Chapter 50
Fifty
My life has been defined by five things: the brutality of violence, the burn of hatred, and the fire of revenge, insurmountable, soul-destroying loss…and loving her.
I had resigned my heart to love her quietly from a distance, even though it broke every time I saw her and knew she would never be mine.
But one thing I’ve learned over and over is that our existence is a fleeting blip.
Nothing is certain except the eventuality of death.
And I didn’t want to leave this earth without her knowing that even though I would never be her forever—like Tristan, Hendrix, and Constantine were hers—that she would be mine.
And now here she is, looking up at me in a way I had only dreamed about, gifting me with those three words I would have gladly sold my eternity to the devil to hear.
Closing my eyes, I let those words seep into the marrow of my bones.
Syn loves me.
Holy shit, she said she loves me.
This beautiful angel says she loves the killer with a black soul.
Needing her more than I need air, I strain to keep my touch reverent despite the savagery of longing pulsing through my blood. Palming her cheek, I gently brush my thumb over her plush lips, lips I want to kiss so fucking badly.
“Say it again.”
The most gorgeous smile blossoms across her beatific face, like the petals of a flower unfurling under the first rays of the sun. “I love you.”
Hearing her say it a second time is just as powerful and almost brings me to my knees.
Dropping my forehead to hers, I just breathe her in as a hot ball of emotion I have no way to process tries to strangle me.
I know we can’t be together. I know her heart will always belong to them.
But knowing she loves me, even a little, heals the missing piece of me that was stolen the night I found Mama; it stitches together the jagged wound in my heart that ripped open the day Aleksei died.
Not caring that my tears show my weakness—because I am weak when it comes to her—I let them fall. Syn owns me completely—heart, body, and soul.
“I should have told you a long time ago. Please don’t be sad.”
“Happy tears, Songbird. I promise I won’t ask for more or cause problems with Tristan, Hen, and Con. Just knowing is enough.”
And it is. Knowing you are loved, truly loved by the person who matters the most, is more than enough. If the Reaper came now to drag me to hell, I’d die with a smile on my face.
“I think you should read something.” She produces a balled-up wad of paper and uncrumples it.
We said we weren’t going to meddle, but it’s been three weeks. It’s time to tell him. We love you.
“Stay. With me. With us. Let us be your home.” Syn presses my hand flat over her pounding heart. “A part of it will always be yours, Aleksander. Please take it.”
The world stutters to a standstill. Literally stops revolving as time grinds to a halt. And then in slow motion, it starts up again and everything becomes more vibrant. More animated.
I want it. Her. Fénix. Tristan and Dierdre. Hendrix and Constantine, my adversaries, who became my friends. I want it all. Every crazy, chaotic part of this family I love.
“Fuck, I love you.”
“Never doubt for a second how much I love—”
The dam of my restraint breaks, and the rest gets swallowed by her moan when I take what I have coveted for almost two decades.
First kisses are usually tentative and unsure.
A test of boundaries or gentle exploration.
The way Syn and I crash together is nothing like that.
Our first kiss is all passion and fire, a frenzied collision of desperation and need.
It’s a kiss of two people who repressed their feelings for each other for too long, and once the walls between them crumble, all hell breaks loose.
How many times had I fantasized about how she would taste? How she would feel in my arms? How soft her skin was? Nothing could have prepared me for the reality of her.
I love you. I love you so much. Thank you for loving me back.
Air expels out of her lungs when I roughly lift her onto the counter island, and her sexy-as-fuck dress climbs up her thighs when she wraps her toned legs around my waist.
“Don’t hurt your ribs.”
“If you think I’m going to let that stop me from kissing you again, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”
She pulls her bottom lip with her teeth and playfully shakes her head, her happiness brighter than sunshine. “I don’t know if you can top that first kiss.”
“No?”
She fists my shirt and reels me in. The heat of her pussy against my cock is like throwing gasoline on a lit ember. I’m so fucking hard, my dick juts out from under the waistband of my trousers.
“It was a really great kiss. You have your work cut out for you.”
I trace the curve of her neck with a fingertip, and she shivers. “I think I’m up for the challenge, pevchaya ptitsa.”
Her skin erupts with gooseflesh, and it amazes me that I have that effect on her.
How she immediately responds to my slightest touch.
That something as simple as a brushstroke of my finger over her skin can elicit such a visceral response.
It’s a heady realization that she wants me as much as I want her.
I capture this moment like a snapshot, memorizing every detail.
The way her pale-blue eyes glaze over with lust. The flutter of her pulse point on her neck that gives away how fast her heart is beating.
The rosy flush tingeing her cheeks and the dark pink of her bee-stung, kiss-swollen lips.
The way her hair feels like silk between my fingers. Every inch of her takes my breath away.
Another sultry moan breaks free when my lips take hers once again in a kiss that is both punishing and tender.
I’m claiming her, branding her as mine, my tongue fucking her sweet mouth because I can’t get enough.
The taste of her drives me wild, the scent of her arousal makes me drunk, and the little mewls of yearning she emits…
fuck me. She is every fantasy I’ve ever had of her come to life.
“You proved me wrong.” Her gaze drops, and she licks her lips.
My cock throbs like a heartbeat, wanting to feel her mouth wrapped around it. “Songbird.”
“Hmm?”
“Keep looking at my dick like that, and I’m going to fuck you on this kitchen island.”
