Page 73 of Cruel Existence

She shrugged. “The contracts were signed. They aren’t renegotiable. No one in their right mind would redistribute that money at a lower interest rate. I have to abide by the original agreement.”

“You could tear them up. Or we could pull security from the docks and all your shipping ports.” I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but it didn’t help rein in my restraint once I had a full view of her legs. I’d always loved her legs. Long legs I had stood between. Kissed. Massaged. Felt the firmness of them in my palms.

“But I won’t,” she answered. How did I shake her? How did I knock logic into her?

I felt the electric charge at the end of my thumb before it even grazed her shoulder. She stared at the end of my hand. Was she daring me to touch her? Begging me? My thumb inched closer. I fought every instinct in my body to keep my hands off her.

I had stayed away to save her life, but she wasn’t in danger any longer. At least, not by my father’s doing or mine.

The instant my hand clasped around her, the heat surged between us. I’d lied to myself when I’d fucked other women. I said I could forget Amara. For years I had let the lie take over. For five years I had crafted and constructed the lie in Paris. London. Munich. The lie was layered with meaningless one-night stands. I never looked intp a woman’s eyes and felt devotion. Any of them could have been Venus, sprung from the sea—it didn’t matter. No one else was Amara. There were no emotions with the other women. Nothing and no one came close to what this woman did to me. What she used to do to me.

She was mine, alone.

The letter fell to the pool deck. “Luka.” Her voice was soft and sexy. A call to my primal side.

I cupped the side of her cheek. “Don’t say another fucking word,” I growled as I took her mouth against mine. It was a kiss that had been raging beneath the surface since the night I left New Orleans.

My lips burned for hers in a way I didn’t know was possible. I wanted to bruise her. Bite her. Leave a mark from this kiss she would never forget. She drew a ragged breath and tried to push off me, but I wrapped my arms around her, grazing her skin. Digging my fingers into her flesh.

Our tongues tangled as if we were each trying to sear the other one more cruelly. My heart pounded beneath my ribs. I’d opened the gate to a dangerous game. I couldn’t undo it. I’d wanted this woman when we met. Nothing had changed what her body did to me. My hand slid along the dip of her lower back until I gripped her ass firmly. She hissed, but the kiss raged on.

How long could we stand next to the pool this way? Groping. Desperate to crawl under each other’s skin.

“You hate me,” she whispered. I lowered my mouth to her neck. I kissed her throat, following the V the swimsuit made. “For what I’ve done.”

“No.” I hooked a finger beneath the strap, it was fastened with a figure-eight clasp. “I don’t hate you.”

“Only five minutes ago…”

I took a full handful of her ass in my palm. “Stop talking.” I kissed her roughly. She threw her arms around my neck.

I was drowning. Getting drunk on her lips.

“Luka, you left me. Alone. I had to do this.”

I nodded, eager to strip her bare. I looked around for a place to take her that wasn’t the damn cabana. I lifted her in my arms and her legs eagerly slipped around my waist. I carried to a room off the courtyard, kicking the door open.

She moaned when I spun around, pressing her back against the door. She held on tightly, while my hand slid between our bodies, lower, until I had shimmied the side of her bathing suit off her center. I strummed her clit, urgently. I didn’t have enough fucking patience.

“Fuck,” she whimpered.

“I told you years ago, you were mine, Amara.”

She nodded. My finger thrust inside her. She clenched around me, squeezing forcefully. Oh shit, she was everything I had remembered. Our mouths collided again. I spun her away from the door and toward the bed in the center of the room.

I pulled the swimsuit down over her hips and gazed over her body. Her tits perked. I lowered to suck one viciously between my teeth. The arch of her back was a beautiful bow. My hand eased between her thighs again. She writhed beneath me. I had her. What I had wanted for five years. I had Amara back under my control. In my hands.

Her eyes glimmered. “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

“Is this what you want?” I circled her clit, coaxing her hips to flex and move.

“Yes.”

“Then beg me, Amara.” My fingers thrust inside her. My thumb pressed hard against her clit.

“I don’t beg, anyone,” she struggled to form the words.

My eyes bore into hers. “I’m not any of those other boys you’ve been with.” I curled one finger against her walls. She whimpered at the impact. “I’m back now, my kotyonok. I want to hear you say the words.”

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