Chapter 20

twenty

Kane

My feet hit the floor before I’ve even fully woken. The shrill sound of her scream, the bone rattling terror in it, is enough to break glass. I don’t think I’ve been asleep for more than two hours, but I don’t stop to check my phone. I just run. I run from my room to hers, bursting through her door just as the scream cuts off and she sits up in her bed, hands out as though she’s ready to fight, eyes wild—her face streaked with tears.

“Kane,” she rasps my name, her fingers curling into fists in the sheets before she claws them to her chest. “I’m—I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’all good.” My pulse is drumming in my ears as she watches me take a few hesitant steps into her room. “You don’t normally wake.”

Her brows furrow.

Fuck, I hadn’t meant to let that slip.

“Normally?” Her throat sounds raw. Tonight’s scream had been different. Tonight’s scream had been my own personal torture.

“Are you okay?” Angling my body to the door, I ask, “You need me to get you anything?”

“I’ve been having the nightmares every night, haven’t I?” Her voice is so small, I want to deny. Lie. Anything to take away the look of pain in those warm brown eyes.

“Sunshine.”

“Tell me, Kane.”

“Yes.”

“How—why don’t I wake?” Understanding settles and she whispers, “You come to me. You come to me every night.”

I shift on the spot as her eyes take me in from head to toe. I don’t sleep in clothes, but since I’ve been coming to her, I’ve made it a point to hit the sac in black boxers. But that’s the most I’m able to handle. Right now, her eyes take in every stroke of ink on my body before hers gives a little shiver that has something inside me—the monster I restrain deep inside—wanting to devour the space between us, wanting to devour her.

“I just sit with you for a while.”

“How long?”

“Anything less than an hour and the nightmare returns.”

Her eyes widen. Hell, she looks sweet and so temptingly corruptible sitting in the middle of the messed-up bed. “You sit with me for an hour? Every night?”

I give her a single nod. I want to go to her now.

She cuts her gaze from mine, her brows knitting in a frown. “That’s why you’ve been so tired. I’m keeping you up.”

“You’re calm when I’m here, so I’m here,” I tell her. “If I didn’t want to be here for you, I wouldn’t. Stop thinking you’re a burden.”

Her eyes flash to mine. “I am, Kane. You’re losing sleep because I have nightmares like a child.”

“You suffered a violent attack, Nevaeh.”

She grinds her jaw, not looking at me as she processes my words. But I’m sure I see her shoulders tremble before they deflate. Then she says softly, “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry.” I’m losing my patience with the way she carries everything on those thin shoulders. Before Ian left tonight, I’d asked him to do all he could to find the fucker who is playing with her—stalking her. Then I called my brother, Ilya, and asked him to pay a certain Senator’s son a little visit. I could have had any number of Volkov henchmen see to the little shit who thought political ties bought him the right to bully my woman, but this is personal. I’d have preferred to visit the fucker myself, but he is a law man and there are some things I’m not willing to risk when it comes to Nevaeh. So, I’ll sit on the sidelines for this one, but the message will be clear. And even though I’ll have an airtight alibi, Antonio Diaz will know exactly who the message is coming from, and exactly what will happen to him if he persists in threatening my girl.

Fuck, the last time I called home had been for help when Wrenlee had been taken. I’d called to activate my brother’s henchmen in the city to be on the lookout for her, their ears to the pulse of any crimes committed. It had been a tall ask for me, because I’d decided to mostly leave that life and build my own when I’d met my brothers here. Still, blood bonds don’t break easily, and even though I’m not submerged in the family businesses anymore, I’m only a call away.

Because the fact of the matter is, family means everything to me.

My family here and my family in Russia. I may be the spare there, but here, I’m the Devil calling the shots in my own life.

Nevaeh shifts on the bed when I start toward her door, calling softly, “Wait.”

I turn to face her again, waiting.

“Stay.” Blood rushes through my veins, warming every inch of my skin.

“You want me to stay?”

She quirks a nervous smile, like she’s not sure of the decision she’s made as she nods. “You say I sleep better when you’re close. Besides, you can’t keep going night after night with no sleep. So, yeah. I want you to stay.”

