25. Damian
25
Damian
“Alina!” I roar, treading water, searching the surface. What the fuck is she doing in the water? I’m torn between searching for Leo and searching for her. “Leo!”
“Damian,” Sabina calls to me from the swim deck. “He’s here. Leo’s here. He’s safe.”
I glance over and see my brother pulling himself from the water. He staggers to his feet, his clothing drenched, a bloodstain stretching down his right pant leg. Behind him is Luca, his hair matted and bloody. But they’re both alive and upright. I’ll take it.
I scan the surface of the water. “Alina!” Where did I last see her? Where did she go down? “Alina!”
“Here,” she says surfacing in front of me, breathing hard. “I can’t find him, Damian. I’m so sorry. I can’t find him.”
I don’t waste breath on words. I grab her and yank her to me, dragging her through the water toward the swim deck. Leo reaches down and offers his hand as I push her toward him.
She looks startled for a second, but takes his hand, then clambers up the ladder. I follow.
“Leo,” I snarl at my brother as I climb the ladder to the swim platform, tamping down the emotions that threaten to swamp me. Anger. Fear. Joy. Relief. Too many feelings to tease apart and name.
“You must be pissed that I saved myself,” he says, ruffling my hair like I’m a five-year-old. “You wanted all the glory, right?”
His words are light, but his expression is anything but.
Sabina throws herself against me and I pull her close in a one-armed embrace, but my eyes are on Alina where she stands to one side, hugging herself. She shot a man to protect me. She dove into the ocean to save my brother, the man who only this morning threatened to kill her, put his hands around her throat, strangled her.
She stands in only her bra and panties, her blond hair wet and tangled, her body shaking.
For an instant, we stare at each other, saying nothing.
Then I set my sister aside and yank Alina against me. My mouth is on hers before I can even think about it. She sags against me and I scoop her in my arms. Without another word, I carry her to our stateroom, cradling her against me.
I slam the door behind me and carry her to the shower, turning on the water and stepping under the pounding, hot stream with her. But I don’t let go of her. I hold her against my heart, half afraid that if I let her go even for a second she’ll disappear.
“What the fuck, Alina?” My voice comes out in a growl.
“Can you be more specific?” she whispers.
“What the fuck were you thinking diving into the fucking ocean?”
“High school swim team. I was probably safer in that ocean than you were.” She tips her head back and holds my gaze, defiant.
I just glare at her, the water pounding down on us, my entire body vibrating.
Her long hair hangs in wet straggles over her shoulders and down her back. Last night’s mascara leaves dark smears under her eyes. I’ve ever seen a more beautiful woman in my entire fucking life.
She huffs a sharp exhale. “I was thinking that your brother was going to drown. That I couldn’t bear for you to suffer that, to know the pain of losing another person you love.”
Her words make my chest feel tight, make it hard to pull a full breath. “And the gun?”
She frowns, looking confused, then her expression clears. “Luca’s gun?”
“Yes, Luca’s gun. You handled it like an expert.”
“Not an expert,” she says. “I’m out of practice.”
“Practice,” I say, harsher than I intend. “How much practice have you had?”
“Me, Markus, and Dad at the gun range every week from the time I was twelve until I left for college. It was Dad’s version of family game night.”
I wonder how my people missed that fascinating bit of information when they did their work-up on Alina.
“So you’ve shot paper targets at the gun range. Ever shot a man before?”
She shakes her head.
“Yet you shot a man today. To save me. Then you dove into the ocean to save my brother. The brother who tried to kill you.”
“W-W-Well, I think if he really wanted to kill me, I’d be dead. I-I-I think he might have just wanted to scare the shit out of me. And he d-d-did a really good j-j-job.”
I realize then that her teeth have started chattering, not from cold. From shock. With a hiss, I unclasp and peel off her bra, then her panties. Then I peel off my own sopping clothes. Naked, I draw her against me, wanting only to hold her, to keep her safe, to protect her from the whole fucking world.
We stand under the pounding water, my arms around her until she stops shaking, her teeth stop chattering. Then I turn off the shower, wrap her in a towel and carry her to the bed. I climb in beside her and pulling her tight against me.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?” I ask.
“Make love to me,” she says, those gorgeous blue eyes finding mine. “Make love to me so I stop thinking about how you could have been shot. Killed. How I could have lost you. How—”
I rest my fingertip against her lush lips.
“I told you to play dead. To stay safe.”
“You didn’t exactly tell me,” she says. “It was more of a slight head shake that I had to interpret—”
My lips crash down on hers. She tastes like salt, like sea water.
She wraps her arms around me, one hand tangling in my wet hair, the other clasping my shoulder. Her moan vibrates through her, through me as I roll atop her.
I lick the seam of her lips, demanding she open to me, pushing inside. I cup the back of her head, kissing her, tasting her, taking what I want. I want her. All of her. Every part of her is mine.
Cupping her breast, I skim the pad of my thumb over her nipple. She gasps and arches into my touch. I kiss her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breast. Then I close my lips around her taut nipple, sucking on the sensitive peak. I move back and forth, kissing her breasts, sucking and licking her nipples, her sighs and gasps making me rock hard.
I slide my hand between her thighs and find the slick folds of her pussy. “Such a good girl. So wet,” I murmur, pushing my finger inside her.
She wriggles and sighs as I push a second finger into her wet heat. I grind the heel of my palm against her clit while I work my fingers in and out, making her whimper. Her hips shift restlessly beneath me. My cock is so hard it hurts.
This girl. This fucking gorgeous, brave girl.
I want to make this slow, to draw out her moans and sighs and cries, to make her shake and beg, to see her drenched in sweat, her thighs slick with her arousal. So I take my time, stroking her, teasing her.
“Damian.” My name is a plea. “Damian, please. Oh, god, that feels so good.” She arches into me and presses her lips to mine. “I need you inside me. I want to come with you inside me.”
I don’t make her repeat herself. I push her thighs apart and shift atop her, lacing our fingers together. “Look at me,” I order, and she does, her eyes on mine, pupils dark and dilated with arousal.
I push the head of my cock inside her, pull back, push forward, going deeper with each thrust until I’m all the way in, her sweet pussy so tight, so hot. “Fucking gorgeous,” I say as I move, watching her expression as she arches her body, taking all of me, her eyes never leaving mine.
Her breathing is ragged and shallow as she matches my rhythm, her hips working in tandem with mine. Perfect synchrony.
I feel my orgasm building, twisting tighter and tighter, but only when she screams my name, her whole body shuddering do I let myself go, let myself come in a hurricane of sensation, my body, my thoughts consumed by her. Consumed by this woman who sacrificed her freedom for her brother, who shot a man to keep me safe, who braved an ocean to save me from loss and grief. This woman who was neither born into my world nor raised in it, but who adapts and bends and survives. This woman who is like no other.
Alina Madsen is mine. She will always be mine.
She just doesn’t know it yet.