I can see it in the way she stays with me now instead of folding back into herself. In the way her hand stays pressed against my chest where my heart is doing its level best to crack through bone. In the way the fear is still there in her eyes, but it’s no longer the only thing.
I slide my hand from the back of her neck to her cheek, pushing damp hair away from her face.
“This?” I ask softly. “That’s what you want?”
She swallows.
“Yes.”
Every possessive, protective, hungry thing I’ve been holding on a leash since she said the wordmarriagestrains forward at once.
And with it comes the shame.
Because she’s standing here stripped bare—not just the clothes, not just the water, buteverything—giving me the truth without softening it, choosing me knowing exactly what it could cost her, and I’m still standing behind a borrowed name and half a life. She just handed me every honest thing she has, and I haven’t earned a single piece of it.
I should tell her now.
I know I should.
The words are right there.I’m from Las Vegas, too. I know who your father is. I know what the Bratva is because I grew up on the other side of it.Three sentences. That’s all it would take to give her what she just gave me.
And I can already see what happens if I do. The step back. The shutter coming down. Her arms crossing again, tighter this time, because now the man she just trusted is one more person who lied to her.
I can’t watch that happen.
I hate what that says about me. I hate it with a clarity that changes absolutely nothing.
I want her anyway.
She’s still looking at me, still waiting, and the silence is one second away from turning into doubt.
I lean in just enough that my forehead brushes hers.
“Then come here,” I say.
I kiss her like I’m starving for it. Iamstarving for it.
She grabs my shoulders and pulls me closer and makes a sound against my tongue that goes straight to my cock. I back her into the tile, and she gasps at the cold but doesn’t pull away. Just arches into me, wet skin sliding against wet skin, her breasts pressed flat against my torso and her hips tilting forward until I can feel the heat of her against my thigh.
I could stay here. I could kiss her until the water runs cold and call it enough.
But enough is not what I’m after tonight.
I drag my mouth down her throat. Her collarbone. The swell of her breast, where I catch her nipple between my lips and suck until her fingers twist in my hair and her back bows off the tile. I give the other one the same treatment, slower, using my tongue until she’s squirming against me and her breathing has gone ragged and thin.
Then I drop.
One knee hits the tile. Then the other. Natalia’s looking down at me with her lips parted and her breasts heaving and an expression on her face that tells me she just figured out where this is going.
“Johnny.” Half whisper, half warning. “I’ve never...”
“I know.” I press my mouth to her hip. Drag it lower, across the crease of her thigh, and feel the muscle jump under my lips. “Just hold on to me.”
Her hand clamps down on my shoulder. Nails biting in hard enough to bruise, and I want every single one of those marks tomorrow.
I grip the backs of her thighs and part her legs wider. She lets me, but her whole body is trembling, a fine constant vibration that has nothing to do with the water temperature. I can feel her pulse hammering where my thumbs press against her inner thighs.
I look up at her one more time. Skin flushed a beautiful pink. Eyes so wide and dark I could fall into them.