“Then I’ll stay.” Closing her bedroom door, I start for the bathroom. “But I can’t sleep with this much light.”

She huffs a laugh as she shimmies nervously in her bed. “Neither could Candace. You can turn it off.”

I hit the light and the room floods with darkness that is lit only by a white moon that overlooks the sea. Both rooms are upstairs at the back of the house with a killer view, but my room is way better. She doesn’t know it yet, but tomorrow she’ll be moving in there with me.

My wife doesn’t sleep in a separate bed. Besides, now that we’re breaking the seal of yet another one of her boundaries, there’s no turning back.

Moving to the side of the bed closest to the door, I lower into it. I can almost hear the nervous thundering of her heart echoing through the short breaths that pant from between her lips. She’s nervous. She’s also fucking cute.

“Relax, Sunshine.” She starts to speak, so I add, “And say sorry one more time and I’m going to have to put your mouth to better use.”

Her breath hitches and she’s silent for a long moment.

Then she shocks the shit out of me, because she rolls onto her belly to study me. “Define better use.”

I swear, my dick gets hard so fast, the rush of blood is almost painful. This. Fucking. Woman.

“I could kiss you.” My words sound on a thick growl of arousal she can’t miss. “Roughly.”

She wets those lips I want to devour. “I’m sure we can think of better ways to put my mouth to use, no?”

“Sunshine.” My voice cracks like a teen on the cusp of blowing too early, my warning falling flat.

“You could do that roughly too.”

“Fuck,” I curse, because at this point, I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. What she’s saying. The fire she’s playing with.

“Do it.” She challenges me, her breaths racing. “Distract me. Make me forget about all the bad. Strip the victim from me until there’s nothing left but a woman.”

Well, fuck, that’s how she feels? That’s truly how she feels.

I’m torn between doing exactly what she’s asking of me and fleeing for the sake of us both.

“Nevaeh—”

“Please, Kane.” She wiggles closer, her hand on my chest over my heart. “I trust you. Tomorrow, I’ll be your wife. We have a year together so—” She battles through hesitation to murmur, “We may as well enjoy each other.”

When she wiggles closer again, her full breasts brushing against my arm as she moves, obliterating every ounce of self-control I possess as I shift to grip her hips, pulling her on top of me—and shit—as she spreads her legs over my waist, my hands covering her sweet little ass—I realize she’s not wearing her sleep shorts like she has every other night. No, tonight, my soon-to-be-wife is wearing a tiny pair of panties and an itty-bitty tank top meant to shatter the will of any man into dust.

A sound tears from my throat when she widens the spread of her legs to grind down on me. Ah, shit, her panties are wet. My dick throbs like it might explode.

“This for me, Sunshine?” I push my hand between her legs and feel her drenched pussy between the thin layer of cotton.

“Yes.”

“Fuck me, I haven’t even touched you.”

“But I want you to. I want you to use me, Kane.” Her murmured words sound between kisses she presses to my neck, close to my ear. “I don’t want gentle and sweet. Incinerate me. Own me. Devastate me. Make me yours tonight.”

Her words snap my control like a rubber band stretched too thin. One moment I’m beneath her and the next I’m overtop of her, grinding my erection against the wet of her panties as I claim her mouth, kissing her hard. Brutally.

She whimpers and moans into my mouth, her little body writhing beneath mine, seeking more. Seeking ruthless possession, I’m not strong enough to deny. I don’t want to deny. She’s on fire beneath me, all claws in my back, little nips on my lips.

Gone is the woman who holds back when I kiss her, who clings to restraint and talks about boundaries.

The woman beneath me is begging to be unravelled, and I have every intention of plucking every stitch until she’s a mess of pieces beneath me, so disordered she won’t realize that when I stitch the pieces back together, I’ll bind them to my own fragments in such a way there will be no parting from me. Not in a week. Not in a year. Not. Fucking. Ever.

Shit, it’s been a month and I’m confident that I’m in love with this woman. Fallen. Obsessed.

Just like my father.

And just like him, I want to brand my name into this woman’s moans, into her sighs so it’s the only name she’ll ever be able to call again. I want to carve myself on her heart and invade the essence of her soul with my own.

