Far more than willing.
“If you tell me no, or it feels like too much; if you need to stop, then you say so, and it’s done.”
“Not all of my cues are verbal.”
Pav nodded. “I can tell.”
“Can you?”
“Better than you know, Viktoria.”
That was the thing, wasn’t it?
She needed to trust him.
Yeah, terrifying.
And yet, she still wanted to try. She wanted to let him learn all those things he told her, and more. So much fucking more.
Pav lifted a brow high. “And if you tell me yes—”
“Yes,” she breathed instantly.
That was all he needed.
In a blink, he was up from that chair, and closing the space between them. She heard the chair legs scrape loudly against the tile, which was enough to make her jump in her own seat. Her attention quickly went back to the man looming over her. Yet another thing that made her tense and hesitate.
But he saw that.
The flash in her eyes.
The draw back when he leaned down.
He saw it all.
Viktoria watched the recognition in his eyes when he cupped her jaw in his hands and lowered down in front of her chair so that he wasn’t above her like that. So that he didn’t loom over her like that. He didn’t ask for a kiss, but she didn’t mind. Instead, he pulled her in for one that she swore lit up fireworks inside her stomach.
His lips worked hard against hers, and she answered him back with the same. At first, she just wanted to feel the kiss, but then, she wanted to taste him, too. It was her tongue that struck out against the seam of his lips first—her that asked for more without saying a thing. She was quite aware of that, and she didn’t miss how he let her do it, too.
The second his mouth opened for her, and their tongues met, a dance began. That kiss turned into something far hotter, a lot like the way her body felt in those seconds. She knew that she needed air—needed to breathe, but she didn’t care.
In his eyes, she found anticipation.
Lust.
Appreciation.
She worried she might find something else, something that looked like her greatest fears staring back at her. But she didn’t find that at all. She realized, too, that she’d never wanted a man—or rather, this man—to look at her more.
And all for what?
A kiss?
What would she feel when he had her naked and flying high?
“Breathe,” he murmured, his lips trailing over her cheek, and then down to her jaw. She did as he asked, but only because it was slightly easier to do so. His dark words continued to dance along her skin, following the same path as his hot mouth over her throat, her racing pulse point, and then down to her collarbones. “Vanilla and pears. That’s what you smell like, and it makes you taste like candy and sex.”
“Does it?”
“Here, it does,” he said, his tongue striking out against her collarbone. And then, he bit her on the same spot. Not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to make her suck in a sharp breath. “And then it tastes like sex when I do that.”
“God.”
“More?”
She wanted to use words. They were best, and most clear. Her words were definitive, but she didn’t think she could speak. Instead, she nodded. He caught it when he glanced up at her and grinned like that’s what he was expecting.
“Pick a room,” Pav said quietly. “Any room.”
She barely thought about it. “My bedroom.”
“Do you have something there that makes you feel safe?”
She didn’t say yes.
But she also didn’t say no.
Because yes, she did.
“My bedroom,” Viktoria repeated.
“Lead the way.”
He stood, then, but she came with him because he grabbed her hand and tugged her up, too. He didn’t walk behind her as she led him through the main floor, and then to the stairs. No, he walked beside her as to not be at her back. One of his hands stayed at her lower back, grazing the sliver of bare skin where her shirt had ridden up a bit. His thumb stroked her skin slowly—gently. A rhythm that lulled her into a warm place.
His touch was good.
It was only once they were inside her bedroom, and she was standing near the foot of the bed, that he moved away from her. Not far, just enough to give her space while he tugged his jacket and shirt off, only to toss them to a chair near the dresser.
She stared at him, then, unashamed that he knew she was watching. There was something to be said for a male body—all the hard lines and filled-in muscle. And Pav really was a beautiful man, she thought. Life may have been rough on him in some ways, but it treated him well in others. From the expanse of his shoulders, to the hard ridges of abs down his stomach, and then the deep cut V where his pants hung low on his waist.
Yeah, a beautiful man.
His skin was unmarked by tattoos but for the stars on his clavicles. And a part of her greatly enjoyed seeing those stars—she had put them there, and despite the fact they weren’t hers, they still kind of felt like it. His skin wasn’t unmarked by scars, though. Her gaze trailed over the number of faded and new scars that marked his torso and arms. Some larger than others, and some barely visible to her eye in the dimness of the bedroom.
“Ask about them,” he said, clearly seeing what she was doing. “Ask, and I will tell.”
“How?”
That seemed appropriate.
“Various ways. Fighting. Punishment. The chambers.”
“Oh.”
