lapped around my belly button.
“I’m begging you,” I found myself confessing.
Crystal blue eyes looked up at me, and he asked, “What, Elene?” while sliding his free hand around my back until his rough palm landed on the flesh of my behind. I yelped as his hand met the flesh.
Unconsciously my body jerked. “I’m begging you … I don’t know!”
The man stopped, and lowering his head to the lowest part of my stomach, he sighed. “Then give me your name, kotyonok. Your real name, and this all can end.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, but tears tumbled down my cheeks. His hand squeezed my behind again, and his finger slipped low, stroking toward my core. Lips parting, my eyes flew open and I released a strangled moan. My body shook with the unfamiliarity of my most private place being caressed, so freely and unbidden. Yet, darkly and treacherously, I wanted that finger to travel lower. I wanted the spring, currently wound so tightly, to be released. I wanted that something I just knew was out of reach.
In my inner turmoil, I had not seen him rise to his feet. One of his hands was still at my behind, the other still skirting just above my core, but now his face, his flushed and hungry scarred face, was directly before mine.
“Please,” I begged again, looking beyond the three harsh scars to see patches of smooth and milky skin.
He shook his head, his long black eyelashes fluttering as he blinked. “Shh,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. I felt the finger now playing at the top of my pubic hair move down to the crease of my thigh. I caught an apprehensive moan in my throat. I confused at my breasts aching for his calloused touch and my nipples hardening against the monster’s naked broad chest.
“Tell me, kotyonok,” he whispered, and pressed his lips against my cheek, “have you ever been touched?”
I dragged in a quick breath when he slipped the finger at my behind lower toward my core. “Answer me,” he said roughly.
“No,” I admitted, voice trembling. “I have never been touched.”
His head reared back slightly. The hunger in his expression intensified tenfold. Lips parted, his pupils dilated and his bare shoulders rose and fell in quick and exaggerated movements. His breathing was erratic and the truth struck home.
He liked that I was untouched. This man relished that I was a virgin.
At this moment, lust blatantly pulsed from him in waves, and I felt it, too. Clearly seeing something in my eyes or the heavy blush of my skin, he pressed his chest against mine. Then he raised the hand that had been caressing my behind to cage me in and rest above my head. The finger running along the apex of my thighs continued onward. He pressed his lips to the corner of my lips and murmured, “You are so beautiful.”
For a moment I hated myself. I hated what hearing him call me beautiful did to the rhythm of my heart. I had liked it. I had liked this man calling me beautiful.
Another press of his lips on the corner of mine came next; then he asked coldly, “Do you find me beautiful? Do you find this fucked-up beast beautiful, too?” Pushing his hand off the wall above me, he leaned back until his body came into full view—a plethora of name tattoos, a smattering of scars, and that black inked “194” dominating the center of his chest. As always, my focus dwelled upon the collar fixed around his neck. There was a seam at the side, heavy metal hinges keeping it tightly in place. His face was hard, his expression, as well as his voice, mocking. But before I could help it, an answer poured from my mouth. “Yes,” I said shockingly but honestly, “you are beautiful to me.”
He stilled as though he did not expect my answer, his black eyebrows pulling down in a threatening frown. I kept the truth in my expression when I caught the briefest flash of vulnerability in his gaze again. That flash immediately unlocked something inside me, that one-second lapse of control striking something in my heart.
The man’s heavy muscles bunched, the raised muscles on top of his shoulders twitched, but I could see that my reply had unnerved him. His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. His head tilted to the side, scrutinizing every part of my face. When, abruptly, his expression changed, losing its harshness.
Groaning, he flew at me, causing me to