Then his fury cracked, giving her a full glimpse of the anguish she had suspected he suffered, but never truly witnessed. The same torment filled his hoarse whisper. “No.”
Before she could absorb his confession, his mouth crashed into hers. Nothing about his kiss was gentle. His teeth nipped hard, his tongue tangled desperately. Where his chest pressed into her breasts, she felt the shudder that rocked his body.
Alexei tore his mouth away, his lips moving toward the base of her ear as his hips sank into hers, his cock nestling in the tight space between her legs. A shock of pleasure hit her like a semi truck, and she speared her fingers into his long hair, holding on, grounding herself against the flick of his tongue, the scrape of his whiskers, the sharp edge of his teeth.
“I sent someone back.” His hand smoothed over the curve of her hip, down her thigh, drawing her leg up to his waist. He held it there as he ground his erection against her clit. “Back for Irina.” Another tremor rolled through his body and vibrated into her. “Because I fucking need this.”
Oh, God.
Sasha closed her eyes against a sudden rush of tears.
T
he confession tore from Alexei’s throat, unbidden, but nothing he could have done would have stopped it. He had surged too far into the dark cavernous hell of his past, and the only escape came with the truth. It didn’t matter if she felt the same burning need that consumed him, if her dreams had been haunted by memories of Moscow or not. Nothing mattered except Sasha, the press of her body, the life she gave to him.
Life he would sell his soul to hold on to forever.
“Alexei,” she murmured as her nails scraped against his scalp, urging his mouth to hers again. “I wanted you.” Her lips clung to his, her breath hard and ragged. “You’re the only one who’s ever made me feel like this.”
The beautiful lies went straight to his head, setting him on fire. A little voice cautioned him to hold back, that he had heard the same confessions from women who bought the pleasure he could give. Warned him he had witnessed Sasha coming undone beneath him in a bed in Dubai when she hadn’t known it was him, proving that declaration false. But he was burning for her in ways he couldn’t comprehend.
He fitted his free hand between their bodies to unfasten her blouse and push it aside. His fingers combated with hers working the buttons on his shirt, both equally furious to feel the melding of skin on skin. When his bare abdomen flattened against her quivering belly, a portion of that soul-deep torment that had kept him awake for too many nights to count relaxed. He expelled a heavy, blissful sigh and grazed his cheek against hers.
“I’m going to have you, Sasha. Right here. With your legs wrapped around me and my cock so far inside you it hurts.”
She gyrated against his throbbing erection. “You can’t hurt me, Alexei. Not like this.”
Oh but he had no doubt he would. His control was gone. All he could think about was getting inside her, feeling that sweet pussy holding on tight. And he didn’t give a damn that he was out of condoms.
He pushed her leg down until her foot touched the floor, and then he popped the button at her waist. His fingers slipped past the linen, beneath the scrap of satin, and into her wet folds. This was where he needed to be. The only place on earth that could erase the nightmares of his past and make him feel whole. Normal.
Accepted in ways he never truly could be.
Her hips arced forward, and he pushed his middle finger inside her opening. A gasp tumbled off her parted lips. It ripped through him, making his cock swell even more.
She struggled to wedge her hands between them, her fingers fumbling at his waist with the same desperation that surged wildly through his veins. He arched his back, giving her room to shove down his pants, and sucked in a sharp breath when her fingers wrapped around
his erection. Everything inside Alexei surged to the surface, demanding he take her swift and hard, and in the process mark her as his eternally.
He fought back the insane desire and slowly withdrew his hand from her slick sex. His gaze locked on her face, her expression nearly dropping him to his knees. Pleasure softened her features, but he had stopped touching her. She focused solely on the stroke of her hand, the firm grip and squeeze she gave his cock.
Never had he seen a woman take so much pleasure from satisfying him.
“Sasha.”
His quiet utterance drew her lowered eyelashes up and her bright blue gaze to his. He staggered under the intensity that reflected back at him. She wasn’t faking that look of absolute enjoyment.
Alexei cleared his voice to alleviate the stickiness in his throat. “I don’t have a condom.”
