don’t like to talk about any of it. But Yuri said something today, and it reminded me that some things are worth fighting for.”
“What did he say?” I can’t help but ask, looking up at him, running my fingers through his hair.
“He said that I’m in love with you,” he admits boldly, without a hint of insecurity.
The room tilts a little. Suddenly I feel like I’m in a parallel universe with a different Lev saying this to a different Mari. Maybe they have it more together than the two of us do.
“I don’t say words I can’t protect,” he goes on, before I can say anything. “I don’t know what I am with you yet, but I know I need you here. I know I need you safe. I know the idea of you leaving burns through my head in the worst way. And I know you’re carrying my child, and that changes every rule I thought I’d die following.”