Page 77 of Infamous
I crouch down in front of her. The floorboards creak, a sound too soft to carry the weight in the air.
“Nadia.” Her name slips out of me low, rough, as if saying it is too painful. She lifts her head, eyes searching mine.
My fingers brush her jaw, and she flinches as though the touch burns.
“You’re safe with me,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true. Not with me here.
Her breath catches, shallow and fast. I can feel it ghosting over my skin.
Something shifts then - the kind of silence that changes shape, that thickens until it’s no longer silence at all but something alive between us. Her eyes flicker to my mouth. My control slips a little, enough to let the hunger show.
She exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. My thumb drags slowly over her lower lip, and she trembles. I can feel the battle in her - the part of her that knows I’m wrong, dangerous, everything she should fear. And the part that simply doesn’t care.
Her eyes lock on mine, steady and unblinking, like she’s daring me to move first. Then, slowly, she lifts her hands and flicks open the buttons of her shirt one by one. The fabric parts, soft against her skin, revealing the curve of a black bra cupping pale flesh. The air between us shifts, and I can see the faint prickle of goosebumps spreading across her chest. My control fractures. My cock throbs hard, straining against the edge of patience. I’ve always been the king of restraint, the man who could wait out a war without faltering, but not with Nadia Reed.
My palms drag her shirt down her arms and I take her wrists, guiding her upright until she’s standing before me in nothing but denim and black lace. My hands trail down thesmooth slope of her arms, mapping the tiny shivers that ripple under her skin.
Her breath hitches when I flick open the button of her jeans, sliding the fabric down her hips. She steps out of them, and my pulse spikes. There she is - Nadia Reed. Almost the same, yet not at all. Time hasn’t softened her; it’s sharpened her. She’s curvier now, her body shaped by survival, her scars like proof that the world tried to ruin her and failed.
When she reaches for me - fingers curling around the button of my jeans - I catch her wrists midair. Her pulse thrums beneath my thumbs. “Not yet,” I rasp, voice low enough to scrape against her skin. I pull her hands down to her sides, keeping them there, the air between us thick enough to taste.
“Wait your turn,” I growl, leaning close enough for her breath to catch against my mouth.
My hand slides up the curve of her spine, fingers tracing the fine tremor of her breath before finding the clasp at her back. The bra gives way with a soft click, the straps falling uselessly down her arms as the fabric slips free. I take my time, dragging my palms down her sides, over the delicate dip of her waist, before hooking my thumbs into the edge of her panties.
She watches me the whole time. There’s no hesitation and no shame; just that dark, quiet hunger burning in her eyes. I roll the thin fabric down her thighs, slow enough to make her squirm, until it pools around her ankles. When I push her back onto the bed, she yields, sinking into the sheets with a breath that shudders between us. She lies there - bare, waiting, her body an unspoken dare.
She bites her lip, and that tiny act wrecks me. Something in me snaps loose. My restraint, my sanity, my carefully built control - gone. The sight of her like this is gasoline on every dark impulse I’ve ever buried. I’m seconds away from losing it, from coming apart like a kid who’s never learned patience.
This woman - Nadia Reed - is the only one who’s ever gotten beneath my skin, the only one who’s ever made me believe in the idea offorever. My knees hit the bed hard, and I crawl between her legs, caging her in.
For a moment, I just look at her. Really look. Every curve, every freckle, every scar I once kissed and have missed. The soft rise of her chest, the flutter of her pulse, the way her breath catches like she knows I’m about to ruin her all over again.
“Christ,” I murmur, the word half prayer, half curse, my voice rough as my hands drag up her thighs. “You have no idea how much I want you.”
47
NADIA
Jude settles between my thighs like he belongs there - like he’s spent a lifetime learning the map of my body by memory. His shoulders press against the insides of my knees, his breath hot and ragged against my skin before his mouth finds me.
The first stroke of his tongue drags a sound out of me I don’t even recognize. He licks slow, deliberate, then faster, as if he’s been dying of thirst and I’m the only thing that can save him. Every movement is greedy, obscene. The wet sounds filling the room are pure sin - slick, desperate, beautiful.
He groans into me, low and rough, the vibration making my whole body tense and arch toward him. My hands twist in the sheets, hips lifting of their own accord, and still he doesn’t stop.
His name slips past my lips before I can stop it, half-plea, half-warning. The sound seems to undo him. Jude lifts his head just enough for our eyes to meet, his mouth shining with my cum. There’s a wildness there, something close to worship, and it steals the air from my lungs.
He dips his head again, lapping and sucking until he extracts my orgasm - an explosion of stars and tremors that wrack mywhole body. His mouth stays latched to my pussy, even as I gush with the evidence of my desire, and he swallows, lapping at every last drop of liquid he wrings out of me.
Jude moves off the bed with slow, deliberate ease - like he’s giving me time to breathe again, though I’m not sure I remember how. My body’s still trembling, every nerve humming with what he’s just done to me.
He stands at the foot of the bed and strips his shirt over his head. The motion is unhurried, confident, and when his gaze meets mine again, the air shifts. There’s nothing casual about it - his eyes hold me, pin me in place.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he asks quietly, his voice roughened by restraint.
I shake my head, but it’s a lie. I can see it in every slow roll of muscle, every breath he drags in like he’s trying to maintain his rapidly fraying control.
He steps closer, undoing his belt with a metallic scrape that echoes in the stillness. “You’ve got no idea, Nadia.”
