by Elodie Colt
I can barely keep up with what’s happening, but the next thing I know, his jeans drop down his knees, and he pulls his sweater over his head.
I still.
“Fuck me,” I blurt when I take in his body, and I swear the sight gives me a mini orgasm.
Smooth, tan skin stretches over hard curves and even harder ridges. His biceps could easily cushion my entire head, and his abs are made for shredding cabbage. Okay, maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion, but no matter how often I’ve touched all this, I’ve never received a glimpse of it, and now that I do, I’m utterly mesmerized.
“Planning on it, girl,” is his smug reply before he gets rid of my shirt, shoves his hands underneath my ass, and lifts me up.
I snake my legs around him as he shoots straight for my bed, and the way his abs clench in between my thighs makes me wet just by the feel of them. Keeping me pinned with his scorching gaze, he flings me onto the mattress and comes down on top of me. Next, he grabs my shirt by the hem and pulls it up over my head, tossing it into a corner. This is the point when I realize that I’m wearing my most unerotic, boring-as-fuck gray, H&M-discount underwear.
I cast him an abashed glance, but for the first time today, his gaze is not on my face but farther down, skimming over the swell of my breasts, stomach, and legs. Judging from his hungry look, he’s close to turning savage and biting a chunk out of my hip, but his hands are gentle when they roam over my body.
Each touch is more ardent than the last—one hard and possessive with his fingers spread wide, the next teasing and maddening as he scrapes his nails over my skin. They all have one thing in common, though—mapping every inch of me.
My heart beats erratically, adapting the craziest rhythms. First, it gallops like a racehorse, the next second it skips three beats at once. I simply can’t wrap my head around the fact that Ross—no, Nathan, dammit!—is here. In my room. In flesh and blood.
And I can see him.
He stills, narrowing his eyes at me but with a smile curling his mouth. A knuckle chugs my chin, telling me that my jaw has unhinged itself from its locks. I click it shut.
“Why that cute, bugged-eyed look?” he asks.
I just gape at him, unable to put my thoughts into words. Especially as I recall how I lost my shit that day I decided a pregnancy test was due. The conflicting emotions battling in my head when it turned out negative. The realization that I fell in love with a man for the first time in my life—a man I’ve never seen before.
This isn’t real…
His expression sobers, his gaze turning from heated to tender.
“It is,” he whispers, confirming that I’ve said the words out loud. “Let me show you.”
Okay, very, very real, I realize when he tilts his head to suck my neck. My hips jerk upward, chafing against the hard bulge inside his boxers. His movements are slower now—not less possessive, not less destructive, but tamer and a lot gentler.
He peels me out of my underwear with care, only removing his eyes from mine when he reveals a body part he hasn’t studied before. By the time we’re ready to discover just how good reality feels, I’m a bundle of oversensitive nerve endings.
He swiftly rolls up a rubber that he must have fetched from his jeans earlier, and swings my legs around him. For a moment, he stays still on top of me, and I brace myself for the impact.
“You are so beautiful, Ella,” he says huskily, and I bury my hands in his hair.
“Ross, pl—”
He clamps his teeth into my lower lip, making me hiss as he sucks it into his mouth only to release it with a loud smack.
“I have to fuck this name out of your system.”
“It’s the only name I’ve ever known…” I mumble sheepishly.
His eyes grow tender, and he holds my chin when I’m about to avert my gaze, willing me to look at him.
“I know.”
The tip of his cock nudges my entrance, and I gasp when he breaks through the barrier. He continues to push, slowly and deliberately, all the while keeping eye contact until he has buried himself to the hilt.
My mouth pops open from the invasion, and he skims a finger over the corner of my lips.
“I love you, Ella,” he whispers. “And I know you love me, too.”
The breath whooshes out of me in one blow.
I do. With all my heart.
I just hope my love won’t get you killed.
12
Nathan
It’s been two days since my long-desired reunion with Ella. Two days of triumph, euphoria, and blissful contentment.
Nick was so elated, he canceled all meetings yesterday to spend the day at my apartment with pizza and beer. I even hugged Brooke and pressed a kiss onto her cheek, much to both our surprise.
I didn’t spend the night at Ella’s, figuring she needed some time to cope, but not before I made her promise me not to run off again. After I’d finally squeezed the L-word out of her pretty mouth, I was somewhat confident to give her distance, even if it took all my willpower to walk away from her.
I won the first round, but I know I’m far away from reaching the finishing line. There’s still a certain Russian motherfucker who just doesn’t want to back off. I hate that Ella feels the need to run around with a gun all the time, and the mere thought of her ever getting caught in a situation where she has to pull the trigger makes me want to raise riots.
James gave me an idea. I could hire a hitman. Pay someone else for getting their hands dirty to keep my girl safe. Make it look like a tragic accident or suicide. Ella would never know. Sokolov would rest in peace, and we’d live a happy life.
Still, no matter how often the thought crosses my mind, I can’t bring myself to do it. It feels like walking over to the dark side and selling my soul to the devil.
No, I have to do this subtler. One step at a time.
