His little smile makes my own smile rise again. Alexei can’t help it. Even when he’s doing something like making dinner, the Russian looks devilish. Maybe it’s the coal black of his eyes, or the angle of his jaw, or that body, or...
“Baby,” he says. In that voice. In his voice. When Alexei says things he says them in a low, bass rumble that seems to vibrate out from the thick width of his chest. His dark eyes settle onto mine and he comes forward, looking at me as he comes nearer. Everything about Alexei turns me on. The way he eyes me, the way he walks, always so slow and measured. Everything about Alexei is a controlled power. He’s so physical he could, I know, so easily overpower almost anyone. He could, I know, so easily intimidate people, so easily make everyone around him feel small. He doesn’t. I mean, I’m sure at work, all of that size comes in...handy. But here, or in the streets, when we out to eat, when we walk down the hall together, Alexei always goes out of his way to make himself...unthreatening. He doesn’t stare down at elderly women, he doesn’t glare at people in the supermarket. There is something of a gentleness to him that I adore, a gentleness that I want him to love in himself too.
Instead, I don’t think Alexei knows what to make of that side of himself. It’s something I think he lets me see. It’s definitely not the impression he gives off with all of his calm, controlled swagger.
I don’t think there has ever been much gentleness or sweetness in his life. Even now, sometimes, when I say something to him, something like ‘you’re so sweet’ to him, he only stares down at me, like those are words are so foreign he doesn’t know to process them. I know it’s why he doesn’t say some of the things I wish he would. He didn’t grow up hearing words like love, let alone knowing what love looked like.
To the rest of the world, Alexei is a bad boy, plain and simple. And even though I know him so well, he still looks like a bad boy to me too.
In front of me, he looks down at me. At 6’ 6”, Alexei always makes me feel petite, although I’m not short at all. At nearly 5’ 9” I’m taller than a lot of women. It’s much more than his height. Alexei is broad all over, big and thick and built by hard muscles; his body is as honed as his mind and being around him always makes my mind move quicker. I like that he challenges me. And I admit I get a little thrill out of challenging him.
Reaching around me, he brushes the backs of his knuckles across the small of my back. His other hand rises too, to span the side of my face between his fingers. He leans down and I rise on my toes. Our lips brush, flicker against each other with a bare, soft touching. Then he opens my mouth with his, to kiss me deeper. Immediately, all of the muscles in my body go loose. His hand widens against the small of my back. He makes me melt.
“What about dinner?” I ask him as he puts his other arm around me and lifts me up higher against him. My hands rest against his shoulders. I’m only hungry for him right now, but he’s worked hard on it and I don’t want it to burn or go to waste. It’s always been my nature to worry about the little things. And it’s not in Alexei’s nature to sweat the small stuff. It’s one of the ways we are different, but that difference seems to work for us. In so many ways he is the absolute man of my dreams.
Even after five years together, he can still literally, and figuratively, sweep me off of my feet.
The way he hitches me higher into his arms, the way his hand shifts from the small of my back in a long, slow slide to my hip makes me arch. Just a little, just enough to give Alexei access to the hollow of my neck. It’s like he knows my body so well he knows all of the small ways I will react to all of his small touches. When he wants my neck he moves his hands in a certain way, and when he wants my kisses he moves his hands in other ways, and I love giving him what he wants.
Carrying me with his head tucked into my neck and his mouth opening a heat against the place where my pulse flutters, we pass by the row of windows in the living room. Outside, Manhattan glitters and soars in the dark. I can see our reflection in the silhouettes of the buildings. I see my big, beautiful Alexei carrying me in his arms. I see my own shy smile, the sparkle in my dark eyes, my ebony skin.
“Dinner can wait. I’m having you first.” His words rumble against my neck. His lips brush with small, rough kisses. I love the way he doesn’t ask it, doesn’t intimate it. It’s simply what’s going to be. Maybe because, so often, I’m the one in charge of everything, at work, and in my own family, I love how often Alexei takes charge.
Wrapping my legs around his waist, I duck my head down against the top of his forehead as he carries me to the bedroom.
Setting me down on the big bed carefully, so I am seated at the edge, he stands over me, looks down at me. His lips are curled into his wicked grin. His huge hands move slowly, a whisper in the dark as he takes the hem of my shirt. While he pulls that up and off, I kick at my sneakers.
“You always look at me like that,” I say. Biting my bottom lip, I stretch out. It’s hard to believe he still gets that look in his eyes. I’d always heard that relationships usually cool down, but so far, ours hasn’t. I hope it never does.
“Look at you like what?” Reaching around me with one hand, he flicks at the hooks on my bra. It’s amazing to me how Alexei’s fingers are so deft, as big as they are.
“Like you’ve never seen me before. Or something.” I giggle. Yes, he still makes me giggle. It’s ridiculous. “Like…” I regain my composure, draw a deeper breath as Alexei unloops the bra from one of my shoulders and then the next. Pinching the little lacy bra between two fingers, he sets it aside. “Like…you’re seeing me for the first time every time.”
