Chapter 15 #2
I silence him by pressing my lips to his, and this kiss is raw need and the desperate collision of two people who’ve come too close to losing something they didn’t even realize they wanted to keep.
He responds with equal hunger, tangling his hands in my hair as he deepens the kiss until I forget about everything except the taste of him and the way he’s holding me like something precious he can’t bear to let go.
When we finally pull apart to take in a deep breath, he stares into my eyes. “This could be dangerous.”
“I know.” I reach up to trace the line of his jaw, savoring the way he leans into my touch despite the tension radiating through his body. “I just don’t care.”
He grasps my hair as he claims my mouth with desperate hunger, tasting like whiskey and danger, and my pussy clenches with need. This isn’t gentle or careful. It’s raw desperation from two people who almost lost something they didn’t realize they couldn’t live without.
“I need to touch you,” he says against my throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. “I need to know you’re here and safe.”
“Then touch me.” I pull at his shirt, scattering buttons across the hardwood floor in my haste to feel his skin against mine. “Touch me everywhere.”
He tears my nightgown down the middle, the silk splitting like paper under his hands. The violence of it sends heat racing through my veins, and I arch against him as cool air hits my naked skin.
“Christ, look at you.” His voice is rough with wonder as he strokes my body with reverent touches that make me tremble. “So fucking beautiful.”
I work at his belt with shaking fingers, desperate to feel all of him. “I need you inside me. I need to know you’re real too.”
When I finally free his cock from his trousers, he’s already hard and leaking. I wrap my fingers around the thick length of him, stroking slowly while he groans against my neck.
“Fuck, Zita.” He bites down on my shoulder, not hard enough to mark but enough to make me gasp. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Good.” I increase the pressure of my strokes, feeling his jaw clench against my skin with the effort of maintaining control. “I want to drive you as crazy as you drive me.”
He pushes me back against the pillows and finds my breasts, sucking and licking my nipples in an alternating rhythm while his hands explore lower. When he slides his finger down my slit, I’m already soaked with need. He makes a sound of satisfaction that goes straight to my pussy.
“You’re so wet for me,” he murmurs against my skin, circling my clit until I’m shaking. “So ready.”
“Please.” I arch against his touch, needing more than his fingers. “I need you to fuck me. I need to feel you everywhere.”
He continues to stroke me for another minute while repositioning himself.
I miss his mouth at my breasts, but he kisses me again a moment later.
Finally, he withdraws his fingers from my pussy as he positions himself between my thighs.
The head of his cock nudges against my entrance, jutting forward insistently.
“Are you sure? After everything that happened today—”
“I’m especially sure after everything that happened today.” I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer. “I need to feel alive and connected to you.”
When he pushes inside me, we both cry out at the sensation. His cock fills me completely, stretching me in ways that border on overwhelming. For a moment, we stay perfectly still, lost in the intensity of the connection.
“You feel like heaven,” he whispers against my ear, his voice strained with the effort of holding back. “Like coming home.”
“Then come home to me.” I roll my hips, taking him deeper. “Take what you need.”
He sets a rhythm that’s both desperate and reverent, with each thrust claiming me while somehow surrendering to me at the same time. I meet him movement for movement as our bodies find a perfect synchronization that speaks to how deeply we understand each other now.
“I could have lost you today,” he says, his forehead pressed against mine as he moves inside me. “I could have lost this before I even knew I had it.”
“Yes, but you didn’t.” I frame his face with my hands, forcing him to look at me. “I’m here. We’re here. Nothing else matters.”
He nods and continues thrusting into me as I strain to meet each of his moves with my own. I moan when his thumb finds my clit, and the added stimulation sends me spiraling toward release. My muscles begin to flutter around his cock, and his rhythm becomes more urgent.
“Come for me,” he says, his voice rough with his own approaching climax. “Let me feel your pleasure.”
