Chapter 20

Emma

Iwaited up for Viktor. I shouldn’t have and I knew it, by the time that I heard the beep of the card reader as he let himself in, it was three in the morning and I felt almost completely wrung out. But something kept me awake no matter how long I lay down, closed my eyes and waited.

I got up from the couch as he came into the room, and one look at his face told me I had been right to worry. He didn’t look injured or even that stressed, but he moved a little too slowly, held his back a little too stiffly. And he did not greet me, only turned mutely to the closet beside the door.

“What is it?” I asked him, approaching as he took off his jacket and holsters and put them away.

He sighed, giving me that look again—half worried, half very, very tired. “I’m not certain how to tell this to you. But we have some additional information on your uncle.”

“I- all right.” I went back to the couch and sat down, my legs starting to tremble. What could it be?

He came over and sat next to me, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. His grip was light and kind, and somehow that scared me even more.

“Your uncle was being blackmailed when he disappeared,” he started, and I blinked at him. Even more complications. But then he went on, “by either an assassin who did a job for him, or the man who gives that assassin their orders.”

“An assassin? When did this happen?”

“Twenty years ago.”

Twenty years ago, my parents died in a car crash. I looked at him, my heartbeat picking up, my eyes locked on his face. His eyes flicked from my face and away again. “Emma...” he started.

“Who did he hire an assassin for, Viktor?” I asked, my voice dry and ragged. I wanted to know, yet at the same time I didn’t. Because if what I suspected was correct, everything I had ever believed was a lie.

“Your parents. He had someone sabotage their car.”

I felt all the air leave me, all the warmth, my lungs suddenly aching like I had been thrust into deep, cold water. “That can’t be right.”

I stared at him, unable to blink, unable to move.

He looked down at his hands. “I am sorry, Emma. But he’s been paying blackmail money to the killer since you were a little girl. I have seen his messages—”

My throat almost closed as the reality of it hit me like a sledgehammer. “Oh God,” I choked out, bending forward and dropping my face into my hands. “Oh God.”

He growled something in Russian in a frustrated tone, but it was under his breath, and then he was scooping me up and lifting me onto my lap. He did it so neatly that if I hadn’t been distracted with horror it would have shocked me. Instead, I just threw my arms around his neck and clung to him.

He held me tight while I buried my face in his neck. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t even fully understand why I was so upset after everything else I had learned about my former guardian. But somehow it hit so hard that I couldn’t quite take it.

I had never expected that my uncle was as selfish and cowardly as he had turned out to be. I had never expected him to be as greedy as he had turned out to be. But now I knew that he was just plain evil.

And I didn’t know how to feel.

“Oh God,” I mumbled again, my eyes stinging but staying dry.

“I know,” he murmured into my hair. “I know. I’m so very sorry to bring you this news. But I aim to bring you your revenge as well.”

I pulled away and looked at him. He was after his own revenge. His brother, murdered much more recently than my parents. But it seemed like his revenge and mine lined up far more neatly than I’d ever expected.

“He needs to die,” I said softly, resignation in my tone. I had worried for a while that this was Viktor’s intention all along, not ransom nor ruination, but a bullet in the brain.

Now I didn’t care.

He stroked my hair back from my face and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. “Yes. He absolutely does.”

At which point I would get the rest of my family’s money back anyway. And Uncle Charles could never do anything else to hurt me or my loved ones, because he would be in hell where he belonged.

“Are you all right?” he asked me, his tone almost tender. It got to me. I had seen him be terrifying before. But now, all of that was gone. He worried about me. He gave a damn.

I took his rugged, neat-bearded face in my hands and kissed him.

He froze for a moment, but then his arms twined around me and he kissed me back, a long, fierce kiss that I wasn’t quite ready for. The heat between us seemed to erupt, scorching away the pain of the truth, my rage at my uncle, everything. There was suddenly nothing but the two of us, arms around each other, lips sliding against each other, his warm breath on my cheek.

I heard the low rumble from his throat and felt the shudder go through him. His hands slid up and down my back. His mouth was hungry on mine. His fingertips slid my silk blouse over my skin, making me start to tremble.

Finally, he broke the kiss and looked at me, both of us panting slowly for breath. “I want you,” he said in a low, hoarse voice.

I nodded and leaned forward to kiss him again.

He stood unexpectedly, scooping me up, our lips still working against each other. I could barely see, but I felt him walking, felt him move into the warm stillness of my bedroom. He closed the door behind us and went over to the bed, laying me down gently on it.

Now that the dam had broken, I was suddenly impatient. I shucked off my silk blouse and reached for the buttons on his shirt, only to realize he was pulling the whole thing off along with his undershirt.

His body beneath was lean and hard, black hair covering his pectorals and lower belly, a roaring bear tattoo covering his entire shoulder. My fingertips traced the image, then slid down to feel the old, healed scars that crossed parts of his chest and abdomen. I wondered how many fights he’d survived. From the scars, it looked like dozens.

His kiss shocked me with its gentleness, after the firm strength of his hands on me, this subtler pleasure caught me by surprise. He bent over me, one hand on my nape, the other sliding up and down my bare belly as his lips and tongue caressed mine. I whimpered and pushed myself up on my elbows, intensifying the kiss. His answering rumble made me start to tremble.

I wanted this so badly that I ached. I’d been craving him for long days, ever since I had realized that he had no intention of harming us. But I had felt so guilty about that craving that I had done nothing. Not for fear of him, but for fear of what I would become if I let myself love him.

