by Lora Leigh
Amara finished the drink, barely aware that Riordan took it from her hand as her poppa sat gingerly next to her.
“Amara?” He touched her cheek gently, his gaze concerned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She looked up at him, frowning. “Why? How could you have stopped it, Poppa?”
He always blamed himself, she realized. Anytime the past touched their lives, or she was reminded of it, he took the blame firmly on his own shoulders.
For so many years she had believed her poppa existed on that shadowed fringe between what was legal and what wasn’t. But the night Andru had taken her child, he had told her the truth. “I would have stopped this had it been possible. I would have never let this touch you.”
And she knew he wouldn’t have let it, had it been possible. This one time though, he’d been powerless to stop it.
“You should have told me the truth all these years,” she whispered as he watched her, regret and anger filling his face. “Andru knew an American agency aided you in tearing down your father’s organization. That you have worked with them all these years. You should have told me.”
Because she had always wondered, always feared her father could be dragged back into the past he’d fought to keep them clear of. That knowledge would have reassured many of her fears.
“To keep you safe, I would withhold that and more from you,” he sighed. “It was always to keep you safe.”
As he spoke, Ilya moved to his side, drawing his attention.
Sighing, her father rose, his gaze going to Riordan.
“Take her upstairs, Riordan. Let her rest,” he said softly. “We’ll deal with the mess here.”
She let Riordan draw her from the room even though she knew she’d probably learn a hell of a lot more if she stayed. The problem was, she didn’t know if she could handle any more right now. And she knew she needed just a moment alone to assure herself that Riordan had indeed fought his way back from the dead for her.
Because she’d felt him die the night he pulled her out of that hole. She’d felt his life slip away, and the pain, the soul-jarring agony of it, had been more than she could bear.
She needed to know, all the way to the depths of her being, that he was indeed there with her. That death hadn’t stolen him from her as well.
Just for a moment.
chapter twenty-five
She gave him no more time than it took to lock the door before she turned on him, enraged.
“You lied to me!” One finger went up, stabbing into his chest as he stared back at her in surprise. “You lied to me, Riordan.”
The fury on her face was something he definitely hadn’t expected. Taken aback, he simply stared at that pretty little finger poking into his chest.
“I haven’t lied to you.” Frowning, he gripped that imperious little index finger and set it back from his chest. “I don’t lie to you, Amara. And if you don’t stop accusing me of it, we’re going to have words.”
“You said no one died,” she snapped, furious as she turned from him and paced several feet away before turning back again. “You died, Riordan. I felt you die. I felt you leave me.…” Tears filled her eyes. “And I wanted to die with you.”
That whisper, so broken and filled with pain, was more than he could stand.
Moving to her, he touched her cheek gently, brushing away the tear that escaped.
“Only for a moment,” he said softly. “I came back to you, Amara. I fought to come back to you. I’ll always fight, even past death, to come back to you, baby. Don’t you know that by now?”
“But you didn’t tell me,” she cried out, the tears falling faster now. “You didn’t tell me. And you wouldn’t listen to me. I told you to leave.” A sob tore from her chest. “I told you he was waiting for you. He was waiting to kill you.”
“By God, if you think I’ll walk away from you, ever leave you in danger, then you have a piss-poor opinion of what I feel for you,” he charged, grabbing her shoulders and jerking her to him. “Never, Amara. Never in this fucking lifetime will I allow you to remain in danger. Never will I allow anyone to steal this from us.”
His lips covered hers before she could respond, before she could argue. God help him, she was the most argumentative woman he’d ever laid his eyes on. She was the sweetest, the most generous woman he’d ever known in his life, and that intangible something that reached out to him, locked his soul to hers, and filled him with a heat that would never be denied. Could never be denied.
As their lips touched, desperation, hunger, renewal. It all fed into that kiss and so much more. His lips consumed hers, and she gave in turn. Lips, tongues, hungry moans, and a desperation to know they belonged right there, in that moment, overtook them.
Tangling his fingers in her hair he deepened the kiss, sipped at her lips, caressed, tasted, and drove himself crazy with the need for more of her.
God, he had to have her. Now.
Pushing her the final few feet to the bed, he silently cursed his throbbing cock, the imperative need driving him and a hunger he couldn’t seem to fight. His shaft was iron hard, pulsing. If he didn’t get their damned clothes off and get inside her, he was going to go insane.
Lifting her to the bed, he pushed her to her back and followed her there. There, his lips consumed hers as he toed his boots off, aware that somewhere she’d lost her cute little pumps.
They tore at each other’s clothes, throwing them out of the way, not caring where they fell. He knew he was going to come in his damned jeans if he didn’t get them off.
He was sweating by the time he managed to lever himself up to stand next to the bed and shuck his jeans. Throwing them aside, he moved to come over her once again when she shifted and, pushed him to his back, her kisses moving to his chest.
“You’ll fucking drive me crazy,” he groaned as her hot little lips found the flat, hard disc of his nipple. “God. Amara.”
“I remember,” she whispered against the sensitive flesh. “Everything you taught me, Riordan. I remember it all now,” and it was the only warning he was going to get.
