THE POP THAT CUT THROUGH the air sent a shard of ice through my heart.
As soon as Christian stepped into the parlor where I’d been pacing, relief sank beneath my skin and stole my breath.
My pulse raced.
My eyes burned.
The anger, the relief, the fear of this twisted family reunion—it all exploded. I strode toward him and shoved him. He didn’t budge an inch, and that only made me angrier. A tear slipped down my cheek.
“You’ve been working with my papà!” I accused.
“I have never worked with your father.”
A bitter sound escaped me, making it clear I didn’t believe him.
His jaw ticked. “I dealt with Antonio only. As you know, they happened to be in the same circle.”
What he said made too much sense. I’d jumped to conclusions because I always assumed the worst in men. But that wasn’t only it. I wanted to believe the worst in him. Because he made me feel like I was spinning out of control, as if that life raft was slipping from my fingers every time he put his hands on me.
I hated these feelings.
Gratefulness. Uncertainty. Relief.
Because, eventually, I was going to drown in them.
And he was going to let me.
Anger came back full-force, burning my veins and the backs of my eyes.
“Liar,” I cried, and then pushed him again. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him feel what I’d felt when that gunshot had cut through the air.
I beat on his chest until he pulled me against him, shackling my wrists in one of his hands behind my back. I struggled but, with the heat of his body warming mine, weariness suddenly pulled on my muscles.
“Breathe,” he demanded.
I inhaled deeply.
“Let it out.”
I leaned against him, breathing deep, silent tears running down my cheeks. I wanted to hate myself for crying in front of this man again, but I couldn’t seem to focus on anything but how good, how right, it felt to be pressed against him.
“I heard a gunshot,” I said, the relief evident in my voice.
Four simple words cut out my heart and displayed it for him to see.
It was bleeding, dripping to the floor at his feet.
He nudged my chin, pulling my gaze to his. His face was close, blurred through my wet eyes.
“I thought you hated me, malyshka.”
“I do,” I breathed against his lips. But it was too raw, too desperate, to sound convincing.
Just when I thought he would press his lips fully against mine, he stepped away. I inhaled an uneasy breath, feeling the loss of him like a cold draft beneath my skin.
His voice was distant. “We should go.”
“Wait,” I said. “My mamma’s cookbooks. I need them.”
“Make it quick. I don’t think anyone will be inviting us to stay for coffee,” he said dryly.
I was curious about what had happened in my papà’s office after I’d left, especially regarding that gunshot, but at the moment, I couldn’t find the energy to question him.
Guccio shot to his feet when we found him eating a sandwich at the kitchen island. He watched, wide-eyed, as I searched the cupboards above the microwave where Mamma had kept her books. I knew my papà well enough to know he hadn’t gotten rid of her things. He’d loved her in a disturbing, oppressive way.
When I came up empty-handed, I turned to my cousin, who’d only been seven when I last saw him. “My mamma’s cookbooks? Where are they?”
He frowned. “He won’t be happy with you taking—”
“Where. Are. They?” Christian’s tone was impatient.
Guccio swallowed, then blew out a breath. “Guestroom, upstairs.” Then, he slumped back in his chair, defeated.
Ten minutes later, we were each carrying a dusty box of cookbooks out to the car that waited at the curb. I stared out the window on the way to the airstrip, the moment in the parlor stretched between us like glue; messy, and hard to remove.
Apparently, after such a long period of celibacy, I couldn’t figure out how to balance the act and the feelings part. It was a basic sexual attachment, I imagined, kind of like Stockholm syndrome. There was only one real solution to this problem: I needed to stop sleeping with him.
There. Simple. Problem solved.
But I should have known, nothing about Christian Allister was simple.
We weren’t expected to fly home so soon, but after my date had casually admitted to shooting one of my relatives, I’d decided it was best if we skipped the reception.
It felt like a heavy weight had been released from my shoulders from standing up to my papà after all these years, and I knew, I would have never had the guts to do it if Christian hadn’t been nearby.
He reclined on the couch while I sat in the chair opposite him for take-off. He’d been distant for the last hour, but now, nothing about him felt uninterested.
