Page 65 of Brutal Secrets

She pulls back, her hand cupping my cheek as she smiles at me. Her eyes look like spring leaves in this light. They change color like the woods.

“It’s real, you know,” I say, turning my face into her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm. “Everything you remembered is real.”

“I know,” she breathes, her fingers tracing the line of my cheekbones and feathering across my brow.

There’s more to say, but I don’t have the words for it. The feelings are bigger than anything I can form into speech in English or in Russian, so I just stare at her, trying to memorize every line of her face, the creases around her eyes from her smile, the fullness of her mouth.

She looks at me with as much wonder as I feel.

I kiss her and she slides her hands under my shirt and against my skin, scoring my pecs with sharp fingernails until her hands dive beneath my waistband and cup me softly. She watches me silently as she slides her hands around me. We stare at one another for a moment before she slips lower under the covers, her mouth level with my cock as she gently sucks the tip between her lips.

“Fuck. Jesus fuck.” My eyes roll back in my head as her mouth envelops me and her hands beat a rhythm at the base of my cock. It’s such bliss that I want to lie back and soak it up, but the minutes are slipping away from us like sand in an hourglass.

“No, baby,” I grit out, and she pulls up the sheet, her eyes wide.

God, the sight of her looking up at me, her curls tumbling around my hips and her mouth full of my cock. I can see the smile in her eyes, and I laugh and shake my head.

“No. Not like this. I’ve waited so long for you.” I pull her up, kissing her deeply and rolling her onto her back. “I want...”

She widens her legs, nothing on under her long t-shirt, and wraps me in the cradle of her hips. “I’m ready,” she whispers.

I reach down and thread my fingers through hers, pressing her into the mattress as I hold my body above her and feel the heat between her legs.

“Fuck,” I say. “Sucking me made you so wet.”

“Wanting you made me this wet.” She smiles up at me.

“Yesterday morning in the woods. I’m sorry I didn’t use protection. I wouldn’t put you in danger like that.” My smile is wry. I don’t need to spell out all the other ways that just knowing me will ruin her life. “Zolotaya. I promise. I’ve never taken chances like this with anyone else.”

I look down at her, searching her eyes for the answer to a question I didn’t quite ask, but she bites her lip and nods. I slide into her so gently, so slowly, feeling every cell where we join as I look in her eyes. We’re so close it’s almost painful, so I tear my eyes away and bury my face in her neck as I groan against her skin.

“Only you, zolotaya. It’s only ever been you.” Feeling her heat against my bare cock, I repeat the words like a prayer as I rock into her body. “Only you. Only you. Only you.”

She gives a breathy sigh each time I bottom out inside her, her legs wrapping tighter around me, arms wound around my neck, her hair a golden cloud against my face, fingers twined around mine.

“Vadim,” she whispers, “I need to see you.”

Leaning back, I look down. She’s gazing up at me, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

“Did I hurt you?” I hold still, wanting to tear into her body but too terrified to hurt her more than I already have.

“I promise I’m happy.”

I wish this could go on forever. That the door wouldn’t open in minutes.

I shut my eyes and lean down to kiss her, joining with her everywhere. My skin slides against hers, our bodies slick with sweat as I press her hands into the mattress. I grasp her fingers and with each kiss and movement of my lips on hers, with each rocking motion of our bodies, I tell her about the tides of emotion I don’t have the words for.

She pulses around me as I let go of all the things that can’t be and the things I wish I could have had. I pour them into the heat of her body and her wide-open heart. She’s everything I want. Everything I can’t afford to keep.

Chapter Forty-One

Iwant to lie in bed all morning and map every inch of Vadim’s skin with my hands, my mouth, my heart. But the door will open any minute, so I press a last chaste kiss to his mouth and start to move away.

He pulls me toward him again, branding my mouth with his kiss and holding me tight against the heat of his skin. He leans back and we look at each other, smiling like idiots.

I feel so alive.

After we release each other, every muscle in my body continues to vibrate with his touch as I fumble through my bag for panties and a phone.