“Yes,” she breathes.
“And this?” I mutter again as my kisses trail to her shoulder, my teeth grazing her skin.
She nods softly, arms sliding around my neck, tilting her head to give me more access. Once her skin breaks out in goosebumps, I lift her chin gently, forcing her to look at me.
“Tell me,dusha moya,” I whisper, my voice rough with want and need, “how far will you let me love you today?”
Her hooded eyes darken, desire burning in her gaze. When she parts those beautiful lips of hers, her voice is barely a whisper, but it’s enough to undo me completely.
“As far as you want,” she says softly.
That’s all it takes.
I lift her in one smooth motion, her legs wrapping around me on instinct, and suddenly everything between us is heat and urgency. Maybe it’s the way death has clung to us these past few days. Maybe it’s the time we’ve spent apart. Whatever the reason, whatever restraint we held onto shatters completely.
My mouth crashes into hers within seconds. I let out a low groan with how sweet she tastes, and how warm her body feels now molded onto mine.
“Kill… Kill…” she moans when the sensation overwhelms her, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling at the strands until it almost hurts.
I pull back just enough to breathe, searching her face. All I find in her eyes is love.
A love I’ve been starved of for far too long.
“What is it,milaya?” I rasp.
“I… I…” she stammers.
“Tell me,” I beg, my hands already lifting her skirt, my body burning with need.
“I was scared,” she finally says, stopping me cold. “No. Not scared. I wasterrified,” she corrects, loosening her grip on my hair to cup my face in her palms instead. “When my dad got shot…” She pauses as if she needs an extra second to force the words out of her mouth. “All I could think about was…what if it had been you? What if someone shot you?”
“That would never have happened.”
“You don’t know that. No one does.”
“That. Would. Never. Happen,” I repeat, steady with conviction.
“Can you please take this seriously? I’m trying to explain to you why I did it. Why I pushed you away.”
“Now?” I ask hoarsely, my hard cock pleading with me to be let out of its confinement. “You have the worst timing,dusha moya.”
“I know,” she says with a weak smile, her voice trembling. “But if I don’t say it now, then…”
That’s when I hear it. The fear beneath her words. The same fear she is battling with everything she has just to keep it from ruling her life.
I still myself instantly, ignoring everything in me that begs to take her right here and now. Instead, I simply hover over her, my knuckles brushing softly along her cheek.
“Say what you need to,dusha moya. I am all ears.”
She takes a fortifying breath, her hands clutching my forearms to keep her tethered.
“Just the thought of losing you was enough to terrify me,” she whispers. “Terrify me in a way that felt suffocating. I knew, right then, that if I lost you, I’d be living the same nightmare Misha is trapped in now. I couldn’t survive that, Kill. I would rather have died than live a life without you.”
My chest tightens, just as my heart dares to hope.
“So I pushed you away,” she admits, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I hoped, stupidly, that the love I felt would fade. But it didn’t. It never did. My heart loves you too much to forget you. It only beats when you’re near. Without you, everything turns gray. It’s really pretty pathetic,” she adds the last part to hide her embarrassment from pouring her heart like this.
But it’s too late.
