Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

Even more unimaginable.

  Damian had proven his loyalty to her. He’d risked his life — and, she had to presume, called in significant favors with the Syndicate — to save her.

  There had been nothing half-hearted or convenient about the rescue he’d staged in Greece. Giving him half-hearted loyalty, convenient loyalty, wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even possible, if she was going to be honest with herself. That much had become apparent the moment she’d considered leaving him and going back to New York. It had been made obvious by the hole that had opened up inside of her, the deep well of emptiness at the thought of not seeing him every day, not feeling his touch or seeing his reluctant smile when she finally made him laugh.

  It suddenly seemed so simple.

  She stood, tucking her hands under her arms as she started back toward the hotel..

  She knew what love was even if Primo didn’t. Most importantly, she knew what the love she shared with Damian meant.

  It meant unwavering loyalty and steadfast support. It meant choosing each other over and over again, whatever the cost.

  She would start by choosing him now.

  19

  Damian turned the empty glass in his hand and watched the lights from the city play on the walls of the suite. He’d long since given up pacing the room, stepping around the shattered pieces of his laptop as he obsessed over everything that had been said between him and Aira, over everything she must be feeling.

  She’d been gone for more than two hours. Two hours in which he’d replayed every moment without her while she’d been in Greece. Two hours in which he forced himself to imagine the unimaginable possibility of her leaving him for the lie he’d told.

  Then there was the issue of her safety; he would have gone mad thinking about her on the dark, cold streets of the city if it hadn’t been for Cole.

  Knowing his second-in-command was out there was the only thing that gave him solace. Maybe Aria was right about not being followed after her meeting with Primo, but if she wasn’t, Damian knew Cole would defend her with his life if necessary.

  He was contemplating texting Cole for an update when the door opened. He forced himself to stay seated as Aria walked into the room. It wasn’t easy. He wanted to go to her, fold her in his arms, apologize for the lie he’d told to protect her.

  But he’d said everything he had to say, had made his case for his actions. He wouldn’t beg.

  Not even for Aria.

  The rest was up to her.

  He watched as she set the key card down on the console table and entered the room, arms crossed over her chest. She paused at the threshold of the living area, her eyes seeking his across the darkened room. The moment stretched long and thin before she started toward him.

  He almost held his breath as she came toward him, paused standing over him. He could smell the city — cold and damp — on her clothes. He was surprised when a moment later, she lowered herself onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned her head on his shoulder.

  He kept his arms at his sides, forcing himself not to touch her. The next move would be hers.

  It came a moment later when she spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for contacting Primo, for meeting him without talking to you, for leaving tonight and making you worry.”

  He let his arms slide around her waist. “I wasn’t worried,” he said. “I had Cole follow you.”

  There would be no more secrets between them.

  “I figured,” she said, her head still on his chest.

  The chuckle rose unbidden through his chest and he tightened his grip on her. He had a feeling this woman would never stop surprising him.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

  “Because I know why you did it, why you do all the things you do.”

  “Tell me.” He wanted to hear her say it.

  “Because you’re trying to protect me,” she said.

  “That’s not right,” he said. “Or it’s not all of it anyway.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. Her hair was damp around her elfin face, her full lips inches away and begging to be kissed. “It’s not?”

  He shook his head, slid his hands into the hair at the back of her head, cupped her face.

  “I fucking love you, Aria. Don’t you know?” It hurt to say the words, to admit it aloud. It meant letting go once and for all of the barricade he’d built around his heart, the barricade that had been the truest friend he’d had since his mother died. “Tell me you know.”

  “I know.” She touched her lips gently to his. “Do you?”

  He knew what she was asking, knew she was admitting to loving him in return. Admitting that she was as broken and scarred as he was.

  It didn’t matter. They would make each other whole.

  He returned her kiss, took his time opening her mouth with his tongue, tried to pour everything he felt for her, everything she made him feel, into the press of his lips on hers.

  “I know,” he said, touching his lips to the corners of her mouth, along her jaw, on her closed eyelids. He wanted to leave his kisses like blessings on every inch of her skin. “I know.”

  She ran her hands down his chest, back up to his neck, took his face in her hands. “I choose you,” she said. “I should have told you a long time ago.”

  “Lucky you,” he said, looking into her dark eyes. “I never had a choice.”

  The choice had been made from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Their love had been written the stars long before they’d ever crossed paths. He knew that now.

  Her rigid nipples grazed his chest as she pressed against him, the heat from her pussy sinking into his cock under her lap.

  “I don’t want to forget anymore,” she said, touching her lips to the corners of his mouth, tugging his lower lip between her teeth. “I want to remember everything — who I am underneath everything I thought I was, who I’m meant to be, who we’ll be together.” She slid her tongue into his mouth, her movements languid and sensual. She pulled away enough just to speak against his lips. “Help me remember now, Damian.”

