Epilogue Two
Five Months Later
The wall is cool under my palm where I’ve got her pinned, but everything else is pure fucking heat.
Her dress is rucked up around her waist like a goddamn belt, the silky fabric bunched in my fist so I can keep her spread open.
One of her legs is hooked high over my hip, heel digging into my ass.
Her panties are shoved roughly to the side, soaked through, and my cock is buried to the hilt inside her tight, dripping cunt, every brutal thrust making wet, obscene sounds that echo off the foyer of the estate.
“Fuck! Maksim,” she gasps, the words breaking on a moan as I grind deep and roll my hips, dragging the head of my cock over that spot that always makes her clench like a vice.
She feels unreal. Hot. Slick. Greedy. Every time I pull back she sucks me right back in, walls fluttering and pulsing around my shaft like she’s trying to milk me dry before we even get out the door.
Her nails are already shredding the back of my dress shirt, and I can feel the fresh scratches joining the old ones.
“Harder,” she demands, voice raw. “Fuck me harder—”
“Shut up,” I growl against her ear, slamming into her so hard her back slides up the wall an inch. “I am. You’re the reason we’re going to be late to this fucking wedding.”
“Don’t—” She chokes on a cry as I thrust again, deeper. “Don’t fucking talk about the wedding, I’m almost there—”
Her hand flies up and slaps over my mouth, palm warm and trembling.
I bite down on the fleshy part, hard enough that she hisses, and the sharp little pain only makes her pussy clamp down tighter around me.
She yanks her hand away and pulls at my hair hard, fingers twisting in the strands until my scalp burns. I snarl, grab that wrist, and slam it against the wall above her head, pinning it there with my weight.
“I don’t wanna go to this fucking wedding,” she whines, hips jerking desperately against mine, chasing the friction.
A dark laugh rips out of me even as I pound into her. “I thought you said you were about to come. Shut the fuck up and come!”
I drop her wrist and cover her mouth, palm sealing over those pretty lips. Her eyes go wide and glassy above my fingers as I start fucking her in like she needs—brutal, punishing strokes that slap skin against skin and make her whole body jolt.
Her cunt spasms hard around my cock, fluttering wildly, and then she’s coming, hard.
Fucking finally.
A muffled scream vibrates against my palm, her back arching, thighs shaking as she gushes around me, soaking my balls and the front of my slacks.
The feeling of her falling apart like that; clenching, pulsing, drenching me while she’s still trying to curse me out, rips my own orgasm out of me.
I bury myself to the root and come with a guttural groan, flooding her in thick, hot pulses, filling her until I can feel it leaking out around my cock where we’re still joined.
For a second the only sounds are our ragged breathing and the distant tick of the clock in the foyer.
I slowly lower my hand from her mouth, my palm dragging across her swollen lips. Her eyes are dazed and bright, that soft post-orgasm haze I’m never going to get tired of seeing. She licks her lips, voice hoarse and wrecked.
“We’re definitely going to be late.”
I smirk, still buried deep inside her, my cock twitching with the last aftershocks. “I don’t fucking care. This is exactly why Luciano shouldn’t have invited us.”
She laughs breathlessly, forehead dropping to my shoulder. “You’re such an ass.”
“Yeah, yeah. Love you too, Beda.” I press a slow kiss to the side of her neck, tasting salt, perfume, and sex.
I ease my hips back, sliding out of her with a wet, messy sound that makes her gasp softly. I catch her as her leg slips down from my hip, steadying her when her knees wobble.
“Come on,” I murmur, tugging her dress back down over her hips with one hand while I zip myself up with the other. “We need to change, and you need to grab your body wash.”
Her brows pull together as I start guiding her toward the staircase, my arm slung low around her waist. She’s still flushed and unsteady, one hand braced on the banister as we climb.
“What?” she asks, glancing up at me.
“Your body wash,” I repeat, steering her up the steps. “Bring it.”
She stares at me, half-dazed, half-suspicious, her thighs pressing together like she can still feel me leaking out of her. “Why?”
“Because we’re not coming back here tonight.”
That stops her on the sixth step. I keep moving, gently tugging her along with me.
“Why not?”
I unbutton my cuffs as we reach the landing. “Because we’re staying at the penthouse. Luciano’s place is too far from the compound, and I don’t want to be driving around that late.”
She goes still, one hand still gripping the railing. “You have a penthouse?”
My mouth twitches. “We have a penthouse.”
Her eyes narrow dangerously. “Since when?”
“Since before you.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head as she follows me down the hallway toward the bedroom. “You had a whole penthouse this entire time and kept me in the townhouse?”
