Page 57 of Assassin's Mark
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Levi gripped my waist hard, jerking me around so fast I almost slipped. The soap skidded from my hand to zip around the bathtub, but we both ignored it as Levi used his big body to press me into the wall. His hand spanned my throat, squeezing lightly. I’d accused him of being emotionless, but emotions seeped through his fingers, through the gray eyes boring into mine.“Look at me, Abby. Really look. Not with some rose-colored glasses and Disney princess ideas. I’m not some fairy-tale prince. And your hymen didn’t contain any magic that will turn me into one.”
I looked; I truly did. But what I saw wasn’t the cold assassin who’d shot down six men earlier. No, I saw desperation in his eyes. Who was he trying to convince, him or me?
Levi’s grip tightened, hisgaze hazing over as he looked at something I couldn’t see. “I killed my first man at twelve years old. Twelve. We’d been on the streets a year, me, Remi, and Eli.” His thumb raked up my jugular, back down. “The man deserved it, trying to lure Remi off alone. When I stepped in, he didn't like it, but that was okay because he didn't feel that way for long. He didn't feel anything for long, and afterthat, neither did I.”
Pain zinged through my windpipe, and a whimper escaped.
Levi swallowed hard, that distant look still in his eyes. “That’s who I am,” he whispered hoarsely.
I covered his hand with mine, allowed the hard tips of my nipples to brush across his belly. A tingle swept through my body, but it was the hard push of his erection against my thigh that I wanted. That I got. “That’swho life forced you to be. But it’s not all that you are.”
The planes of his face turned granite hard at my words. With his hand at my throat, Levi lifted me off my feet, sliding me up the wall until our bodies aligned perfectly. My knees went to his hips automatically, seeking purchase, security, and he took advantage, slamming home deep inside me in a single hard thrust. Proving his point.Taking instead of giving. Except…
My body was already wet, soft, hot. Welcoming. The instant he realized it, he groaned. His mouth went to my neck, his hands to my ass, and then he was taking me with abandon, sinking deep, sliding out, over and over to the chorus of our moans and cries and the wet slap of our bodies. The angle slammed his pelvis against my clit with every thrust. Seconds wasall it took for my body to seize around his, the powerful contractions pulling him along with me until we both slumped against the shower wall, survivors of a shipwreck we hadn’t seen coming and still couldn’t quite comprehend. All we could do was hold each other tight in the aftermath.
When Levi softened enough that he slipped out of me, it seemed to wake him up. Hands holding me tight as ifworried I would fall, he stepped into the spray of the water and closed his eyes, let the flood cover him for the longest moment. When they opened, the steel had softened to storm clouds and rain.
He pulled me fully under the water. Ran his hands over me. Stared deep into my eyes. “You’ll end up getting hurt, little bird.”
I stared right back, and knew, in that moment, that I was strong. Righthere, right now. Levi might have the muscles and the fighting skills and the weapons, but when it came to emotions, he saw only fear. Or anger. I knew what I was feeling, recognized it—and when it came to him, I savored it. Whatever the future brought, I had this moment, with this man. And I wasn’t about to waste it.
“That’s nothing new, Levi. But sometimes the hurt is worth it.”
I reached forhim. Cupping his face earlier had felt odd, tentative, like I was trespassing on sacred ground. This time I stepped out as if I owned that ground—my hands landed on his chest, smoothing down the slick hills and valleys of his body, memorizing the man through my fingertips. His eyes heated again the lower I went and, when I reached the thick swell of his semi-erect penis? Hot, flaming inferno.
Holding his weight in my hands felt surreal. I traced his length, from the wide mushroom tip to the rapidly tightening shaft, long enough to reach deep inside me. I could still feel it, the impact of his body inside mine. He’d carved out a space for himself in a way that had seemed impossible a week ago. The base of his erection was thicker, the soft skin of his sac drawn up as if it could hurryhis semen toward its release. When I cradled it, my fingertips pressed just behind, and Levi made a sound deep in his throat that told me exactly what that small pressure did to him.
I couldn’t help it; I smiled. Levi traced the curve with a fingertip, his gaze unreadable.
“Think you’re pretty smart there, don’t you, little bird?”
