Year of the Scorpio: Part Two

by Stacy Gail

  Without hesitation, he hauled her into the shower to wrap his arms around her. Vaguely he was aware of her tossing the towel she held onto the shower bench before she curled her arms around his neck and squeezed him until he could feel the thrumming of her heart against his chest.

  At last.

  “I’m sorry, Polo. God, I’m so, so sorry Jubilee is gone. Please believe me, I loved her and I know you hold me responsible for her—”

  “I don’t blame you for a goddamn thing, so get that out of your head right now.” He rocked her back and forth, uncaring that her clothes quickly became soaked through. She was in his arms, where they both wanted her to be. All the rest was just details. “Everything that’s happened up to now could have been stopped if I’d just put a fucking bullet in Knives right from the outset.”

  “Don’t.” Her arms tightened around him, as if trying to protect him from himself. “Baby, please don’t take responsibility for all the evil shit Knives has done. That nightmare he unleashed last night is owned by him, not you. Never you. Believe it.”

  “I believe I’m never going to stop loving you, even when you tell me you don’t want to hear those words from me anymore. I can’t stop loving you, any more than I can make myself stop breathing, you get me? You’re the only thing I’ve got that makes life worth living, and that’s not going to change. It’s the only truth I have left, so you’ve got to find a way to fucking live with it.”

  She was silent for a couple of beats before she pulled back far enough to look up into his face. “I don’t mind you telling me that you love me, baby. I just hate it when you make it sound like you’re saying good-bye. Please, please, don’t ever say good-bye to me again like that. Just…don’t ever say good-bye. Ever.”

  For only a nanosecond he froze as the meaning behind her words hit him full force. When she’d told him she didn’t want to hear that he loved her, he’d thought that was it. They were done. History. He’d never again have her melt against him, never again enjoy her lips fusing to his, never again feel that he’d finally found the one place in this shithole of a world where he belonged.

  Being cast out of heaven couldn’t have been any worse. Like the devil he was, he’d wanted to burn everything down because of it. But now…

  Don’t ever say good-bye.

  His heart began to pound.

  Ever.

  This wasn’t the end for them.

  Through some miracle, this was just the beginning.

  Hooking a possessive hand around her neck, Polo pulled her mouth to his while the hot spray rained down on them. He didn’t feel it. What he felt was the desperation in the way her arms held onto him, the hunger of her mouth against his, the urgent thudding of her heart against his chest. What he felt was a woman who needed her man. Lucky sonofabitch that he was, the man she needed was him.

  Thank you, Fearless.

  The endless darkness that had been feasting on his insides vanished under a wave of warmth that was better than sunlight, better than the hot water streaming over them. The warmth inside him came from his connection with Dash, and there was nothing better in the whole frigging universe than that.

  For long moments he simply wallowed in the feel and taste of her, delving deep into her mouth and filling his every sense with her essence. Kissing her was never just kissing; it was a mating of mouths and hearts and souls. It was a level of heaven that existed just for them.

  But all too soon it wasn’t enough.

  Tugging her sodden sweater up and over her head, Polo dropped it and then her bra onto the shower floor, absently kicking them to the side. Greedy desire ignited when the slick, wet globes of her bare breasts flattened against his torso.

  He pulled her close for another feverish kiss, drowning in her as her tongue dueled in joyful challenge with his. His cock throbbed with need, the maddened surge of arousal hitting so swiftly it made him lightheaded. He smiled at the sensation, more alive than he could ever remember being, and it was all because of her.

  His Dash.

  It had been that way from the first moment she’d entered his life, and it would be that way until his last breath.

  That was how life was when a man found perfection. He didn’t need to look any further than the woman who had given it to him.

  When only her pants and panties were left, he popped the button and pulled the zipper down. “Take these off.” His voice was rough, demanding. He gritted his teeth in pained pleasure when she followed his command, his already-hard cock hardening even more. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful. My dream. My fantasy. Mine.”