  He groaned and reached for the hem of her shirt, peeling it off her skin while she continued kissing him, breaking the kiss only long enough for him to pull it over her head, waiting while she did the same with his.

  Her skin was still cool from the Paris night. It was an erotic foil to the heat of his own, already on fire with her proximity, with the promise of her naked body against his.

  She shifted to straddle him in the chair and he reached for her bra, undid the clasp, slid the lacy garment off her shoulders. Her breasts were taut and full, the nipples hard and pointed.

  He wrapped his hands around her back, lowered his mouth to one of the little buds and locked his lips around it, his cock jumping as the fleshy mound filled his mouth, the nipple hard against his tongue.

  She sighed and arched as he sucked, his palms covering her slender back, pressing her against his mouth.

  His cock was nestled into the cleft between her legs, hot even through her jeans. She moved against him, her hips finding a rhythm too much like fucking him to be anything but a nearly unbearable combination of torture and bliss.

  He groaned against her breast, fingering the one he’d just sucked while he gave equal attention to the other one. He was barely aware of her hand sliding between their bodies, the manipulations of her fingers as she undid his pants.

  Then her hand was wrapping around his cock and he was aware of nothing but the silken stroke of her palm. She was so close, her hot pussy inches from his now exposed cock, separated from him only by the fabric of her pants. He knew exactly what it would feel like to slide slowly into her heat, inch by inch, the knowledge enough to make his cock grow thicker and harder in her hand.

  He kissed his way up her chest, stopping at his favorite part of her neck, letting his tongue dip into the tender well of her collarbone as she stroked him, her hips moving in rhythm to the stroking of her hand
.

  He continued to her mouth, plunging his tongue into hers, mimicking the motion he would make when he drove his shaft into the wet heat of her pussy.

  “I need to taste you,” he said, making his way along her jaw with his lips. “I want to feel you come against my mouth.”

  She surprised him by scooting off his lap and sliding to the floor at his feet. Her eyes were pools of dark fire as she looked up at him from between his legs.

  “Not this time, Damian. I’m going to be in control for once.”

  He let his head fall back against the chair, the lights of Paris casting a kaleidoscope of color on the walls as she peeled his pants off his legs and situated her warm body between his thighs.

  20

  Aria took a minute to look at him, the sculpted perfection of his chest, his muscled legs splayed open, the magnificent cock rising between his thighs.

  He would do anything for her. Sacrifice anything for her.

  Now it was her turn to prove she would do the same.

  She knew he would happily worship at the temple of her body, but it’s not what she needed. And whether he knew it or not, it’s not what he needed either.

  The time for her to be fragile was coming to a close. She was grateful for the shelter of his arms but she’d paid too high a price for being sheltered since her parents died. She didn’t want to be sheltered anymore.

  Not like that anyway.

  She wanted to be strong. She wanted to stand beside Damian instead of behind him. She wanted to take her pleasure and give him pleasure as she saw fit.

  She ran her hands along his thighs, up his stomach and chest. He was hot to the touch, the fire raging under his skin all for her, a match to the flames licking under her own.

  She should have known it would end like this. She’d never had any choice. Not really. She’d been lost the moment he’d walked into the club, the moment his eyes had flashed her way.

  She leaned forward on her knees, ran her hands back down his chest, wrapped her fingers around his rigid shaft. He was so beautiful, the stuff of classical sculpture and lustful fantasy.

  And he was hers.

  She stroked him gently as she dropped a kiss on the tip of his crown, licking a bead of semen that had already gathered there, letting her tongue travel down to the base of his cock.

  He groaned as she tongued his balls, still stroking the full length of him, his hips beginning to move with the rhythm of her hand. It was a heady experience to feel her effect on him moment by moment, to know the power she held over him. It was a reminder that she’d always had power, not just to move a man like Damian but to protect herself and make her own decisions and know when it was time to say enough.

  It was time.

  She ran her tongue back up his shaft and closed her mouth around the tip of his cock. He hissed as she sucked, swirling her tongue around his swollen head while she stroked his length.

  The feel of him expanding in her mouth caused an answering call of wetness at the center of her body. She was slick with need for him, the fullness of him between her lips erotically similar to the way he felt pushing into her, filling her wall to wall, stretching her to the limit as his body became an occupying force in her own.

  His hand came down gently on her head and a moment later she felt him tug at a thick lock of her hair as she slid all the way down his length. It sent a pulse of need to her core and she let herself settle in at the base of his cock, willed her mouth to open further until he was all the way at the back of her throat.

  His hips were tense as he waited for her to move. A moment later, she slid slowly back up to his tip, sucking briefly before sliding back down the shaft. The rhythm was primitive. It required no thought, no strategy.

  It was the simple connection of their bodies, the rhythm of their souls and the dual need that spun inside them like two sides to the same coin.

