Chapter Eleven - Elara #2
My shirt comes off—I’m not sure if I remove it or he does—and then his hands are on bare skin, exploring with a reverence that contradicts everything I know about him.
The killer, the strategist, the man who executes people without hesitation—right now he’s touching me like I’m something precious. Breakable.
“I’m not glass,” I remind him, nipping at his lower lip hard enough to sting.
He makes a sound low in his throat—half warning, half approval. “Careful what you’re asking for.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking for.” I pull at his shirt, frustrated with the barrier between us. “Stop treating me like I’ll shatter.”
For a moment he just looks at me, searching my face for something. Then his expression shifts, that careful gentleness replaced by something darker, more primal. More honest.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he says, but he’s already backing me toward the bed with deliberate intent.
“I won’t.”
“You should.” His hands go to my waist, grip firm enough to feel the power in them. “This doesn’t solve anything, Elara. Tomorrow you’ll still hate me. Tomorrow this will still be complicated.”
“Tomorrow can fuck itself.” The words come out breathless as the back of my knees hit the mattress. “Tonight I just want to feel something other than fear.”
He stops, hands still on my waist, and for a second I think he’s going to pull away. Going to be noble and controlled and all the things that make me want to scream.
Instead, he leans in close, lips brushing my ear. “Then feel this.”
The kiss that follows is nothing like the ones before; it’s claiming, consuming, stripped of all the careful restraint he’s been maintaining. His hands are everywhere, mapping the curves of my body with a possessiveness that should bother me but doesn’t.
I’m matching him touch for touch, claiming him right back, refusing to be passive in this.
We fall onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and frustrated fabric removal. His shirt finally comes off, and I get my first real look at the damage his life has done to him—the scars are more extensive than I thought, a roadmap of violence written across muscle and skin.
“You’re staring,” he says, but there’s no self-consciousness in it.
“You’re covered in scars.”
“Hazard of the profession.” He catches my wrist when I reach for another one, bringing my hand to his mouth instead. “They don’t bother you?”
“They terrify me,” I admit. “Just not for the reason you think.”
“Why, then?”
I meet his eyes. “Because every one of them is a reminder that you could die. That this whole structure you’ve built around me could collapse, and I’d be left in a world where you don’t exist anymore.”
Something flashes across his face: surprise, maybe, or satisfaction that I’ve finally admitted what we both know. That somewhere in all the anger and fear and resentment, I’ve started caring whether he lives or dies.
“I’m not easy to kill,” he says, lowering himself over me, caging me in with his arms.
“Neither was that man in the alley. Until you shot him.”
“He threatened you.” His voice drops to something dangerous. “Anyone who threatens you forfeits their right to keep breathing.”
The possessiveness in those words should trigger every feminist instinct I have. Should make me furious at being treated like property to be defended. Instead, it sends heat pooling low in my belly, makes my breath catch in my throat.
“That’s messed up,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t apologize for it. “Most things about me are.”
I pull him down into another kiss rather than examine why that honesty is more attractive than any pretty lie could be. His weight settles over me, solid and real, and for the first time since the alley I feel safe. Protected. Like nothing can reach me here.
His hands are more confident now, less asking permission and more claiming what I’ve offered. When he finds the clasp of my bra, I arch into him, needing the contact, needing the distraction from everything spinning in my head.
“Nikola—”
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my throat, and somehow I believe him. This man who’s destroyed my life and saved it in equal measure—I believe that right now, in this moment, he’s got me.
The rest of our clothes disappear in urgent movements, neither of us patient enough for slow seduction.
This isn’t about romance or tenderness. No, it’s about need, about claiming, about two people who’ve been circling each other in anger and fear finally giving in to the inevitable pull between them.
When he settles between my thighs, he pauses, searching my face one more time. His cock throbs against my skin.
“Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.” The words come out steady despite the trembling in my limbs. “I want you.”
He enters me slowly, carefully, watching my face for any sign of discomfort.
God, the feeling of him filling me, stretching me, claiming me in the most primal way possible, it’s overwhelming. Too much and not enough all at once.
“Breathe,” he instructs, voice strained with the effort of control.
I do, and his cock slides deeper, and suddenly we’re completely joined.
Connected in a way that makes everything else fade into background noise.
The fear, the anger, the complicated mess of our situation—none of it matters right now.
Right now there’s only this: his body over mine, inside mine, becoming part of mine.
He starts to move and I move with him, finding a rhythm that’s equal parts battle and surrender. Every thrust is punctuated by harsh breaths, and my walls clench with the pleasure.
“Look at me,” he demands when my eyes start to drift closed.
I do, and the intensity in his gaze nearly undoes me. This isn’t just sex for him—it’s something more complicated, more consuming. I can see it written across every line of his face, feel it in every controlled movement of his body.
He’s claiming me, yes. He’s also giving himself to me in return, offering up pieces of himself I don’t think he’s shown anyone else.
The realization makes something crack open inside me.
“Harder,” I demand, digging my nails into his shoulders.
He complies immediately, hips snapping forward with more force, more urgency. The headboard hits the wall with rhythmic thuds that would be embarrassing if I could bring myself to care about anything beyond the building pressure inside me.
“That’s it,” he encourages, one hand sliding between us to where we’re joined. “Take what you need from me. Take everything.”
The combination of his words, his touch, the relentless drive of his body into mine—it all becomes too much. I shatter around him with a cry that echoes off the stark walls, waves of pleasure rolling through me so intensely I forget how to breathe.
He follows moments later, my name a harsh prayer on his lips as he buries himself deep and goes still, trembling with the force of his release.
For several long moments we just stay like that, tangled together, breathing hard, neither of us quite ready to face what we’ve just done. What line we’ve just crossed.
Finally, he shifts, carefully withdrawing and rolling to the side. I expect him to put distance between us immediately, maybe to retreat into that controlled composure he wears like armor.
Instead, he pulls me against his chest, one arm wrapped around my waist, holding me close.
“Tomorrow—” he starts.
“Tomorrow I’ll probably regret this,” I interrupt. “Tomorrow I’ll remember all the reasons I hate you. Tomorrow this will be complicated again.”
“Tonight?”
I press my face against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of him—gunpowder and expensive cologne and something uniquely Nikola. “Tonight I’m choosing not to think about it.”
His arm tightens around me, and I feel him press a kiss to the top of my head. Such a gentle gesture from such a dangerous man.
“Then don’t think,” he murmurs. “Just sleep.”
Somehow, wrapped in the arms of a killer, surrounded by bulletproof walls and the ghost of violence, I do.