Page 42 of Lethal Alliance

Roman still thinks he has a choice about whether or not to be a father, but that choice was gone long ago.

The kids have chosen him. They chose him months ago, just like I did.

Roman is already a father. Not just to Ofelia. To all three of his godchildren.

He just hasn’t really grasped it yet.

His long body uncurls as he steps out of the car and walks around to open my door. I force myself not to shiver as he takes my hand to help me out. I feel almost blindsided by longing for him, and guilty for wanting anything when he is so clearly devastated and exhausted. Some primal part of myself needs to feel him deep inside me again, to reassure myself that we are still us, even if our world has gone to hell. I want to crawl inside his body, to be skin to skin and mouth to mouth, lost and found as only he makes me feel.

But he drops my hand as soon as he takes it and stands a good foot away from me when we enter his private elevator. He hits the button for my floor, and I chastise myself for feeling disappointed.

Of course he’s shattered.

It’s selfish, not to mention childish, to want anything more from him amid the crisis we are living.

I fold my arms over my body again, the cold terror of the girls’ absence like a hollow darkness inside me. Roman is a warrior, first and foremost. There will be time for us again, perhaps, when all this is over.

The elevator pulls to a halt at my floor, and the doors open. I stand dumbly, suddenly frozen in place.

Do I kiss him goodbye? Just say something like “see you tomorrow?”

What exactly is the protocol for saying good night to a man with whom you’ve shared the most intimate of moments, but who right now feels a million miles away?

“Darya.” It’s only one word, wrenched from him like pulling a rusted bolt from old wood, but the need in it tells me all I need to know.

I turn as he’s reaching for me, and by the time he’s punched the button for his penthouse, his mouth is on mine and I’m already lost.

The doors have openedand closed multiple times on the penthouse floor when he finally breaks the kiss, but it’s only so he can pick me up and carry me down the corridor. He pulls my headscarf off and drops it to the floor.

“I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I saw you.” He tugs out the pins holding my hair, and it tumbles down. “I need you,” he says hoarsely into my hair. “I need this.”

I touch his face with my hand. “Me, too.”

He carries me straight to the bathroom. “It’s been the longest day of a hellishly long week.” He turns the shower on as he begins to undress me. “I need to wash it off, and I need you here.”

I want to be here. I want to stand under the tumbling jets and inhale the familiar citrus scent of the soap he uses, want to trace every scarred line of his body and make it mine once more. The warm water feels like healing, easing the weariness in my bones and the deep pain in my soul.

“I thought I’d lost you.” His lips trace my collarbone as one soapy hand slides over my shoulder and down my spine, pressing my naked body toward his. “I never want to feel that way again, Darya.”

I don’t want to talk. Words feel too hard, too complex. I run my hands over the achingly familiar lines of his body, feeling the corded muscle in his neck tense, the hard globes of his ass clench under my touch. He’s hot and hard, his need a throbbing urgency against my skin, but his hands on me are unbearably gentle. They stroke downward over my swollen breasts. “Christ.” His voice cracks as he cups their new fullness. “The feel of you, Darya...”

His lips close over my nipple, and I give a sharp cry, my entire body reduced to that lone point. I arch into his mouth, my newly sensitized flesh enflamed by every touch of his tongue, heat licking through my body like a wildfire taking hold. I spread my legs and straddle his thigh, pressing my throbbing center against him. I ride his thigh hard as he takes one nipple after the other, careening toward orgasm like an out-of-control freight train. I grasp his cock and he groans, his shaft surging in my hand.

My head falls back against the tiles. “Get inside me,” I gasp.

“No.” He pulls me against him and takes my mouth again. “I don’t want to rush this, Darya. I want you to know how much I—”

I hold his face. “I need you to fuck me.” My body is a frenzied, turbulent mass of desire. I can barely get the words out. My hands slide back to his cock, gripping him hard enough to make him suck in his breath. He pulls back from me, eyes dark, lips pressed together as he fights for control.

“I should make this last,” he rasps.

But the hollow loneliness of the past days, combined with the passionate relief of having him naked in my embrace, has spawned a lust so potent it’s almost savage.

I don’t want to play.

I don’t want a game.

I just want him, fast and hard.

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