At first, I think I’m hallucinating. Perhaps this is another play of my imagination, or maybe I’m still asleep and lost in the dreamland where everything is possible.
However, when my eyes clash with his in the darkness of the room, something inside me shatters, and it’s not the same sensation I had the entire day ever since I left him in the warehouse. This one is harsher and leaves me gasping and finding nothing but the distinctive taste of his hand.
His hold on my mouth forbids me from saying anything, but I couldn’t speak even if he allowed me to. It’s like being trapped in an out-of-body experience where I keep levitating with no plans to come down to the ground.
In the dark, his face is shadowed by the night, but due to the small light coming through the balcony, I can still decipher the bruises on his lids, the diagonal cut across his lip, and the smudges of blood all over his face. But even with those, strangely, all I see is the Kyle I knew from before, the arrogant handsome jerk who infuriated me most of the time.
I didn’t think I would forget his face this soon, but isn’t it odd that I can recall exactly how he looked? Or that I can easily imagine that face while I’m sleeping or in my darkest hours?
When he speaks, his voice is quiet, but it feels like being slammed into a sturdy, impenetrable wall. “Here’s the thing. I’m not leaving.”
I mumble against his hand, my body arching off the bed to fight him off. Not that it works. He pins both my wrists above my head and his thighs are caging mine. The position is so familiar to my starved body, but that’s not what I force my brain to focus on.
It’s his words.
What the hell does he mean by saying he won’t leave? I already broke my heart for this, and it needs to be done for everyone’s sake.
I attempt to lift my leg, but his thighs tighten, holding mine in place, and he digs his fingers into the soft flesh of my wrist.
“Stop fighting.”
“Mmmm…” I mumble what is supposed to be a ‘Let me go.’
“You should know by now that the harder you fight, the more ruthless I become, so stop it.”
I open my mouth and bite his hand. Kyle groans but doesn’t release me.
“Go ahead, Rai. Do whatever you like. You can bite me, shoot me, or bury me in a construction site, but that won’t change the decision I made. Do you know what that decision is?” I shake my head frantically against his palm, and he lowers his head so he’s speaking in a low tone against my lips. “We made vows, and I intend to keep them. Till death do us part.”
No.
Why can’t he understand that this isn’t only about me? It’s about the brotherhood and his unforgivable betrayal. If Sergei or any of the others find out about what he’s done—and what he’s planning to do—they will execute him Bratva style. I gave him a way out no one would have offered him. I gave him the chance to leave the brotherhood alive, but he just bounced right back.
I buck against him, trying to hit him in the crotch, but he releases my mouth and catches my knee. “I think you got me beaten enough for one day after you betrayed and poisoned me.”
“I didn’t poison you.” They were sleeping pills, and I read the instructions a thousand times before I slipped them in his drink.
“You only handed me over on a platter so Vladimir could do the job for you.” His voice is calm, but I sense the rage beneath it. “You betrayed me.”
“You betrayed me first. You stabbed me in the back first! So excuse me if I stopped your master plan and stood up for myself!”
I wiggle against him with everything I have. I’m well aware that he’s stronger than me and can subdue me easily, but I don’t stop squirming until I free my wrists. I punch him in the chest where he’s already injured, and when he winces, I use the chance to push him down and get on top.
Unlike what I expected, he doesn’t fight me or try to wrestle me down. I’m breathing harshly, the sheets tangled around my feet as my thighs splay wide on either side of his taut abdomen. My palms are fisted in his shirt, nails digging into his skin, but Kyle’s hands remain inert on either side of him, as if he doesn’t want to touch me in this state.
It’s for the best, because I feel like I’m one breath away from combusting, and my voice translates the pent-up energy. “Pretend this is seven years ago and leave without looking back.”
“I’m not doing that again.”
“Why the hell not? You did it just fine before.”
“I can’t do it again.” The quiet in his voice, the vulnerability in it shatters my walls one by each damn one.
“You said I’m nothing. I heard you talking on the phone and you said you’ll leave me behind, so do it!”
“Those were lies to misguide my insider.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Do you think I would’ve come here and risked death if you were nothing?”
“Why can’t you just leave?” My voice breaks and an onslaught of tears blurs my vision. “I already let you go.”
“But I didn’t.”
God, he really needs to stop saying shit like that because I can’t hold in the influx of emotions hitting me out of nowhere.
“If you stay, they will kill you.”
“They?”
“The elite group of the brotherhood.”
Both his palms wrap around my hips, and it feels familiar, his touch, the sensation of his hand on me. “Not you?”
“I’m part of the brotherhood, Kyle.”
His grip tightens on my hip. “My question was clear. Will you do it?”
“Why can’t you just leave?”
“You just answered your own question. I can’t just leave.”
My fist tightens in his shirt and the first tear falls on to his cheek. The vow I made to Mom to never cry in front of others, to never show weakness to any other human being starts crumbling right in front of me.
I can’t even stop the tears because I’ve been so brutalized in the course of one day. Not only was it the goodbye, it was also the unbearable depression that came with it.
And I guess I’m exhausted. I’m just too exhausted, and that allows me to freely admit that a large part of me is relieved
That relief burns.
Because even though he’s here, he has to leave so he can stay alive.
