Page 89 of Auctioned Innocence
Every shadow could hide Viktor’s men. Every sound could be death approaching.
And beneath it all, the memory of Sofia’s kiss burns like a brand.
I close my eyes and I’m back in that motel room, her hands tangled in my hair, her body straddling mine like she was made to fit there.
The way she’d tasted—like hope and danger and everything I’ve ever wanted but never deserved.
The soft sound she’d made when I’d kissed that spot on her throat, how she’d arched into me like she was offering herself completely.
Fuck.
Marco trusted me.
Has trusted me for years with everything that matters to him—his life, his family’s safety, his sister’s protection.
And I repaid that trust by putting my hands on her, by kissing her like I had any right to touch something so perfect.
But she’d kissed me back.
Had looked at me with those dark eyes full of want and certainty, had rolled her hips against me deliberately until I’d groaned like a man dying.
She’d wanted it as much as I did, maybe more.
That almost makes itworse.
Because now I know.
Know how she tastes, how she feels pressed against me, how her breath hitches when I touch the sensitive skin below her ear.
Know that when she says my name in that breathless way, my entire world shifts on its axis.
And I can never unknow it.
I shift on the narrow bed, hyper aware of her presence twenty feet away.
Even now, exhausted and wracked with guilt, my body wants her. Wants to cross this small space and finish what we started.
Wants to map every inch of her skin, learn what makes her gasp, what makes her moan my name like she did in that hotel room.
I’m so fucked.
17
SOFIA
The third morning at the cabin starts before dawn with me jolting awake from another nightmare, hands already reaching for weapons that weren’t there.
The phantom weight of zip ties around my wrists, the echo of a dismembered voice announcing my sale—it all feels so real that for a moment I can’t tell where I was.
The cabin. Safe. Free.
But my body hasn’t gotten the message.
I stumble to the kitchenette on unsteady legs, desperate for something normal, something routine.
Coffee.
I can make coffee.
