Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)

by Nancy Haviland

  He closed his eyes and said something too quietly for her to hear. Then louder, “Thank fuck you believe me.”

  She balked. Should she believe him? She wouldn’t have thought to only minutes ago. But he’d swayed her with his sincerity. She’d never understood how he could have done what he’d done to them, and his explanation simply made so much sense to her. This was more in keeping with the “them” she’d known.

  Was she being naïve because she so desperately wanted to believe their love had been real? She made to remove her hands, but he covered them with his before she could.

  “No. Stay. Please.”

  “I…I did believe you, yes,” she murmured, giving in because she couldn’t bring herself to move away. “But now that you say that.” She gulped and nervously licked her lips when she saw his attention settle on them. “Are you lying to me, Alekzander?”

  “No, angel. I’m not lying. You don’t know what it did to me to drive you away like that. I never should have done it. I hurt you…let you walk out of my office…you left our home…my life. And it killed me. It fucking killed me to let you go because you’re mine.”

  Joy tried to break free as her fingertips traced over his cheeks. She was touching him again.

  “I will admit that I would lie my ass off to get to you.” His gaze was all over her face. “But I’m not. Not about this. From the moment you came into my life…” He paused and cursed. “From the moment you came into my life, it’s been you, and will always be you. I’m not here tonight asking for your forgiveness…” He paused again. “Not asking, I’m demanding. I need you to forgive me for being such a fucking coward. For not accepting how far I would go to protect you. For not realizing there isn’t a line I wouldn’t cross if it meant keeping you safe.”

  His image blurred, and she blinked quickly to clear it. She wasn’t sure what was more beautiful; the things he was saying, the low rumble of his voice, or the shape his lips took when he said you. It looked as if he were puckering for a—

  “Sacha?”

  Her gaze flipped up from his mouth. “Yes?”

  That groove in his cheek made an appearance, but it was gone before she could fully appreciate it. “Goddammit, I want your mouth so badly.” He distractingly ran his knuckle over the curve of her chin.

  “You do?” Take it.

  He nodded and opened his hand to whisper the tips of his fingers down the side of her neck. “Give it to me. Then maybe I’ll be able to think. I’ll happily beg if that will please you.”

  She had the strongest urge to smile but swallowed hard instead. Her insides melted when he traced the movement with the pad of his thumb. Her head spun as the familiar sensations that came with his touch invaded her.

  “So soft.” His face was closer to hers than it had been a moment ago. “At your own pace. I’ll wait for you.”

  So…sweet. And, God, but he smelled divine. She inhaled apples and a mouthwatering scent that was his alone.

  How was she supposed to resist this when he’d just exonerated himself?

  “You smell of apples,” she murmured.

  He brought his forehead to rest on hers, and his mouth opened, his exhalations sounding labored all of a sudden. “Had one on the way over. You shouldn’t have picked up on that.”

  “Green?” She couldn’t have said how many apple cores she’d found around their apartment. She’d joined him in the shower once, and he’d had to set a half-eaten Granny Smith in the soap dish to free up his hands.

  “Red,” he rasped. “Like your mouth. That I want. Now.”

  I need this. I need this from him. Just a little bit of him.

  Before her brain could send out the order, she was moving in, her hands going inside his jacket, hesitantly spreading over his ribs.

  “That’s it, angel,” he murmured when their hips brushed together. “Come to me.”

  She wavered and drew back slightly until she could see him, but she already knew she’d never be able to fight this. He held himself still, as if afraid to move. And like the lonely, scared girl she was, she allowed herself to seek peace and shelter from the one who’d always effortlessly provided it.

  She stood on her toes and softly meshed their lips together.

  He’d often allowed her to make her move, prodded her into making it. But in the end, he would take over, and she would happily bow to his will. He did that now.

  His groan scorched over her, and then everything about him softened, became smooth as silk, his touch heated and sure. His mouth opened, and their tongues met. She moaned because his taste was so precious, so familiar, liquefying her body and causing her skin to sizzle. She came alive. And he was the reason.

  How could he possibly think she’d become involved with another man? How could she after having experienced this? Him.

  He directed her by taking her hands from his face and sending them up, showing her he wanted them around his neck. She got them there and made a sound of surprise when he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her clear off her feet. With their bodies pressed together, and with her now up high enough, she went even further by cradling his head as she hungrily ate at his mouth. She took more pride in the rough sound of his approval than was wise.

  “My angel,” he murmured against her. “You’re just as I remember. So fucking sweet.” He licked into her mouth, and she closed her lips on his tongue. She sucked gently, and he made a dark sound. His palm pressed just above her tailbone until she couldn’t help but feel the extent of his arousal. His shaft was long and hard against her belly, and she found herself wanting it between her legs, inside her, deep and pounding steadily, stretching her with its thickness. He tunneled his fingers into the hair at her nape, and grabbing a handful, tipped her head to the side so he could deepen the kiss.

  Her hands were sliding over his broad shoulders to reach his back so she could pull him tighter. The straps of his gun harness barely registered. The only thing she was aware of was she couldn’t get close enough. Couldn’t feel him enough. That made her desperate for more, and she didn’t care. Wasn’t self-conscious about it. Because this was Alekzander. Her lifeline. This was why she hadn’t been living. Because she’d been deprived of this.