In response, she parts her thighs wider, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of the paradise between her legs.
Not able to resist the temptation, I run my hands down her thighs to her ankles and gently set her feet on the ledge of the counter.
The pendant lights catch on the diamond dangling from a chain in her pussy. I give it a tug, and she gasps.
“Hendrix buy this for you?”
“Yes.”
Bending over her, I graze my lips over the bite mark on her inner thigh. “And this?”
“Yes,” she moans as I trace the bruised outline with my tongue.
I didn’t understand this dynamic between them at first, or why Syn would allow them to bite and choke her.
Growing up, pain was used as a weapon, either to control or to teach.
Nikolai would beat Mama to keep her submissive.
He would torture Aleksei and me, claiming it would make us strong.
But for Hendrix and Syn, they get off on pain. For them, pain is pleasure.
“I don’t know if I can give you what you need.”
Understanding, Syn’s blue eyes sear me with veracity. “I don’t need you to mark my body. I just need you.” Her legs tighten around my waist, and she frames my face between her hands. “We can take things slow. Go at whatever pace you need. I will wait a lifetime for you, Aleksander.”
I’ve waited my entire fucking life for her. I’m not waiting another second.
“I don’t want to wait.” She gasps in delight when I twirl the chain in her pussy around my finger. “What is this anyway?”
“Metal balls. The remote you destroyed made them vibrate.”
Hendrix loves his toys. I, however, like to do things the old-fashioned way. Pulling on the chain, Syn’s breath hitches as each ball slips out. “How many times did you come?”
It’s adorable how hard she blushes. “Three.”
“How much do you like this dress?”
She shrugs a delicate shoulder. “It’s not exactly the most comfortable thing to wear.”
Good enough for me.
Taking a knife from the butcher block sitting nearby, I slide the tip under the bottom hem.
“I wouldn’t move,” I tell her, slicing into the thin, translucent fabric.
It gives way like tissue paper as I carefully move the knife up.
With a final flick of the wrist, the dress falls off, exposing her gorgeous breasts to my heated gaze.
Syn’s chest rises and falls with effort as my eyes devour every curve of her naked body.
“What are you thinking?” she quietly asks, a tint of arousal spreading across her chest.
Her nipples bead into the prettiest rosettes when I graze a finger down between her breasts to her navel, my thumb brushing lazy strokes back and forth across her diamond belly chain.
“How exquisite you are.” She responds with sensuous beauty as I explore the scars decorating her left side—a moan, a sigh, the way she trembles under my hand. “Can you feel me?”
A stuttered inhalation. “I do. I’m not supposed to. The nerve endings are damaged there. But I can feel you.”
Curving a hand around the back of her neck, her eyes flutter closed on a sigh when I feather soft kisses over her shoulder and down her arm. “What does that feel like?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like a tickle but more electric. It feels really good.”
I love how she owns her scars and doesn’t try to hide them. Syn survived unspeakable horrors and great loss, the reminders of those tragedies permanently branded into her skin. But when I look at her, all I see is perfection and a woman who is stronger than any person I know.
I get to the grafts on her side below her ribs. “Your body is living art. Your skin a canvas painted with pink watercolor.”
Her gaze lifts, and the passion behind her eyes punches me right in the chest. “I really like that description. I like how you see me.”
I want to tell her that she is all I’ve seen since the day we met. There hasn’t been a minute that has ticked by when she hasn’t occupied my thoughts. Even when I believed she was dead, she was always with me.
“Aleks?”
“Hmm?”
“Make me yours.”
Green light.
There is no teasing or preamble or build up. I grip her ass and bury my face in her pussy. And feast.
Syn claws the counter edge and cries out when I go straight for her clit, lapping the swollen nub with firm swipes of my tongue.
I roughly thrust two fingers inside her and slide them along her inner wall, locating her G-spot with ease.
It takes less than a minute before her delirious moans turn into screams of my name as her orgasm slams into her.
And I watch every second of it.
How her back curves, head thrown back, eyes closed, and scarlet hair spilling over the white quartzite countertop. Absolutely breathtaking.
“Holy shit. That was…”
“One.”
Her fingertips run through the short strands of my hair. “We’re counting my orgasms?”
I skim my nose across her trimmed pubis, inhaling her scent, drowning in it. “I can’t be beaten by a sex toy. Hendrix would never shut up about it.”
Her laughter lights me up. “Technically, if we’re counting orgasms, the tally comes to four.”
Licking a lascivious line from her mons to her mouth, she moans when I kiss her with a tenderness that belies the fierce desire consuming me. “Is that a challenge, Songbird?”
She sucks on my bottom lip and pulls. “Think you’re up for it?”
“You could say that.” Bracing her hips, I let her feel how fucking hard I am for her, and the smile that curves her lips is pure sin.
Happiness.
I realize that’s the emotion bursting through me as I kiss Syn stupid. Men like me don’t get happily-ever-afters, but by some miracle, this magnificent woman loves me.
Remembering how sensitive her breasts are, I spend long minutes softly kissing and caressing them. She’s still breastfeeding, and the stimulation causes milky beads to pearl.
“Aleksander, please.”
I take a nipple into my mouth and lightly bite down, enjoying how her entire body shudders. “Please what?”
“Fuck me.”
I could never deny her anything.
“With pleasure, wife.”