My lips break from hers with a little nip that makes her breath hitch. In response, my balls tighten, dick throbbing. It’s been ages since I’ve gone so long without sex, and even though I have no intention to go there tonight, my body has ideas. No, it has demands.

I start to kiss down her throat, sucking at her collarbone and kissing the hollow of her throat when she tips her head back to sigh my name. In the moonlight, she’s exquisite. A goddess sent to tempt the devil from the deep of his lair—a promise of his destruction he can’t refuse or deny.

My hands find the hem of her tank top and I push back to watch her body as I slowly push her shirt up, exposing inch after inch of perfectly smooth, naturally tanned flesh. I want to lick every inch of her. Taste her. Devastate her.

I push the shirt up and over her breasts, a beastly sound rumbling in my chest as I take her in beneath me in only thin cotton panties. And then I devour, crooking my head to pull a beaded nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, swirling my tongue, grazing with teeth. Her hands are in my hair, over my shoulders. She’s nails in my skin, head thrown back, a melody of moans and sighs. She is desire’s beautiful chaos painted in the silver brush of the moon.

I move to the other breast. A tremor pulses under her skin and my name is a plea on her tongue.

I love the sound. Commit it to the deepest vault of my soul. Brand it there in such a way I’ll never carve free from this, from her.

“I need—” she rasps. “I need you to touch me.”

My lips curl around her nipple, knowing exactly what she needs. “Where?”

Just how brazen is my little wife-to-be?

“Between my legs. My clit. I’m so close, Kane. I need to come.”

Fuck, yeah. A woman who knows what she wants.

I’m a man who wants to give it.

Slowly, teasingly, I trace the soft line of her stomach to the band of her panties. I hover my fingertips at the edge before sliding over them to the V between her spread legs. She’s wet and warm even through the fabric of her panties. The beast rears in my chest, ready and wanting to claim.

I stroke my thumb down the center of her. “Like this?”

“Yes.” She writhes beneath me. “No.” I add a little pressure and her head drops again. “Yes. Oh, God, yes.”

My dick is so hard right now, it might actually burst. I’ve never felt want like this. Need like this.

“Take them off,” Nevaeh gasps, her hips starting to wiggle as her hands push on the band of her panties. “Off, Kane. Now.”

I’m grinning ear to fucking ear because this girl is sexy as sin, and she has no clue. She also has no clue she’s mine. All mine.

I pull my hand from between her legs to do her bidding, hooking my fingers into the thin fabric and tugging down the length of her legs.

She’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. I’m hooked.

“Gorgeous,” I rasp.

Her eyes ignite and red spills into her cheeks and chest as emotion floods her. “Please touch me.”

I’m going to do more than touch her. I’m going to undo her. Unravel her.

Dropping my head between her legs, I stroke her pussy with my tongue, absorbing the sound of her cry as her back arches from the bed only to fall back again. She’s a wiggly one, so I pin her hips between my hands, thumbs digging into her thighs as I hold her steady and alternate between licking and sucking at her little clit and fucking her pussy with my tongue.

Her heels dig into the bed, legs trembling as her fingers abandon their curl in the sheets to dive deep into my hair. When she tugs, I loose a growl of pleasure that has her orgasm surging close.

But not yet. I’m not letting her come yet.

I want to push her. Want to see just how wild I can drive her. How many reservations I can make her abandon.

I pull back and she whines a little cry of agonized distress as I flip onto my back, tugging her over me again.

“I was so close,” she pouts. Adorable.

“Ride my face baby,” I command, and she stiffens. But slowly, she begins to climb me. When she’s hovering over me, I hook my arms around her legs and grip her ass as I tug her closer. She smells like caramel cream and looks like a goddess of destruction as she peers down at me in question, long moon-silver painted waves wild around her small frame.

I lift my head and latch onto her clit, watching as her mouth pops open in a O and her eyes glaze with pleasure. Her hips jerk when I use my teeth on her delicate flesh, the sound tearing from her lungs one I’m never going to forget as her body pitches forward and her hands fall on the headboard, breasts bouncing as the curtain of her hair falls on either side of me.

The ache in my dick to push inside her is growing so intensely, so massively, I think I feel a bead of precum wet my tip.

