Page 75 of No Longer Mine (Rags & Riches #2)

Scarlett

Six months felt like an eternity—and not long enough.

I thought I would have healed from what Sinclair Cristof had done to me by now, but the scars still lingered like ghosts. Dimitri encouraged therapy. But I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t sit across from a stranger and recount those nightmares and past ones—not yet.

Not when I was still planning on hunting him down.

Of course, I hadn’t told Dimitri that.

Not after that night, when he kissed every part of me with reverence, looked up at me like I was his entire world, and whispered, “If you need to keep stealing to feel like you have control, then do it. Do what you need to heal. I’ll be here—when you’re done.”

I didn’t have it in me to steal anymore. But revenge? That was another matter.

I no longer looked over my shoulder when I walked alone. Vance or Don were always nearby. It helped.

I never thought I’d return to my penthouse, but Dimitri hated the brownstone. He said he missed the chaos of the city. Two weeks after the NYPD press release, he moved in without asking—and I didn’t stop him.

He never stood behind that podium and never took credit for the fallout. I was thankful. As much as he’d done, as many lives as he’d saved, putting his face out there would’ve made him a target. And after everything, I couldn’t lose him.

Now, I played chess with Don in the mornings while Dimitri worked. Vance couldn’t sit still long enough to be a worthy opponent, so he went with Dimitri instead. Sometimes they traded off. I never complained. I had peace. I had safety.

It had taken far too long.

But every so often, when the apartment was quiet and the city buzzed outside my window, I’d open the drawer where I kept my old lockpicks.

Just to make sure my fingers still remembered.

I still went to my kickboxing and MMA classes. I still remembered how to take down a man twice my size and I was working on being able to fight off several at a time.

Because one day… I was going to find Sinclair Cristof and I was going to make him pay.

I was taking my earrings out when Dimitri came up behind me. He pressed a kiss to my shoulder as he pulled my sleeve down. I was wearing his favorite dress with the green silky material and two slits that went up my thighs. He’d taken me to my favorite restaurant and let me eat dessert for dinner.

His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “You didn’t eat enough.”

“I had three crème br?lées,” I murmured, smiling despite myself.

“And you shared two with me.”

I turned, catching the curve of his smirk, that impossibly arrogant one that made it hard to breathe. “You’re insatiable.”

“Only when it comes to you.”

He kissed me again—lower this time, over the place where my pulse beat steady against my collarbone. I leaned into him, into the safety he wrapped around me without even trying.

He unzipped the back of my dress and the material pooled around my waist, freeing my breasts to his gaze and his wandering hands.

His eyes dropped, his fingers following the path the dress had taken, skimming over my ribs before rising to cup me with a reverence that still disarmed me—even now.

“Still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.

I let my eyes flutter closed for a second as his thumbs brushed over my nipples, slow and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. Like he wanted to memorize every inch of me all over again.

“You always say that,” I whispered, my voice already losing steadiness.

“Because it’s always true.”

He bent down, his mouth closing around one of my breasts, his tongue flicking softly before he sucked just hard enough to make my breath catch.

His other hand roamed lower, dragging along my hip, the outside of my thigh, down to the slit in my dress.

When he looked up into my eyes, there wasn’t lust there or pride…

it was devotion. My head fell back and a moan escaped my parted lips.

I couldn’t believe I got to come home to a man who adored me, cherished me—worshiped me.

His fingers hooked into the waistband of my panties, dragging them down my thighs. “I love you.”

I gasped and my eyes flew open. I didn’t think I would ever get to hear him say the words.

I didn’t exactly need to hear them as he showed me almost every day his love through his actions, but him saying them?

It was erotic. When he pressed a kiss to the soft skin between my thigh and my hip, a sigh escaped me.

I sunk down to the floor beside him, instead of letting him taste and worship me, I straddled his thighs.

His hands gripped my waist instinctively, but he didn’t try to take over. He just looked up at me like I was everything.

“Say it again,” I whispered, my fingers curling into the back of his hair.

His jaw tensed as if saying the words once had cost him more than he expected. But then his voice broke through the quiet, steady and wrecking.

“I love you.”

This time, I kissed him.

Hard and deep like I was trying to steal the words straight from his mouth and plant them into my chest where they belonged.

He groaned as I rocked against him, our bodies still dressed, but the friction—the friction—was dizzying. His hands slid beneath the bunched silk of my dress, gripping my bare hips as I rolled again, slower this time, savoring the drag of his cock against my aching, bare pussy.

“You feel what you do to me?” I breathed against his lips. “You say those words, and I fall all over again.”

He rested his forehead on mine. “Then don’t stop falling.”

He reached between our bodies and unzipped his slacks. His cock sprang free and made contact with my aching center. It was enough to send me over. I gasped—my head falling back, eyes fluttering shut—as the thick, hot pressure of him slid against my clit.

I rose up on my knees just slightly and he leveled his cock with my soaking pussy as I lowered myself down on him. My gasp echoed around the bathroom. I sank down onto him slowly, my hands braced against his chest, my breath catching with every inch.

His fingers curled into my hips, grounding me as I adjusted around him, as my body opened to the weight and warmth of him like it had been waiting for this exact moment.

I wasn’t trembling from lust.

I was trembling from everything.

From the way he looked at me like I was something sacred.

From the words he’d finally said.

From the truth of knowing I had finally—finally—let someone all the way in.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered, voice strained, jaw tight with restraint.

I started to move—slow, wanton rolls of my hips that pulled a low groan from his throat.

He let me lead. Let me ride the rhythm of what my body craved. But his hands never left me. They guided, supported, worshiped—promised.

“Watch me fuck you,” My eyes left his and went to the mirror beside us.

The sight of it—his jaw clenched, the reverence in his gaze as he watched me ride him—was enough to make my breath hitch again.

“Look at how you take me,” he said low, voice wrecked. “Every inch. Like I was made for you.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. His throat worked as he fought for control and I knew I was losing the battle myself.

He gripped my hips tighter as he rose up on his heels to impale me further on his cock.

I moaned as his hands slid around my ass to run his finger around his cock impaling me.

With both hands he pulled my ass open even more and the tips of his fingers slipped into my pussy as his cock moved in and out of me.

It was erotic and dirty but I loved every second of it.

Our combined moans and gasps echoed around the room as we watched our bodies move together. My hands clutched at his shoulders as he moved beneath me, his rhythm sharper now, deeper—driving me right towards the edge.

My breath caught as his name broke from my lips, fractured and trembling. He felt it. Wave after wave hit me and before I knew it, he was picking up the pace even faster. Pounding into me at a rate that only prolonged my orgasm.

His hands twitched on my ass he growled against my neck and I felt him cum deep within me. I pressed my forehead to his as he stayed inside of me. No longer moving but not completely soft either.

“I love you,” I whispered, not because I was overwhelmed with what we’d just done, but because I meant it in every possible way.

His lips found my temple as he kissed me gently. “I know.”

I stayed there in his arms, both of us still catching our breath, our bodies tangled in sweat and silk. Outside the city never stopped moving, but for once—I did.

With him, I could rest.

But deep in my chest, I could still feel the hum.

Of unfinished business.

Of the storm I hadn’t forgotten.

But when the time came to face it I knew I wouldn’t be alone.

Not anymore.