by Brynn Ford
“Turn on the lights,” I whisper to him.
Alone in my favorite room at the edge of night, it feels sacred in the dark.
“Come dance with me in the moonlight,” he whispers back.
I whip around because his voice is behind me. I see the outline of him moving toward the center of the room.
Wings flutter senselessly in my belly and I sigh, letting my eyes fall shut for a few blissful moments of peace, relishing the sheer joy of anticipating something good, something wanted.
I open my eyes and move toward his dark figure in the center of the room. His hand is there to meet mine as I reach out to him and he pulls me into his embrace. I throw my hands around the back of his neck, assuming the standard slow dance position of all awkward young teens falling in love at a school dance.
I don’t need the lights on in this space at all. Not when I have Ezra. He is my eternal sunshine, my life force, my renewal. He refreshes my soul and makes me believe things I shouldn’t. He gives me hope I don’t deserve to have. He makes me want to fight again.
We sway together without music. After minutes of silence, Ezra’s hands on the small of my back pull me closer until we’re simply hugging one another.
“Let’s say, for theory’s sake, that tonight is our last chance to be free, to be together like this…” His voice is quiet, almost sad, and that alone threatens to break me. “How would you want to spend it?”
I swallow, tilting my chin up to look at him, though his face is awash with shadow. “I don’t know how to answer that,” I tell him honestly.
He smirks. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you’ve dreamed of what you would want to do if you ever got me alone.”
He’s being his usual charming self, flirting with me. But my response to that isn’t light and teasing. It’s hard hitting honesty that has to come out.
“I dream of it all the time, Ezra.”
The sway stills as his emerald eyes shift along the lines of my face. The moonlight paints a bright strip right across them, as even the light is drawn to his bewitching green gaze.
“This is all I have ever wanted,” I tell him in a hushed tone, “to love and be loved. To be cherished for my soul, not for my talent or my monetary worth. I think you see me.”
His eyes hood, a wrinkle creasing his brow. “I do see you.” He bends to press his forehead against mine. “If giving up my freedom is the price I have to pay to be yours, then I will pay it. I don’t regret a thing if it means I’m yours.”
My face tenses against the beautiful soul ache, unaccustomed to these feelings of joy and wanting.
Boundless wanting.
“You’re mine,” I remind him—remind myself.
“I’m yours,” he says, and our lips collide.
I drift against his body as his arms tighten around me. We breathe heavy through our noses, saving our mouths for the only thing they were meant for.
I feel it now.
Our mouths were made for kissing, and only for kissing each other.
My hands creep up the sides of his neck as he tilts his head, deepening our kiss. I want him against something, the wall, the floor, the piano, I don’t care. I just want to press into him as closely as I possibly can and savor the sweet, sweet flavor of temporary freedom we’ve been granted.
Ezra must be able to read my thoughts through my moans. He moves, walking me backward until I press against the mirror that lines the wall and I know we’re out of range from the security camera now. The freedom in knowing that strips away the last layer of reservation. There’s no caution in this kiss now, no hesitation or fear for whether we will be found. As that realization washes over me, it bathes me in heat that melts my core.
His lips fall to my neck and he kisses me everywhere, down the sides, along my collarbone, across my jaw line. I’m breathing heavily and my hips thrust forward of their own will as my back arches, succumbing to the gravity of him.
“I’m sorry,” he huffs out between hot kisses, “if I’m too rough.”
I chuckle and the sound of it is hoarse, wanting. “Too rough?”
With my body molded to his, I push back and spin us both, shoving him against the mirror instead. I reach between us to unbutton his jacket and pull out his tucked in dress shirt. I slip my hands beneath the hem and feel him, really feel him for the first time.
I trace the outline of his firm stomach with my fingers. His skin is warm to touch, soft but tautly stretched over his carefully developed abdominal muscles. I can feel him flex and jolt at my touch.
“Jesus,” he mutters, “I want you, Anya.”
His tone is lustfully deep, sinful and sweet. The sound of it pulls at my heart but also sends a sharp bolt of desire straight through to my core, clenching low in my belly.
I pause, looking up at him. “I want you, too.”
Removing my hands from beneath his shirt, I lift to my toes, holding my hands against his strong jawline and pressing the softest, most delicate, most meaningful kiss I’ve ever given to his soft, full lips.
My mouth brushes his as I speak in a hushed tone, “Make love to me tonight.”
His eyes narrow as his head nods. “Just tell me where, tell me how you want me, and I’m yours.”
I take his hand and pull him out of the dance studio, intent on taking him to any one of the random bedrooms in the manor that’s not currently occupied by a guest or their slave. We leave the dance studio and practically dance down the hallway, through the grand entrance, up the stairwell, then we stop on the landing.
“I want to be in your bed.” He steps closer. “I want to give you a good memory to hold onto in your room at night in case he doesn’t...”
In case he doesn’t keep us both here, together.
In case one of us doesn’t survive.