A little voice inside me still protested. What was I doing, kissing this killer? This gangster? The man had kidnapped me, scared me, scared Nick. The hands that caressed me now had pulled the trigger more times than I could imagine. The mouth that captured mine had ordered the deaths of many men.

There must be something wrong with me, I thought, a moment before his hand found my breast through the satin of my bra and started rubbing it familiarly. My eyes rolled closed. I felt electric pleasure roll down through my whole body with every stroke of his thumb across my nipple.

My pussy clenched just from that small sensation, I slid my hands up his sides and then over the tight muscle of his back. I wanted to feel his bare skin on mine so badly that it made me bold.

He stopped my hands as I reached for the belt of my skirt, taking over instead, unbuckling it and then unbuttoning the deep green wool. I lifted my hips eagerly as he slid it off me, pulling my half-slip with it.

I lay there in my underwear as he backed off to undress, watching as even more of his sleek, hard body was revealed. More tattoos, more scars, his body hard and chiseled from years of a fight I knew barely anything about. His boxer briefs bulged with the same excitement that made his breath shake.

He retrieved a condom from his pocket before kicking off his trousers. His eyes roved over me with an almost greedy look before he moved forward again to lean down and unfasten my bra. I helped, sitting up a little so his hands could get at it, he slid the straps off my shoulders and pulled it away, revealing my breasts to the open air. My nipples were already so tight that they hurt.

He swooped down and caught one nipple between his lips, then pushed forward to take in more, suckling roughly. I gasped loudly and dug my fingertips into his shoulders, eyesight going blurry before my eyes rolled closed. My back arched, my body pulsed with waves of tingling heat in time with his long, almost painful pulls. His hands slid under my back, lifting me to his hungry mouth. I sobbed, legs clenching around one of his as my hips started lifting in time with his mouth’s rhythm.

His hands explored me, touch firm and commanding, gripping and kneading my ass in time with his mouth’s attentions before switching breasts and sliding his hands up under the straps of my panties. He pulled them off my hips, I heard the fabric tear a little with his impatience.

I felt like I was going to climax just from what he was doing to my breasts, that wild intensity from the dream was nothing on this, even if it had woken me from a sound sleep. I gasped for breath, hands sliding down his back to his clenched ass, then tugging at the boxer briefs, trying to pull them down.

He chuckled against my breast and let me go suddenly, moving away, leaving me sheened in sweat and aching with sudden frustration. You stopped, I wanted to protest, but when I opened my eyes, I saw what he was busy with.

He’d just finished stepping out of his underwear and was tearing the packet, then rolling the condom onto his proud, stiff cock, which looked almost the size of my forearm. I whimpered, mostly excited but just a little bit worried. Could I take him?

He reached over and started kneading my pussy, sending a fresh surge of pleasure through me—and suddenly, as I raised my hips against his hand, I wanted to try more than anything in the world. “I want you inside me,” I managed to whisper, barely hearing myself over the pounding of my heart.

He kept kneading and teasing me while his other hand caressed my wet, hungry opening, slipping inside and teasing me open further. I felt his head push against me, dipping into my slippery warmth an inch, then drawing back—then doing it again while I squirmed and moaned a plea.

My legs wrapped around him, my back arched as I offered myself. He let out a low groan—and then pushed into me, sinking into me in one long, slow stroke.

I gasped harshly, tightening my legs around him, wrapping my arms around his chest, fingertips braced against his back. He groaned with delight as he sank deeper—then pulled out most of the way and started thrusting in long strokes.

He braced himself over me, his lean, powerful body moving in perfect rhythm with mine as I rose up to take him. He was shuddering constantly—or was that me? Both, maybe. I was too dizzy and turned on to tell.

I had never felt anything this good in my life. I felt all my muscles tightening, nails threatening to break his skin, heels digging into the backs of his thighs as he pounded into me harder and started speeding up. I wanted to cry out for more, but my voice had gone out of control, all I could do was whimper and gasp, low animal noises of pure pleasure.

His hoarse gasps turned into grunts as my pussy tightened around him, his muscles had gone as taut as mine. I heard the clap of our bodies speed faster and faster, he hissed through his teeth, back so tight it felt like I could break my nails on it. The room started to swim in my vision, my eyes closed again as he groaned my name—

I whimpered and then opened my mouth, knowing I shouldn’t scream, shouldn’t make that much noise with Nick down the hall—but then Viktor’s hand clapped over my mouth a moment before my body rocketed over the edge.

I screamed into his palm, pleasure intensifying until it almost scared me. My contractions rocked through my body, lighting me up with ecstasy, again, again, again, until Viktor’s back arched and he thrust in deep. His cock shuddered inside of me as I ground against him reflexively. He barely restrained his own shouts of bliss as he thrust erratically, and then relaxed as the last spasm rolled through me.

He removed his hand and settled over me, laying his head on my shoulder as we collapsed to the mattress and struggled to catch our breaths. I could barely move, it wasn’t just his weight, but a sudden, blissful exhaustion I had never experienced before. Nothing hurt. No fear could reach me in the circle of his arms.

In the quiet of the room, I could hear his breathing steady, and feel his heartbeat slow against my breasts. His body felt pleasantly hot against mine. Then he let out a little, contented sigh and lifted himself off me, gripping the bottom of the condom as he went.

I closed my eyes, bathing in a strange mix of guilt, resignation and bliss. But God, he was good for me, even if we had met in the worst way humanly possible.

I’m falling in love with a killer,was the last thought on my mind as I drifted off. And even that realization made barely a ripple in my deep sense of peace.