His fingers brush against my shoulder, exert a little pressure, enough to make me know what he wants. I lay back on the bed, watching him as he takes the hem of my shorts. He pulls them down slowly over my thighs, over my calves. They pool at my ankles before he reaches to take them. Now all I am wearing is a little pair of lacy bikini panties.
His dark eyes move over my body. With him looking at me like this, I feel so sexy. Like anyone else, I have my flaws. No one is perfect unless they are photoshopped. But Alexei’s eyes make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Do you like it? That I look at you this way?” He takes the hem of his shirt into his hands. Pulls it up off of him. His dark eyes burn.
I don’t pretend not to ogle his body as the shirt rises higher.
“For your sake, I hope you like it. Because it’s not something I think I can stop doing, Radiah.”
“Well. For your sake, Alexei, I hope you enjoy being my eye candy. Because staring at you isn’t something I think I can stop doing.”
Alexei is gorgeous. There’s no other word for it. Seeing him, he always takes my breath away. His tanned skin, hard with muscle and with the flex of his breathing, makes the dark tattoos etched onto his biceps and his chest shift into lengthening. I’ve traced every one of those tattoos, marveling over their intricacy. “Does each one have a story?” I’ve asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “But I don’t remember most of them.”
I don’t tell him that I don’t believe him. I don’t tell him that I think the real truth is... he doesn’t want to remember them.
I know a little. I know, when he’d been young, in St. Petersburg, things hadn’t been easy for him. He’d drank, and he’d fought and I know each one of those markings mean something about loss, something about being alone, and something about darkness. Except for the tattoo on his back. The griffin was the mark of the men who had saved him, the mark of the organization that became his family. That tattoo is different than the rest; it is, he has told me, his last. Unless I want to tattoo my name on your body, I’ve told him. I was only half joking. Like Alexei, I have a kind of...possessiveness. I like him to take my hand in public, and I like to touch his hip in public, especially if another woman is eying over him. Then, I probably all but growl my ownership. Not that I think I have to. Alexei makes it clear, clearer than a lot of women get to enjoy knowing: he only has eyes f
or me.
“Yes.” I whisper it. My legs are hanging off of the edge of the bed and my feet are on the carpet; I open my thighs a little, an invitation to him. I want to feel the heaviness of his warm body. “I love it, Alexei. I don’t want you to ever stop looking at me this way.”
He leans down over me, sets his one hand against the mattress. His chest and his stomach stretch above me and I reach for him, and set one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his side. Ducking his head lower, his lips brush mine, and then, opening my mouth with his, he kisses me, hard. With his other hand he reaches for my hands, takes one wrist and then the other. Still arched over me, with a gentle tug, he hitches me up higher onto the bed.
“Good.” Ducking his head, he kisses at my collarbone. He kisses down my breast, pauses at my nipple and flicks his tongue there. His lips are so soft, his kisses delicate teases that make my body arch. “Then you won’t be angry at me for it because it’s not going to stop.”
His kisses inch down my abdomen and he lowers down to the ground in front of the bed.
His teeth graze at the hem of my panties and my breath catches. The touch of him sends small sparks of heat shooting through my belly. It’s a stir of excitement, and anticipation, that makes my throat feel dry. If he’s planning on giving me that kind of attention tonight… then my good day just became a great day. I’ve never had a man…do those things to me. I mean, well, they might try. But Alexei...he’s so good at it, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.
Now that’s something else I’ve only shared with Carla. Once. After we’d had a little too much wine. No, really, I’d kept telling her. You have no idea...He does this thing. With his tongue. I don’t even…
I don’t even know how to explain it even while he’s doing it. I only know that even before he’s about to do it, I’m excited.
“Alexei.” Craning my neck up I reach for him, touch the short crop of his dark hair, the powerful muscle in his shoulder.
“Hmm.” His voice is a distracted growl. Catching the lace with his teeth, he tugs at it gently; his hands raise to my hips at the same time, to lift me just enough to drag the panties down my thighs. I feel the heat of his mouth, the huff of his breath and the crop of day-old stubble on his jaw as he runs his hands down my legs, pushes the panties to the floor.
“Alexei.” Anticipation, the flutter of his breathing, the way his head is ducking, makes my toes curl. I know full well the treat I’m about to be gifted. The flick of his tongue between my thighs makes me shift; it feels so good already I can’t help it. But his hands, back on my hips again, hold me in place.
He rumbles something, something wordless, and the vibration stirs friction where I am already damp for him. His lips circle, and his hands slide under me, hitch me up a little higher, give him a better angle. I can’t stop myself from opening my hand on the back of his head. I can’t stop myself from wrapping my legs around him. Can’t stop from trying to twist my hips in his hands as his tongue darts and his lips brush.
“Alexei.” Again, I gasp his name. I’m already breathing harder. Already, my breaths are a little irregular, begin to stagger with sharp, short draws of pleasure.
