“You were made for me to touch like this,” he rasps, eyes locked on mine in the reflection. “Are you going to scream for me when I fuck you?”
I nod and bite harder.
Pleasure tears through me as his fingers drive deeper, until I break. The orgasm crashes over me, ripping a cry from me that he smothers with his skin. But he doesn’t stop until I’m clawing, begging for mercy. Only then does he slide out with the sameagonizing speed he went in with. His soaked fingers rise between us, and I almost come again just watching him slip them into his mouth and suck them clean.
“Mm. My new favorite flavor,” he mutters, turning me toward him. His thumb brushes across my bottom lip. “Blood.”
I glance at the bite on his arm, the red pooling, mixed with my saliva. “Fuck, Maksim. I didn’t mean?—”
He shuts me up with his mouth, tongue tracing mine, drinking me in like I’m the one bleeding. When he pulls back, his eyes are darker, heavier than I’ve ever seen them.
“Thank you,” he says.
A laugh stumbles out of me. “You’re thanking me for biting and drooling all over you?”
“Means I did my job.”
I lean in, desperate to close the last of the distance, ready for his lips, his everything…when my name echoes through the hallway.
“Val?”
Remi.
We freeze.
Her voice comes again, louder, more frantic. “Hey…Valentina!”
If I know her—and I do—she’s seen enough to know something. And if she’s calling like that, it means someone else is close and she’s giving a warning.
“You better go,” he says, kissing me one last time.
“Now what?” My voice is nearly a whisper.
There’s no going back. I need more.
Maksim slips from my grasp and hands me my crutches. I feel the loss of his touch instantly.
“I’ll be by tomorrow,” he says, voice still ragged.
“Okay,” I breathe. It sounds vulnerable and needy, but I can’t help it.
And then he’s gone, leaving me shaking, smiling like a fool in the empty hall.
“Shit.” I close my eyes, replaying it all.
Maksim’s absence had left an ache in my eight-year-old heart all those years ago, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the stories of the people I love most, it’s that everything happens exactly as it’s meant to. And this. Me and him. Now I know exactly what it was. Fate didn’t get it wrong.
Maksim and I, it was always meant to be us.
Twenty-Two
MAKSIM
You want something done right? Do it your goddamn self. A lesson I learned young, and one I live by.
I check my watch and grind my teeth. I shouldn’t be the one hauling my ass across town to close a deal. That’s why I hired people—to keep things moving until my men arrive from Moscow. But the idiot I trusted suddenly has “food poisoning.” And no one else is available on such short notice. That’s the downside of being thousands of miles from the people I actually trust.
My hand tightens around the wheel before I reach for my phone. I start to dial Valentina without thinking. Just like that, my mood shifts. The sour burn in my chest vanishes the second her face fills my mind.