  “I am,” she vowed, her hips shimmying as she worked to escape the remainder of her wet clothing. Then she kicked them away and reached for him so greedily it made his heart soar. “And you’re mine.”

  “You know it.” He smoothed his hands over her wet hair before he gathered it in one fist, while the other hand continued a downward journey. “I want you wet for me, Fearless. Do I have to get you there?”

  “Why don’t you find out?” Her mouth came back to his even as she lifted a leg to curl it around his thigh.

  Excitement hummed through his system as he slid a hand between her legs. With her mouth melded to his, he felt more than heard her gasp when his fingers slid along the length of her cleft, gratifyingly slick with a wetness far different from the water pouring over them. Then her muscles jolted when he hit the hard nub of her clit.

  The low moan that escaped her tasted like heaven.

  “That’s my Dasha,” he murmured against her lips, stroking that hard cluster of nerves until she had to hold onto him or fall at his feet. “I love how you’re always ready for me. Want me inside you, beautiful?”

  “Yes, Polo. Always.” She was gasping now, her hips bucking in time with his caresses, and the open, trusting wantonness of her response thrilled him. His blood caught fire and his cock hardened until it was a sweet pain that stole his breath, and he worked her mercilessly because her pleasure heightened his. The throb of his pulse increased in time with her panting breaths, and when those shallow gasps became urgent moans, signaling how close she was, he glided his mouth to her ear.

  “Don’t hold anything back.” He nipped her earlobe before he sucked it into his mouth and toyed with it, all the while pushing her ever closer to the point of no return. “Nothing gets me hotter than listening to you when your control breaks and you give yourself over to my hands, trusting me to make you come. Give me that moment. Give it to me now.”

  “My Polo.” Her fingers bit into his shoulders while her hips began to convulse. “Oh, God. Oh, God…”

  He pressed down on that nub relentlessly, changing the tempo to create an irresistible friction. That action, mingling with his whispered words, pushed her into a release so strong he was sure she would have fallen if he hadn’t held onto her. Her head flung backward and her back arched as if tortured, her cries of completion echoing off the tiled walls. It shuddered through her and into him, intensifying his own arousal to the point of near pain and making the muscles in her lower abdomen clench rhythmically, as if he were already inside her.

  He hadn’t been lying. Her pleasure always fed his, and right now it was so damn fed he was almost ready to shoot his fucking load right there.

  Her body was still shuddering with the echoes of her orgasm as he moved out from under the direct spray of the shower, bringing her with him. “You’re not on the Pill?”

  “Right,” She was still breathless, even as she turned her head to brush her mouth along his collar bone. “The timing’s not right for a pregnancy, but I wouldn’t mind that, Polo. I would love to make a baby with you. But if you’re not into that, I can—”

  “Jesus.” A fine shudder went through him as a hunger he’d never felt before hit him like a fever, tightening his balls and making his cock throb with near-pain. When they got to the shower’s bench he bent her over, placing her hands on the bench’s tiled edge so that her back was flat and her ass was in the air. With every
heartbeat thudding in his granite-hard dick, he bent to brush his mouth against her ear. “Spread your legs, Fearless.”

  She obeyed immediately, her lower back arching while her ass went up.

  “Beautiful.” His breath shallowed out as he curled one hand around his dick, while the other one explored her cleft. “You’re such a magnificent sight to see, I can’t even handle it.”

  “Handle me instead.” Her voice was hoarse from the force of her cries, and the sound of it unraveled him in ways he didn’t know he could be unraveled. “Please baby, get inside me.”

  No sweeter words had ever been spoken.

  He slid his stiffened flesh through her slick heat, lubricating himself and enjoying the sensation of coating his cock in her juices. Anointing himself with her was glorious. The sight of her offering herself up to him was a dream come true. And when he entered her depths in one urgent thrust…

  Extraordinary.

