She was too tired for the fight though. Her limbs were still heavy, her eyes bleary, and her ankle ached. If he hadn’t walked in here when he had, she’d have already been out. She barely had the strength to roll over and present Alexei with her back. It took a bit of wiggling around, but she managed the chore, and let out a frustrated sigh.
Facing the wall, she could give in to the frown she’d been fighting since he dodged her questions. He was running—but from what? The same things that stole his smile? Who had hurt him so badly that he shut himself away behind hulking emotional brick walls? And why, when he’d already admitted to sending someone back to Dubai for her, was he so intent on keeping her on the other side of those walls?
She knew so little about Alexei, but what she did understand, she realized on a higher, instinctive level of consciousness. Sometimes when he looked at her, and those light green eyes gave her a glimpse of unfettered pain, she
felt
the parts of him he locked away. Like moments ago, when he had finally decided to look at her, those windows to his soul conveyed a fight he had lost. His bruises burned her in places she hadn’t realized existed.
Like now, as he sat still as stone beside her, doing his damnedest to pretend she wasn’t in the same room, she could feel the need that coursed through his veins. The desperation that came from a part of him she was equally desperate to understand.
He had one thing right, even if he was trying to hide from the rest—everything ended when he took her to London and her father.
He just didn’t realize how final it would be, or that their parting wouldn’t involve walking away.
She had let this majestic corner of Florence, the luxury of this incredible room, wrap her up in make-believe when she needed to be planning her escape. Nothing between her and Alexei could ever be secure as long as her father was free. And the closer she got to Alexei, the more danger he faced. With the whole
Bratva
no doubt backing her father, and Alexei known as a betrayer, it was a matter of days—
hours
—before the shadows came to life and punished him as well.
Starting tomorrow, she was going to pay more attention to her surroundings and find a means of escape. When her father was behind bars,
if
Alexei could stand to look at her, she’d work on fixing things with them.
M
uffled thumping jerked Alexei out of restless sleep. He remained still, his stare locked on the door, his hand sliding down the edge of the mattress to the pistol on the floor by the bed. Whoever was stupid enough to walk through that door was about to have a really bad day.
The door handle rattled, then a masculine voice let out a hushed curse. Alexei edged to the side of the bed and slowly rose to his feet. Sleep still clung to his mind, weighing down his steps as he trudged closer to the entry.
Two loud thumps reverberated in the quiet. “Let me in, damn it. I have to piss and you’ve got the bathroom.”
It took a second for the voice and the words to connect with the logical side of Alexei’s brain. As he glanced at the dark bathroom in the corner, then back at the locked bedroom door, understanding snapped into place. He flipped the safety back on his gun, set it on the dresser, and opened the door to a downright pissed off Grigoriy.
“Asshole,” Grigoriy mumbled as he shouldered through the narrow opening. He grabbed Alexei’s left hand and slapped his cell phone into it. “Your damn phone’s chirping like a hungry baby bird. It woke me up, and now I need that bathroom.”
Curious about who would try to contact him so late, Alexei stepped out of the way to let Grigoriy enter the restroom. He glanced at Sasha, still out like a rock, then sat on the edge of the mattress and opened
his phone. The room glowed with a faint blue-white light as Alexei thumbed to his text messages. Kadir’s number flashed.
Bring Sasha to me tonight, or you will die. The clock is ticking.
Anger broiled, and Alexei snapped his phone shut. Bring her to him—yeah, right. Did Kadir bump his head somewhere along the way? He dealt with things far more threatening than Kadir, his thugs, or his warning text messages on a daily basis. Alexei wasn’t going to be goosed into something as asinine and childish as this.
He tossed the phone on the bed and reclined, waiting for Grigoriy to leave the bathroom.
There was only one thing that didn’t make sense. Kadir was a smart operative. He hadn’t spent his life embedded to waste it all over a simple girl. Granted, Sasha wasn’t all that
simple.
Still, he had to realize that once Alexei reached London, all the things Kadir enjoyed as an Opal—things like his luxurious house, the freedom to cross international borders at liberty, his hired goons—would disappear. He couldn’t possibly believe he could take Sasha, kill Alexei and Grigoriy both, and never get caught.
