“Karina?” He rose up to look at me with a concerned face, his eyes going wide as he took in my state. “Baby, angel, did I hurt you?”
The panic in his voice only made me cry harder, but I shook my head. “No, no- I just—”
He cut me off by pulling out of me and rolling over so I was straddling him. He scooted us up the bed until he could lean against the headboard, his hands gripping my arms as histhumbs stroked my bare skin. Gentle. Compassionate. Soothing.For me.
My evening gown was still bunched around my waist, and he was still in his slacks. The look on his face—
He didn’t look like a hitman in this moment. No, in this moment, he wasn’t a killer. He was just my Col. His blue eyes searched mine, seeking confirmation that he didn’t harm me.
Fuck, I was so in love with him.
“You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered, stroking his cheek.
“Talk to me,” he demanded, his voice rough but gentle at the same time. This was a side of him I had never seen—only in my dreams, and the mere thought of that had my emotional dam breaking, crashing through the barriers that were meant to protect me.
I pulled my hand away and started to fold my arms over my body. Instantly, his hands stopped mine, his tattooed fingers wrapping over my wrists with the gentle force of an autumn wind. Enough to shake the leaves down, but not break the tree.
“You—do you regret what we just did?” The vulnerability in his voice commanding my soul to dance for him. He didn’t regret this—that was evident.
“No, no—I just… We're done, you know—”
“Fucking,” he deadpanned.
I blushed. It wasn’t just fucking to me, but he didn’t make love to me either. The carnal act we just performed was somewhere in between the two, deep within the grays of love and hate.
“I’m still mostly naked,” I said weakly, shaking off the possibility that he could ever love me.
He looked down at my body and nodded. “Answer me this, Karina. Are you scared of me?” Those icy orbs snapped to my eyes.
I shook my head.
“And I didn’t hurt you?” he asked, raising a brow. My heart jumped.
“No, you didn’t hurt me.”
I saw a flash of metal, and then the dress was ripped from my body. I gaped at him as he sat his blade on the nightstand, tossing the red dress to the floor. “Col—"
A tattooed hand gripped my jaw, and he brought my face an inch away from his. “When you are in my bed, you will be bare for me. You will not hide from me. Don’t you ever try to cover yourself up. I’ve spent years holding your gorgeous eyes, barely maintaining the shred of control you just shattered. You. Will. Let. Me. See. You.”
My bottom lip began to tremble as the subdued emotions, came rushing back. “I just never thought we would be here,” I admitted, wiping my tears away. He took my hands and held them between us.
“Let me see them,” he whispered.My tears.
“You know, the first time I saw you, when you walked in that night, looking for Gwen…” I trailed off, swallowing the nails in my throat, but yet, he waited. He tilted his head slightly, all his attention on my face. “I felt alive for the first time in months. The way you smiled at me. You were the most beautiful man I had ever seen.”
He looked away from me then, his features hardening. “I hated that night.”
“Wha—"
“Cal Matthews made me go hunt down Davenport, even though I had already been with her the majority of the day. I didn’t care about her or Dean Connors, really. At that time, I had one goal, and that was to move up in the ranks. I wanted power,” he explained, his eyes focused on the city. “I still want it.”
He wanted to see all of me? Then he would have to let me see all of him.
Reaching for his face, I gently turned his head back to me. “Let me see you,” I whispered, repeating his words.
A spark ignited between us, the air in the room changing suddenly. The course of us in the seemingly endless abyss between love and hate that we floated in, lines being blurred by deep, gray water,changed. The winds shifted, the current becoming harsher as thunder crashed in the distance, and the heat of electricity lit up the black sky.
“There are things you don’t know about me,” he warned, the coldness I'd grown used to coming back into his voice.
