TWENTY-SIX
Benito
I f I had things my way, our language would never require words. I hold Stas to me while she leans to my left and runs those sinful lips down my heated neck. Her legs tighten, pulling her closer to my core as she moves. Fuck hiding anything anymore. I grind my hips up and show this woman exactly what she does to me.
Nearly ten years have passed since I made the hardest fucking decision of my life and cut her free. A decade without something I truly believed would be mine for the taking from the moment I first got it: her love.
She made me work for it at the start. Pushed me away because of who I am, the last name that attaches itself to my life like an anchor. While I was blinded from the moment I first saw her, she guarded her heart fiercely.
The day she let me in was the sweetest victory I’ve had the pleasure to taste.
Two stupid teenagers with more love than our worlds require. With nowhere else to show the emotion, we drowned each other in reverence until our twisted bliss closed our eyes to the danger we put ourselves in. A Bratva princess in love with a Mafia prince never has a happy ending. Even now that we’re literally promised to each other through the meddling of our families, I can’t see anything on our horizon but more trouble.
A union such as ours can only be viewed as a weakness by our opponents. A sore spot to pester and itch at until one, or both, of us breaks.
Compromise.
It’s what I’ve always done: gone without for the greater good. Well, not anymore. Duty and honor can only get me so far, especially when the work runs out. What will I have to keep me sane when I’m too old to hunt? What will there be to bring joy to my days when my hands are no longer steady enough to kill?
Nastasya Kuznetsov was gifted to me on a goddamn silver platter, and like fuck I’m not going to take full advantage of that.
I love her—so much that I think it slowly kills me.
She leans back, seeming to question why I don’t respond to her foreplay while she searches my hooded gaze. Without my voice, it’s nearly impossible to explain the thoughts and feelings that vie for space in my mind. Since reuniting, I wanted our first time with each other to be more memorable. More warranted of what a woman like her deserves. But what the fuck does a private room and a comfortable bed mean when the raw emotion behind the action tells her so much more?
I take the hem of her cropped T-shirt in hand and hesitate, seeking permission from her heated gaze. She nods, slowly lifting both arms over her head. The material hits the floor of the Defender within our next breath. I honestly have no idea how I’m supposed to get her out of the tight fucking yoga pants without it being awkward. She spares me the trouble, though, unlinking her ankles and sliding from my lap to check our surroundings before tugging the material to her ankles. I offer her my hand for balance while Stas wrestles her shoes undone and then shirks them and the gym gear onto the dirt at our feet.
“This is totally not sexy,” she mutters, eliciting a chuckle from me. “See why you need to give me notice when you want to steal me away? A little heads up, and I could have worn something way more practical.”
I guide her chin high, pulling Stas from her fussing. One fingertip to my lips, and she gets the message.
“Right.” My girl climbs on my lap again yet sits further back on my knees this time. She bites her bottom lip, eagerness warring with concentration when she looks down at my jeans. “At least you’re easy to get to, huh?”
I kiss her neck. Sweep her hair out of the way and lick a line to the heel of her jaw. She exhales heavily, hands stalling on the clasp of my jeans.
“I’ve missed this,” she breathes, leaning back to hold my gaze. “Us.”
I place one hand on my chest and nod. Me too.
My bride-to-be smirks, fingers tugging at the waist of my pants to get the fuckers free. I let my gaze drift over her shoulder at the relatively open area around us. Not good enough. No matter how badly I want to ease her pain and bring her pleasure. Stas frowns when I shift her off my legs and into the back of the Defender. The day has cooled since the afternoon heat, a tolerable temperature for what I’m about to do: hide us away again, for old-time’s sake.
She smiles, weight propped on her elbows while I shut the back door of the Defender and enclose us in our own unsullied space amongst the filth of the world. Her smile fades, confusion taking its place when I set both hands on her hips and push her along the tough-lined floor until her spine hits the rear of the back seats. Her panties come off next—if you could even call the scrap of fabric that. I take a moment to appreciate my woman, naked save for a sports bra that’s far too appealing to be practical. Her breasts strain against the restriction of the cups, pushing against a crisscrossed mesh of lines over her cleavage.