  She moved more quickly as he grew harder in her mouth, her own desire to take him inside her pussy prompting her to move at a frenzied pace, an orgasm building at her center even though he’d done nothing but tug at her hair.

  He didn’t have to do anything to make her hot, to make her come. It was enough to have him spread out, powerless under her hands and tongue, his rigid cock reminding her what was in store for the rest of her body.

  “You better get up here and fuck me, Aria,” he growled. “I’m going to come in your mouth.”

  She wanted him to come in her mouth. She wanted to taste the salty desire that sprang from the deepest part of him.

  But she also wanted his cock inside her, and tonight she was taking what she wanted. Tonight would be the beginning of a life in which she always took what she wanted — what she wanted for herself and for Damian.

  She took her mouth off him, dropping a kiss on the engorged tip before she stood between his legs. She slip her pants off with her panties and climbed on top of him, her knees nestled into the back of the chair, her stomach pressed against his chest.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, placed her palms on either side of his face and kissed him deeply while she lowered herself slowly onto his cock.

  She gasped as he impaled her, the brush of his stomach against her needy clit sending a spark of lust roaring through her body as she tipped her head back.

  “Fuck, Aria…” His hands flatted against the small of her back as he took one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking and lapping. “I’m on fire for you.”

  She leaned back, looked between their bodies and watched as he emerged from her center when she rose off him, as he disappeared into her again when she lowered herself back onto him. It was proof of what she knew.

  There was nothing between them. Not now or ever again.

  No more secrets.

  No more fear.

  He lowered his hands to her ass, bracing her as she leaned back even farther, the subtle shift allowing him to sink deeper into her. Her body was a pressure cooker reaching peak tension, begging for release.

  She leaned forward, kept up the rotation of her hips as she ground against him, settling into a rhythm that created maximum friction against her clit.

  She let her head fall back, savoring the cycle of it — the penetration of his cock to the deepest part of her, the stroke of his stomach against her clit, the vacuum created when she lifted off him, filled the next time she slid down his shaft.

  “Jesus, your pussy is sweet, Aria. I’m going to come inside you.” He reached up and tugged gently at her hair, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were hooded with desire. “Do you want that? Do you want me to spill it inside you?”

  She kissed him and moved faster. “Come inside me, Damian. Give me all of it.”

  He grabbed her hips and moved faster. They were both in control now, Damian thrusting upward into the wet heat of her pussy while she pushed onto him, her clit swelling as his body ground against hers.

  The orgasm was there, pushing against the boundary of her body. She almost didn’t want it to come. She wanted to stay like this forever — Damian’s body intertwined with hers, filling her, dragging out, completing her hard and fast all over again until she cried out into the room.

  “You better fucking come for me, Aria,” he said. “I’m not coming without you.”

  It was the command she needed — guttural and demanding, proof that he would still be in charge when she needed it.

  She was weightless, suspended in the world between need and release, the sensation as erotic as the coming release, the promise as erotic as the shudders that rocked her body on its heels.

  She cried out, clutching his shoulders as she shook around him, her channel tightening down on his cock, riding the blade of pleasure-pain as he spilled into her, his cries mingling with her own as he filled her with his hot need.

  His hands were on her ass, moving her hips on his shaft, helping her milk him of every drop as the contractions at the core of her body went on and on. Little by little their motion slowed, her head falling to his ne
ck, her hair swinging forward to create a curtain around her face as she leaned her forehead on his shoulder.

  They were both breathing hard, their bodies painted with a fine sheen of sweat. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she sat up, looked into his eyes, and kissed him long and slow.

  “Let’s take a shower,” he said. “Then we’re going to finish this, Aria.”

  She knew from the determined expression on his face that he didn’t mean more lovemaking.

  It was okay. She was ready.

  She rose off him and headed for the shower. She wasn’t afraid to face her demons anymore.

  She was done being afraid.

  21

  He took his time washing her in the shower, submitted to her ministrations with the same patience. Something had shifted in her since he’d told her about Primo’s involvement in her kidnapping — and not in the direction he’d expected.

  He’d thought she would be angry at him for lying to her, for keeping Primo’s involvement from her. He hadn’t expected the anger to be short-lived, hadn’t expected her to emerge from the isolation of her walk in the city somehow standing taller.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. She was every bit the warrior he’d suspected her of being when he’d first seen her at Velvet. She’d proven it when she’d left New York with him, when she’d survived two months at the hands of Anastos and his men.

  But this had been the most concrete proof of all.

  The decision to walk away from Primo couldn’t have been easy, but she made it look that way. She’d taken control of their lovemaking with a determination that had taken his breath away. She’d never been a shrinking violet in bed — her unselfconscious passion was one of the many things about her that turned him on.

  And yet when they’d first come together in New York she’d been on the run from Primo and Malcolm. Italy had been bittersweet, melancholy running underneath their endless need for each other, the knowledge that they were still on opposite sides of the New York turf war undeniable even if they didn’t talk about it outright.