He’s ignoring me. Completely. It makes me dig my nails down a little deeper into his shoulder.
Without looking up, he slides his one hand further beneath me, to bear my weight up, and he reaches up with his other hand, slides his palm in a long, slow rake up against my body until he reaches my breast. Thumbing slowly over my nipple, he makes a low grunt and the sound of it, the sight of his head ducked between my thighs, these things he is doing to me, makes me moan. Pressing my hand a little harder against the back of his head, I arch higher. I can see the flex of muscle run through the broad width of his back and the sight drives me crazy. Made up of small muscles that line one against the other, Alexei’s back is powerful and strong...and mine. My fingers dig into his shoulder. My palm flattens, holds him where he is. But as much as I love what he is doing to me, I want him nearer, I want him closer.
I need him on me. I need him inside of me.
I need him on me and inside of me and when he is on me and inside of me I need him to move.
His tongue pushes in and he shifts his rhythm into counter-clockwise, into an increase of speed; the hinting, flickering friction starts to spin up and up and up and my hips go up and up and up with each dart of his tongue. All of the small sensations he’s stirring start to catch and climb. Circling with him feels like something I can’t make myself stop doing, not even if I wanted to. It’s a desperate feeling, like I’m trying to catch the sensations as they start to climb because it’s becoming too much to stand.
It feels so good. His head burrows deeper between my thighs.
I don’t even know for sure what he’s doing, but whatever it is, he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t even seem to be breathing.
“Baby. Baby.” I dig my fingers in deeper, try to grip him, try to pull him. But I don’t want him to stop. Gasping, shifting in small, writhing hitches as the pleasure pooling through me rises higher and higher my toes curl, my body tenses. I can hardly breathe. Keening, I whimper as I climax; my fingers tense, dig in so hard I’m sure my nails are scratching him as I drag them along his shoulders.
Lifting his head from between my thighs, Alexei rises higher onto his knees. His lips are damp. Taking me by the hips, he hitches me back on the bed, back and back as he rises to stand, so my legs aren’t on the edge anymore. Reaching to take him as he lowers down against me, I open my thighs. His weight is gorgeous, warm, everywhere. His legs brace mine and he rests down on his forearms. The head of his cock presses against me. His eyes are so dark it makes me shudder.
“Please.” Palming at his hips, I try to draw him inside of me.
His eyes light with fire. And he smirks.
Little tease.
Smirking back up at him, I dig my nails in a little deeper. “Come on, baby.” I suck my bottom lip in between my teeth. Arching my hips up toward him, I slide my hands across his bottom. He loves to tease. But when I tease back, he usually gives me what I want pretty quickly.
Which is exactly what happens now. I can hear the sharp inhale and I can feel the tension ripple through his muscles. And I think to myself: Now I’ve got him.
He circles his hips once before he digs in. The head of his cock wedges between my thighs and I arch a little higher. I tug his hips a little harder.
His smirk becomes wicked. Rising up onto his forearms, he looks down into my eyes.
Challenge accepted. Shifting beneath him, I wrap my legs around his thighs and arch my lower back into a curve that makes my breasts tighten to his chest. It digs him in where he is pressed against me, and now I circle my hips.
I know what drives Alexei crazy. And I love using it against him.
As I expected it to, my little move makes him grunt, and he pushes forward with a sudden, rough thrust.
His breath comes out a long shudder as he starts to fill me.
Rising a little on his forearm, so his eyes are on mine but our bodies are still pressed tight together, Alexei watches me as he moves inside of me. I can feel the muscle in his stomach and his abdomen tighten; I can feel the throbbing heat of his need taking the space I want so much to give him. His strokes start going shorter, and it feels like he is savoring, and I arch up to him and he palms under me, sealing the space between us. A short gasp comes from him then, a hoarse, lust filled breath, and he ducks his head down into my neck.
“Baby,” I murmur. My lips brush to the side of his face. My hands slide, light and barely touching now, drawing the lines of muscle I can feel flex and coil through his back.
Opening his mouth so I feel the heat of him against my neck, and sawing his powerful hips back and forth with longer, deeper thrusts, he takes me until each time he fills me, he fills me to the hilt. Each time he fills me he grinds inside of me, a rough, stutter of friction that makes my own rising pleasure spike even higher. Gripping at his hi
p, at his ass, I try to pull him deeper, I try to keep him there. Even that short time where he pulls out to the edge of me only to pump in again feels like too much separation.
His chest presses to my breasts, his stomach hitches against mine, his broad thighs make my own thighs spread even wider. The heat of him, the bigness of him, the power and the way he gentles that power, the way he takes me so deeply and is so careful to take me in the way he knows I want, the way he knows I need, all of it, the whole of his body flexing and shifting under my roaming hands, makes me whine as I feel another climax rising.
Knowing this, he rises a little higher, angles his body so while he stroking me on the inside he is stroking my clit too. The dual sensations drive me crazy.
Her Designer Baby: (Loving Over 40 Book 1) Page 15
