Chapter 29

twenty-nine

Nevaeh

The hotel is stunning. No joke, it’s something to die for—and the man at the door accepting an order of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries is quickly becoming my everything.

It’s not how this was supposed to go. I was never meant to fall for him. It wasn’t my intention when I collided with him months ago in my attempt to escape Antonio, and it wasn’t my intention when I accepted his crazy proposal to fake marry him. It definitely wasn’t my intention the first time he fucked me, or all the times after, even.

I’d tried to hold my heart back from it all, because Kane Volkov is a lot. He’s intense, and every time I get in one of my moods—they usually happen after I get one of those prickly little realizations that I’m falling for him—I don’t know why I do it, but I Google him.

What I get in the search result never fails to sober me and my silly heart.

The man isn’t the love-one-woman-for-forever, kind.

He’s just not.

But I’m that woman. I’m the kind of woman who wants that happily ever after. I want to grow old with the man who is really my husband. And I know Kane says this is real, and God, but I want it to be—I just don’t know.

He tips the waiter generously before he closes the door. We have one night, this night, before Kane is booked solid while we’re in New York, Devils Heartbreak under contract to play at a sold-out venue.

He takes one look at me, blue eyes locking on me as he moves from the goods to close the distance between us. Big hands drop to my hips, and he twists me to face the view of the glittering city below, fingertips drifting under my sweater to whisper across the bare skin of my belly as he tugs my back into his front.

“What do you think of New York?”

“It’s nice.”

“But?”

“It’s something to see, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”

“Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”

“Oh,” I groan. “That’s too hard to answer.”

“Give me the top three then.”

“Still too hard.”

He chuckles into my hair. “Sunshine.”

“Venice.” I’m already breathless. How does he do this to me? “Scotland.” His lips whisper across my temple and chills spark across my flesh. “Ireland.”

“Russia?” The way he purrs the word—I feel it deep inside me. A yearning.

“To see your home?”

“Mmm.” His lips roam lower, to my jaw. His hands drift higher, thumbs grazing across the lace underside of my bra.

“Yes,” I gasp. “I want to see where you’re from.”

“Good.” The word is little more than a purr. “I want to take you home. I want you to meet my mother and father. My brothers.”

“Kane.” I suck in air, because he’s tweaking my nipples through my bra now in front of the window where we stand. It’s thrilling to be like this in front of a window in a city so populated, even though I know no one can see us. Sure, there may be thousands of eyes. But there’s thousands of windows and no one bothers to look.

He pulls down the cups of my bra, taking achingly sensitive nipples between his thumb and finger, rolling and pulling and pinching and soothing with the rough pads of calloused thumbs. I can feel the hard bulge of his arousal behind me, pressing into me, and it spreads liquid heat through my body to pool in my panties.

I moan when he gently bites the curve between neck and shoulder, soothing that with his tongue as a darkly delicious rumble hums in his chest. “I can’t get enough of you, Sunshine.”

“Good.” I arch into him, my body a needy mess of throbbing pulses and aching emptiness that won’t subside until I’m filled by him. “Because I haven’t gotten my fill of you.”

The rumble in his chest morphs into a growl of warning and possession. The sound alone drenches me. “You will never get your fill of me.”

A smile curls my lips, and I just can’t resist challenging him. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Kane drops my breast to reach back and grip my ass in a hard hand. “You haven’t even been thoroughly filled by me, and you think you’ve tasted all I have to offer? Think you’ve had enough?”

There’s a dangerous edge to his voice, a warning I should heed, but I don’t. Deep in the core of me, there’s something twisted and dark, an exciting thrill that hums at the edge I’ve pushed the man to. I want to give him another shove. Want to free-fall with him when he topples over that cliff into a dark and possessive abyss where dagger point thorns coil like barbed wire shackles tangling our bleeding hearts together until I cannot distinguish between which pulsing beat belongs to him or that which sings from the depths of me.

I let my head fall back against the curve of his chest as taunting words slip from my lips. “I’ve had plenty, and I’ve always managed to get my fill. Always managed to write them off one, after the other, after the other.”

The way his hands throb on breast and butt cheek, I know I’ve done it. Pushed him by bringing up past lovers. We’re free falling now into that thorny abyss, and God, but I’m not nearly as full of sunshine as he thinks because I can’t wait to be consumed by the void of black. Consumed by him.

One minute, I’m standing with my sweater pushed up in front of the window, and the next, it’s ripped clean from my body. It’d been thin, but still. The man is a machine.

Another gush of arousal surges between my legs, surely laying waste to my panties as he lifts me over his shoulder, marching like a madman on a mission to the bed where he doesn’t just drop me—he throws me. My body bounces, but he catches me mid bounce by the ankles, pulling me roughly to the side. His hands grip the waistband of my jeans and I protest loudly in an effort to save my jeans before the button pops clean off, flying to connect with the wall before hitting the carpet with a thud.

Then they’re gone too, flying over his shoulder. My poor panties are next, but this time he looks me in the eyes as he shreds lace. “A man doesn’t get a taste of Heaven, Sunshine, only to be written off at the end.”

My heart is a rioting mess in my chest as he loops a finger through the center of my bra, hauling me to sit before him on the edge of the bed. He’s so much bigger than me always, but like this, bared but for my bra, his body rooted between my spread legs, my pussy dripping wet with arousal, his head cocked down to angle those frosted blue eyes on me, I feel tiny and breakable and his.

He doesn’t know it, but I’d let him break me. However he wanted to do it, I’d be game. Up for the challenge. A willing masochist on my knees for the shreds of pleasure-tipped pain so long as he filled the emptiness, he carved deep within me in the end.

I swallow hard as he holds me there by the center of my bra, his other hand moving to my mouth, the pad of his thumb sliding over lips I know are stained red with arousal.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a man more than I want Kane in this very moment. Never felt fevered with desire, as though I might combust.

“Such a pretty mouth,” he murmurs, sliding his thumb inside for me to suck. “Do you know you taste like firelight and marshmallow and cream?” I moan around his thumb. “I will never fucking hear mention of another man from this mouth again, Nevaeh, do you understand?” The softness in which he speaks only heightens the danger I know lurks. “I’ve told you, you’re mine. And I’m yours. What came before doesn’t matter. I’ll burn every memory to cinders—” He pulls his thumb from my mouth with a pop, his hands joining at the pitifully thin lace center of my bra, tearing it in two. The sound cuts through the breathy silence, a thrilling prequel to the words he speaks next. “And when I’m confident everyone but me is gone, I’ll brand you with a new memory as I take you where no man has ever taken you.” He leans down to nip my bottom lip, making me cry out on a sharp gasp. “I’m going to make you scream for me, baby—I’m going to make you beg, as you take me, every inch of me in that sweet little ass.”

Because I’m a wicked, wicked woman, and I’m determined to go against all reason to prove to him that he’s met his match in me—if he’s burning my past, I’m sure as hell burning his—I push myself to stand, watching his eyes as I trail my finger down the burning path of his shirt over his abs. Wetting my lips, I tip my face to his, standing on my tiptoes to whisper, “I don’t beg.”