23. Damian #2
I don’t think I’ve ever come so hard, or so long.
It’s still dripping from the tip of my cock when I pull out of her, pearling white at her swollen, slick folds, and I collapse to one side of her on the bed, the handcuffs pinching beneath me as I look at her for a long moment.
She’s on her stomach, hair tangled, sweaty, and flushed, and so utterly gorgeous that I can’t imagine ever wanting another woman for the rest of my life.
But this isn’t permanent. It can’t be.
For a few minutes, we just lie there, coming back to earth. I can see her pulse racing in her throat, see the slight tremor in her body as aftershocks roll through her.
I look at her face, and when her eyes open to meet mine, something cold settles in my stomach. There's satisfaction there, yes, and pleasure, but there's something else too. Something that looks dangerously like love.
"That was..." she starts to say, but I cut her off by rolling away from her, knowing that I need to put distance between us. I lost control, and I gave her what she wanted, and now she’s going to think it means something.
It did mean something. But she can’t know that.
“I’ve had a long day,” I say quietly. “That was great, Sienna. Quite the surprise. But I’m hungry, and I should shower, and?—”
Her face falls instantly. She shifts toward me, reaching to touch my chest with one hand. “Damian?—”
"This doesn't change anything," I say, the words coming out harsher than I intended. "What just happened between us—it doesn't change the arrangement. You caught me off guard, and I lost control. You got what you wanted, Sienna, but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to keep doing this."
I feel her go still beside me. "What do you mean?" Her voice wobbles slightly, and I know in that moment that I should never, ever have let this go so far.
Now I’m going to hurt her. There’s no way around it. No way for me to keep from breaking some part of her heart, damaging something tender and precious that I swore I would protect. I said I would keep her safe, and now I’m going to be responsible for chipping away at her trust, her gentleness.
I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and putting distance between us.
"I mean, this is still temporary. Once the Russo situation is resolved, we'll discuss dissolving the marriage. And we need to stop doing this, Sienna. You need to stay out of my bed. Every time we fuck, this gets more complicated." The words prick at my own heart, opening up a dozen wounds, but I ignore them. I’m used to pain. I can bear it. What I can’t stand is hers. Even if… especially if… I’m the one causing it.
The silence that follows is so complete I can hear my own heartbeat. When I finally turn to look at her, she's sitting up too, her arms wrapped around her chest, and there are tears in her eyes.
"I see," she says quietly.
"Sienna—"
"No, it's fine." But her voice is shaking, and I can see the hurt written all over her face. "I understand. This was just... physical. Nothing more."
She slides off the bed, her fingers digging into her sides, and I want to say something, want to take back the words that put that broken look in her eyes.
But I can't. Because getting too attached to her, letting myself believe this could be real—that way lies nothing but pain for both of us. For her, when she realizes that this life is too violent for someone like her, and for me, when I have to let her go all over again, knowing I’ve broken her beyond repair.
"I'm glad we're clear on that," she says, her voice steady now, but distant. "I wouldn't want to make this more complicated than it needs to be."
Sienna . I want to say her name, want to reach for her, to take that sound out of her voice, but I shouldn’t. I can’t . My pain is the sacrifice I need to make to keep her safe from all of this. She needs those walls up, and I should never have let mine down.
She heads for the door, teeth gnawing at her lower lip, and I know I should let her go, should let her walk away and put some much-needed distance between us. But something in me rebels at the sight of her leaving.
"Sienna, wait—" I curse myself for stopping her as soon as the words come out of my mouth.
She stops with her hand on the door handle, but she doesn't turn around. "What?"
I open my mouth, but no words come. What can I say?
That I'm sorry? That I didn't mean it? That the thought of her walking away makes me want to put my fist through the wall? That I want to keep her forever, even if I’d be bringing her into a world she should never have been introduced to in the first place?
"Nothing," I say finally, my heart heavier than it ever has been before. "Never mind."