As morbid as the train of thought is, it’s reasonable. I don’t have to think about it. As soon as the words come out of his mouth, I know I want that, too. I want to take him to my room, be with him in my bed. No matter what happens to us after tonight, I can always close my eyes at night and think about something good that happened there.
I can have the smell of him on my pillow.
A pleasant shudder rolls down my spine.
I nod. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He takes my hand and we walk together toward my bedroom.
We make the trip in silence, entering my room quietly, shutting the door behind us. The space between us is still heated, still full of need, but there’s a twinge of awkwardness now that we’re here, standing in the truth that something delicate and precious and meaningful is about to happen.
My heart beats for this moment, awkwardness included. It all feels so normal, so natural. The anticipation of being with someone for the first time, the curiosity over what it will be like, the subtle worry that it might not be everything you expect it to be, but knowing it could be so much greater than you ever imagined.
I’ve ached for this kind of normalcy for years and Ezra has given it to me. I’ll be forever grateful to him for that.
Eager to have his hands on me again, I turn my back to him and glance over my shoulder. “Unzip me?”
I feel his heat swirl around me as he moves closer, sweeping me up in a summer storm. His fingers tickle my skin as he pulls the zipper down slowly. He steps in closer as I nudge the dress to fall off me to the floor, his hands falling against my sides, his lips pressing to my neck.
I moan from the softness of him, the gentle coaxing. Though I suppose he’s no more or less gentle with me than Nikolai. Nikolai knew how to touch softly, how to intrigue me, how to tease my body into wanting things my heart didn’t want.
But Ezra is my choice.
He could lay rough hands on me and it would still feel good because I chose it.
He’s my choice.
This is my choice.
/> “This is my choice,” I whisper, not meaning to say it out loud.
I nearly want to cry for how good that feels.
Ezra’s hands still, his kissing stops. “Do you want me to stop?”
I feel the tension he holds pulse through the palms of his hands, yet he controls it.
He controls it because he’s not Nikolai.
He cares about me.
He cares about what I want.
Still, I have to ask, “If I told you I didn’t want to do this tonight...”
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I just want to be with you.”
His voice sounds so sad, I can hardly bear it.
I spin to face him and his hands fall away. I reach behind me and unhook my strapless bra. I let it fall to the floor and stand in front of him, topless, exposed, waiting.
My breath catches in my chest and my heart skips a beat to see the way he looks at me. He desires me, there is no doubt about that, but it’s so much more. There’s a certain curiosity in his expression, the face of an explorer coming upon new land.
“I don’t want you to stop, Ezra. And I don’t want you to ask me again.” I step toward him. “I don’t need you to be careful or gentle or whatever kind of man it is you think I need you to be. I just want you. I want your passion, not your restraint.”
I reach for his shoulders, shoving off his jacket, then I yank on his tie, dragging him down to me. He bends and kisses me, stepping forward against me and forcing me backward with his steps until the backs of my knees hit the bed behind me.
I bend to sit, looking up at him with wonder in my eyes at the way he took my permission and ran with it. I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t want to be treated like a broken girl, least of all by him.
He drops to his knees in front of me and presses my thighs apart with his hands. He kisses me with passion I’ve never felt before and it hits me like a tidal wave. His fervor crashes into me and washes over me. It strikes in my core and my stomach clenches in pleasant need. I can feel the fabric of my underwear dampen with the evidence of how strongly I want Ezra.
I loosen the knot of his tie and he pulls it free, tossing it aside as I get started on the buttons of his vest and shirt. He stops kissing, pulls back, looks down to watch my hands work at the buttons.
My face flushes at the way he pants there on his knees. He looks at my hands as though they held the answers to all the questions in the universe. His eyes catch mine from beneath his lashes and I smile. The way he looks at me makes me feel powerful.
He makes me feel strong.
He makes me feel wanted.
When his shirt is finally on the floor where it belongs, I reach for him, pulling him in close until my breasts brush against his bare chest. His hands are still on my thighs, gliding upward, grazing the rough scars Nikolai has left there.
Ezra looks down as he rubs his thumb over the freshest one, one he witnessed being made in Nikolai’s cruelness. It’s still raised, still red, still healing. Then his lips replace his thumb and I gasp at the feel of it. I run my fingers through his hair as he kisses my scars, each and every jagged line that crisscrosses my skin.
I hate them.
I think they’re ugly.
But his sensuous attention almost makes me glad to have them there.
I dig into his sandy blond hair as he leaves a trail of heartfelt sensation up the inside of my thigh. I moan when he kisses over my panties, surely feeling the wet spot forming there. Before I know it, he’s slipping the fabric down from my hips. I put my knees together so he can drag them from my body, and I scoot back on the bed, lowering slowly to lay in wait for him as he unbuckles his pants and kicks off his shoes.
“This feels stupid to ask given our circumstances but…” he pauses as his pants come off, leaving him standing in front of me in gray boxer briefs, “do I need to wear a condom or something?”