His gaze licked at my skin like fire as it trailed up my bare thigh exposed through the slit in my dress. I tried to ignore it, but my body still responded. My breathing slowed. My breasts tightened.
As soon as we were in the air, I felt his rough words between my legs.
“Come here.”
A flush drifted down my body.
I shook my head.
I was turned on by just the way he was looking at me. There wasn’t a chance I’d hold my ground if he was touching me.
“Women don’t tell me no, malyshka.” His voice was dark and lazy at the edges. “They’ve always done whatever I tell them to do. Anything I can think up. Yet none of it has ever been as satisfying as being inside you.”
A wave of jealousy flared in my chest, but some other confused parts of my body had grown hotter with every stupid word from his mouth. I wanted to give in already, and we were only five minutes into our flight. There was one thing I knew that would set a boundary and keep it there.
I raised a brow in challenge. “Take off your shirt.”
His gaze narrowed at the corners, holding mine. His jaw ticked in thought, and then what he said next made my heart still.
“Come take it off yourself.”
Temptation pulled and tugged inside me.
I fought the impulse for a solid three seconds, because who was I kidding?
This battle was over before it had even begun.
Getting to my feet, I closed the distance between us. I stood between his legs, looking down at him, yet it didn’t feel like I had the advantage.
“Thank you for coming with me today.”
His hands slid up the backs of my thighs, pulling me closer to straddle him. A sigh of approval escaped me at the contact.
Pressing his face into my neck, he said, “You can thank me by letting me fuck you missionary.”
Oh, God.
“It’s your favorite, isn’t it, malyshka?” He nipped at the hollow behind my ear, and I moaned. His lips skimmed down my throat. “You probably want me to kiss you while I fuck you.”
Yes.
He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his erection. My blood was burning up as he kissed my neck and I rubbed his length through his pants.
“Take off your dress.”
I had my dress unzipped and down to my waist before I realized what he’d done. Pulling back, I glared at him. “You distracted me.”
He chuckled. And it was such a deep, sexy sound I couldn’t even hold on to the anger.
“Fine.” He ran a hand across his jaw and put his arms on the back of the couch. “Have at it, Gianna.”
Swallowing, I suddenly felt like I was about to begin a much bigger venture than just taking off a man’s shirt. I started at the bottom and had no idea I would be unleashing a masterpiece with each button. A slightly crude if not fascinating masterpiece.
His torso was covered in black and white tattoos, from a Madonna and child on his stomach to a dagger weaving through his collarbone from shoulder to shoulder. A cross on one of his pecs, and a rose on the other. A domed church on his side. A lighthouse on his right arm.
It was the manacle on one of his wrists that really brought it home.
He’d been to prison.
A Russian prison.
I traced the US dollar bills on his shoulder and wondered if he knew, while getting this tattoo, that he would end up here, thirty-one-thousand feet in the air, on a United States government airplane.
His abs tensed as I ran a hand down them.
“Will you tell me what they mean?” I asked.
“No.” The word was hard.
I trailed my fingers over him, knowing these symbols sometimes meant the wearer had done terrible things to earn them, yet somehow, I was still fascinated by every one of them. Maybe because I already knew he was far from a choir boy.
“Tell me what one means.”
“No.”
I couldn’t stop touching him. Not only because he was hands-down the sexiest man I’d ever seen, but because he was the most fascinating. A cold-mannered professional on the outside, and a dirty-playing criminal below the surface.
I wrapped my hand around the manacle tattoo on his wrist. “This one. Tell me what this one means and then I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.”
“Whatever is a strong word.”
The way he said it, slightly threatening, sent a shiver through me.
“I’m aware.”
“I’ll humor you, but only because we have two hours of this flight left, and I’d prefer to spend it fucking you. Not because I’m opening up to you. Understood?”
Asshole.
I sighed. “And here I thought I was getting closer and closer to a proposal.”
“It symbolizes a prison sentence of five years.”
Five years?
I had so many questions, but I kept them to myself. I knew if I made a big deal about what he shared with me, it would just make him more resolved not to tell me more.
I did a quick math problem in my head. I’d known this man for eight years. It had to have taken him years before that to build a reputation significant enough to hold the position he did now. He was, what, thirty-three? He’d had to have been young when he went to jail. Early teens, maybe?
