Page 73 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

Our lips meet and I feel my body tingle with anticipation. The tension and worry that clung to me only moments ago seems to dissipate instantly. I can still hear echoes of crying babies, but I decide that it was just a dream.

The panic in my head is imagined. Or… is it a memory trying to resurface?

I jerk away from Phoenix’s lips suddenly, my heart thudding hard against my chest.

“Elyssa?”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I just…”

“He’s safe with Leona,” Phoenix assures me, misinterpreting my reaction. “You don’t have to worry. I know it’s a hard ask given what happened with Anna. But—”

“I’m fine,” I insist hurriedly. “I just… It’s nothing.”

“If it’s bothering you, it’s not nothing.”

I take a deep breath and clutch his hands in an attempt to keep myself from losing my grip on reality. I’m still trying to arrange my thoughts when his lips come down over mine. There’s nothing gentle about this kiss. It’s demanding. Aggressive.

And it’s exactly what I need to distract me from the disconcerting sounds in my head. The irrational panic that’s threatening to ruin the perfect little slice of heaven we’ve carved out in this room.

He pushes me back against the bed and rips the sheet from around my body, leaving me exposed beneath him.

His hands run down the side of my body and pulls up my ass so he can cup a cheek as he kisses me. When his fingers slip inside my wet folds, I’m already breathless.

The worry has once again receded, and it’s easier to ignore the nagging at the back of my mind. When I melt beneath him, it’s easy to pretend that everything in the world is in its rightful place.

I’m expecting him to enter me the way he always does. My legs part accordingly.

But instead, Phoenix flips me around with one huge paw, practically knocking the wind out of me, before he grabs my hips and pulls me onto all fours.

His hands graze my ass as he stares down at my back.

I can feel his eyes. I can feel the length of his cock rubbing between my ass cheeks.

Trembling, I fist handfuls of the sheets beneath my fingers. I’m more aware, more present this morning—and that just makes me more nervous.

Last night, I was riding the high of too many emotions. It was easy to channel that abundance of feeling into sex. But in the light of dawn, with my emotions tempered and pulled thin, I’m conscious of myself in a way I wasn’t last night.

“Relax, Elyssa,” he whispers. “Stop thinking.”

A second later, he pushes into me from behind. I close my eyes as a soft gasp leaves my lips.

The man makes my head spin and my eyes water.

It’s not emotion—it’s delirium.

I’ve never felt quite so full as when he’s inside me. I lose my sense of self-consciousness in that wild and unadulterated moment. I just give myself over to him with complete devotion, complete submission, complete sacrifice.

And my body rewards me by clenching so tight in an orgasm that I wonder if I’m going to shatter. He pounds me all the way through it, each thrust pushing me higher and higher up on that wave.

I fall from him, twitching and gasping. Every sensation melts together in one hazy blur. Once my breathing has calmed, I turn my face towards him, hair falling over my eyes.

With one corner of his mouth turned up, he pushes the hair away.

“You okay?” he asks.

I blush instantly and he smiles. He’s teasing me. Actually teasing me. And it feels good.

I sidle in closer to him and he wraps his arm around me. I notice him lean in a little as though he’s about to kiss my forehead. But he stops short of doing so.

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