I shook my head—I didn’t have enough ego for that. “No, notsmart.” With one hand I slid up his length again, then down, fascinated as his eyes lost focus, this time not in a horrible memory of the past, but in the pleasure I could give him. I brought my free hand to his face, traced the rugged stubble along his cheek, the full slope of his bottom lip. So many textures. So much I needed to feel. “This isn’t smart, Levi. This is just instinct.” And maybe somethingspecial. I wouldn’t say it aloud, but I could feel it, bringing tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart. Something very special.
Levi nipped my finger as it traveled back the way it had come. “Let me show you my instincts.”
There was no time to agree or disagree. The words left his mouth, and he had me out of the shower the next instant. The towel he used was rough, unrefined, but he smoothedit over my skin like butter, a look of fierce concentration on his face as he searched out every droplet, every crease and fold. The anger when he’d first entered the shower had been replaced by determination—to do what? Pleasure me? Maybe find pleasure for himself?
But no, he’d done that against the shower wall, and I didn’t think he believed any more than I did that this could be mutually exclusive.Not after the full-body orgasm we’d shared.
The full-size bed wasn’t quite long enough for Levi’s length, but he stretched me out, from one corner to the opposite, and crawled over me anyway. A growl escaped him as he gathered my arms and locked them above my head, his stare searing me as it took in my bared body. He started at my neck, every lick and scrape of his teeth and gentle suck poolingliquid heat in my core. I pushed up on my heels, needing more, needing him to devour me, consume me until all I knew was him.
Levi didn’t waver. He seemed absorbed with the texture of my skin, the rising slopes, the hard, jutting tips, the long slides into the valleys. When his mouth surrounded one straining nipple and he drew on me, a small scream escaped. I couldn’t get close enough, presshard enough for the satisfaction I suddenly needed now, immediately. My body craved the peak, and…
“Levi!”
“Shhhh,” he whispered against my breastbone, his stubble rasping the mounds on each side. “Anticipation, remember?”
A curse bit through the air as I realized what he really meant: torture. My core cramped with denial. “Damn it, Levi!”
He rubbed his chin along the underside of one breast,up to my aching tip. The scrape of his almost beard shot waves of acute pleasure through me. I arched closer again.
His chuckle held a touch of pure evil.
I tugged on my hands, and surprisingly he let me go. Probably so he could grab my ass, which he promptly did. His massive hands cupped me, kneaded me, his fingertips brushing the sensitive folds between my legs. I speared my fingers throughthe rich lengths of his dark hair and urged his mouth toward mine, urged him to take me, complete me in a way I’d never discovered with another human being.
Levi levered himself over me. Nudged my legs apart. Aligning our bodies, he wasted no time pushing close, his hips seeming impossibly wide, even after all this time. Cool air tingled along the cream coating my core, and then he was insideme.
His hips weren’t the only thing that was still impossibly wide. My body was swollen, tight. I tilted my head back and panted, waiting for the deadlock grip to ease. Levi’s mouth at my nipples helped—he moved from one to the other, sucking, biting, rubbing his lips and sandpaper stubble over the sensitive buds. Within minutes I was trying to climb him, crying out, begging for him to move,to give me what I needed, make this torture stop.
One hard push into my body was all it took to detonate the bomb waiting inside me.
Levi didn’t stop. Thrust after thrust after thrust drove through my contractions, setting off mini explosions that tied my lower belly into knots. When I could finally open my eyes, that steel-gray determination stared back at me. Levi chased his pleasure as muchas mine. Pushed into me until I felt bruised. And when he finally reach the agonizing peak and completion shook him off his knees, I cradled his body close between my legs, against my belly and breasts and neck, convinced that nothing else I would ever experience, in my entire life, could possibly compare to the power of us, joined so tightly together that we became one. I never wanted to let go—ofhim, of this. So I didn’t; I simply drifted to sleep with Levi in my arms.
I hadn’t slept that hard or that deeply since the night he drugged me. Sometime in the darkest part of the night, I woke to Levi behind me, inside me, his fingers on my clit, but even the slow roll of orgasm couldn’t keep me awake after the long, exhausting day. Tomorrow could take care of itself. Tonight, I had all Ineeded.
