Yakov
Laney walks over to me, exhaustion clearly threatening to pull her under.
"Ready to go?" I ask.
"Yes." She glances back at her sister one more time. "Laurie says she needs to stay here tonight. Process everything with the others."
"That's smart."
"And she told me I need to go with you." Laney's voice is quiet. "That I'm about to fall apart and I shouldn't do it here."
"She's right."
"I know." She meets my eyes. "I don't want to break down in front of her. She's been through enough. She doesn't need to see me lose it too."
"Then let's go." I take her hand. "You can break down at my place. Just you and me."
We say our goodbyes with promises that Laney will visit tomorrow, and head to the car. The drive back into the city is quiet. Laney stares out the window, her hand gripping mine like I'm the only thing keeping her tethered to the planet.
I can feel her unraveling. See it in the way her breathing gets shorter, the way her fingers tremble against mine.
She's been holding everything together with a strength that grown men would envy. But now that her sister is safe, now that the immediate crisis is over, all that fear and stress and terror has nowhere to go.
"Breathe," I tell her when I notice her starting to hyperventilate.
"I am breathing."
"No, you're panicking." I bring her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "In through your nose. Out through your mouth. With me."
I demonstrate, and she follows. In. Out. In. Out.
Slowly, her breathing steadies.
"Better?" I ask.
"Better." She squeezes my hand. "Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me for taking care of you." I pull into the hotel’'s private garage. "That's just what I do now."
The elevator ride up to the penthouse is charged with a different kind of tension. Every time I glance at her, she's already looking at me. Her pupils are dilated, her breathing still a little too fast, but it's not panic anymore.
It's need.
When the doors open directly into my apartment, she steps out and stops, taking in the space. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Strip, the modern furniture, the carefully curated emptiness I've always preferred.
"This is beautiful," she says.
"Do you like it?"
"It's very you." She moves toward the windows. "You can see everything from up here."
"That's the point." I come up behind her, close enough that she can feel my heat. "I like to know what's happening in my city."
"Your city," she repeats, staring out at the lights. Then she turns to face me. We're so close I can see the gold flecks in her whiskey-colored eyes. "What does that make me? I'm in your city. In your apartment. Did you mean it when you said I’m yours too?"
My jaw clenches. "Do you want to be?"
"I don't know." Her hand comes up to touch my face, trembling slightly against my jaw. "I know I should be scared of you. I know this is happening too fast. I know there are a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea."
"But?"
"But I can't stop thinking about you." The words tumble out of her now, raw and honest. "About the way you looked at me in the car. About how safe I felt even when everything was falling apart. About how much I want..." She trails off.
"Want what?" My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
"This." She closes the distance and kisses me.
It’s deep, dark and desperate. She kisses me like she's drowning and I'm the thing she wants to grab onto. Like she needs this to prove she's still alive. Still here. Still capable of feeling something other than fear.
I understand that need. I've felt it myself after particularly brutal jobs, that desperate hunger to feel something, anything, that confirms you're still human.
So I give her what she's asking for.
I kiss her back with everything I have, one arm wrapping around her waist to pull her flush against me. She gasps into my mouth, and I take advantage, deepening the kiss until she's making these small needy sounds that go straight to my cock.
"Yakov," she breathes against my lips. "Please."
"Please what?"
"I need…" She's shaking now, her whole body trembling. "I need to feel something other than scared or confused. I need you to make me feel alive."
Fuck.
Something in me snaps at those words. The carefully controlled restraint I've been maintaining since I first saw her photo shatters completely.
I lift her, my shoulder screaming in protest but I don't give a fuck, and she wraps her legs around my waist on instinct. I carry her through the apartment to my bedroom, kicking the door closed behind us.
The room is dark except for the city lights bleeding through the windows. I lay her down on my bed, and the sight of her there, blonde hair spread across my pillows, eyes wide and wanting, chest heaving, nearly undoes me.
"Tell me this is what you want," I say, my voice barely recognizable. "Because once I start, Laney, I'm not stopping. I'm not holding back. I'm going to give you exactly what you need, and it's going to be rough and feral and everything that I need too."
"Yes." She reaches for me, pulling me down to her. "Yes to all of that. I don't want gentle right now. I don't want careful. I just want to feel."
"You'll feel me." I capture her mouth in a bruising kiss. "I’ll make sure you feel me for days."
I strip her jacket off, then her shirt, my movements urgent but still controlled enough not to rip anything. When I see the faint bruises on her throat, marks from where that Albanian piece of shit grabbed her, rage pulses through me again.
"I should have made him suffer more," I growl.
"He's dead. You killed him." Her hands fist in my shirt. "Stop thinking about him and focus on me."