His stomach clenched at the memories of exactly how well he had taught her. And as her lips and tongue began caressing lower, her hand smoothed to his thigh.
His balls clenched in anticipation as his cock seemed to swell further.
“Like that?” she asked with a temptress voice as her fingers slid between his thighs to cup the taut sac of his balls.
“Dangerous, baby,” he growled.
He watched, barely able to breathe, as she moved between his thighs, her fingers stroking his erection.
Ah hell. He could barely fucking breathe as he watched her head lower, her tongue reaching out and curling over the head of his dick.
“Fuck! Amara!” Every muscle in his body tightened as radiant fingers of sensation flashed from her tongue through his balls.
Then, she destroyed his mind.
Her lips parted, her sweet, hot mouth sucked him in, and he lost his damned mind.
Her hands stroked his thighs, her delicate fingers cupped his balls as she played, massaged, and tormented. Then the heat of her mouth consumed him as she sucked him inside. Her tongue licking and stroking … destroying him with pleasure.
She sucked the head and her tongue rimmed it as her hand moved from his balls, she stroked the shaft and destroyed his fucking mind.
Suckling, licking, her mouth worked over him like a dream, like a temptress, a seductive little imp intent on stealing the last shred of control he could possibly possess.
“Enough.” Desperate, lust beating a wild tattoo in his brain, his fingers clenched in her hair, he drew her mouth from the pulsing head of his cock and pushed her onto her back.
A gasp parted Amara’s lips as she found herself beneath him again. Dazed, intoxicated by pleasure, she watched as he moved between her thighs, pressing them apart, his head lowering to the smooth, waxed flesh of her pussy.
“My turn,” he growled.
His h
ead lowered to the tormented bud of her clit as her hands clenched the blanket beneath her.
Sensation exploded through her senses, streaked over her nerve endings. She was burning, lost in a storm she had no idea how to control, no desire to control. With each touch, each lick, each suckling kiss given to the tight bundle of nerves, the need for orgasm built until she felt lashed by each sensation.
He sucked her clit into his mouth, tongued it, held her hips steady as she twisted against each fiery lash of exquisite pleasure. She lost her breath, desperate moans parting her lips and whispering in the air around them. He teased and tormented, built each touch, each burning fork of extreme sensation until when she exploded, the cataclysm was destructive, imploding inside her until she was wracked with such pleasure she wondered if she could survive it.
Then she knew she couldn’t.
Before the violent clash of ecstasy could ease, he was rising over her, pausing at her breasts. There, his lips and tongue played with each hard nipple in turn as he lifted her thighs to his hips and the steel-hard crest of his cock pressed between the swollen folds where his lips had played but moments before.
Senses on fire, still caught in the release she swore had destroyed her, Amara felt possessed, taken over by her need for more. She moved against the wide flesh pressing into her, crying out, gasping as she felt the stretching invasion.
The flared crest eased into the entrance, the bite of the penetration only making her hungry for more.
“Look at me, baby.” The demand was a rough, guttural groan. “Let me see those pretty eyes.”
She had to force her eyes open, to stare up at him.
Almost of her own volition her hands lifted, her fingers clenching in his biceps, the power and clenched strength beneath her touch adding to the hunger driving inside her.
“I love you, Amara.” A tight grimace contorted his face as the words had her jerking against him. “You’re mine. Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me you’re mine.”
He wanted her to talk?
Oh God, she could barely breathe.
“Tell me, Amara.” Hoarse, demanding, he stared down at her, the rich sapphire of his eyes burning into her. “Tell me.”
“Yours.” The cry tore from her as his hips bunched, the head of his cock nearly retreating. “I love you, Riordan. Oh God … I love you…”
A strangled cry tore from her lips as the sudden shift of his hips buried him partially inside her. Stretching her. Sending a streak of burning pleasure cascading through her senses.
She was crying his name. Breathless, ecstatic cries that refused to be contained with each hard thrust until he was buried fully inside her. The hard length of his cock throbbed against her inner walls as he paused, motionless.
“Please…” She was begging, needing.
Pulling back, he pushed inside her again, a single hard stroke that buried him full length inside her, and he didn’t stop. He began working his erection through the clenching tissue, each thrust a stroke of pleasure/pain she found herself up against. Each impalement assaulting sensitive, pleasure-ridden flesh with such extreme sensation she became lost. A creature of his pleasure. A creature of her own pleasure.
Lust was a driving, overriding hunger that tore through her senses and left her clinging to him. Love was a bond, a steadily growing flame that melded them to each other.
“More,” she cried out, demanded. “Harder. Fuck me, Riordan … harder … oh God…”
He began pounding inside her. Hard jackhammer thrusts that sent such an overload of ecstasy exploding through her that she was helpless against it.
Her orgasm destroyed her. Then remade her. It shook her body, shattered her senses, and swept through her like a raging torrent. Light exploded behind her closed eyes, swept through her with a blaze of white-hot sensation and violent shudders of release.