The combination of his words and his touch pushes me over the edge with devastating force. I cry out his name as my orgasm tears through me, my pussy clenching around him with an intensity that leaves me shaking.
He follows seconds later, burying his cock deeply inside me as he empties himself with a groan that sounds almost pained. His shaft pulses inside me, marking me in the most fundamental way possible.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, our hearts still racing and our skin damp with sweat. Neither of us speaks for a long time, both processing the magnitude of what just passed between us.
“I should regret this,” I finally whisper against his chest.
“Do you?” His voice is carefully neutral, but I feel the way his body tenses as he waits for my answer.
“No.” The admission comes out breathless, honest. “I should, but I don’t.”
His arms tighten around me. “Neither do I.”
“What does that make us?”
“Complicated.” I can hear the wry smile in his voice. “Very, very complicated.”
I lift my head to look at him, studying the face that’s become so familiar yet continues to surprise me. “Can we be complicated and still make this marriage work?”
“I don’t know, but I want to try.”
“So do I.”
He brushes a strand of hair back from my face, his touch gentle despite the calluses on his fingertips. “To do that, you need to understand what this means and what wanting each other costs in a world like ours.”
“Tell me.”
“It means we’re both more vulnerable now. Our enemies have another weapon to use against us. The stakes of everything we do are higher.” He pauses, his fingers tracing patterns on my bare shoulder. “It means what happened today was just the beginning.”
I consider his words, weighing them against what I feel for him, against the connection that’s grown between us despite every rational reason it shouldn’t exist.
“I’d still be a target even if we hated each other, right?”
He shrugs. “If Avgar followed the unwritten rules, no. You’d be safe either way, but he’s not doing business as usual…so, yes, you’ll be a target either way.”
“Right, so why wouldn’t we see where this leads?”
“That makes sense.” He smiles.
“Then we should proceed without hiding what’s developing between us?”
He nods after a moment. "Yes, but are you sure, knowing the risks?”
“Yes.” I settle against his chest, my ear pressed to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “Pretending we don’t want each other hasn’t made us any safer.”
He kisses the top of my head in a soft and sweet gesture. “Then we stop pretending.”
“No more pretending.” I nod. The comfortable silence stretches between us for several minutes before I force myself to address what happened earlier in the afternoon. “The house arrest won’t work,” I say quietly against his chest.
His body goes still beneath me. “Zita—”
“I’m serious. Locking me away until the threat passes isn’t a solution.” I lift my head to look at him. “It’s just postponing the inevitable while making me feel like a prisoner instead of a partner.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, clearly struggling with his protective instincts versus the partnership we’ve been building.
“I know,” he finally says. “I realized that the moment you walked away. I was acting like my father by deciding to keep you safe at any cost while knowing you’d hate and resent me for it. ”
“We agreed to be partners after the conference room incident.” I trace patterns on his chest. “That means working together to solve problems, not you making unilateral decisions about my safety.”
“You’re right, but I don’t know how to keep you safe without wanting to lock you away from everything that could hurt you.”
“We’ll come up with a plan.” I press a kiss to his throat. “When we’re both more awake and less exhausted, we’ll talk about how to handle threats without abandoning everything we’ve built, but you have to promise to include me in the solutions instead of trying to protect me from them.”
“I promise.” He tightens his arms around me. “Even when every instinct I have screams at me to hide you somewhere safe.”
“Maybe that’ll work as long as you’re hiding with me. I don’t want to be left in the dark.”
He lets out a harsh breath. “I understand your perspective, and we’ll try to find a better solution.”
“Thank you.” I kiss the star on his right pec since it’s the closest bit of flesh to me.
We settle into silence again, and his breathing evens out moments later.
I relax too, but as I drift toward sleep in his arms, I don’t bother to pretend our acknowledgment of what exists between us has just made everything infinitely more dangerous.
If Avgar Federoff discovers what Tigran and I have become to each other, he’ll never stop coming for me.
Our connection has become something real that can be used as a weapon against us both.