Married By Christmas. Оливия Гейтс

of that blacked-out time in his past—was so ferocious it burned her. Though it had always disturbed her to formulate theories how he’d acquired them, tracing them with her fingertips and lips, feeling them raking against her skin, had always sent her clear out of her mind with lust. She found them as arousing and beautiful, awe-inspiring as every other part of him.

      He ran his fingertips down her arms, slowly, tantalizingly, until they reached her hands, and he untangled them from his shirt. Then giving her such a wicked glance, he turned away from her. She watched him sit down on the couch facing the balcony, amazed all over again how the fever of anticipation and urgency only increased with every sexual encounter. Her heart shook her as he sprawled back, spreading his great body for her to drool over.

      Then he beckoned. “Show me, moya dusha.”

      She called on all her self-control not to run to him but rather play the game of slow seduction he seemed to want. She undulated toward him, conscious of the robe slipping off one shoulder, exposing a generous swell of one engorged breast, and the effect that had on him. Black pupils ate up the emerald of his eyes, the rock hardness tenting his pants expanded, and the smoldering smile became purely predatory. Prolonging the moment and reveling in her ability to arouse him always and completely, she took her time to reach him.

      But once her knees bumped his, she lost the fight. She collapsed over him under the weight of the seven years of unremitting craving she’d only started expending. Slowing her descent with shaking hands against his unyielding shoulders, she straddled his hips, her robe riding up her thighs. His eyes burned into hers with smug satisfaction until her lips crashed down on his.

      He opened his mouth to her urgency, let her show him how much she needed everything he had. And she did. Her hands roamed his Herculean chest, his granite abdomen, until they reached his massive manhood, as she lowered herself to press her drenched core against it.

      “I want you, Ivan. You just breathe, I just breathe, and I want you. All of you.” She reached for his belt buckle, eager to unsheathe the formidable length of him.

      At her feverish moans he stopped her uncoordinated efforts. Sighing in ragged relief, she let him take the lead, luxuriated in his domination, what he’d so maddeningly made her work for.

      His hands roved her curves, pushing the robe off her burning body, his every move loaded with the ruthlessness of a starving predator unleashed on a prey long kept out of reach. It didn’t matter that he’d spent the night feasting on her. Their fire consumed them only to rage higher.

      His pupils flared and subsided, giving his eyes the illusion of flashing emerald. Then he bent to the breasts he was kneading, grazed and suckled her peaked nipples until he had her writhing, her breath fracturing, her arousal soaking his pants. After his devastating homage, he swept her around, spreading her naked on the couch. Opening her thighs wide, he took them over his shoulders as he came down on his knees between them. Before she could mutter a protest, he buried his lips in her flowing readiness. She shrieked at the feel of his tongue and teeth, opening herself fully to give him total access to her intimate flesh, what had always been his.

      Then he nipped her bud, and the slam of pleasure told her that one more suckle or graze would finish her. And she didn’t want release this way, even if she knew he was addicted to giving it to her. She was addicted to him, to merging with him, feeling his potency invade her, fill her every emptiness and loss and need.

      “Ivan,” she gasped. “I need you inside me.”

      Growling, he heaved up, caught her plea in his savage mouth, sharing her taste on his tongue. In one fluid motion he rose, lifting her in his arms. But instead of taking her to their bed, he took only a few steps before he stopped abruptly, pressed her with her steaming back against the cool, smooth wall. Capturing her there with his massive body, he locked her feet around his buttocks, thrilling her again with his strength. Then he leaned back, freeing his erection.

      As always, the potency she’d worshipped so many times, that had possessed her during so many long, devastating rides to ecstasy, had her mouth watering, her core clenching. The intimidating weight and length of it thudded against her swollen flesh, squeezing another plea from her depths. He glided his incredible heat and hardness through her molten lips, sending a million arrows of pleasure to her womb. But he didn’t penetrate her until she cried out.

      “Fill me.”

      Only then did he ram inside her. Pleasure burst from every nerve ending at his carnal invasion. She was addicted to this, the first almost unbearable expansion as he stretched her beyond her limits around his length and girth. It was always a shock so acute, so exquisite, her senses flickered.

      “Every single time, moye serdtse, you feel even better,” he growled. “Anastasia...if only I could devour you whole for real.” And it felt he tried to, his teeth sinking into her shoulder like a wolf tethering his mate in the throes of a feral copulation. Then he withdrew.

      It felt as if he was dragging her life force out with him. Her arms tightened around his back, her hands clawed it, begging his return. He complied with a harder, deeper plunge until he forced her flesh to yield fully to him. Only when he’d breached her to her very core did he quicken his tempo. Every withdrawal was a maddening loss, every plunge excruciating ecstasy. In her heightened state she was aware of every sound and scent and sensation. Her cries that blended with her muttered name on his lips... The carnal sounds of their flesh slapping together... The musky scent of sex and abandon... The glide and burn of his hard flesh inside her. They all combined to rocket her to the point of combustion.

      When she couldn’t bear it anymore, he gave her what she needed, as he always knew just when, how hard and fast. He hammered between her splayed thighs, his erection pounding inside her with the perfect cadence and force to unleash everything inside her. She shattered in his arms.

      Sensations radiated from the pinpoint of insanity where he was buried deepest. Currents of release crashed through her, squeezing her intimate muscles around him, drawing out every jolt of pleasure from her every inch. She felt him everywhere, igniting her every nerve ending, invading her heart.

      Knowing he’d inundated her with satisfaction, knowing she now needed his, and his total domination, he roared her name and exploded in his own climax. With one last plunge he filled her to overflowing, sharpening the throes of her release. She felt him pulse the last of his seed into her depths, completion imbuing her as she slumped over his chest...

      A rumble beneath her ear jogged her back to consciousness. “Perfection, Anastasia. Every single time. And more.”

      Feeling boneless, she tried to nod her spinning head in agreement as he carried her and started walking, still buried within her depths. Knowing he’d carry her to bed now, she drifted off again.

      Jerking out of her sensual stupor as he laid her down, she twisted around sensuously in the cotton sheets imprinted with his scent and that of their intimacy, compensating her for his loss as he left her body to strip fully.

      Coming back to her, he gave her his full weight, which she always begged him for after the storm, his heartbeat a slow thunder against her decelerating one, completing the spell.

      She was drifting off when he rose off her, dragging a crisp sheet over her cooling, enervated body. She tried to rouse herself, and he spread soothing kisses over her brow.

      “Sleep a while, moya dorogoya. I exhausted you and now I must refuel you.”

      Knowing he’d get them breakfast, she sank back in his indulgence and the echoes of his scent and passion.

      * * *

      Ivan took his time preparing breakfast, to let Anastasia rest. He really shouldn’t have taken her twice in a row like that, after a night when he’d done it three times. His insatiable need for her frightened him at times. But at least it only seemed to delight her. She was always hungering for everything he could give her. And he gave her way too much at times.

      He now walked back into their bedroom with a tray laden with everything she loved. His lips spread, remembering her accusing him of having a nefarious plot to fatten her up. He’d