“I live for you.” Riordan’s vow rang in her ears as he tightened above her and she felt each heated pulse of his own release inside her. “God help me, Amara, I live for you.”
Languid, shuddering aftershocks of ecstasy trembling through her, her gaze locked with his, she felt that vow to a depth of her spirit that she had no idea existed.
“Always,” she swore in turn. “Always, Riordan. I live for you.”
It went beyond love. It went beyond death. Beyond heart.
The souls of two were bound, until they were indeed one. Feeling with a love outside their own, loving with a spirit bound to their own.
Caught within each other.
epilogue
It wasn’t over.
It should have been over, but then, it should have been over, finished, the day he’d killed his own father.
Standing between Ilya and Alexi, friends when he’d been certain he had none, brothers in a way, when the only brother he’d had was murdered by his father, Ivan reflected on the past, the sins of the father, and a present he was no longer so certain of.
“Noah and Elite Ops still have the ADA in their custody,” Ilya said softly. “They also picked up your cousin, Petrov Goreski, the one who accompanied Andru to the meeting at the restaurant. According to both, this was Andru’s plot alone. To kill Amara when he learned of the pregnancy, and Riordan as well. He would then make it appear you had killed yourself, allowing your cousin Petrov to claim your estate.”
Not that such a thing could happen. Ivan had ensured it would never be possible for the Resnova fortunes to ever be used as they had been before him.
“What of the girl?” he asked.
Crimsyn. Syn. Red-gold curls, a fierce gaze, a body a man could spend hours enjoying and still not be sated.
“Sawyer and Maxine will be watching her for a while,” Ilya stated. “She’ll be returned to New York, resume her life, just as you ordered. We’ll make certain of her safety, Ivan. Just in case.”
Just in case the gut feeling all of them had that this wasn’t over was indeed true.
“How did he hide beneath our noses so well?” he murmured, knowing the truth just as the others did.
They didn’t answer the question, though there was really no reason to. Each of them knew. They had believed Andru to be dead, along with Ivan’s father and the others who had attempted to murder one fragile, innocent child.
His child.
No older than five, petite and filled with innocence, Amara had been, and still was, the bright star in his world. And that was something his father couldn’t tolerate. Ivan’s heart and soul had to be just as blackened, just as evil as his own. And such evil didn’t love. Especially a child.
And now, that bright star was grown, and had another hero other than her poppa, and a life she needed to embrace outside his world.
And that meant he would be alone.
For a second, bright green eyes and red-gold curls flashed against his mind’s eye. Sleek, silken limbs, breathless cries …
“I want to know every breath Andru has taken while he’s been on this estate. Everyone he spoke to, looked at, shared space with,” he ordered with icy fury. “By God, I want to know if anyone, anywhere, even suspected his deception and God help them if they participated, because they’ll die. And get that woman out of my estate and back home. Now.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode from the steel-lined room, confident Ilya and Alexi would take care of the details. They would see to it that Andru’s body disappeared, and they would see to it that the woman was gone.
That the temptation was removed …
Coming soon …
DON’T MISS THE NEXT BRUTE FORCE NOVEL FROM #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LORA LEIGH
DAGGER’S EDGE
AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER 2018 FROM ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS
DON’T MISS THESE OTHER NOVELS BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LORA LEIGH
THE MEN OF SUMMER SERIES
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DIRTY LITTLE LIES WICKED LIES
THE CALLAHANS SERIES
MIDNIGHT S
INS
DEADLY SINS
SECRET SINS
ULTIMATE SINS
THE ELITE OPS SERIES
LIVE WIRE
RENEGADE
BLACK JACK
HEAT SEEKER
MAVERICK
WILD CARD
THE NAVY SEALS TRILOGY
KILLER SECRETS
HIDDEN AGENDAS
DANGEROUS GAMES
THE BOUND HEARTS NOVELS
INTENSE PLEASURE
SECRET PLEASURE
DANGEROUS PLEASURE
GUILTY PLEASURE
ONLY PLEASURE
WICKED PLEASURE
FORBIDDEN PLEASURE
AND HER STORIES FEATURED IN THE ANTHOLOGIES
REAL MEN LAST ALL NIGHT
REAL MEN DO IT BETTER
HONK IF YOU LOVE REAL MEN
LEGALLY HOT
MEN OF DANGER
HOT ALPHAS
AND HER TWO-STORIES-IN-ONE ROMANCE
RUGGED TEXAS COWBOY
Available from St. Martin’s Griffin and St. Martin’s Paperbacks
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Rugged Texas Cowboy
THE MEN OF SUMMER SERIES
Hot Shot
Dirty Little Lies
Wicked Lies
THE CALLAHANS SERIES
Midnight Sins
Deadly Sins
Secret Sins
Ultimate Sins
THE ELITE OPS SERIES
Live Wire
Renegade
Black Jack
Heat Seeker
Maverick
Wild Card
THE NAVY SEALS TRILOGY
Killer Secrets
Hidden Agendas
Dangerous Games
THE BOUND HEARTS NOVELS
Dangerous Pleasure
Secret Pleasure
Intense Pleasure
Guilty Pleasure
