After that night, three days go by when I don’t hear from him. I want to call, but keep stopping in the middle of dialing.
He’s going to war, I remind myself sternly. The man is busy.
I get a brief text on day four: Dreamt of you last night.
When I text him back asking what the dream was about, he doesn’t answer.
By day six, I’m obsessing nonstop.
He’s dead. He’s been shot. Stabbed. Poisoned. He’s been captured by the police or the FBI. Something has gone horribly wrong, and I’ll never know what, I’ll just be left with no answers and no way of finding out what happened to him.
The feeling is eerily familiar.
Still, I hear nothing.
Still, I wait.
School starts again. Teaching is a welcome relief from the mania that overtakes me when I’m home alone. In the middle of the second week of no contact with Kage, I start painting in a frenzy, producing more work in three days than I have all year.
By the middle of January, I’m going out of my mind.
“Just call him, babe. This is ridiculous.”
I’m in bed, on the phone with Sloane. It’s ten o’clock at night. I know I won’t sleep again, because I haven’t since he left. “It’s too late for me to call. It’s one in the morning in New York.”
“You’re a moron.”
“I don’t want to disturb him. He’s got a lot going on.”
“You’re a huge moron.”
I cry, “Why doesn’t he call me? I told him I loved him, and he got all weird and never called me again!”
She says flatly, “I know you don’t really believe he hasn’t contacted you because you told him you love him.”
My exhalation is a huge, depressed gust of air. “No. I don’t.”
“So what’s the real issue?”
I swallow, staring up at the ceiling, dreading saying it out loud. “Basically…déjà vu.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “Oh. Okay, you need to tell him that, right away. I’m sure he has no idea because men are clueless, but you shouldn’t have to relive your past all over again. That’s cruel. Call him right now and tell him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I’m hanging up now. Call me back after you talk and he grovels epically.”
She disconnects, leaving me wrestling with my conscience.
He never said I shouldn’t call him when he was away, but I don’t want to be that girl. That clingy, insecure, needy girl.
I don’t have much, but I do have my pride.
Except apparently I don’t, because it only takes ten seconds of internal debate after hanging up with Sloane before I’m calling him.
It rings. Rings again. On the third ring, I sit bolt upright in bed, my heart hammering.
Because I’m hearing the ringing over the line, and also an echo of it coming from somewhere inside my house.
I’m not even on my feet before he crashes through my bedroom door and grabs me.
We fall onto the bed, kissing madly.
He’s as frantic as I am, devouring my mouth and squeezing me everywhere, his hands rough and greedy. I pull his hair and wrap my legs around his waist. He gives me his weight, pinning me to the mattress, groaning into my mouth.
I’m on fire. Euphoric. Intoxicated with relief, lust, and the sheer pleasure of him, his huge, hard body and warm, spicy smell. His taste. The little sounds he makes. His ravenous need for me, the way he so obviously can’t get enough.
I’m wearing a nightshirt. He rips it off.
My lace panties are torn in half and discarded.
He drags me to the edge of the bed, drops to his knees, shoves my legs open, and eats me like a starving man, making desperate noises low in his throat.
Sighing in relief, I sink my hands into his thick hair and rock my hips against his face.
He slaps my thigh. I moan my approval. He pinches the stinging flesh, then slaps it again, harder. The rocking of my hips turns frenzied. Arching my back, I call out his name.
He abruptly rolls me to my belly, flattens a hand over the middle of my back, and starts to spank my ass.
Spewing an unintelligible stream of Russian, he spanks me until my ass is burning, my pussy is throbbing, and I’m frantically grinding my hips against the bed.
When I’m at the edge of climax, he flips me to my back, pulls me up to a sitting position, yanks down the zipper on his jeans, fists his erection in his hand, and takes me by the throat.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to.
I wrap both my hands around his shaft and moisten my lips.
When his stiff cock slides into my mouth, he moans.
It’s a ragged, desperate sound, aching with emotion. He stands spread-legged at the edge of the bed and fucks my mouth, one hand bunched in my hair and the other gripping my neck.
“Ya tebya lyublyu. Ty nuzhnah mne. Ty moya.”
His words are a harsh rasp in the quiet room. I don’t know their exact meaning, but I understand.
I don’t need a translator to hear what his heart is saying.
Then he’s pulling out of my mouth and pushing me back against the mattress again, ripping off his shirt and tossing it away. He shucks off his shoes, tears off his jeans and briefs, and falls on top of me, panting.
“I can’t go easy.”
“I’d kill you if you tried.”
He crushes his mouth to mine and shoves deep inside me.
We groan together. Shudder together. Pause for a moment to enjoy it.
When I open my eyes, he’s gazing down at me with so much need and adoration, it takes my breath away.
He cups my face in his huge hand and says gruffly, “Every day I’m without you, I die.”
I say his name, struggling not to drown under the wave of emotion swamping me.
“You’ve wrecked me. Ruined me. I can’t think of anything else but you.”
I inhale a hitching breath. He flexes his hips, withdrawing slightly, then shoving back into me. He starts to fuck me with hard, shallow thrusts.
“Tell me what I need to hear.”
I whisper, “I’m yours. I’m in love with you. You have my whole heart.”
His lids drift lower. He licks his lips. I can tell he wants more.
“I can’t think of anything else but you, either. Everything is gray when you’re not here. You’re the only color in my life.”
He kisses me again, desperately. His thrusts grow faster and harder. The headboard bangs against the wall.
