“Come for me,álainn,” I plead, tossing the role of Dom aside.“I need to feel you.I need to smell your sweet pleasure.”
She shatters with a scream that echoes off the windows, her body clenching around me so tightly I see stars.The sensation triggers my own release, and I empty myself inside her with a guttural, possessive roar.
We stay connected for long moments, both of us trembling, catching our breath.The swing sways gently, suspended in the aftermath of what we’ve shared.I claim her lips in a hot yet soothing kiss.
Carefully, I ease out of her and help her down from the apparatus.Her legs are shaky, so I scoop her into my arms and carry her to the bed.
“Wait here,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
In the en-suite bathroom, I wet a towel with warm water.When I return to the bed, Serena watches me with those whiskey-colored eyes.I clean her gently, methodically.Aftercare isn’t optional in our dynamic.She needs this, and so do I.Every stroke of the warm towel across her skin is a promise:I will always take care of you.
When I’m finished, I pull the covers over us and gather her close.She curls into me, her head finding its familiar place in the hollow of my shoulder.
“Shelby?”Her voice is drowsy, satisfied.
“Yeah,álainn?”
“Thank you.”She presses closer, her breath warm against my sensitive skin.“For realizing another of my fantasies.Thanks for...Everything, actually.”
My throat tightens.This fierce, brilliant, beautiful woman is thanking me, when the truth is she’s the one who’s making all my fantasies come true.She’s also the one who’s saved me.
When I returned from Russia, I was a ghost wearing a dead man’s skin.Nikolai’s words come back to me:Go home.Fix whatever’s broken.And then maybe you’ll be human again.
I didn’t think it was possible.I was convinced that the darkness inside me was permanent, that the ghosts of Syria would haunt me forever, that I would never deserve someone as pure as Serena.
But she didn’t care about my ghosts.She saw them and chose to stay anyway.Not because she thought she could fix me, but because she understood that we’re all a little broken, and sometimes broken pieces fit together to make something whole.
Still, I can’t tell her all this, or she’ll run for the hills screaming.Hell, I can barely admit these things to myself.
Too soon.I convince myself.
“You also make my kinky heart so happy when you submit to me,” I say quietly, running my fingers through her hair, and offering the partial truth I can speak out.“You are such a good girl.Now, let’s get some sleep, woman.”
She lifts her head to stare at me, and her eyes glint with self-awareness and acute intelligence.
“You’re so full of shit sometimes, Boyle,” she whispers, a wicked smile playing on her swollen lips.“Keep telling yourself that’s all we’ve got here.I’m too exhausted to argue with your stubbornness right now.”
Her words hang between us, heavy with implications.Our marriage started as a desperate escape from her father’s machinations.It evolved into a partnership, then a passion.And now...
Now I can’t imagine my life without her in it.
And despite my lying to myself, Serena saw right through my bullshit.
I cup her face in my hands.I kiss her slow and deep and full of the promises I can’t voice.Outside, Boston sleeps, unaware that in this penthouse, two broken people have found their way back to each other.
Tomorrow, we’ll face the darkness.We’ll dig deeper into Giovanni’s operation, plan our next move against Cesare, and whoever else is part of that trafficking ring.
But tonight, in this bed, wrapped around the woman who makes me want to be a better man, I allow myself to believe in something I’d given up on long ago.
Hope.
And a future worth fighting for.
20
Shelby
Sleep eludes me.