I smirk, shaking my head as I prop up on my elbows to look at his perfectly sculpted dancer’s body. He’s already hard for me, straining beneath his briefs, and I just wish he would take them off already.
“No,” I tell him, “there’s a private doctor that he brings in, gives me a birth control shot every three months. Nikolai doesn’t have sex with anyone else and he’s…he’s only shared me once.”
My shoulders stiffen at the unwanted memory of being used by Vigo Vittori as payment for information. The one and only time Nikolai shared me with another. Even then, my pussy was off-limits to him. Nikolai tested me for disease anyway, and I was cleared.
I hate that Nikolai is present in my mind at this moment. I want to forget about him, about Vigo, about everything that has to do with the four families.
I just need Ezra to fill me up, overwhelm my senses, take control of my mind, and make me feel something other than constant fear and terror and hopelessness.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I say quickly. “I’m clean. Nothing to worry about.”
I bend one knee, sliding my heel backward along the mattress and spread my legs apart, just a little farther, in invitation.
He lets out a sigh of relief at the opening I give him. “Thank God.” He grins.
The underwear comes off and he practically pounces on me, climbing over my body and covering me like a warm blanket on the winter of my soul.
He kisses behind my ear. “I want to feel everything with you, Anya.”
He slides down my body, lips dancing across my skin, until he finds my hardened nipple and swirls his tongue around it.
I moan when he flicks his tongue over it, teasing me into pleasure. He rubs his thumb over the other and the feeling of it is so perfect that I find myself already panting desperately in my need for him.
I’ve never wanted anything more than I want Ezra.
He reaches down, lower and lower until his fingers find my wetness. He slides two fingers inside me and I gasp. He stills, a look of concern mixing with the lust in his green eyes, and I worry he’s going to stop.
It angers me.
If he stops, we’ll regret it forever.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t you dare stop. Don’t you dare.”
I don’t know if it’s what I say or how I say it that ignites him, but his eyes become green fire burning a hole through me. I want it to burn me hotter, brighter, faster. I want his flames to consume me entirely.
With the spark, he shoves his fingers deep inside, his fist pressing against my pussy as he stretches me roughly, reaching deep, deep within me as if he could touch my very soul that way. It’s as if he needs to be buried inside me as much as I need him to be.
His mouth lands heavy on mine, devouring me with a wet, sloppy, passionate kiss. He curls his fingers over my G-spot, stroking and pressing so hotly it makes me sweat. He rests his forehead against mine and watches me as he digs into my core. With urgent need, I rock against his hand, fucking his fingers just as much as they fuck me.
Ezra has brilliantly taken a hot moment and made it hotter with the way he groans, the way his eyes sear mine with dirty intent, the way he grinds his cock against the side of my hip with every thrust of his fingers.
We rock and grind as we pant and moan together.
His voice is a deep, dirty, husky tone that threatens to undo me, to turn me into a wanton woman who actually needs sex to survive. I’ve wanted to want for so long, and Ezra has made me want everything raw and dirty he can think to do to me.
“I want you to explode,” he says. “I want you to come on my hand, let my fingers feel what my cock has to look forward to.”
I hiss out a breath through my teeth. “You have to work for it.” Its half-dirty talk, half-truth.
He grins. “Oh, I’ll work for it. Then I’ll for work it again and again. I’ll work all night until you tell me to stop, Anya. I don’t want this to end.”
> “Never.” I dig my fingers into his hair at the back of his head and pull him down to me, kissing him fiercely.
His thumb slips over my clit as he curls his fingers and I gasp into his mouth. There’s no rhythm to our kiss, it’s just clumsy, urgent wanting.
It’s reckless, just like Ezra.
He doesn’t stop working me for minutes. He’s as desperate as I am to get me there. I feel everything he’s doing to me from the inside out. I feel raw, exposed, vulnerable, yet it’s so, so, so good.
My climax claws its way out of nowhere. My body stiffens, tense against the building pleasure in my core, but Ezra keeps moving inside me, over me, all around me.
He’s everywhere and everything.
But I have to stop him.
Before I tip over the edge, I have to stop him because I want to take him with me. I need to take him with me. I think I’ll die if I don’t take him with me.
I slide backward, forcing his fingers to slip out of me. “Stop, stop,” I tell him. “I’m not ready yet.”
He looks crestfallen, hurt, concerned. “What did I do?” He thinks it’s his fault.
“Lay down,” I demand, pushing at the center of his chest. “I want to make you feel what you make me feel.”
He lowers to lay back on his elbows and I climb over him, straddling his hips. My hair falls around my face as I grip his jawline with both hands and bend to kiss him.
I glide slowly along the length of his cock, making him slippery with how wet he’s made me.
“I want you,” he breathes against my lips.
I reach between us to grasp him, guiding his tip where I need him most. He slips inside me with ease when I lower and we both groan at the feel of it.
I barely remembered what this was like—the feeling of mutual, shared pleasure.
The feeling of wanted pleasure.
He’s buried to the hilt inside me as he kisses the side of my neck and I breathe heavily against his ear.