So why in the hell was he going to these extremes? He’d just
given
Alexei proof his allegiance changed. Speaking of…
Alexei rolled onto his side and grabbed his phone once more, quickly forwarding the text message from Kadir to Clarke. That ought to really piss Clarke off, but hey, the director needed to stay on his toes. And Alexei needed a way to convey Kadir’s betrayal that could be substantiated.
Satisfied, Alexei dropped the cell back onto the nightstand and cocked his head toward the bathroom door. Just as he was about to climb out of bed and usher Grigoriy back to the other room, the toilet flushed. Water ran in the sink, and the door opened. Grigoriy didn’t linger to chat. The bedroom door clicked closed behind him.
For a mere second, Alexei debated getting up and flipping the lock once more. But the warm press of Sasha’s thigh against his as she shifted closer in sleep was a greater temptation. The scent of gardenias
from their earlier shower drifted up from her long hair. That enticing floral aroma did fantastic things to his imagination, creating vivid pictures of the wide spread of her lips as she took his engorged cock into her mouth, the raw pleasure that burned in her eyes as she guided him through a mind-numbing climax.
Drawn by that incredible memory, he flattened his palm over the slope of her hip and smoothed her silken skin with a languorous caress. His fingers delved beneath the tail of his shirt that she was wearing and under the thin line of her panties, pulling the fabric tight as he explored the flat junction where her thigh met her abdomen. Curling his body around hers, Alexei breathed in the fragrance of her hair, her skin, and allowed the desire he’d tried so hard to ignore to flow through his veins.
He could pretend he was immune, deny all he wanted that he felt anything more than pleasure with her. But he needed this woman. The way he found acceptance in her arms, the way her need for him, her cries of ecstasy, made him whole.
Half hating himself for disturbing her sleep, half mad with longing, he pulled his hand free of the elastic at her waist and slipped it lower, to the sensitive inner skin of her thigh. With his knuckle, he pushed aside the scrap of satin covering her pussy and cupped the mound of flesh there in his palm. Heat radiated against his fingertips, along with the faint trace of moisture. He pressed his middle finger into her folds, swirled it around her opening.
Sasha murmured in her sleep. She rolled closer, parted her thighs.
With a deep, shuddering breath, Alexei dipped his head to dust a kiss against the back of her neck, where the collar of her shirt gaped. His cock filled to capacity at her instinctual response. Hungry for the feel of her holding him tight, he pressed his hips into hers and tucked his cock between the tight cheeks of her ass. Between her legs, he stroked her clitoris, until she yielded to another husky murmur.
That sound unraveled him on levels he couldn’t fully comprehend. He understood the pulsing of his cock, the fierce shot of lust that fired
through his groin. But the swelling behind his ribs confused the shit out of him. He couldn’t explain how that tightness occurred at the slightest response from her, or why it felt both pleasant and painful all at once. He knew he was falling in love with this woman. Suspected he might have been all along. How she could pull that emotion from him, when he’d buried it so far he believed it could never rise, blew his mind.
He was a deceiver, a betrayer, and didn’t deserve the affection that shone in her eyes earlier. How could
she
possibly look at him that way when she had only the barest understanding of what he was? What he had done. The people he had killed and the sins he had committed.
She turned her upper body until her shoulder blade pressed into his chest and she could go no farther. Her long strawberry lashes lifted, and those blue eyes stared up at him with the same tumultuous feeling Alexei both cherished and despised.
He closed his eyes, pressed his mouth to the hollow of her neck and shoulder, and rocked his hips into hers, pushing his cock through the tight seam of her buttocks. The affection she gifted so freely was too much. Too devastating. God help him, he didn’t deserve the tender understanding that shone in those bright blue depths.
He blocked it, focusing only on the pleasure, the reverse press of her hips that cradled his cock tight, and the increased tempo of her breathing.