I do. I map every inch of her skin with my hands and mouth, learning what makes her gasp, what makes her arch into my touch. Her jeans come off, then her underwear, and when she's finally bare beneath me, I just stop and stare.
She's fucking perfect. Curvy and soft and ready.
"Yakov." Her voice is breathy, desperate. "Please don't make me wait any longer."
"I'm not making you wait." I lean down and kiss her, trailing my lips from hers to her jaw, her neck. "I'm memorizing you."
My hand slides between her legs, and fuck, she's already wet. Ready. Needing this as much as I do.
I work her with my fingers, watching her face as I learn exactly what she likes, what makes her want more. She's so responsive, her body arching into every touch, her breath coming in short gasps.
"That's it," I murmur against her ear. "Let go. Show me how you break apart."
"I can't—" She's close, I can feel it in the way she's clenching around my fingers. "It's too much—"
"You can. You will." I press my thumb against her clit, circling with varying amounts of pressure until I find exactly the pressure that makes her keen loudly. "Come for me, Laney."
Her entire body goes taut as the orgasm crashes through her. I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down.
When she can finally open her eyes again, she looks at me with something like wonder.
"That was..." She can't finish the sentence.
Her hands shake as she opens my borrowed shirt, being careful around my injured shoulder. When she finally gets it off and sees the full extent of the damage I've accumulated over the years, scars and marks that tell stories I never share, she touches them reverently.
"Do they hurt?" she asks.
"Not anymore." I catch her hand and bring it to my lips. "You make everything hurt less."
Her eyes fly to mine, find the sincerity there, then she's working on my belt, my pants, freeing my cock from the confines of my clothes.
When she wraps her hand around me, I have to fight not to come right then and there.
"Fuck, Laney."
"Is this okay?" she asks, looking at my length as she runs her fingers over the tip, smearing the precum that’s beaded there.
"It's perfect." I catch her wrist, stilling her movement. "But if you keep doing that, this is going to be over embarrassingly fast."
"Then don't wait." She pulls me down to her, kissing me with renewed urgency. "I want this. Need this…please."
I don't need to be asked twice.
I settle between her legs, the head of my cock pressing against her entrance. She's so wet, so ready, but I still go slow that first thrust, giving her time to adjust.
She's tight. So fucking tight it takes everything in me not to just bury myself to the hilt and flood her womb instantly.
"You okay?" I grit out.
"More than okay." Her hands smooth over my arms, gripping my elbows as her legs come up either side of me, opening her tight channel a little more to accommodate me.
I start moving, finding a rhythm that has her gasping and clinging to me. Every thrust goes deeper, harder, until I'm fucking her with an intensity that should probably scare both of us.
She meets me thrust for thrust, her body taking everything I give her and demanding more.
I hold myself over her so I can see the flush on her chest and neck as it deepens, the way her tits bounce obscenely, the way her dusky pink nipples are peaked and begging for attention I can’t give them right now.
"Yes," she gasps. "Yes, like that, exactly like that—"
"You feel so fucking good." I’m panting now, breathing in that scent of orange and jasmine mixed with sweat and sex. "So perfect. Mine. You're mine, Laney."
"Yes." She arches beneath me, changing the angle of her cunt and somehow gripping my cock harder. "I'm yours. Yakov, take me, I'm yours."
Hearing her say it sends me to the edge faster than I can control. I reach between us, finding her clit and circling it with exactly the pressure I learned she needs.
She breaks, crying out my name as her orgasm tears through her. The feeling of her clenching around me triggers my own release.
"Fuck I’m going to fill you up," I manage to say, as I bury myself deep and come harder than I ever have in my life, her name a growl on my lips.
For a long moment, we just stay like that, both of us breathing hard, trembling, slowly coming back to ourselves.
Then I hear it. A sob. I pull back to look at her face and see tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Laney—"
"I'm okay." She's crying harder now, her whole body shaking. "I'm okay, I just—I need—"
"I know." I pull out carefully and roll to my side, gathering her against my chest. "I know what you need."
She cries like she's been holding it in forever. Like all the fear and terror and desperate hope is finally finding a way out. And I hold her through all of it.
"You're safe," I murmur into her hair. "Your sister's safe. Everyone's safe. You did it, Laney. You found her."
"I couldn't have done it without you."
"Yes, you could have. You would have torn this city apart until you found her." I press a kiss to her forehead. "But I'm glad you didn't have to."
She cries until she has nothing left, until she's empty and exhausted and finally, finally at peace.
"Sleep," I tell her. "I'll be here when you wake up."
She's asleep within minutes, her breathing evening out, her body going limp against mine.
I stay awake, watching her. Absorbing the way she looks in my bed, in my arms. Already planning how to make sure she never leaves.