Page 72 of Love Me (Touch of Death 3)
“Are you okay?” Sasha asks quietly.
I place the bottle onto the desk in front of me. “Am I okay?” I ponder the question in my mind. “I don’t know.” We fall into a comfortable silence for a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”
The confused frown that is so familiar to me now graces his face. “Of course.”
I lean back in the chair, staring at the bottle on the desk. “Those soldiers, The Elite, they were so…cold. Were you like that? Before?”
“Emotions serve no place in The Elite. They make you weak.”
I look at him. “Do you believe that? That emotions are weak?”
His eyes soften as he reaches out, gently grasping my chin. “I did. When I met you. I resented you for making me feel like this.”
“And now?”
“Now…everything is different.”
I dip my chin to my chest, and he releases me. “You know, sometimes, I wish I could just go back. Be…normal.”
“That’s impossible now.” His troubled gaze meets mine. “You’re involved with Ronan Cole. There’s nowhere you could run or hide that he wouldn’t find you. He’d hunt you for sport.”
I ask the question I really want to ask, the question that is like an alarm in the back of my mind. Burying Gabriella has given me closure, but it’s also made me realize what I want. “Will you go back to New York…eventually?”
A small smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “Would you like me to?”
“Sasha.”
“Malyshka.”
I shove to my feet, gripping the front of his shirt. “I need to know,” I say seriously.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know…if the one person I have left is going to leave me,” I breathe.
His hands glide around my waist, and he spreads his legs, tugging me between them. Those hypnotic eyes trail over my face in a way that makes my cheeks heat. His lips brush the corner of my mouth before skating over my jaw, whispering over the side of my neck. Goose bumps flush my skin, a shiver working down my spine. “Malyshka, after all we’ve survived, you think I would abandon you?”
I grab his face in both hands, fighting through the fog of lust to make him look at me. “I don’t want your pity.”
He kisses me, his lips so gentle, so soft. “I don’t pity you.” Another kiss. “I love you.”
“Always?”
His lips twitch. “Always.”
I smile, so relieved to hear that one word. “You’re the only good thing I have left.” I touch my forehead to his, touching my fingers to his lips. “Make me forget everything that isn’t this, Sasha.” I kiss him, my hand slipping beneath his shirt, nails raking over his stomach.
He’s hesitant as his palm slides from my waist to my back before he slowly lowers the zip of my dress. The sensuous trail of his rough fingertips over my spine has me bowing toward him like an addict looking for a fix. His lips hit my neck, teasing kisses making me dizzy with lust.
Alcohol trickles through my veins, heightening my senses. I fall into him, choosing the oblivion I know he can provide.
“You’ve gotten better at this,” I mumble.
He laughs as he turns, laying me on the desk. Fingers trail along the inside of my thigh, a sexy smile I’ve never seen before appearing on his face. “I was innocent when you first took advantage of me,” he says.
“Innocent?” I lift a brow at him. “Not a word I would use to describe you.”
He shreds the top of my dress, tearing the material away from my body until it pools at my waist. Cool air caresses my breasts, and my breaths hitch unevenly as he places lazy, lulling kisses over my body. Those fingers linger on the inside of my thigh before pressing between my legs.
I want him. All of him. Mind, body, soul. I want his love. I need his possession. I sit up, yanking at his clothing, raking my nails over bare, scarred skin. When he finally slips into me, it’s like coming home, truly home, absolute belonging and acceptance.
He makes me feel whole when I’m otherwise so fractured. Any thought that isn’t him simply ceases to exist. Soft fingertips stroke over my face, lips brushing over mine as he whispers words of love against my skin. I feel so small and fragile beneath him, yet utterly protected. I submit every fiber of myself to him. He forces me back on the desk, hungry eyes watching as he drives into me over and over. I feel like I’m possessed, a puppet on his string. He makes me wild for something I didn’t even know I needed. I want him to crawl inside me and consume everything that I am until I don’t know where I start and he begins.
“Sasha,” I breathe as my back arches, and my body tightens.
He keeps going, pulling pleasure from me inch by torturous inch. He grips my jaw, forcing me to look at him as I fall apart. Black spots dot my vision until it feels like my lungs might explode from lack of air.
