She lowered her arms to hug all she could of him, a breath she’d been holding for seven long years flowing out of her in tortured relief. Until he stiffened in her embrace as if she’d electrocuted him.
Oh, God. This could mean she’d gotten it all wrong. That he didn’t need comfort, at least not from her. That when he’d said he’d give her anything she needed, he hadn’t thought it would be him—the one thing he hadn’t offered.
Before she could withdraw in mortification, his formidable body surrendered to her hold. He still didn’t embrace her, but he gave her license to hug him. So she did. Hug him and hug him. His sighs were the very sound of agonized enjoyment. They reverberated deep in her marrow as he rested his forehead on hers, swaying with her to the erratic cadence of their heartbeats.
Then suddenly he was pushing away. Before letdown burned her to ashes, she was swept up in his arms. Where she’d despaired of ever being again.
Forgetting to breathe as he strode inside the house, she savored the weightlessness, the powerlessness, the soaring he always made her feel when he carried her like this.
His effortless steps paused halfway up the stairs to the upper floor and he looked down at her, his eyes probing hers. “This is what you want?”
Instead of answering him, she nestled her head more securely against his chest. “My bedroom is the last door in the corridor.”
That rumble of voracity that had always melted her revved beneath her ear. He hurried through the upper floor that was all her living space, crossing inside her bedroom in seconds. The moment he closed the door, he let her slide down on his hard body and pressed her against it, letting her feel how the tremors shaking her body echoed in his.
Unable to wait another heartbeat, her hands convulsed in his hair, her lips gasping for his. The moment she reached them, she took them in a wrenching kiss, every moist glide and thrust of her tongue confessing how much she’d longed for him. It reminded her how much she’d lost, how much she’d lose again.
But she had him now, and she would hoard all she could of him.
She’d barely started when he tore his lips away. Crying out, she surged up, desperate for his breath so she could breathe, for his heartbeat so her heart wouldn’t stop, needing his taste to fill her up for the desolate future without him.
But he’d only broken the kiss to melt more down her neck, her breasts. His growls of pleasure and need were elemental, set off jolts of hunger in her core.
He wanted her now. She knew he did. With all his indomitable, magnificent being. For now. And she wanted to have every spark of his desire, needed it. Had to have it. If even for one hour.
Too weak still to climb him and wrap herself around him, she could only stand on tiptoe and arch back, offering all of her. Her legs buckled when his erection pressed into her core through their clothes. Moaning, she ground against him, pressing his head harder into her aching breasts. He opened his mouth over her sweatshirt-smothered flesh, nipping one of her nipples.
A cry tore from her as she bucked with pleasure, losing all coherence. “Ivan, please, just take me.”
With another growl, he picked her up again and carried her where she’d never thought she’d have him—her bed.
His gaze raked every inch of her, igniting her skin wherever it lingered, then he came down over her, his arms a prison of muscle around her. She breathed in the scent of his maleness and protectiveness, fiery and clean and musky. Her mouth watered then her stomach rumbled.
“You’re hungry.” He pulled back, gaze sharp, tone accusing. He’d constantly worried she didn’t have enough food, kept urging her to eat more.
He started to get up and she clutched his hand, the hand that had snatched her from death’s jaws, that had taught her what pleasure really was. “Not for food, Ivan.”
“Anastasia...” he groaned as he sank back into her arms.
She singed her lips with his heat as she ran them over his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck, loving the feel of the few days’ worth of beard he now wore.
At its soft abrasion, she moaned into his skin. “All I want is to feast on you.”
And she did, trembling with the enormity of having him in her arms again. Her hands roamed the breadth of his back, reveled in the leashed power of his arms, her lips and tongue delighted in skimming every inch she could reach, every touch and taste everything she’d craved for years. Years.
But he broke away from her again, to blaze a possessive trail down her body. He had her writhing in pleasure as he seemed to melt her clothes off. It was only when she found herself naked beneath him in what felt like seconds that self-consciousness assaulted her.
Dr. Balducci had done a masterful job on the scar that traversed her abdomen. It reminded her she’d been taken apart and put back together inside, but she’d gotten used to seeing it, mostly dismissed it. But having Ivan’s hands and eyes on it, she felt as if it was the ugliest thing ever, and that it covered her from head to toe.
On a mental level, she knew Ivan would sympathize. But on the sensual one, the male in him, what she knew from ecstatic experience was ferociously carnal and exacting, had to be put off by it.
But as she tried to reach for her comforter to cover herself, Ivan, still fully clothed, captured her wrists. He pinned them beside her head, his knees imprisoning her thighs.
“Don’t hide from me, moya dusha.”
At hearing him call her my soul, one of the extravagant endearments he’d used to lavish on her, she sobbed, “I don’t want you to
see me like this.”