She nods once, the motion taut and jerky, and then she's gone, the door closing softly behind her.
I sit there on the edge of my bed, naked and still smelling like sex and her perfume, and I wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.
I got exactly what I wanted—the most incredible sex of my life with a woman who's proved she’s willing to explore every dark fantasy I've ever had.
And then I threw it all away because I was scared of a look in her eyes.
Because I was scared of what that look meant. What it might mean for me. For her. For us , and her future, and mine.
I go straight for the shower, not wanting to wash her scent off of me and knowing I need to.
I need to get myself under control again.
Strip the bed of those sheets, order dinner, focus on the mission.
Put my temporary wife out of my head. But I can't concentrate on anything except her .
Every few minutes, my mind drifts back to the way Sienna looked tied to my bed, the sounds she made when I was inside her, the hurt in her eyes when I told her it didn't mean anything .
The truth is, it did mean something. Every fucking time I’ve touched her has meant something. And that terrifies me more than any enemy I've ever faced.
The next morning, I avoid the dining room, grabbing coffee and heading straight to my office.
I tell myself it's because I have work to do, calls to make, plans to finalize. But really, it's because I can't face seeing Sienna. I can’t handle seeing the hurt in her eyes… or handle seeing her face if there’s no hurt at all, if she’s distant and blank toward me, like she should be.
Like she needs to be.
I don’t quite make it all the way there.
Halfway down the hall, I pass Valentina, coming out of the sitting room. I start to walk past her, but she puts a hand on my forearm as I go by, and it’s enough to make me stop.
I look at her, feeling tension wind through me at the look on her face. “What?” I snap, more tersely than I would normally speak to her, but she’s unflappable. She just shakes her head, leaning back against the wall as she looks at me.
“You need to pull your head out of your ass, Damian.”
“What?” I stare at her, and she raises an eyebrow.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“If this is about Sienna?—”
“It is.” She looks at me, and there’s no small amount of empathy in her gaze, which makes me somehow feel worse. “I helped her go shopping for the two of you.”
“I figured.” There was no way Sienna pulled that off on her own. “You should have discouraged her.”
“Why?” Valentina looks at me squarely. “Because you’re afraid of what happens if you let yourself feel something for her?”
“I’m not having this conversation.” I start to keep walking, but Valentina’s voice stops me again.
“I get it, Damian. I do. You forget, I was a killer, too. Am a killer. People like us, we’re not taught how to love.
How to have relationships. Our lives are a ticking clock from the first job we take.
Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to open up to Konstantin, to admit how I felt for him?
To let myself think I could be happy ?” She scoffs.
“That idea was foreign to me. I had to fight for it. Learn how to let myself feel it. Trust that Konstantin would love me even when I wasn’t the most lovable. ”
I shake my head. “Sure, Valentina. You’re right.
We’re a lot alike. But Konstantin and Sienna are nothing alike.
You’re a contract killer who married a Bratva pakhan .
He gets violence and blood, his whole life has been that, too.
You understand each other. Sienna—” I take a slow breath.
“Sienna is innocent. She’s not a part of this life. It’s not the same thing at all.”
“She’s stronger than you think she is,” Valentina says softly.
I draw in another breath, shaking my head. “She shouldn’t have to be.”
And then, without another word, I continue down the hall to my office, leaving her there.
Konstantin finds me there an hour later, a frown creasing his brow as he takes in the reports scattered across my desk and the three empty coffee cups. "You look like shit," he says, settling into the chair across from my desk.
"Good morning to you too." I glare at him, but he says nothing, completely unruffled as always.
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
The answer is no, I didn't. I lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying every moment of what happened with Sienna, wondering if I could have handled it differently. Wondering why the thought of her hating me makes me feel like someone's carved out my chest with a dull knife.
Someone tried that once, on one of the few occasions that someone has gotten the upper hand on me, in a job gone wrong some years ago. It didn’t work, and somehow, this hurts more.
