“I still can hardly believe that,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “A man like you could have had hundreds of women.”
“Yes, I could have,” I tell her flatly. “But why? I knew the moment I saw you that you were the only woman I’d ever want. I knew the moment I saw you that all these years of living like a damned monk had paid off. Because now I can finally let the beast inside of me free.”
“Will you be angry if you don’t, um, fit?” she says, staring down at the table, her fork clicking metallically against her plate.
My cock gives another urgent pulse.
All this talk of tight she might be is making my head foggy, making it hard to think beyond the image of her tangy soaked slit.
“It will,” I tell her. “One way or the fucking other, it will. If I have to ease myself into you over the course of several hours until you’re ready to take everything I have to give, I’ll do it. Now stop worrying. Because it’s happening. We were made for each other and it’s time you let me take the lead on this.”
She lets out a breathy sigh, so much like the way she moaned back at the underground apartment.
“Okay, Jett,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
I take a big mouthful of steak, enjoying the way the blood spreads around my mouth. It makes it easy to imagine that I’m a caveman and this is meat I caught for me and my woman, dragging it back to the cave, protecting us from the threats of the wild and being rewarded with a meal, and then her naked willing body.
“Jett,” she murmurs a minute later. “What’s your favorite color?”
I chuckle. “What?”
“You heard me,” she says, mock-glaring. “We’ve been getting so serious. Let’s lighten it up a bit.”
“Okay, let’s lighten it up. My favorite color is red, blood-red, the color of blood.”
“Ha, ha,” she says, going for sarcastic even as her eyes glimmer with real pleasure. “Seriously, though.”
I shrug. “I don’t think I have one. Most of my clothing is either black or gray if that helps.”
Black like my heart was before Juliana came along.
Gray like my morality will always be when it comes to protecting what’s mine.
“What about you, eh? What’s your favorite color?”
I can hardly believe that we’re talking about this, but my naïve young virgin’s face lights up at the question. She looks so damn young, so fertile and fresh, an untouched jewel who’s waited her whole life to be plucked up and treasured by me.
“It’s red,” she says. “I’ve got this photograph of my mom and dad, the only one I have, and my mom is wearing this red sweater. It’s not a fancy sweater or anything like that. But it looks lived-in, you know like it was her favorite thing to wear around the house. I’ve always loved it.”
I pull my chair around the table and wrap my arm around her when the sob cracks and the tears begin.
I have to remember that she’s been through a lot these past couple of days, first with the Bratva’s hired killers and then with the revelation that her boss was her parents’ friend, and that the Bratva was behind her parents’ death.
I hold her as she crumples against me, crying softly against my shoulder for a few minutes.
And then she moves her face to mine, her warm teary cheeks moving to my skin.
She stares into my eyes and I look into hers, deeply, sinking into the vast realm of her as I stare. It’s like we’re roaring at each other, a lustful song that only we can hear.
Her lips twitch into a smile, and then she leans forward.
She leans forward.
Which is all the confirmation I need.
She’s ready.
It’s time to let out the howling beast inside of me.
Chapter Sixteen
Juliana
He lifts me up and carries me inside, our lips still fused together, fireworks erupting between our bodies. My thighs are tingling, the sensation traveling up between them, to my sex.
Nerves sizzle under the surface, a small voice telling me that I won’t be able to do this.
But with Jett spiriting me across the room toward the bed, I feel as if I don’t have to struggle, don’t have to stress. I can just let him take the lead. I can let my man do what he wants to do, what he needs to do if the animalistic way he growls and breathes through the kiss is anything to go by.
He lays me down on the bed and then takes a step back, his gray suit hugging close to his giant’s body.
Every part of him is throbbing with his muscle, a vein pulsing in his neck. His jaw is tight and his bright blue eyes seem somehow darker, more intense.
His hair is messy and wavy from where I must’ve run my hands through the steel without even realizing it.