  Though he was profoundly aware of her tight sex milking him, he was equally attuned to her throaty moans that signaled how pleased she was with her current state. With one hand he urged her hips to meet his thrusts while the other one slid under her arm to close possessively over her breast. He loved how that rounded flesh completely filled his hand, like she was made to fit him. He loved even more how her moans grew in volume when he tweaked and tugged her nipple until it was pebble-hard and straining beneath his touch.

  But most of all, he loved how she began to chant his name with every ragged breath.

  “There’s nowhere else I belong more than buried inside of you.” As if to drive that point home, he surged fiercely into her, his hips smacking against the shapely cushion of her ass while his cock filled her all the way to his hilt. “There’s nowhere else you belong more than under me, becoming a part of me. Letting me become a part of you. We belong like this. Forever.”

  His last word might have only been in his head; all he could hear were Dash’s cries of completion. The scorching hot inner walls that gloved his stiff flesh convulsed in spasms of pleasure that dragged him over the edge of sanity right along with her, and for long moments he only knew the excruciating beauty of the ecstasy he could only find in her.

  When the flashpoint of his spine-bending orgasm had abated and the shivers of pleasure danced along his nerve endings, he gently withdrew from her, then pivoted to sit on the bench and eased her onto his lap. She was as boneless as a ragdoll, allowing him to coax her face into the curve of his neck while he held her with the vague intention of never letting her go. Only when she stirred to press her lips against his neck did he realize neither one of them had the luxury of pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  “You and I were having a conversation before we got interrupted by a fire alarm.” He felt her stiffen and his arms tightened, in case she got it into her head that she wanted to escape. “We have to get it all out, Dash, do you understand? It’s like getting rid of poison. We’ve got to get it all out, or eventually it’s going to kill us.”

  Even with the shower still going, he could hear her swallow. “Things have changed since I woke up freaked out from a nightmare.”

  “Yeah, they have.” But he’d still get to the bottom of those dreams before they were through. “I guess you now know about all the shit I was trying to shield you from. Don’t you?”

  Holding her was slowly becoming like holding a statue. “My brother.”

  “Yeah, Fearless. Your brother. A brother who betrayed you, just like my family betrayed me.”

  She nodded once. “That’s about the size of it.”

  He nuzzled his face against the side of her head, trying to soothe a pain that he knew could never be eased. “My original plan had been to wipe Knives out, which would put an end the contract he put out on you. Then I was going to return to you without you ever knowing anything about it. It was the only way I could think of to keep you alive, as well as keep the belief that your brother could never betray you.”

  She tilted her head back just far enough to search his face. “Weren’t you worried that I might one day find out you’d killed Knives?”

  “I thought about it all the time,” he said honestly. There was no point in hiding anything now. “And I knew if you found out about it, you’d never be able to forgive me for it. But I’d rather have you hate me and still be alive, than know your own flesh and blood cared so little about you that he was willing to sacrifice you to achieve whatever fucked-up goals he has.”

  “Why?” Pain and bewilderment clouded her eyes, and the sight of it cut him to the quick. “Why would you be willing to make that kind of sacrifice?”

  “Because I never wanted you to know the last of your family had betrayed you, Dash. But in the end, I was the one who wound up betraying your trust. Wasn’t I?”

  “It hurt that you let me grieve for so long,” she admitted, laying a gentle hand against his chest. “But I can see now that you were trying to protect all of me, even the parts that deal with my brother.”

  “I didn’t want you to ever know he’d marked you for death. I never wanted you to live the rest of your life wondering why your family saw you as expendable, or unworthy, or…” His throat tightened for some weird reason, and he had to clear it to find his voice again. “Unloved.”

  “Polo. Baby.” Tears filled her eyes, and she curled her hand around his nape to bring his mouth to hers. “I’ll be your family from now on, okay? And I’ll always love you, for as long as I live. I promise.”