"I've been working," I say instead, motioning to the reports. “I had a call earlier with updates on Russo’s movements.”
Konstantin glances at the papers. “We know where he’ll be tomorrow night. The plan is solid, Damian. If anything, you should be resting, getting ready for a fight. This won’t be an easy mission. ”
"There might be something we missed." I need a distraction, but I don’t say it aloud. If I walk around this mansion for the rest of the day and tomorrow without something to do, I’ll go fucking insane.
Or worse yet, go and tell Sienna that I made a mistake, and beg her to forgive me, dooming her in the process.
Konstantin grunts. "Or maybe you're trying to distract yourself from whatever happened between you and your wife last night."
I look up sharply. "What makes you think something happened?"
"The fact that she looked like she'd been crying at breakfast.” He looks at me pointedly. “I thought the marriage wasn’t real, Damian, but it looks like you had your first fight.”
Fuck. I should have known Konstantin would notice. He doesn't miss anything, especially when it comes to the people under his protection.
“You too?” I shake my head. "It's nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
He leans back in his chair, studying me. "You're in love with her."
The words hit me like a physical blow, and I have to grip the edge of my desk to keep from flinching. "What?"
"You heard me. You're in love with your wife, and it's scaring the shit out of you."
"That's ridiculous." But even as I say it, I know he's right. The hole in my chest, the way I can't stop thinking about her, the way the expression on her face last night made me feel like I was drowning?—
Somewhere along the way, without me noticing, Sienna Monroe became more than just a woman I was protecting.
She became the only woman I ever wanted to look at again, the only woman I ever wanted to see, or touch, or…
love. Something I’ve never felt before, for anyone.
And last night, when I saw that love reflected back at me in her eyes, I panicked.
"The marriage was supposed to be temporary," I say finally.
"Says who?" Konstantin rolls his eyes. “If my experience is anything to go by, when a woman like that falls in love with you, you go ahead and let it happen. I struggled with how I felt for Valentina for too long, and?— ”
"Says me,” I snap back. “Says the fact that she's twenty-two years old and deserves better than a man who kills people for a living."
“She’s tougher than you think,” Konstantin muses, and I shake my head.
Fuck this. It’s the same thing Valentina said, and I don’t want to hear it again—from anyone.
“I don’t want her to have to be tough. I don’t want her to wonder if her husband is coming home.
I don’t want her to have to think about how many people he’s killed.
I’m all wrong for her, Konstantin, and if I’d known this was going to happen, I?—”
“You’d what?” Konstantin asks, and I pause. “Never have married her?”
The truth is, I’d redo it all in an instant to make sure she’s safe. I can’t regret what I’ve done, only that it’s gotten out of control. And now that I’m trying to reel it back in, I can’t seem to do anything right.
“I wouldn’t have touched her, that’s for sure,” I say quietly, and even as I do, every part of my body rebels against the thought that I might never have touched Sienna Monroe.
"She could have anyone," I add, the words coming out rougher than I intended.
"Anyone clean, anyone who doesn't have blood on their hands. Why would she want me?"
"Maybe you should ask her that instead of making the decision for her." Konstantin gives me a piercing look.
Before I can respond, there's a knock on my office door. One of our men sticks his head in, his expression urgent.
"Boss? We got a hit on Russo. He's leaving his safe house to the south, even though he was supposed to be staying there for a few days. Intel says he's planning to move tonight."
“Fuck,” Konstantin growls. “We’ll move out at six, Damian. We need to intercept him, or this is all going to go to shit.”
I stand up quickly, knowing I’ll need to convene the men going with us tonight, make sure everyone is well-armed, and that the plan is as crystal-clear as it can be, with the timeline moved up.
I need to focus on my job. I don’t have time to think about my marriage .
But all I can think about, as I walk out of the room, is that when this is all over, it will be too.