A soft, almost shy smile lifted the corners of her mouth. She released his cock, sending a wave of disappointment down his spine. He supposed it was better this way. He hadn’t taken a woman without protection ever. With her recent past, the things she had likely done with Saeed, and others, he’d be a fool to embrace the risk.
But in the next heartbeat, Sasha’s fingertips dipped beneath the linen that clung to her hips. She nudged the flimsy fabric, sending it tumbling down her slender legs to pool at her feet. Carefully balancing between good ankle and bad, she stepped out of her pants and toed them aside.
Her smile deepened as she flattened her palms over his abdomen, sliding them up his chest while she leaned in to brush her mouth across his. “Since Moscow I’ve only been with you, Alexei.”
Stunned to the core of his being, he blinked. He would have sworn his heart had stopped, if it weren’t for the surge of blood that flooded his groin and left him lightheaded.
She must have sensed his disbelief, for she wriggled against his
erection, looped her arms around his neck, and pressed her breasts against his chest. “It’s true,” she murmured as she scattered light kisses along his collarbone. Her gaze flicked to his, wide and full of unbearable honesty. “You in Moscow. You with Saeed.”
Oh holy fuck, how was that possible?
He shook his head. Not important. He’d figure that out later. Right now, if he didn’t get inside her, he was going to break apart. Claiming her mouth, he dipped his hands to the soft curve of her bottom and pressed her back to the wall as he guided her legs around his waist. He would have liked to have had their shirts off, would have liked to suckle at her breast as he thrust deep inside her, but he’d lost all capacity to think beyond the singular, driving need to sink into that sweet, heavenly flesh.
Sasha tipped her hips backward, aligning the head of his cock with her slick opening. He willed himself patience. Ordered his body to slide in nice and slow, savor the sensation of feeling her gradually accept him.
His body refused. Acting of their own accord, his hips drove forward, and Alexei took her in one hard thrust.
Her sharp cry chorused with his groan of satisfaction. She was tight and hotter than he remembered the night before. Deliciously wet. His head spun with the newness of sensation, the incredible wonder of feeling her naked flesh gloving around him. “Christ…you feel…perfect,” he managed between ragged gasps.
“Mm,” she murmured as her lashes fluttered shut. “So do you.”
He pulled back, slickening himself with her heavy cream, and nudged in a little deeper. Her pussy pulsed around his aching cock. Bliss tore through him. He dipped his head to run his teeth down the bounding vein alongside her throat. “You’re breaking me.”
Sasha’s legs tightened around his waist as she arched her back. Alexei levered her higher against the wall and moved within her once again. She let out a soft mewl, and her hands dug into his hair. “I’m already broken.”
Those three little words did more damage to Alexei than the bullet he’d taken six years earlier that had nearly crippled his shoulder. That joint burned now with the effort of holding her up like this, but that searing was nothing compared to the fire that consumed his blood. His mouth latched onto hers. His tongue delved hungrily. And his hips moved hard and fast, driving inside her like he might never have the chance again.
She held on to his kiss until pleasure consumed her and she began to tremble. Then she rested her head against the wall, biting down on her lower lip, her grimace one of pain and ecstasy. He could empathize with that conflict of emotions. This hurt him every bit as much as it gratified.
Tiny, restrained cries bubbled off her parted lips each time his body pounded into hers. He felt that addictive stream of life, of overwhelming feeling, open inside him. It flowed unfettered, pulsing beyond his control, opening wider, pouring out the darkness of his soul.
He shafted hard and deep, burying himself as far as her tender flesh would take him. She shifted in his arms to open wider for him, even as her inner muscles held him tight. The pleasure was intense, more incredible than Alexei had ever dreamed it could be. And then, like poured honey, she melted around him, as her orgasm began to claim her.
It claimed Alexei as well. Gritting his teeth against the pleasure-pain, climax raged through his body. He pumped furiously, losing something to her that he couldn’t define. Something he would never reclaim. Dimly, he heard his hoarse shout, felt the devastation of his release spurting inside her. Claiming her.
Marking
her.