Kyle flips me so I’m lying underneath him, and I squeal, holding on to his shoulders. The sound slowly disappears when he slides his fingers under my eye, wiping the tears away.
“Why are you crying when I was the one beaten up?”
“You think I liked that? You think I enjoy seeing you like this? You asshole. Jerk—”
My words are cut off when his lips capture mine with raw hunger that confiscates my air. I taste metal from his cut lip, and I attempt to push away so I don’t aggravate it, but Kyle thrusts his tongue between my teeth and twirls it with mine as if he’s been starving for my taste.
The pungent smell of lust and something more potent permeates the air as he robs me not only of my breath, but also my sanity. He smashes every brick I carefully placed around my heart to the ground and walks all over it.
He nibbles down on my tongue, and the sharp sting of pain quickly heightens my arousal before his head pulls back. “You don’t fucking push me away.”
“You…don’t understand…” I’m panting so harshly it’s a miracle I manage to get those words out.
“I understand perfectly. It’s you who doesn’t. You’re my wife. My. Fucking. Wife. Do you understand what that word means? It means we belong together, not far apart.”
“But—”
“No fucking buts.” His fingers latch onto the corners of my underwear and he pulls them down my legs.
I could fight or push him away, but what’s the point when I’m burning for his touch? There has always been an explosive chemistry between Kyle and me. I denied it, tried to escape it, but the fact remains that it’s existed since the first time Dedushka introduced him to me. Back then, I thought he was only a conceited killer; I had no idea he’d invade my whole world in no time.
Maybe if I have, I would’ve acted differently and avoided being tangled up with him. But even as I think that, a small voice whispers that I wouldn’t have been able to change anything.
Kyle’s fingers tease my clit as he kisses my throat, his teeth nibbling on the sensitive skin before he sucks it into his mouth, no doubt leaving a mark. I wrap my arm around his back, clawing with every sharp bite of his. That only makes him pick up his pace until my whole body is stimulated to the point of no return.
“After this…you’ll leave,” I manage to murmur, not sure whether it’s directed at him or to reassure myself.
The sound of his zipper echoes in the silence of the bedroom and I drag in a breath, repeating, “You’ll leave…right?”
My voice catches when he thrusts balls-deep inside me. Even though I’m soaking wet, Kyle is big and the stretching is real. God, how could I forget the way he’s able to fill me until he’s the only thing that matters in the world?
He slides a hand underneath me and lifts me up so he’s sitting and I’m splayed all over his lap. Holy shit. If I thought he was filling me earlier, the depth right now is nothing like I’ve felt before.
I wrap my legs around his waist and dig my nails into his shoulders. I think I’m going to orgasm and he hasn’t even moved yet.
When he does move, every powerful stroke feels different, almost like he’s touching me for the first time. His thrusts leave the confinements of my body and hit something different inside, almost as if he’s fucking my soul.
“There will be no more goodbyes between us, Princess.” He speaks against my neck, his voice raspy, aroused, but also angry.
I pull back, still looping my arm around his nape, and stare at his face…his beautiful, ethereal face that’s now bruised and bloodied.
Kyle powers into me with the same depth, but his pace isn’t fast. Maybe he also wants to stare at me. Maybe, like me, he feels that our joined bodies are only a bridge for our battered souls.
My fingers stroke the skin of his cheek lightly to not hurt him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For what happened to you. No child should ever go through that.”
“I thought you were sorry for poisoning me.”
“You know I did what I had to do for the brotherhood.”
He wraps a hand around my throat and cages me firmly in place. “How about your fucking husband?”
“It’s because you’re my husband that I wanted you gone.” I strain against his hold, and before he can say anything else, I seal my lips to his. I kiss him slowly, tentatively, as if I have no clue how to kiss. Truth is, before him, I never took the time to learn. I hardly had interest in the other sex or sex in general, but he somehow became my deepest, darkest desire—the one I can’t survive without and the one who might also kill me at the same time.
Kyle’s rhythm picks up and he rams inside me with the urgency of a man who has nothing behind him or before him so he can only live in this moment. Our tongues and teeth clash together, and I keep tasting the metal of his blood, but if it hurts, he doesn’t pull away.
His urgency matches mine. I can taste the desperation in his kiss and feel the unbound obsession in each of his thrusts.
It doesn’t matter that I said goodbye or that this is only temporarily. At this moment, all I can do is get lost in him and pray there will be no way out.
His fingers tighten around my throat and I feel my walls clenching around his dick at the same time. He’s all over me, inside me, around me, and it’s impossible to escape his hold.
The piercing blue of his eyes captures mine as his touch leaves the confinement of my skin and shoots straight into my chest.
He said I poisoned him, but he’s the one who poisoned me. He’s the one who’s firing an arrow at my heart, and I have no way to stop it because he destroyed my fortress.
The orgasm hits me like a slow-burning explosive. I moan, shaking, as tears slide down my cheeks.
Kyle kisses them away as his abs tighten and he spills inside me. I’m tempted to close my eyes to soak in the sensation, but I don’t. I prefer watching him instead, even if his face isn’t the same as usual.
We’re both panting, his breaths mingling with mine, and a sheen of sweat covers our skin.
I lay my head on his shoulder, but I remain silent because the moment I speak, everything will end and I will have to return to the bleak reality where he really has to leave.
And this time, I don’t know if I can handle it.
