15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Erik
“What if I want to be the one to do it?”
I look up from where I’m sitting by the fire in the living room. For the past twenty minutes, I’ve been reading to Raina. I don’t think she’s heard a single word, but I don’t mind. I’ve noticed that she tends to relax when I speak, and I want her to be comfortable. If my voice is what does the trick, then I’ll talk until my throat is too worn out to continue.
Closing the book, I watch her as she stares out the window, looking down on her father’s mansion. “Do what, little rose?”
She turns, and pride fills me at the way she’s standing. Shoulders back, chin tilted up. No more hiding.
“What if I want to be the one to kill him?”
Standing, I move toward her. This isn’t a conversation to have from across the room. I need her to feel me—to know my heart beats only for her. So I take her hand and place it on my chest, holding it there.
“Do you think there’s a single thing you could ask for that I wouldn’t give you?”
She smiles, her eyes softening. “No.”
“I’ve lived my entire life fighting my way back to you, Raina. Even when I thought you were a ghost, even when I questioned my own memories, my sanity—I never let you go. So yes. If you want his life, it’s yours. If there’s anything you want, I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure you get it. I’ll stand by your side, be your support, guide you—whatever you need. But I will never stand in your way. Never.”
Her smile grows, and she loops her arms around my neck. The next second, her lips are on mine, and I’m grabbing her head so I can keep her against me for as long as she’ll let me.
“I love you,” Raina whispers, her eyes still closed. “I never stopped, Erik. My heart has always been yours.”
“And I love you.” I kiss her again, savoring the hesitant yet eager way her lips move against mine. It takes everything in me to not spread her out on the couch and eat her out again. It’s getting dark out, which means we’ll be leaving soon.
A few men who occasionally work for me have already come by to transport some of Raina’s clothes and her Christmas presents to my home. Raina wants to leave tonight, and for them to drive her things up by the time we arrive via plane, they needed the head start.
Reluctantly, I pull back, my fingers skating down her arms. Her cheeks are pink, and when she opens her eyes, she looks up at me with so much want that it almost shocks me. I love it, especially since she was so worried that I wouldn’t find her desirable if she wanted sex. Wanted me.
“You have no idea how much it turns me on, seeing you like this. Knowing you want me. I was too scared to hope for it, but you… you’re everything, Raina.”
She blinks. “Turns you on?”
Right. Of course she doesn’t know what a phrase like that means.
“You know the way you feel when I touch you?” My fingertips trace down her body in a lingering caress until I’m gently cupping between her legs. “The way your body is drawn to me? Aches for my touch?”
She nods, gasping sharply when I press my palm against her clit. “Erik.”
“That’s what it’s like for me, too,” I whisper in her ear. “And knowing that your feelings for me match mine for you? God, little rose. It makes me want to rip these clothes off you and worship you all over again.”
“W-worship?”
“Mmm.” I move her soft curls back, my lips finding her neck. “I could live for you, Raina.” Ever so gently, my teeth tug at her soft skin. Not enough to hurt—never that. But enough that she can feel my need, understand how tightly I’m keeping it leashed. “My only purpose being to serve you. Protect you. Fulfill your every need.”
“You’d do that?” Raina asks faintly, breathlessly.
I already do.
“I’ll prove it. Tell me what you want from me.”
“I want… I want you, Erik. Forever.”
“You have me.” I kiss my way down her jawline. “Another thing?”
“I don’t want to hide.”
Inhaling her scent, I press her into the wall behind her. “You don’t have to. Any threat to your safety, I’ll eliminate.”
“Thank—”
“Another.”
“Erik…”
“Another, Raina.”
She swallows, and I feel her throat working against my lips. Her voice is the quietest of whispers as she tells me, “I want you to chase me.”
I go so still that even my breathing halts. There’s no way I heard her correctly. No way that when I was dreaming of it, she was, too. But… maybe it’s only natural. I’ve spent my entire life chasing after her. And while she wasn’t intentionally hiding, that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to be found.
“Say it again,” I manage hoarsely.
Squirming against me, Raina tries to look away. “It’s silly. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not. Now say it again.” Gripping her chin, I guide her gaze back to mine. “I need to hear it.”
“I want you to chase me. For me to—to run and hide, and for you to find me. And then…”
“And then what, little rose?”
“I want you to worship me.”
Her words are hesitant, desire shrouded in worry. It unlocks something inside of me that’s been lying dormant for far too long. One second, I’m staring into those blue eyes, the ones I dreamed of every night. And the next, I’m capturing her mouth with mine, eating up her startled moan and holding her when she melts into me.
My dick hardens at the way her body softens against mine. At the thought of running after her and pinning her to the ground, keeping her trapped against me until she comes on my cock.
“Made for me.” My hand slides up her back until I’m gently gripping the hair at the base of her neck. I tug until she’s looking up at the ceiling, leaving her throat open and vulnerable to me. Starting at the base of her chin, I kiss my way down her neck, reveling in the way she shudders against me. “And I was made for you.”
“You think so?” she whispers.
Straightening, I take her face in mine, my mind whirring with all the possibilities. All the things I’ve wanted to do to her, with her. God, she has no idea what it means to me, hearing her voice similar desires to mine.
“I know so, Raina.” I kiss her again. “So yes, of course I’ll chase you. I’d chase you to the ends of the earth if you let me.”
She beams, and I’m pretty sure I could live off the sight alone.
“Now, come with me.” I slide my hand into hers. “We need to get ready.”
But she doesn’t budge. “Are you a sadist?” she blurts.
“For you, I could be. Are you a masochist?”
“A… a what?”
Again, I find myself amused by Raina’s knowledge gaps. How did she learn what a sadist is but not a masochist?
“Someone who takes pleasure from pain.”
“Oh. I—” A frown dances over her features, and she shakes her head. “I don’t think I’d like that.”
“Then I’m not a sadist.”
The truth, although I’d do anything— become anything—for her.
All she has to do is ask.