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I reach back, sinking my fingers into his hair, holding him to me as I start to move with him, matching him thrust for thrust.
The change in angle makes him slide even deeper, hitting that hidden spot inside me that makes stars explode behind my eyelids.
“Nico,” I keen, my nails raking over his scalp. “God, yes. Right there, don’t stop.”
He growls, a feral, primal sound, and his hips snap forward, driving into me harder and faster.
The pleasure is building again, coiling tighter and tighter in my core, my body tensing and shaking with the force of it.
“Come for me, Katerina,” he commands, his teeth grazing the hinge of my jaw. “Let me feel you come apart on my cock.”
His rough and filthy words full of dark promise are my undoing. I come with a hoarse cry, my body clamping down on him like a vice, my vision whiting out with the intensity of my release.
He follows me over the edge, my name a broken shout on his lips, his hips stuttering as he empties himself deep inside me.
I feel the hot rush of his release and the way his body shudders and tenses. It prolongs my own pleasure, and I clench and ripple around him in delicious aftershocks.
We stay like that for a long moment, our bodies still joined, our hearts pounding in sync as we float down from the high. Nico’s hand strokes soothingly over my belly, grounding me.
“I love you,” he murmurs again, pressing a soft, tender kiss to my temple. “More than my own life. More than anything in this world or the next.”
Tears sting my eyes and my throat clogs because I know it’s true. I feel it in every touch, every kiss, every whispered word of devotion.
This man, this fierce, beautiful, damaged man…he is my everything. My heart, my soul, my home.
I card my fingers through Nico’s damp hair, scratching lightly at his scalp the way I know he likes.
He practically purrs, nuzzling deeper into the crook of my neck. And as I hold him and breathe in the scent of him, the warm, musky smell of sex, my mind drifts back over the long, winding road that brought us here.
The pain, the heartbreak, the trials that at times felt insurmountable.
But we overcame them. We survived, we endured, and we came out the other side stronger than ever.
What started as a dark obsession, as a twisted game of power and control, became something else entirely. It became love. Redemption, for both of us.
Nico’s love saved me in more ways than I can count. And in loving him back, in choosing him, I know I saved something in him too. Some lost, broken piece of his soul that he thought was long beyond repair.
We healed each other. We made each other whole.
As I drift toward sleep, wrapped in the arms of the man who holds my heart, I know that will never change.
This is our happy ending. Our forever love.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE: LUCA
I toss the file onto the passenger seat as I pull out of the garage, the tires of my Aston Martin squealing against the concrete. Sienna Cross. The name leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, a reminder of my brother’s failures.
Nico had one job. One simple fucking task. Find David Cross’s daughter, extract her father’s secrets, and tie up the loose ends. But he couldn’t even do that right.
No, he had to go and fall for Katerina Sokolov. Sorry, Dr. Katerina Sokolov. He had to let that pretty doctor bat her lashes and spread her legs, and suddenly he’s a changed man. Suddenly he’s too good for the family, too pure for this life.
It makes me sick, remembering how he would preach to me.
How he would look down his nose at the things we had to do, the blood we had to spill.
As if he was any better.
I saw the look on his face when we saw Dino’s body for the first time. He never had the stomach for this life, not really.