Like fuck, she didn’t dress for company.
I drop to my stomach—knees bent and feet high behind me to fit inside the vehicle—and slide both hands beneath her ass. She sets a palm to my head, stalling me where I lie with my face inches from the most alluring meal I’ve had in a long time, and frowns.
“Maybe I should shower before we do this?” She looks pointedly at her gym gear.
I don’t give a fuck. What’s a little sweat when I’m about to create a hell of a lot more? I answer her protest by dragging my bottom lip the length of her swollen cunt. She elicits a tiny squeak, followed by a throaty gasp as I repeat the action.
I wish, like nothing else, I could taste her right now. Run my tongue between her slick folds and tease that sensitive little fucker at her hood. If I could murder a man while pleasuring my woman without it being weird, I’d gladly strangle my uncle in this moment. Let the desperation for a sensation I’ll never have motivate me to crush the last air from his windpipe.
Instead, I fuel my fingers with the anger, spreading and teasing Stas until she drips with the need for penetration. Her groans deepen, arms spread wide across the back of the seats that hold her up while she rocks her hips high to meet my greedy sucks.
I work her until her garbled words make no sense. Until the warmth of our bodies steams the windows, and the sounds of her slick arousal force my hard dick against the restriction of my jeans.
I can’t hold off. If she fucking comes on my face, I ruin any chance I have of making this last before I need release.
She watches me with a gaze thick with lust, her eyes darker than the forest boughs outside. I rise to my knees; my shoulders curled down to bow my head beneath the vehicle’s roof and strip myself of anything else that could stand between us.
It strikes me that this is the first time we’ve been naked together in close to a decade when she sits straighter, legs coming together as she shifts to her knees. Her eyes never leave me while she moves, a gentle frown tugging at her brow when she reaches out to touch the scars left from a life filled with one too many risks.
“You’ll have to explain these to me.” Her fingertips trace the spot where I took a curved blade to the ribs during my second year as my family’s killer. “I want to know about each one, Benny.” Her head lifts, eyes imploring me for the truth.
I nod slowly, taking her face in my hands as I do. She sighs against my kiss, palms flat to my chest.
“Your heart,” she whispers. “It’s so fast.”
Fear, desire, curious excitement—she elicits it all.
I raze my right palm down her naked front, holding her sated gaze while I slide two fingers between her legs to find her still wet and waiting. Her gasp catches at the back of her pretty throat, eyes closed when I plunge the digits into her heat. The urge to taste her rushes through my veins again—hot and unrelenting. I thrust my fingers inside of her, wishing it were my tongue, that her arousal coated my tastebuds, not my knuckles.
Her sheer bliss is worth every ounce of my suffering when she settles both hands on my sloped shoulders and digs her fingertips in. Stas drops her head forward as my pace increases, forehead against my collarbone when her hips sag and her legs give out.
I curl one finger to milk every bit of her climax, the evidence of her satiation soaking the back of my hand.
If only I could lick the fucker clean.
Instead, I wipe it against my straining dick to prep myself for the best part: immersion.
I take Stas’s face between my hands and pull at the corner of her mouth with my thumb. She groans, her tongue touching the tip while she maintains eye contact, fucking the deepest parts of my soul with her desire. I seat myself on my heels, leaning back to make room for her to climb atop her fucking throne. This woman belongs with me, ruling from above like the queen she was always meant to be.
My place remains at her feet—worshipping the absolute angel she is, sent down from Heaven to save me.
And I’m more than okay with that.
“Don’t be gentle,” she whispers, her palm wrapped around my cock to line us up. Fucking put me out of my misery already. “I want to feel you tomorrow.” She grins, sliding her sinful pussy over my resolute dick. “Here.”
There is no slow and steady. No easing into this thing of ours. I take her by the hips and lift her two inches purely so I can hear the sound our bodies make when I slam her down again. She cries out, her response amplified in the confines of the Defender. I swear it’s my favorite goddamn sound.
Our lovemaking is frantic and compulsive. But then, our love always was.
A force of nature no amount of tradition or formality could deny.
An attraction so strong that even death failed to keep us apart.