  “Dash. Jesus, what you do to me.” His arms tightened around her convulsively, and he buried his face in her neck. He remained there for a long time while that promise flowed through him like sunshine. But as much as he wished he could spend the rest of his forever right there, reality made him back away with a sigh. “I need to get one more thing squared away about Knives.”

  He felt her tense, but she nodded gamely. “Okay.”

  “You know he’s the source of the hit out on you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know he’s our enemy.”

  “I do.”

  He kept his eyes steady on hers. “And you know what I do with enemies. Right?”

  “Yeah.” She sucked in a slow, shaky breath before nodding. “I know, Polo. I’ve always understood the game of Kill or be Killed. All Vitalievs are good at that game, including Knives. Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “How long have you known Knives was targeting me?”

  “Since Konstantin’s murder.” His fingers dived into her wet hair, and he pressed his mouth to her brow. “You deserve to have a brother who cherishes you and treats you like the treasure you are. That’s why I was fine with letting you live in a fantasy world, believing he’d never hurt you. I didn’t want you to break inside over his betrayal, the way I broke when my family betrayed me.”

  “The only person who can break me is you.” She said it quietly as if she didn’t want to admit it out loud, but it still hit him as hard as if she’d yelled it in his face. “You’re the reason I smile, the reason I’m glad I was born. I’m more thankful than I can express that you’re still alive, and I’ve been hating myself for feeling anything other than that gratitude. And while I now understand what you’ve been trying to protect me from, I still need to know if I can trust you to never keep something this vital from me again.”

  That made his brows quirk. “I kinda doubt anything like this is ever going to come up again.”

  “You never know what curveball life is going to throw at you, so I need you to take this seriously,” she said so somberly his smile trickled away. “Knives’s betrayal hurts, of course, and I’ll probably go to my grave feeling that wound. But my brother doesn’t hold my world together. You do. And when you made me believe you were dead for months… that lie became my hell on earth.”

  Hi winced. He couldn’t help it.

  “You and I have never lived normal lives,” she went on, her dark brows drawing to
gether. “They’re beyond complicated. What if, at some point down the road, we get into another situation, and you consign me to another kind of hell? How can I trust you won’t do that to me again?”

  “You’re worrying over nothing. We’ve made it through the worst, you hear me? Nothing like this is ever going to happen again.”

  “I don’t know that, and you can’t promise it, either. Complicated lives, remember? You have enemies out there in the world, and as long as I’m a Vitaliev, I do too.”

  “Dash—”

  “What if you once again decide to not share what’s going on, and instead you choose to push me into another nightmare?”

  “Fuck, Dasha,” he growled, furious with both her and himself that she had those crazy doubts about him running through her head. “None of this shit is ever going to happen again, okay? Especially after I put your brother out of our misery.”

  “I never thought any of this would happen, but it did. That’s mainly what my dreams are about now, and why I wake up screaming,” she added, surprising him when she brought up the subject of her night terrors on her own. “In my dreams, I’m back at your penthouse, not wanting to get out of the elevator because I know that once I do, I’ll run across you. And when I do, you betray my trust in some way, and that betrayal winds up causing my death. Sometimes you just kill me outright.”

  “Jesus.” A shudder went through him even as his arms tightened around her once more. Finally, finally, the seriousness of her psychological wounding began to sink in, and for one of the few times in his life, he had no clue what to do. “You’ve got to hear me, baby. I’d never let anything harm you, you hear me? Never. Know it. Believe it.”

  Her eyes lifted to meet his, and the turbulence there tore him to bloody shreds. “I love you, Polo.”

  His throat locked up, and for a full second he couldn’t breathe. “Now who’s saying good-bye with those words?”

  “I’ll never say good-bye to you.” Her smile was a broken-mirror version of itself—crooked and almost right, but so horribly wrong it was painful to look at. “I love you too much to say good-bye. And for what it’s worth, I know how protective you are of me. I believe you would sacrifice anything to keep me alive. I’m grateful for that.”