Step one—keep Ella by my side and battle her insecurities. I need her trust. I want her to come to me when she feels she’s in danger. It was easy for her to shut me out when she didn’t know who I was. But now that she does, now that she knows who I am, I hold onto the hope that she’s starting to have faith in me. She thinks I can’t protect her, but she’s safer with me than with anyone else. She can move in with me. Get a job at Crawford Crescent as an interpreter. I’ve already settled things with Brooke, and she agreed to offer Ella a full-time position. This building is a fortress, and if Luka is stupid enough to try and set a foot inside, the security will do the rest.
Step two—get Luka Sokolov out of the picture. I won’t drag Vincent and Nick into this again, but maybe Wayde can help me set up a team or something. Luka is not the only genius hacker out there. And when I’ve caught him, I can make my move. Push him from the top of a building or blow up his car or something. Hire a clean-up crew afterward, and the job is done.
I rearrange the cushions on my sofa for the third time, making sure everything is in place. Ella is supposed to come over any minute, and I can’t wait to show her around.
The doorbell rings, and my heart makes a stupid flip inside my chest. I rush over to the door and press a button on the panel next to it, remotely opening the building’s back door. Rolling up the sleeves of my black shirt, I nervously wait for the elevator in the hallway to announce her arrival.
A soft ping resounds, and the doors slide open. I straighten my spine. I’ve been holding my breath for a full minute, and it whizzes out of me in a loud blow the second Ella Jenkins emerges.
Her dark hair flares around her face when she first whirls her head to the right and then to the left where she spots me standing on the threshold. A smile breaks out on my lips when her big doe eyes capture mine, and she glides in my direction with slow, cautious steps. Her gaze remains on me only for a second before it sinks to her Doc Martens.
“Hi,” she says sheepishly, her teeth boring into her lip as she brushes her hair behind her ear.
Tilting my head, I assess her behavior. She’s still not able to keep e
ye contact with me, and I hate it as much as I find it insanely cute. Well, what did I expect? I had loads of time. Time to get close, to get to know her, to learn about her life. She, on the other hand, had no clue who I was until two days ago. I threw her in at the deep end, busted into her life, and screwed her senseless on the same day. Cut the girl some slack, man.
“Come on. Give me your eyes, beautiful,” I say in the softest tone I can manage.
Finally, she lifts her head to look at me and spellbinds me with a pair of hooded, chocolate brown eyes.
‘The eyes are the jewels of the body,’ Vincent had once said to me when I was young.
I guess I struck gold, then.
Leaning down, I skim my mouth over her rosebud lips. “Hi.”
A slow smile seeps over her mouth, and the sight elicits an expanding feeling in my chest. I open the door wider, inviting her in, and she takes three tentative steps inside before her head swivels back to me.
She raises an eyebrow. “This is a penthouse suite.”
“Disappointed?” I chuckle.
She just snorts and places her helmet onto the kitchen counter. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to touch her, I come up from behind her to help her out of her jacket. Sliding it down her shoulders, I expose her white tank top, and I still when I notice the birthmark on her right shoulder blade.
I sweep a knuckle over the tiny bump. “I remember that one.”
“You once put a love bite there that looked like a big bruise.”
“Be glad it was just a love bite,” I mutter, recalling how ravenous I was that day she allowed me to bind her wrists and take her from behind. “I was close to biting you for real and sucking your blood.”
“You can try next time,” she drawls in a nonchalant tone, venturing a few steps farther into my home before swinging around to face me and add huskily, “Who knows, maybe I like it…”
I want to pounce on her like a lion, but I opt for shoving my fists into my jeans pockets, following her as she explores all the leather, glass, and wood that is my large living area. My dragonfly pendant bounces against her collarbone, and I can’t put into words how much it means to me that she put it back on.
While her gaze swerves over the gigantic TV mounted on the wall and the fireplace, I use the chance to check her out from behind. Fuck me, this girl is hot. Not in that Megan-Fox-stereotype kind of way, but more like an off-Broadway actress from the twenties. Her hair is voluminous and wild, cascading in untamed strands down her slender shoulders. The way she moves her elegant limbs reminds me of a jungle cat—poised, lithe, and graceful, but in an unintentional, completely natural way.
You’re surrounded by too many snobs. Not everyone has that I’m-going-to-stomp-over-your-corpse poise like Brooke or Aiko.
Ella saunters over to the wall-to-wall shelving on the other side of the room, marveling at my private collection of antiques and figurines.
“Oh, is that a Fabergé egg?”
I follow her gaze to the miniature egg lying on a velvet pad and walk over to her to take it from its cushion.
“Yes. It was made in St. Petersburg around 1910.” I hand her the one-inch sized jewel, and she weighs it in her palm.
“It’s heavy.”
I chuckle. “It’s a tiny gold nugget.”
The befuddled look she shoots me is hilarious. “This is made of pure gold?”
“It is.”
She looks down at it in wonder while my gaze is on the long lashes fringing her eyes. Carefully, she puts the egg back onto the shelf.
“You can have it, if you want,” I say.
“What?”
“It’s only collecting dust here.”
She scoffs. “Okay, just to be clear… I know this might sound strange to you, but this thing is worth more than my bike. Our concept of money and value is light-years apart. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean I want you to shower me with your fortune. I still haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that you’re a millionaire.”
