Chapter 21 - Gaby #2
"I love you," I said again, stronger this time. "I know it's insane. I know you kidnapped me, and this whole thing started as—as something else entirely. But I love you, Vasily. I've been falling for weeks, and I was too scared to say it, and I almost died without—"
He kissed me.
Not gentle. Not careful. He kissed me like he was drowning and I was air, like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. His hands cupped my face, tilting my head back, and he poured everything he was feeling into the press of his lips against mine.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
"I love you." His voice was raw, wrecked. "I've loved you since before I had any right to. Since the first moment I saw you through that restaurant window, laughing at something on your phone, completely unaware that your whole world was about to change."
"Vasily—"
"I told myself it was an obsession. Possession. Something dark and selfish that I could control. But it was never that. It was always this—this thing that's been building between us, this feeling I couldn't name because naming it made it real. Made it something I could lose."
"You didn't lose me."
"I almost did." His forehead pressed against mine, his breath warm on my lips. "When those feeds went dark—when I realized what I'd walked into—I thought I'd lost everything. You, the baby, the only future I've ever wanted."
"I'm here." I took his hand and pressed it to my stomach. "We're here. You found us."
"I'll always find you." The words were a vow, fierce and absolute. "No matter what happens, no matter where you are. I will tear the world apart to bring you home."
"I know." I kissed him again—softer this time, but no less intense. "I know you will."
"I love you, Gabrielle. More than I knew I was capable of loving anything. More than my empire, my legacy, my life." His thumb traced across my cheekbone, wiping away tears I hadn't realized were still falling. "You've changed everything. You've changed me."
"You've changed me too."
"For better or worse?"
"Better." I smiled despite the tears. "Definitely better."
He kissed me again, and this time, something shifted. The tenderness was still there, but underneath it—heat. Need. The desperate urge to affirm that we were both alive, both here, both choosing each other.
"I need you," I breathed against his mouth. "Please, Vasily. I need to feel you."
"Are you sure? After everything—the doctors said rest—"
"I don't want rest. I want you." I pulled at the towel wrapped around his waist, my fingers clumsy with urgency. "I need to know this is real. That we're real."
He groaned low in his throat and claimed my mouth again.
He laid me back on the white sheets like I was something sacred.
The silk robe fell open, baring my body to his gaze—the bruises, the small cuts, the evidence of violence that hadn't broken me. His eyes traced every mark, his jaw tightening.
"I'll never let anyone hurt you again," he said. "Never."
"I know."
He lowered himself over me, bracing his weight on his forearms, and kissed me again. Slow and deep, his tongue sliding against mine in a rhythm that made my toes curl. I could feel him hard against my thigh, the evidence of his need pressing insistently.
But he didn't rush.
His mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, trailing fire down the column of my throat. He paused at the thin cut Pankratov's knife had left, pressing the gentlest kiss to the wound.
"Mine," he murmured against my skin. "You're mine, Gabrielle. My wife. My heart. The mother of my child."
"Yours," I agreed, my voice already breathless. "I'm yours."
He continued his descent, kissing across my collarbone, down the slope of my breast. When his mouth closed over my nipple, I arched off the bed with a gasp. He sucked gently, his tongue swirling around the peaked flesh, and the sensation shot straight to my core.
"So sensitive." He switched to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention. "Is this because of the pregnancy?"
"I don't—I don't know—" It was hard to think with his mouth on me, his hands stroking down my sides. "Everything feels more. Bigger."
"Then I'll make everything feel good." He kissed down the center of my stomach, pausing at the small swell where our baby was growing. "Hello, little one. Your mother and I have things to discuss. You'll have to be patient."
I laughed despite myself—a watery, exhausted sound. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm thorough." He kissed lower, over my hip, down my inner thigh. "There's a difference."
Then his mouth found my center, and I stopped laughing.
His tongue slid through my folds in one long, devastating stroke. I cried out, my hands flying to his hair, my hips bucking up against his face. He pressed me down with one arm across my stomach—firm but gentle, mindful of the baby—and continued his assault.
"You taste like heaven," he groaned against me. "Like mine. Like coming home."
"Vasily—"
"I could do this for hours." He circled my clit with his tongue, slow and deliberate. "Just lie here between your thighs and make you come over and over until you can't remember your own name."
"I need—I need you inside me—"
"Not yet." He slid one finger into me, and I clenched around it greedily. "I almost lost you tonight. I need to take my time. Need to remind myself that you're here. That you're real."
He added a second finger, curling them to find the spot that made me see stars. His tongue never stopped its relentless rhythm on my clit—circling, flicking, sucking. The dual sensation was overwhelming, pleasure building in waves that crashed higher and higher.
