His mouth crashed down on hers.
It was nothing like the gentle pressure of his thumb on her scar. This was pine soap and shared pain and a hunger that stripped her bare. He kissed her like he was taking ground, like he was claiming the truth she’d just shown him, and Kat answered with her teeth. She bit his lower lip, not hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to say she was still there, still fighting, even as her hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt and her body arched into the solid wall of his chest. Her sarcasm incinerated in the heat. All her defenses were just ash on her tongue.
He made a sound against her mouth—a low, rough groan that was more vibration than noise. His hands came up to frame her face, his callused palms hot against her jaw, his fingers sliding into her hair. He held her there, not trapping her, but anchoring her, and the kiss deepened from a claiming to a confession. She could taste the coffee he’d drunk hours ago, the sharp, clean scent of him filling her lungs, and beneath it, something darker. Need. A need that mirrored the one coiling tight and desperate in her own gut. She kissed him back with a ferocity that scared her, her nails digging into his shoulder through the cotton.
When he finally broke for air, it wasn’t far. His forehead rested against hers, their breath mingling in harsh, ragged pants in the silent bunkroom. His gray eyes were black, the watchful patience utterly gone, replaced by a focus so intense it felt like a physical touch. “Katerina,” he said, her name a raw scrape in the space between them.
She didn’t have a sarcastic reply. She had nothing but the pounding of her own heart and the slick, aching heat between her legs. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, swollen from her bite. A faint tremor ran through her hands where they still clutched his shirt. She was in his lap, surrounded by him, and every inch of her was screaming for more.
Slowly, deliberately, he shifted his grip. One hand stayed woven in her hair. The other slid down, his thumb brushing the line of her jaw, then her throat, coming to rest just above the jagged pink scar. He didn’t press. He just held it there, a silent question. Her breath hitched. She didn’t flinch away. She leaned into the touch, her eyes closing, and gave him the barest, almost imperceptible nod. A surrender. A permission. His thumb stroked once over her frantic pulse, a promise and a threat, before his mouth found hers again, softer now, but no less hungry.
His mouth softened against hers, the claiming hunger dissolving into something slower, deeper. He tasted her now, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips not to conquer, but to learn. The grip in her hair gentled, his fingers stroking through the strands, while his other hand remained a steady warmth at her throat, his thumb a silent metronome against her pulse. Katerina let out a shaky breath into the kiss, her fists unclenching from his shirt, her palms flattening against the solid plane of his chest. The fight drained from her, replaced by a heavy, liquid ache.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, then the line of her jaw, his lips brushing a path down the column of her neck. He bypassed the scar, his breath hot on the unmarked skin beside it, and she tipped her head back with a helpless sound. This wasn't an assault. It was an inventory. He nuzzled the hollow beneath her ear, inhaled the scent of her skin—gun oil and cold coffee and the salt of her sweat—as if memorizing it. His beard scraped lightly, a delicious friction that made her shiver. She carded her own fingers into his short, rough hair, holding him to her, wordlessly asking for more.
"Sergei," she whispered, and it was nothing like the challenge of before. It was a surrender, a question.
He answered by shifting her in his lap, turning her more fully toward him. One broad hand slid down her spine, pressing her closer until not a breath of space remained between their bodies. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection straining against the front of his fatigues, a blunt, urgent pressure against her thigh. A fresh wave of heat slicked between her own legs. His mouth found hers again, deep and languid, and she met him with a newfound openness, letting him in, tasting the shared warmth.
His hand left her back. It moved with deliberate slowness, skimming over her hip, across the fabric of her trousers, coming to rest on the button of her fly. He didn't try to open it. He just covered the metal with his palm, the heat of him seeping through to her skin. His kiss broke. He rested his forehead against hers again, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged. The question was in the stillness of his hand, in the tension coiled through his massive frame. The threshold was here, now, a single button between this aching exploration and something irrevocable.
He didn't move his hand from the button. Instead, he lowered his mouth back to her neck, bypassing the scar once more to find the sensitive cord of muscle beside it. This time, his kiss was slower, a deliberate, open-mouthed press of lips and tongue against her skin. He didn't suck, didn’t rush. He simply savored the salt there, the frantic beat of her pulse beneath his lips, the way she shuddered and went pliant in his arms. The ache he left behind was a brand, a slow, deep burn that seeped into her bones.
“God,” she breathed out, the word a broken thing. Her hand in his hair tightened, not pushing him away, but holding him closer. Her other hand slid from his chest to the back of his neck, her fingers tracing the rigid line of his spine there. Every nerve ending was alive, focused on that single point of contact where his mouth worshipped her skin. The rough scrape of his beard was a perfect counterpoint to the soft, hot stroke of his tongue. She felt owned, known in a way that had nothing to do with her file or her failures.
His breath hitched against her damp skin, a crack in his own formidable control. He turned his head slightly, his nose nudging her jaw as he inhaled, a deep, shuddering draw of air that took her scent into his lungs. “Katerina,” he murmured into her throat, her name a vibration she felt more than heard. It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a confirmation. A reverence.
The hand on her fly remained, a heavy, heated weight, but his fingers began to move. Not to open. To trace. His thumb rubbed slow, deliberate circles over the metal button, the pressure transmitting through the fabric to the aching flesh beneath. It was a promise, a torment. She rolled her hips, a tiny, helpless motion, seeking more of that pressure, and a low groan rumbled from his chest into hers. He kissed his way back up to her ear, his voice a dark, ragged whisper. “This ache. Tell me you feel it.”
She did. It was a live wire, a constant, throbbing hum between her legs, coiling tighter with every pass of his thumb, every soft bite at her earlobe. The slick heat was undeniable, a secret she knew he could sense in the way she moved, in the dampness he’d find if his hand slipped lower. “Yes,” she gasped, the admission leaving her defenseless. Her forehead dropped to his shoulder, her body trembling not from fear, but from the sheer, sustained force of wanting. He held her through it, his mouth soft on her temple, his hand a steady, maddening presence, letting the ache build until it was all she was.