When I’m shaking and moaning, close to climax, he puts his mouth next to my ear.
Through gritted teeth, he says, “You’ve made this monster into a man again, my beautiful girl. Now fucking come for me.”
He sucks on one of my aching nipples, and I instantly oblige him.
Convulsing around him, I scream his name.
Grunting and bucking, he fucks me straight through my orgasm. Then he climaxes, jerking on top of me, spilling himself inside me as he bites my neck and pulls my hair.
In the aftermath, we lie together, breathing hard, our chests pressed together. His heart beats as madly as mine. Every so often, a little aftershock rocks me, a contraction deep in my core. It makes him moan softly in pleasure.
Then he raises himself to his elbows and kisses me.
It’s a slow kiss. An achingly tender one. He gives me all his devotion and need with his mouth, then drops his forehead to my shoulder and exhales.
I’m sore. My ass stings. So does my neck where he bit me.
And I’m so damn happy, I could fly.
He withdraws from me with a soft groan, then rolls us over. On his back, his wraps his big arms around me and holds me tightly, pressing a kiss to my temple and sighing.
I whisper, “Welcome back.”
His chuckle shakes me. He runs a hand down my back to my ass, gently stroking its curve. “I need to put cream on this peach.”
Frowning into the dark, I say, “Is that code for something dirty?”
He chuckles again. “No. I meant I should put something soothing on your poor butt. I went too hard on you.”
I snuggle closer to him, happily sniffing his throat. “I loved it.”
He murmurs, “I know you did, baby. Me, too.”
We’re quiet for a while, until I remember what I’d been talking to Sloane about before he crashed through the door. “Um. I need to ask you a favor.”
He’d been caressing my skin, but his hand falls still. “What is it?”
“When you’re not here…I’m not sure how to say this without it sounding like I’m complaining.”
“Say it anyway.”
I exhale a hard breath. “Okay. The thing is, when I don’t hear from you for days at a time, I worry. You live a dangerous life. I have no way of knowing from one day to the next if you’re…if anything has happened to you. And if it had, I’d never find out. It would be like…”
When I pause to gather my thoughts, he says simply, “Your fiancé.”
Of course he’d know. He always knows what I’m feeling. I squeeze my eyes shut, emotion welling in my chest.
“I promise I’ll touch base every day from now on.”
Hiding my face in his neck, I whisper, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a pain in the ass.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should’ve realized how hard it would be for you. That not hearing from me would remind you of what happened with him.”
He swallows and tightens his arms around my body. When he speaks again, his voice is husky. “Tell me you forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
I can tell his mind is going a million miles per hour, that his mouth is crowded with words fighting to come out, but after a long, tense pause, all he says is, “Yes, there is.”
His tone is so dark and chilling, it scares me. My intuition buzzes, sending a cold tingle down my spine.
“Is there?”
He doesn’t speak for so long, I start hyperventilating. Every horrible thing he could’ve possibly done that would require my forgiveness flashes through my mind.
And every one of them involves another woman.
I lift my head and stare at his profile. He’s gazing up at the ceiling, his jaw flexing.
“Kage?”
He turns his head and meets my eyes. His expression is unfathomable. His voice thick, he says, “I’ve done terrible things, Natalie. Things I can never undo. Things you would hate me for if you knew about them.”
My heart thundering in panic, I try to roll off him. He doesn’t let me. His arms are a vise.
Voice shaking, I say, “There’s someone else. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like—”
“I’m yours until the day I die,” he interrupts, his voice hard. “You wear my ring. You own my heart. Never question that.”
I examine his expression. Convinced he’s telling the truth, I relax a little. But, still. What is he saying?
Hesitant, I say, “Do you want to tell me about these things you’ve done?”
“Fuck no.” He closes his eyes and huffs out a small, hard laugh. “And that’s what makes me such a selfish bastard.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m confused. It really seems like you want to tell me something.”
He inhales deeply, his chest rising. He exhales. When he speaks again, he sounds a hundred years old. “Forget it.”
A freezing bolt of terror rips through my chest, leaving a hole where my heart used to be. In a small, strangled voice, I say, “Oh god. Your boss found you a wife. You’re getting married.”
His eyes fly open. He stares at me in horror. “No! Natalie, no. I swear to you. Christ, I’m sorry, baby. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.”
He kisses me, hard, holding my jaw and the back of my head as I lie on top of him, trembling. Then he rolls me over and throws one heavy leg over both of mine.
“Listen to me now,” he says urgently, gazing down into my eyes. “If that ever happens, if he ever comes to me with that order, I won’t do it. I’ll disobey him. I’ll never be with anyone else but you.”
Struggling not to cry, I say, “But you took a vow. You told me you’d have to—”
“I’d kill him before I’d betray you. I’d burn his whole empire to the ground before I’d turn my back on the woman I love.”
That hits me in the chest like a wrecking ball.
I lie there breathlessly, staring up at his hard, handsome face, recognizing from his lethal tone and the fierce look in his eyes that what he just said is the truth.
I’m his queen…and he’d kill his own king for me.
But maybe this isn’t a random declaration.
Maybe it’s a plan.
Placing my hands on either side of his face, I say vehemently, “Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything that could get you killed.”
His laugh is short. “Every minute of my life could get me killed.”
“You know what I’m saying, Kage. Don’t put your life at risk for me.”
Eyes glittering in the dark, he gazes down at me in silent intensity, until he slowly shakes his head.
“It already is, baby. It already is.”