God, Russia was barbaric.
I trailed a finger down his cheek, horrified to think about what he’d gone through in prison with this face. He read my thoughts again.
He grabbed my wrist in a vise, his voice harsh. “I don’t need your pity. I held my own in prison. I was already bigger than most men at fourteen. Not to mention, colder, thanks to—” He cut himself off.
Thanks to who?
My attention caught on something. I dropped my gaze to his grip on me, to the elastic band on his wrist.
“What is . . .?” I trailed off when I realized what it was. And only because I’d worn the same wide-banded black hair ties since I could remember. My heart picked up as the memory came back, of him slipping that hair tie into his pocket while I was naked in his bed three years before.
The surprise hit me so hard I went on the offensive.
“That’s mine,” I accused, like it was something important he’d stolen from me. I reached for it as if to take it back, but he stopped me by grabbing that wrist, too.
“It’s mine now.”
He’d kept it—worn it—for three years? I couldn’t figure out if it was slightly disturbing, or . . . hot.
“Fine,” I sighed, like I didn’t care. “You can keep it.” Then, I leaned in and kissed him before he could read the conflicting thoughts on my face.
“I wasn’t asking for your permission.” He nipped at my lip.
The kiss went deeper, with a hot glide of tongue. Heat drifted between my legs, and I was losing my breath, but somehow, I still found the resolve to mess with him. I smiled against his lips, pulling back to say, “It’s cute that you wear it.”
He smacked my ass hard enough to sting.
“Almost”—I gasped as he sucked on the sensitive spot behind my ear—“romantic.”
A darkly amused noise came from him. “I was going to give it to you nice and easy, malyshka.” His lips trailed down my neck, voice nothing but a rumble. “Now, I’m going to make you scream.”
A shiver trailed down my spine.
He carried me to a bedroom in the back, dropped me on the bed, undid his belt, and stripped down to nothing. He hung his clothes neatly on the back of a chair, while I would have tossed mine into a pile on the floor. I had no idea what I was doing with this man, but, as I watched him with half-lidded eyes, my skin buzzed with anticipation to feel him against me.
I lifted a leg and rested my heel on his bare stomach. He undid the strap around my ankle and set the stiletto on the floor. But, before reaching for the next foot, he kissed my instep. I didn’t know if that was an erogenous zone, but my body lit up like it was.
His body came down on mine, and the feel of his skin against mine for the first time sent a low moan up my throat. A shudder rolled through him as he kissed me softly. My dress was still tangled around my hips, and he merely pulled my panties to the side before pushing into me. I gasped, digging my nails into his shoulders and arching my back to take him deeper.
He was so serious and intense when he fucked, as if he was there to do a job he secretly loved. But, every once in a while, something soft and sexy showed through—the rumble of approval against my throat, like he was showing his appreciation of me lying there and taking it. The, “Made for me,” he rasped against my neck as he slid into me deep and slow. The press of his lips against mine and the softness of his caresses, even while he fucked me hard enough I could black out.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I’d lost the rest of my clothes and lay flat on my stomach, while he held each of my wrists beside my head and fucked me from behind.
He stilled, breath heavy, as he brushed his lips against the back of my neck. “I want to come inside you, malyshka.”
My mind groaned in protest while my body screamed, YES.
I’d started my period the day after our last encounter and had just gotten over it two days before, so, statistically speaking, it was fairly safe. Though, what we were doing was risky to begin with; I didn’t even have the confidence he wasn’t sleeping with other women.
But, at the moment, he was hitting a spot so deep, so intense, it was bringing me to a point I’d never gone to before and tears to my eyes. His bodyweight was heavy as he held me down, sending pure pleasure through my blood. And then there was this feeling in my chest, a lightness and a heaviness all at once.
It was too much.
As I tumbled toward the edge of release, I lost all sense of reason within me.
I suddenly wanted him to do it. Needed him to. Would beg for it.
“Come inside me,” I pleaded.
He pressed his face into my neck and growled with satisfaction.
The sound was all I needed to fall right over the edge.
I might have forgotten some feelings over the last few years, but I knew what this one was.
Bliss.