"Come for me," he commanded against my flesh. "Let me taste it."
The orgasm hit me like a tidal wave. I shattered, crying out his name, my body convulsing around his fingers. He worked me through it, drawing out every last tremor, until I collapsed back against the sheets, boneless and gasping.
"Beautiful," he murmured, kissing his way back up my body. "So fucking beautiful when you come."
I reached for him, pulling him up to meet my mouth. I could taste myself on his lips—salt and musk and something sweeter. The intimacy of it made my head spin.
"I love you," I said again, because I could. Because I never wanted to stop saying it.
"I love you." He positioned himself at my entrance, the head of his cock pressing against my slick folds. "Are you ready?"
"Yes. God, yes."
He pushed inside me in one slow, steady stroke.
The feeling of him filling me—after everything we'd been through, after the terror and the violence and the desperate fear—was almost too much. Tears pricked my eyes again, but these were different. These were relief and joy and a love so overwhelming I didn't know how to contain it.
"Okay?" he asked, holding himself still inside me.
"More than okay." I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. "Please, Vasily. Move."
He moved.
Long, slow strokes at first—pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in.
Each thrust drove him deeper, filled me more completely, until I couldn't tell where I ended, and he began.
His eyes never left mine, green burning into brown, the connection between us as intense as the physical joining.
"You feel incredible," he groaned. "So tight. So hot. Like you were made for me."
"I was." The words came out without thought, but I knew they were true. "I was made for you, Vasily. Only for you."
Something snapped in his expression—the careful control he'd been maintaining giving way to raw need. He drove into me harder, faster, his hips slamming against mine with a force that pushed me up the bed. I grabbed the headboard to brace myself, meeting each thrust with a cry of pleasure.
"That's it," he growled. "Take it. Take all of me."
"Yes—God, yes—"
He shifted his angle, and suddenly he was hitting something deep inside me that made sparks explode behind my eyes. I screamed, not caring who heard, not caring about anything except the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in my core.
"I'm going to—I can't—"
"Come," he commanded. "Come on my cock, Gabrielle. Let me feel you."
I shattered for the second time, harder than before. My inner walls clamped down on him, pulsing rhythmically as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through me. I heard him groan—a low, animal sound—and then he was coming too, spilling inside me in hot spurts that seemed to go on forever.
He collapsed over me, catching his weight on his forearms, his face buried in my neck. We lay there, tangled together, hearts pounding in syncopation, sweat cooling on our skin.
"I love you," I whispered into his hair.
"I love you." He pressed a kiss to my throat, right over my pulse. "I will never stop loving you."
We made love twice more that night.
The second time was slower, more tender—a careful exploration after the desperate intensity of the first. He touched me like I was precious, fragile, though we both knew I wasn't. I'd survived kidnapping and captivity and the horrors of his world. I was stronger than either of us had expected.
But I let him be gentle anyway. Let him worship my body with his hands and mouth, let him bring me to climax with excruciating slowness before sliding inside me and making love to me like we had all the time in the world.
The third time was in the middle of the night.
I woke to find his hands already on me, his mouth at my breast, his cock hard against my thigh. He entered me from behind, spooning me against his chest, one hand splayed protectively over my stomach as he thrust into me with lazy, rolling movements.
"I woke up and you were here," he murmured against my ear. "I had to touch you. Had to make sure you were real."
"I'm real." I reached back to tangle my fingers in his hair. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
He brought me to orgasm with his fingers on my clit, his cock still moving inside me, his mouth hot on my neck. When he came, he groaned my name like a prayer, and I felt his release flood through me, warm and claiming.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the darkness, his arms wrapped around me, my back pressed to his chest.
"What happens now?" I asked quietly.
"Now we rest. Heal. Let the doctors make sure you and the baby are truly okay."
"And after that?"
"After that..." He was quiet for a moment. "After that, we build. A life. A family. Something better than either of us had before."
"In New York?"
"If that's what you want. Or somewhere else. Anywhere you want to be." His arms tightened around me. "I don't care where we are, Gabrielle. As long as we're together."
"Together." I liked the sound of that. "The three of us."
"The three of us."
I felt his hand move to my stomach again, cradling the small swell where our child was growing.
A child who would never know the loneliness I'd felt, the coldness of a father who saw me as an asset rather than a daughter.
This child would be loved fiercely, protected absolutely, raised by parents who'd fought through hell to be together.
"I love you," I said again, because I would never tire of saying it.
"I love you." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. "Now sleep, little dove. Tomorrow, we start our new life. But tonight, just rest."
I closed my eyes, safe in his arms, and let sleep take me.
For the first time since Vasily Chernov had stolen me from my old life, I wasn't dreaming of escape.
I was dreaming of home.