Vincent doesn’t ask.
His mouth finds her, and the world narrows to the hot, wet stroke of his tongue and the iron grip of his hands on her thighs, holding her open.
Sofia’s head falls back, a gasp torn from her throat, but his other hand fists in her dark hair, pulling her gaze down to meet his.
In his black eyes, she doesn’t see triumph—she sees a kind of furious worship, a man drowning in the very thing he conquered.
His tongue is a relentless, intimate pressure. It’s not gentle. It’s claiming. A deliberate, wet friction that makes her hips jerk up off the bed. His grip on her thighs tightens, fingers digging into her pale skin, holding her still for his mouth. Every shudder he draws from her is a silent confession. The sound he makes against her, a low, hungry groan, vibrates through her entire body.
Her hands, which had been clutching at the silk coverlet, fly to his head. Her fingers tangle in the slick black of his hair. She doesn’t know if she’s trying to push him away or pull him closer. The distinction dissolves. Her thighs tremble against the solid wall of his shoulders.
He doesn’t let her look away. His eyes stay locked on hers, even as his mouth works her. The intensity is a violation all its own. He’s watching every flicker of surrender cross her face. He’s tasting every proof of it.
Her breath comes in short, ragged pants. A flush spreads from her chest up her throat. She can feel the sweat gathering at her temples, the desperate ache coiling tighter and tighter low in her belly. Her own wetness is a slick, hot truth between her legs, and his tongue is cataloging it, drinking it, claiming it as his.
He shifts the angle, and the flat of his tongue presses harder, slower. A broken sound escapes her—half sob, half plea. Her back arches, her spine bowing off the mattress.
“Look at me,” he rasps, his voice muffled against her skin, raw and thick.
She is. She can’t not. His hand in her hair is an anchor. His eyes are a well she’s falling into.
The coil snaps.
Pleasure detonates, white-hot and shattering. It wracks through her in relentless waves, a silent scream locked in her throat. Her body convulses, her thighs clamping instinctively around his head, but he doesn’t yield. He holds her through it, his mouth gentling to a slow, lapping pressure that prolongs the tremors until they’re a soft, continuous shudder.
He finally pulls back, his breathing harsh. His lips are glistening. He rests his forehead against her inner thigh, his own body trembling with the force of his control. His hands slowly ease their punishing grip, his thumbs moving in slow, absent circles on her skin.
Slowly, he lifts his head. His gaze travels up her body—over the trembling plane of her stomach, the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the crumpled silk, the vulnerable column of her throat—until it finds her eyes again. His own are dark, pupils blown wide, his expression utterly unguarded. Hunger. Awe. Something that looks like devastation.
He climbs onto the bed, his movements deliberate. He doesn’t speak. He braces himself over her, caging her in. The hard line of his erection presses against her hip through his trousers.
He lowers his head and kisses her mouth. She can taste herself on his tongue—salt, musk, intimacy. The kiss is deep and slow and thorough, a possession that feels different than the ones before. It feels like an answer to a question neither of them asked.
When he breaks the kiss, he just looks at her. His thumb brushes her swollen lower lip. His chest heaves against hers.
Sofia reaches up. Her hand, unsteady, comes to rest against the sharp line of his jaw. His stubble scrapes her palm. It’s the first move she’s initiated. A silent reciprocity. A dangerous concession.
He turns his face into her touch, his eyes closing for a long moment. A crack in the monument.