  “You like?” he asked in Russian as he nipped at her lips, and then her jaw and down the column of her throat. He sealed his mouth to her pulse point and drew hard on her skin, making her gasp.

  “I like,” she replied in the same. Just as they used to do.

  “What would be better?”

  “If we were naked,” she answered automatically, effortlessly falling into the past.

  “Fuck, yes,” he whispered fiercely, and then his tongue was in her mouth again, his fingers tickling as they climbed her ribs. He growled. “I need to touch you before I go fucking crazy.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, giving permission without thought. Her body was his. Always.

  Had he not been holding her, she’d have ended up on the floor when his hand passed over her shoulder, traced down her spine, came around her ribs and finally covered her aching breast. He squeezed it firmly, making her wish she was bared to him. She wanted to be in his mouth. She wanted him sucking on her—

  Sacha’s eyes sprung wide, and she jerked back so hard she startled him into losing his grip. She pulled away from him the second her feet touched the floor, and stumbled on her heels, throwing her arms out to gain her balance.

  A warm, wetness spread as they stared at each other, their chests rising and falling swiftly.

  “Sacha…” He reached for her, but she put up a hand to hold him off. He dropped his arm, his expression puzzled.

  The warmth continued to seep out, the ache in breasts subsiding as her milk began to flow.

  Lekzi.

  Sacha’s body had taken the sexual stimulation and turned it into a basic time-to-feed-the-baby. Alekzander’s baby. That he knew nothing about.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone so fast.”

  She brought her han
ds to her cheeks and tried to deny it. The effervescent joy bubbling inside her was smothered as the true horror of her situation was exposed. With this one conversation, this one wonderful cleansing interaction between them, she was no longer the injured party; she was the villain. The only villain. Alekzander was innocent of all but trying to protect her because he loved her. But she, with full knowledge and so much pain-fueled malice, had kept his child a secret from him.

  “Oh, Alekzander,” she whispered as she inconspicuously pressed her arms against her breasts to try to make them behave. “What have I done?”

  “Nothing. It was only a kiss.” His jaw was tight as he glanced back toward the door, but he continued to speak through it. “Don’t look like that. I shouldn’t have pushed for it.”

  “Please, stop.” He loved her. He’d always loved her. So much so that she was quite sure he was apologizing because he thought she was upset about being unfaithful to a gay man she was only pretending to see romantically. “Oh, my God. This is—Oh, my God,” she repeated as she barely refrained from falling to her knees and screaming about the unfairness of it all. “I must tell you something.”

  She shoved aside her fear about how severely he would punish her. And not only him but his uncle.

  She closed the distance between them and lifted one of his big hands. She gorged herself on the desire she could still see swimming in his eyes behind the curiosity and anger. She brought his palm up to rub on her cheek, closing her eyes and savoring the connection she was starved for.

  “I must tell you. But before I do, promise me you will try to understand how I felt. Please, Alekzander,” she begged as his expression grew more confused. And then wary. She stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth, in case she never got the chance again. “Please know I never would have dreamed you would come to me like this. With the truth. I thought I knew the truth.”

  “Sacha, what are you talking about?”

  “The night I came to your office, I was going to tell—”

  They both looked over when the door burst open and Maksim stormed in, his expression thunderous. Without hesitating, Sacha ducked behind Alekzander, seeking protection from that savage look. His hand pressed against her outer thigh and squeezed reassuringly.

  “Maks. What the fuck are you doing? Give us a few more min—”

  “No.” Maksim didn’t let him finish. “This can’t wait.” He glared beyond Alekzander, his silver eyes livid as they found hers.

  He knew. He knew about Lekzi!

  “No!” She reached out when he handed Alekzander his phone. “Let me tell him. Please!”

  Maksim jerked the phone back and shook his head, his lips curled menacingly. She didn’t try again.

  Alekzander moved over to cover her fully. “What the fuck are you doing, brother?” he growled.

  Without a word, Maksim shoved his phone under Alekzander’s nose. “Read.”

  He looked suspiciously between her and Maksim before bending his head. As he read, Sacha watched his profile. His eyes flared wide, his skin paled. His jaw tightened, and his chest started to rise and fall with choppy breaths.

  She cupped her hands over her mouth and pressed her lips together to stifle a wail. Oh, no, no, no…

  His head came up and swiveled in her direction in the eeriest of ways. What she saw then petrified her. Put to shame everything she’d felt this past year.

  She’d been sulking.

  He was enraged.

  FIFTEEN

  Hospital records.

  Alek looked down at Maks’s phone again, and another shockwave tore through his system. He felt it travel up from his feet to his hair roots as if he were standing in water and holding a live wire. He tried like hell to make sense of what he was reading, but his mind was reeling at the speed with which he’d gone from euphoric to…this.

  “The dates work,” Maks said, his tone gentler now that he wasn’t snarling at Sacha. “Explains the fear in her eyes, the alias, the daycare, why she fell off the map entirely.”

  Because she’d gone into hiding.