S
asha’s body thrummed with desire and need. Alexei’s fingers moved wickedly between her legs, dipping into the wet folds, slickening her further with her own juices. He teased, he taunted. All in slow, deliberate strokes that were designed to send her off screaming. She was almost there too, she realized, as she bit down on her lower lip to temper the spike of delirious pleasure and pushed back against the hard ridge of his cock.
It shocked her to realize she liked the feel of him there, his erection
nestled between her butt cheeks, each push stroking over the tiny rosette there, awakening her to the forbidden pleasure she had only briefly known. But she did, and the side of her passions she was only just learning about wondered what it would feel like to have Alexei take her there. To have him take her to that surreal place where pain became pleasure.
“Alexei,” she whispered as she writhed against his stroking fingers. Words were hard, thought a matter of disjointed syllables. She swallowed to clear the haze of bliss from her mind. “Take off your clothes.”
“Easy, princess.” His breath danced across her shoulder. “I want you to come first.”
“No,” she protested feebly, the pressure in her womb intensifying. “I want…more.” Closing her eyes, Sasha concentrated on the act of breathing alone. If it killed her, she’d hold out for the feel of him filling her up, sliding inside her so snugly it was impossible to pretend nothing deeper than sex flowed between them. “I want…
you.
”
Alexei went utterly still, save for the labored rise and fall of his chest against her shoulder blades. Then he was gone, the delicious heat of his body vanishing with the sound of the shifting mattress. Sasha turned her head over her shoulder to watch as he dropped his pants and boxer briefs. The blue-white light shining in from the window illuminated his powerful physique and added shadows in all the right places, defining hard as nails muscles and giving his unshaven face a darker appeal. In that moment, as he knelt behind her on the mattress, she saw the other side of Alexei, the man who killed without remorse, who lived in a world of deceit. But she knew, as deadly as he could be, what lived beneath that calloused exterior was a gentle heart and a tormented soul. She lifted off the bed to capture his mouth.
Instead, Alexei dipped his head and pressed his lips to her shoulder. His hand slid beneath her shirt and her arm to cup her breast and toy with her distended nipple. Slowly, he stretched out behind her once more. The heat of his skin warmed her backside, his jutting erection brushed against her buttocks. Temptation called to Sasha. She wriggled
her bottom against his cock. When he sucked in a sharp breath, her pussy clamped down hard. Knowing he wanted her as much as she wanted him brought her right back to the blistering point of yearning. She looped her arm awkwardly around his waist, needing to hold on to him in whatever way she could.
He gave her nipple a tight twist. Shocks of ecstasy rippled through her all the way to her toes, and she arched into his body. His cock slid between her parted thighs to push the narrow covering of her thong aside and fit between her soaked folds. He pushed his hips forward, slicking his hard length with her cream in a slow stroke that had her digging her nails into his side.
“Take me, Alexei,” she murmured.
His hand fell from her breast. Roughened calluses scraped pleasantly across her skin as his palm glided over her ribs, across her abdomen. Lower still, until his fingertip swirled around her clitoris. “Like this?” he asked, thrusting forward again, bringing the wide head of his cock against her aching opening. “Will you let me take you like this, Sasha? Submit to me completely?”
Yes!
But she didn’t need to respond, her body was doing it for her. Her hips angled backward, inviting him to take her whatever way he pleased. She didn’t care, so long as he was inside her. A soft cry tumbled off her lips.
He held her in place, his cock lazily thrusting and retreating through the wet folds of her pussy, his breath hard against her shoulder. Waiting, she realized. Waiting for her to respond with words, not just desire’s permission.
She writhed against his imprisoning hold. “Please.”
A low, almost inaudible groan rumbled in his throat, and behind her, she felt him go rigid. When he spoke, his voice held a harsh edge. “Lie on your belly.”
Alexei guided her onto her stomach even as she rolled over. His strong hands fitted around her waist. Gentle pressure urged her to lift
to her knees. He pushed the oversized shirt to the base of her ribs. With her breasts pressed to the soft mattress, she looked over her shoulder as he moved behind her. There was something insanely erotic about the way his body dwarfed hers. Like this, she felt small, feminine, and strangely even more aroused to be at his mercy. To have him solely in control of her pleasure.