Page 40 of Love Me (Touch of Death 3)
“I should kill you,” I cry, pressing my forehead to his.
His free hand strokes over my cheek, words whispering over my lips. “It’s okay, malyshka. It’s as easy as pulling a trigger.”
A sob breaks past my lips as my finger twitches over the trigger. I can do this. I rationalize all the reasons for doing this, and there are many, but the truth is, my mind is only playing catch up to my heart, trying to justify inaction to save pain. My heart won’t let me pull that trigger because I’m hopelessly in love with him.
He’s both my white knight and my monster.
The gun falls from my numb fingers, landing on his chest. Carefully, he picks it up, sliding the safety back on before he places it on the bedside table. A sob gets trapped in my chest, and I suck in a deep breath that hurts my ribs, but I don’t care. Sitting up, he wraps his arms around me, and I instantly feel safe. I cling to him, wishing this was enough to make everything disappear.
“I’m so sorry, malyshka.”
I grab his face, touching my forehead to his and breathing him in like pure oxygen. “I love you.”
His lips meet mine, slow and gentle. He kisses me as though I’m fragile and precious, as though he’d take on the entire world just to keep me safe.
“I love you, malyshka,” he breathes.
Our love is ugly and raw and tainted with mistrust and betrayal, but at its core, it’s so painfully pure. In this moment, without Enrique, his job, my family, we’re just us— two people who need each other. If Enrique had never ordered the hit on my father, none of this would have happened. I can’t help but think that a love like this simply wouldn’t exist in the normal world. This was born of pain and desperation, death and destruction.
But it’s ours, and it’s all I have.
I cling to him, wanting to be as close as possible. It’s like something in me breaks, and I just need every part of him.
I press my lips to his, my fingers trailing from his shoulders, over his stomach, to the waistband of his boxers. He stills beneath my touch, muscles tensing.
“Malyshka…”
“It’s okay,” I breathe. When I pull back, he looks so lost, so uncertain. I stroke his face, with my free hand while tugging at his underwear with the other. “I want you.”
He slowly comes to life, shifting beneath me. His eyes never leave mine as he slowly removes his underwear.
Rough, calloused hands glide the length of my thighs, beneath the hem of the over-sized t-shirt I wear to sleep in. When his fingers brush the lace of my panties, a trembling breath leaves me and my nails dig into the back of his neck. With one swift tug, he shreds the delicate material and it disintegrates beneath his brutal touch. Tension lingers between us and my heart pounds so hard, I can barely think past the thundering in my ears.
His touch is gentle, yet he trembles with restraint as he carefully lifts me. When he slides inside me, it’s like all the broken pieces of me suddenly meld back together. He soothes my fraught soul, like a balm to my wounds. Part of me wishes I could hate him, but I can’t because I need this. Thick arms wrap around me, pulling me tight to his body, making me feel impossibly safe and cared for. I clutch his face, our breaths intermingling on ragged pants.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I’m so sorry.”
Tears sting my eyes. “Shhh. Shhh.”
He’s both the source of my pain and the cure. I lose myself in him and nothing but us exists. He makes me forget everything that came before this exact moment, until I shatter and fall apart in his arms.
I lay down in the darkness, completely engulfed by everything that is Sasha. His touch, his scent, the warmth of his body. I’m cocooned from the outside world. He strokes my hair, and I bury my face in his throat, inhaling the scent of him, gravitating towards the safety of his embrace.
Tomorrow, I will have to face Enrique, and the thought makes me sick with fear. It was easier when Sasha was the enemy in my mind. I had little to lose, but as time goes on, I realize there are some things more important than power or revenge, and I don’t want to give this up. I’m too far in to back out now, though. I married the man. This is very much win or die at this point. Closing my eyes, I push all those thoughts from my mind. Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I fall asleep to the rhythmic melody of Sasha’s even breaths.
When I wake up, Sasha is perched on the edge of the bed, his knees spread and his head dropped forward. He’s fully dressed in his usual head-to-toe black. The first gray rays of dawn creep around the curtains, and I squint against them.
