Page 54 of Toxic Temptation (Krayev Bratva #1)

KOVAN

She’s still trembling beneath me, her breath coming in soft gasps against my shoulder. The aftershocks of her orgasm ripple through her body. Through my fingertips, I can feel the tension slowly leaving her muscles as she comes down from the high I just gave her.

I should pull away. Give her space to recover. But the way she’s clinging to me, her nails still embedded in my shoulders, makes me want to stay exactly where I am.

“Holy shit,” she whispers, her voice completely wrecked.

I lift my head to look at her. Her hair is feathered across the pillow, her lips swollen from my kisses, her eyes still glazed with satisfaction. She looks like a woman who’s been thoroughly worshipped, and the sight sends a fresh wave of possessiveness through me.

“You okay?” I ask, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

She nods, but there’s guilt in her face. Shame. Like she’s just realized she’s shown me more of herself than she ever intended to.

“I don’t…” She starts to speak, then stops, biting her lip.

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t usually lose control like that.”

“I know.” I trace the line of her cheekbone with my thumb. “That’s what made it so fucking beautiful.”

Her cheeks flush, and she looks away. “This doesn’t change anything,” she says, but she lacks conviction. “Tomorrow, we go back to?—”

“To bullshit?” I interrupt, my hand sliding up to cup her face, forcing her to meet my eyes. “To pretending I don’t know how you taste? How you sound when you fall apart on my tongue?”

“We have a deal?—”

“Fuck the deal,” I say shortly. “You think you can go back to looking at me across the breakfast table, knowing how good I can make you feel? Knowing how you begged for more?”

She swallows hard, her breathing already starting to quicken again. “Kovan?—”

“You think I can watch you put Luka to bed, all domestic and sweet, and not remember how you grabbed my hair when you came?” I lean down, my lips brushing her ear. “How you rode my face and gushed for me?”

“Stop! That was just… in the moment.”

“Was it?” I pull back to study her face, my thumb stroking across her bottom lip. “Because it didn’t feel like ‘ just anything ’ to me.”

She shies away, as if she’s seeing something in my eyes that scares her. “What are you saying?”

I don’t have an answer for that. Truth is, I don’t know what the hell I’m saying. All I know is that the thought of going back to the way things were before tonight makes me want to fucking break something.

Instead of answering, I slide my hand between her legs again, finding her still slick and sensitive from her orgasm. She gasps and arches beneath me.

“Kovan, we can’t?—”

“This isn’t just a distraction, Vesper.” I circle her clit with lazy strokes, watching her struggle to form coherent thoughts. “You know that as well as I do.”

“It has to be,” she breathes, but her body is responding to my touch, her hips lifting to meet my hand. “I can’t… I won’t let myself?—”

“Let yourself what? Feel something?” I increase the pressure, watching her eyes flutter closed. “Too late. You already do.”

She makes a sound that’s half moan, half sob. A stuttering, gasping, last-ditch attempt at denial. “C-c-can’t…”

“Tell me what’s really scaring you,” I demand, my fingers never stopping their gentle torture. “It’s not just about Jeremy and the hospital. There’s something else.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and for a moment, I think she might actually tell me.

Then she shakes her head. “Please, Kovan. I just need to not think tonight. Can you do that for me?”

The plea in her voice undoes me completely. “Yeah,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers. “I can do that.”

I position myself at her entrance, the head of my cock pressing against her wetness. She’s so ready for me, so perfect, that it takes every ounce of self-control not to just drive into her.

“Look at me,” I command softly.

Her eyes open, meeting mine. There’s trust there, and desire, and something that might be love if either of us was brave enough to name it.

When I know I have her, have all of her, I slide in slowly, savoring every inch. The feeling of her wrapped around me is indescribable—hot and tight and perfect. It’s coming home to a place I never knew I’d been searching for.

“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, meaning every word. “So fucking perfect.”

A tear slides down her cheek, and I kiss it away. The salt taste mingles with the sweetness of her skin.

“I’m scared,” she admits in a voice so small I almost miss it.

“Of what?”

“Of this. Of you.” Her thumb traces my bottom lip. “Of how much I want you to stay.”

Blyat’. I want to stay, too. Want to wake up with her in my arms and make her coffee and watch her put Luka to bed every night.

But I’m a dangerous man in a dangerous world, and she’s too good for the darkness I carry. She deserves someone who can give her a normal life. Someone who won’t put her in harm’s way just by loving her.

Not that I’m capable of love.

Not anymore.

“I’m here now,” I say instead, starting to move inside her with slow, deliberate strokes. “Let me take care of you tonight.”

She nods, and I lose myself in the feel of her. She responds to every touch, every kiss, every whispered word. I make love to her—because that’s what this is, even if neither of us is ready to admit it—until she’s boneless and sated beneath me.

When I finally let myself follow her over the edge, it’s with her name on my lips.

Afterward, we lie tangled together in the darkness, her head on my chest, my fingers combing through her hair.

“Jeremy said something else today,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“That my father wasn’t the man I thought he was.” Her voice is steady, but I can feel the tension in her body. “That maybe I didn’t know him at all.”

“And you’re worried he might be right.”

It’s not a question. I can hear the doubt in her voice, see it in the way she won’t meet my eyes.

“Dad always seemed so moral. So committed to helping people. But when he got sick, when he needed that liver…” She trails off, shaking her head. “He just gave up. Refused the transplant. Said he’d lived a full life and didn’t want to take an organ from someone younger.”

“That sounds pretty moral to me.”

“Does it? Or does it sound like someone with guilty secrets he didn’t want to live with anymore?”

I tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at me. “Your father was a good man, Vesper. I can tell just by looking at you. You’re the best person I know, and you don’t get that way by accident.”

Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “What if you’re wrong? What if everything I believed about him was a lie?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. Together.”

We both freeze. “Together” implies a future we haven’t discussed. A relationship that extends beyond our fake arrangement.

“Kovan—”

“Don’t,” I say quickly. “Don’t overthink it. Let’s just take this one day at a time.”

She nods, but I can see the questions in her eyes. The same questions that are tearing through my own mind.

What happens when this is over? When I get custody of Luka and she goes back to her life? Can I really let her walk away?

More importantly—should I?

I pull her closer, breathing in the scent of her hair. For now, she’s here. In my arms. Safe.

Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

“Get some sleep,” I murmur against her temple.

“Will you stay?”

The vulnerability in the question breaks my heart. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

At least for tonight.