There it is. The first slap in my face. Well deserved.
I rake a hand through my hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
She bites her lip when she takes in my contrite expression and puts a hand on my chest.
“We come from different worlds, Nathan,” she says, and I’m sure she can feel the way my heart flutters at hearing my name coming from her lips. “Give me some time to get familiar with yours. Don’t push me into it.”
I want to say something, but don’t ask me what because my train of thought dissolves into nothing the moment she rises on her tiptoes to kiss me.
Too soon, she pulls away to smirk at me. “Now, will you offer me a drink?”
What a great host you are, idiot.
“Uh, of course. What would you like?”
“Do you have vodka?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a bottle of Mamont in the fridge.”
The wary look she sends me throws me off guard before I realize my mistake. I hold up my hands in surrender. “Your sister told me it’s your favorite. I didn’t break into your apartment or anything.”
Yes, you did, fucker.
She smiles. “Good to know.”
Cursing under my breath, I scoot into the kitchen. Things aren’t running bad, I guess, but I have the feeling I’m making one slip-up after another. She’s going to corner me. Ask questions I can’t answer—not honestly, anyway. Alas, she’s too perceptive to not detect my lies.
You have to be as truthful as you can.
I set up to prepare a vodka on the rocks for her, flashing glances into the living room every five seconds. She takes off her boots before she steps onto the fluffy carpet to make herself comfortable on the sofa. Something next to her draws her attention, and I grin when she picks it up. I could have hidden it, but I figured it might turn out to my advantage if she knew I never gave up on her. I walk back with two drinks in my hand.
“You kept it?” she asks, lifting the Halloween costume.
I hand her the glass. “I did.”
“Gross. I remember you telling me you jerked off three times on it.”
I bark out a laugh, sitting down next to her. “Honey, I jerked off every day to a mental picture of you, but never on your costume.”
The blush I’ve been hoping to elicit crawls up her milky cheeks. For a moment, we listen to the fire crackling, watching the Manhattan skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
She takes a sip of her drink. “Are you still a Silent Sins member?”
I snort. “They blocked me because some feisty girl reported me for violating the terms.”
Carl would reactivate my account without hesitation, but eNtimacy can’t give me anything I want. Not anymore.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Sorry, but I had to—”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I did violate the terms after all.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then turns so she can recline in the corner and pull up her knees, facing me.
“When did you have your last relationship?”
Remember—as truthful as you can…
“Marriage,” I say straight out. “About three years ago. It lasted six months.”
Her eyebrows slowly rise to meet her hairline. “You were married? What happened?”
“She cheated on me with one of our clients in the gallery’s restroom.”
“Shit, I’m sorry…”
I shake my head. “I think it happened the way it was supposed to happen.”
She taps her glass against her cheek, regarding me with curiosity while I grab her feet to stretch them over my lap. Black, cartoon-like sheep gawk back at me when I examine her socks.
“It’s funny,” she starts, “I saw a picture of you in a magazine shortly after our first Silent Sins date. I remember thinking that you and your brother don’t look alike.”
“Brooke and Vincent adopted me,” I explain. “Nick isn’t my biological brother.”
“Do you get along well?”
/> “With Nick, yes. With Brooke and Vincent, occasionally,” I grumble, massaging her toes. “What about you and Zoya?”
“We’ve been inseparable until she moved here a few years ago and married Holly. She welcomed me with open arms when I decided to live here.” Her eyes take on a faraway look, and she adds, “If I’d known what shit I would drag her into, I would have never come here…”
Her heartache makes my heart ache, too, and I lean over to press a kiss onto her lips.
“We’ll figure this out,” I say. “I promise.”
Her eyes flicker between mine before she sets her drink aside, pinning me with a stare.
“What did you do to Luka?” she asks, her tone cautious. “You said he sought you out. That you chased him out of the city.”
Sighing, I put my drink onto the table, too.
“It was shortly after you told me about him,” I say. “A guy showed up at my office under the name Boris Bezrodny, telling me he was an investor looking for a rare gem. Everything about him was shady. He matched your description, so I asked a friend, Wayde, to check him out.” I skip the part where he left me a threat on my windshield a few months earlier. No need to add to her worries. “He knew how to hide his tracks, though, and when he realized we were onto him, he went into hiding until he attacked me on the streets the day before the fundraiser.”
Her jaw unhinges, and she jerks upright. “That was him who beat you to a pulp?”
“Trust me, he looked a lot worse.” I trail my fingers up and down her shin. “I wanted to approach you at the fundraiser, but I couldn’t show my face like that, so I just watched you from afar.”
“I’m sorry.” She lifts her hand to stroke my face, and I take it in mine to place a gentle kiss onto her dragonfly tattoo.
“We ambushed him,” I go on, “bound him to a chair in his apartment, made him pee his pants a little, and gave him twenty-four hours to leave the city.”
“But he didn’t,” Ella concludes.
“He did, but apparently, he came back.”
She scoots closer, wrapping her hands around her knees. “Who was that guy who showed up at the park and shot Luka in the arm?”