I suck to soothe the nip of teeth on gentle flesh in the moment before her hips find a rhythm, and she’s riding my tongue. It’s a slow, hesitant rhythm that doesn’t take long to build in intensity as she strokes her pussy with my tongue and I reach up to squeeze her perfect breasts, tweaking pebbled nipples as her thighs begin to quiver. She’s close to orgasming again, and I’m ready to give it to her. She’s the one who pulls back this time on a gasped breath.

“I want⁠—”

“Say it,” I command. “Anything. You’re safe to want anything with me, Nevaeh.”

She swallows hard. “I want you to stuff my throat with your cock while I ride your tongue.”

Well, fuck. I didn’t see that coming.

My dick clearly didn’t suspect a thing either, because I feel another bead leaking from the tip.

This woman is going to do me in.

I give her my killer grin. “I’m at your mercy, baby.”

A shuddering breath rolls from her as she shifts above me. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard in all my life, and when her hands push my boxers down and air touches the desire scorched flesh of my cock, I hiss in breath. Then I feel her hand fist me, as she murmurs in surprise, “You’re huge.”

“You can take it,” I tell her with complete faith.

I think she chuckles, so I grip her hips and pull her down onto me. I’m going to wreck this pussy with my mouth if it’s the last thing I do. She’s going to come all over my face.

She flicks her hot little tongue over my tip, teasing me, I realize as I teased her. My hips jerk, desperate for more and I think I feel her smile as she covers my tip with her hot mouth, bobbing down.

Sparks detonate in my brain. It’s fucking heaven. Bliss and torture. More.

She pulls back and as she bobs back down, I thrust my hips up to do as she asked and stuff her throat with my cock. My tip connects with the back of her throat and the delicious little nymph above me swallows around my dick. Lightening strikes inside me, igniting my blood.

I growl against her pussy, shoving my tongue deep as I push my hand between her legs to pinch her clit as I force the orgasm from her, listening to her cry in pleasure around my cock as she comes all over my face, hips twitching, pussy clenching.

I tongue fuck her until she’s rode the last wave of her orgasm, all the while thrusting slowly into her mouth, biting back my own orgasm because I fucking want to look into her eyes as I fill her throat with my cum.

When the last tremor pulses from her body, I grip her waist and throw her off my body into the bed, moving fast to take her mouth as my angry erection throbs between my legs. I kiss her hard, the knowledge that she can taste herself in my kiss only making me crave her with a deeper desperation than before.

When I tear my mouth from hers, I push back to fist my dick. Her eyes drop and widen as the angry red of the tip pokes out from my fist, and then she licks her lips. I groan. “On your knees, baby.” I stroke myself once. “I want to watch as I fuck your pretty mouth. Want to see you swallow every drop.”

She moves to the floor and drops to her knees quickly, beautifully obediently. Mine.

I guide my tip to her mouth, and she sucks me in, hollowing her cheeks. Fucking hell, this woman.

I growl.

She moans.

My hand fists in her hair and heat ignites in her eyes. I fuck her face, starting slow and steady. I don’t want to overwhelm her, but when she takes me deep and swallows around me, gagging beautifully but begging for more with every swallow, I do as she asked and stuff her throat with my cock. I hit the back over and over and it doesn’t take long before I’m spilling pleasure into the back of her throat, and she’s swallowing around me, pulling pleasure from the deep in wave after blissful wave.

I’m not just addicted to this woman. I’m fucking dependent. Obsessed. Possessed.

She’s exquisite. Perfect.

Mine.

My little nymph takes things one step further when I pull back to lick the tip clean, as though she didn’t get enough.

I want to give her more.

Already, I’m getting hard again. But I do nothing about it as I tug her from the floor, crushing her naked body to mine as I kiss her hard. Fiercely. Tasting myself on her tongue and feeling nothing but possession and adoration because of it.

With one glance at her bed, I lift her into my arms and carry her from the room. Yesterday was the last night she sleeps in a bed that isn’t mine. For the rest of her life, this woman will close her eyes with me by her side, in my bed, in my arms.

She might not know it, but it won’t take her long to figure it out.