  He lifted his pounding head and looked at Sacha. Looked at her body. “A child?”

  The guilt surrounding her was almost palpable. If he reached out, he’d have been able to touch it. He smelled it. Tasted it. Like scorched tar, the shit burned his throat so badly his eyes watered.

  She’d had a baby?

  His baby.

  He looked at the phone again.

  A girl?

  He reread the info as an alarming pressure began to build within him.

  DOB: April 23rd.

  Time: 19:42.

  Weight: 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

  Length: 20 inches.

  “I have…a daughter?” The pressure became intense, heavy, suffocating.

  Sacha now held her clasped hands under her chin. A chin that had tears dripping off it from the tracks coming down her smooth cheeks. The liquid ran over her knuckles and down her dainty wrist.

  She stepped forward as he tried to blink away the little explosions marring his vision. “I was going to tell you. Please let me expl—”

  “Do I have a daughter?”

  His roar bounced off the walls, and she tripped over herself to back up, her tears coming faster. He almost laughed. Her system wouldn’t be able to keep up with the moisture that would flow from those eyes before he was done with her.

  Another second passed, and then her nod hit him like a wrecking ball. It smashed to pieces the image he had of his perfect angel. The one he needed to have of her. The one that made him strive to be good enough for her.

  The sound of the door opening behind him barely registered.

  “Get her out of here,” he said to Maks without looking away from her. “Get her out of this room before I do something we’ll all regret.”

  “Alekzander,” she tried again.

  “Now,” he whispered fiercely.

  Without a word, Maks grabbed her purse and her elbow. But before he could get her the fuck to safety, Sacha yank way from him.

  “No. I will not go away. No more. I let you explain yourself, and now you will let me do the same.”

  His rasping breaths locked in his throat as his heart split wide open. His head spun and his eyes burned as they blurred. He was going up in flames. Flames of betrayal. Brutal, harsh, calculated betrayal. Brought on by who?

  The love of his life. The mother of his child.

  Sacha had carried his daughter in her body for nine months. She’d given birth, cared for and raised his fucking child since April.

  It was December.

  His daughter.

  A black rage slithered through him searching for something to consume as he pictured Eva as she’d been earlier, patting her belly, pride shining from her eyes over her unborn son’s antics. He locked out how sickly she’d looked in Gabriel’s arms only minutes later.

  Sacha had chosen to keep this a secret. Had deliberately and calculatedly kept this from him. She’d allowed another man into her life. Alek had missed almost eight months of his child’s life while another man had talked to, played with, fed, rocked, held her.

  Justin Sheppard had not only been fucking Alek’s woman. He’d been helping to raise Alek’s daughter.

  His eyes felt as though they were glowing red as he looked at her, and he didn’t think it possible, but his fury grew exponentially.

  “My daughter was being contaminated in an apartment with a cardboard fucking door and no locks on the goddamn windows for more than seven fucking months!”

  His booming voice bounced off the walls. Sacha winced and took another step back, and that’s when Sheppard came into view. Even though he was in a tux, just as Alek was, the guy looked different. He was wearing aggression and a willingness to tangle that didn’t go with the polished attorney façade. When he moved in front of Sacha as though she was his to protect, something inside Alek went nuts.

  “Get the fuck away from her!” He lunged, ready to tear the bastard’s n
eck open, but was nailed in the side by a heavy weight that shoved him off balance. He came to a dead stop when his shoulder hit the wall. Leather and the manly smell of motor oil filled his nostrils.

  “You don’t touch my brother any more than I would touch yours, friend.”

  Vex. The President of the Obsidian Devil’s Motorcycle Club was pressed against him only long enough for him to get that out before he was hammered forward, away from Alek. Maks plowed the big guy into the wall and landed a punch to the biker’s face that must have broken a knuckle the crack was so loud. Vex returned the love with a rib shot that would have taken down a lesser man.

  “Deal with that.”

  “Dmitri.”

  Lucian and Vasily’s voices came from behind, and Sorin and Dmitri swept by, each clamping their pythons over their respective boys before any real damage could be done.

  As Alek wondered where the fuck everyone had come from, he straightened his tux and lost his steam because Sacha had moved closer to him. She was shaking her head and motioning Sheppard to stay where he was on his side of the two chairs now separating them.

  Dmitri yanked Maks over and shoved him behind Vasily. The byki was only inches shorter than their friendly giant and just as deadly, but even so, Maks came because Maks wanted to come. If it had been his choice, he could have unsheathed Angelina from his back and carved half of them up before anyone got a shot off.

  “Let’s not go there again,” Vasily said to Maks. “You’re both playing out the same scene, and it’s redundant. He’s protecting his brother. You’re protecting yours. Leave it be.” He touched Alek’s shoulder. “What’s happened here?”

  Maks plunked his ass on the edge of the table and held out a hand to draw Sydney into his side when Micha sent her into the room before closing the door again. The Australian’s concerned gaze was on Sacha.

  Vex, who’d been spending a lot of time with the Romanian’s lately, jerked his cut down as he engaged in a fist bump and back slap with Sheppard. “The next time you find yourself in a sitch like this, the call I get better come from you. Understand?”