With one last shuddering gasp, his body stilled against the storm of sensation. His cock pulsed with the last of his release, and he dropped his forehead to her delicate shoulder. The scent of her natural musk, of sex and his pleasure, filled his head as he sucked in much-needed air. She had him. Goddamn, she’d shattered him. And he knew, no matter what happened, he wasn’t coming back from this. There was no putting back together the pieces that she’d torn apart.
Accepting that finality, Alexei lifted his head and pressed a tender kiss to her damp temple. Still snug within her, he moved her off the wall and to the bed, where he braced himself for inevitable separation. When it came, when he pulled his sated cock from the warm haven of her pussy, it felt like a crucial part of him ripped loose. The incredible sensation stole the air from his lungs.
Sasha’s bright blue eyes found his, warm and glowing with the aftereffects of her orgasm. Her fingers clasped his, pulled him down to her side. Yielding to a surrendering sigh, Alexei sacrificed only the time it took to peel off their shirts before he stretched out alongside her warm body and tucked an arm around her narrow waist. She felt good.
Too damned good for him.
O
ne arm cradling her close, his nose tucked into the thick, long silk of her hair, Alexei lay wide awake, enjoying the feel of Sasha’s fingertips as they lightly trailed up and down the length of his forearm. He was on the edge of something dangerous. No, make that deadly. But like every other addict, he knew the risk to his life and couldn’t stop.
Today he had run face-to-face into parts of him that he had thought died long ago. Jealousy, true fear, possessiveness, and anger he could barely control. All things that he had known as a normal teenage boy, but had done his best to kill just to survive. All emotions that didn’t belong anywhere in a Black Opal’s life. Those who couldn’t bury them never made it back from their first mission.
But his had been locked away long before Misha Petrovin, a first-generation Russian-American and former Navy Seal turned Black Opal, pulled Alexei’s sorry ass out of San Francisco and introduced him to Kevin Clarke. Alexei rarely stopped to think about the reasons that turned a seventeen-year-old boy into a man far wiser than his years. He still made the payments. Still carried the love in his heart.
Still prayed his mother had forgotten him.
Now, tonight, he felt like that terrified kid all over again, walking out the door of the only place he had ever been accepted, knowing he could never return. Knowing that the lies and deceit, the sins he must commit, could never be washed away.
This time, however, he had touched something clean and good.
And he hungered for it. Only, he would spoil it the longer he tried to immerse himself in it. In Sasha. He would taint her if he barreled down this path. Because as much as he ached for the goodness she exposed him to, he knew he couldn’t fulfill that desire. He was too dark. Too spoiled. And she…well…
He was no longer certain what to believe when she whispered those lovely words that dragged him out of emotional death into all-consuming life.
“Sasha?” He nosed aside a lock of her hair to press his lips against the back of her neck. “How is it possible Saeed never touched you?”
She rolled over in his arms, her satiny skin gliding across his, her gentle curves cushioning his body. She wriggled in deep, one smooth thigh fitting between his. Her wide wondrous eyes gave him a straight-shot view of her honest soul. His breath hitched at the unreserved way she opened to him in that moment.
“Saeed was my friend, Alexei. I don’t pretend to understand why he did the things he did, but he took care of me. He protected me from Amir, Mohammad, and men like Kadir. All he asked for in return was my trust. My friendship.”
Sorrow registered in her unblinking gaze, and Alexei hated himself for putting it there. He closed his eyes to block the sadness, but all he saw was the anguish in Saeed’s face that night as he accepted the agreement he had made regarding Sasha. Alexei had known then that Saeed cared for her. He just hadn’t realized how much.
Fuck.
He had done this. He could have insisted he walk away. She would have remained in Dubai, safe with her sheikh, and far away from him. From the dark desires Alexei couldn’t control and this all-consuming need to possess her.
“Sasha.” He swallowed down a lump of regret. “I didn’t plan to kill him.” It was all he could say, all he could offer as an apology.
He felt her stiffen, but as he scrambled for better words, her sigh stirred the hair at his shoulders. A heartbeat later, before he could open
his eyes, her lips touched his. They clung for an endless moment, taking away the pain, the regret, all the things, the decisions, he couldn’t undo. His arm tightened around her waist.