“The townhouse is gorgeous,” I say flatly, pushing open the bedroom door and pulling her inside with me. “You have a fucking estate now. What are you complaining about?”
She crosses her arms, which would look a lot more intimidating if her hair wasn’t a complete mess from the wall. “What do you even use it for?”
“Mostly operations. Meetings. City business.” I shrug out of my ruined dress shirt and toss it toward the hamper.
She squints at me, following me deeper into the room. “Do you keep hostages there?”
I smirk. “Sometimes.”
Her mouth drops open a little. “Mistresses?”
My gaze cuts to hers immediately, sharp. “Never.”
Something softens in her expression for half a second before she covers it with attitude, planting her hands on her hips.
“Wow,” she mutters. “Good to know your hostage standards are higher than your girlfriend standards.”
I grin, stalking toward her as I loosen my belt. “Keep talking shit and I’ll find a better use for that mouth.”
She tries to look unimpressed, but the flush creeping back up her chest gives her away. “We’re already late, Maksim. We don’t have time for that.”
“Exactly.” I reach for the zipper of her dress. “So stop arguing and get naked. The sooner we’re changed, the sooner we can get this stupid wedding over with.”
***
She looks gorgeous.
Gorgeous.
My Beda sits across the room beside Luciano’s bride, one leg crossed over the other, a half-empty champagne flute balanced in her hand while she says something that makes the bride laugh.
The gold in Ayla’s dress catches every low light in the room.
Her hair spills over one bare shoulder in dark waves, she’s… stunning.
Sharp mouth. Sharp eyes. Sharp enough to cut a man open in the middle of a wedding and probably ruin the flowers.
Fuck.
I sound like an Amato.
“We got intel Sarkisian’s been spotted,” Angelo says, taking the seat beside me like he owns the air around him.
I don’t look at him right away. I take a slow sip of my drink, still watching Ayla.
“Close enough to move?” I ask.
“Close enough to watch,” he says. “Not close enough to strike.”
That gets my eyes on him.
Angelo leans back in the chair, one ankle over the opposite knee, looking too calm for the kind of conversation we’re having. Typical. The room around us is thinning out slowly now. Music lower. Guests peeling off in clusters. Staff clearing glasses from tables. A wedding dying by inches.
“Where?” I ask.
“One of the outer points,” he says. “Could be him circling. Could be bait.”
“Could be stupidity.”
His mouth twitches. “That too.”
I glance back toward Ayla. She’s smiling again, listening now while Luciano’s bride talks. There’s something easy in the way she sits tonight. Different. Looser. Like for one fucking night she let herself breathe.
“You think he wants to be seen?” I ask.
Angelo follows my line of sight for half a second before looking back at me. “I think he wants us wondering why.”
My jaw ticks.
Before I can answer, Adriana appears at Angelo’s shoulder, one hand settling there lightly.
Radiant.
Pregnancy softens nothing about her except maybe the edges of the light around her. Seven maybe eight by now, and still carrying herself like she was born to make every room shift when she enters it.
“Amor,” she says softly.
Angelo’s entire focus changes on a dime. It’s almost irritating to watch.
He tips his head back to look at her. “You okay?”
She gives him that tired, beautiful look women only seem to get away with when they’re carrying a whole person inside them. “I want to go home.”
That’s it.
No argument. No finish your drink. No give me ten minutes.
Angelo is on his feet before the sentence fully lands.
I huff out a quiet laugh and stand with him. “Romantic.”
“Smart,” he says, already reaching for Adriana’s hand.
She rolls her eyes a little at that, but she’s smiling. Tired. Fond. Done with this fucking night.
Angelo looks back at me once. “I’ll send everything over when I get it.”
I nod. “Do that.”
His grip hits my forearm, mine hits his. Quick. Firm.
Then he’s gone, hand low on Adriana’s back, guiding her toward the exit like the rest of the world stopped existing the second she said she was tired.
Show-off.
The seat beside me isn’t empty long.
Ayla drops into it like she belongs there. Like it was always hers.
She sets her champagne down on the table and exhales. “If one more person tells me I clean up nice, I’m going to start stabbing.”
I look at her over the rim of my glass. “You do clean up nice.”
She turns her head slowly and narrows her eyes at me. “You’re brave tonight.”
“Or stupid.”
“Definitely stupid.”
A smirk tugs at my mouth.
She’s a little flushed from champagne, from dancing, from existing in a room full of dangerous people and coming out the prettiest thing in it anyway. Her gaze drops to my drink, then to my face again.
“You ready to go?” I ask.
“Almost.”