Page 17 of Claimed By the Hitman: Codename Cupid

He’ll kill for me.

And either thing would plunge me further into myneedfor him.

Slowly, I rise from the couch.

Cupid jerks like he’ll have to chase me, like I’m going to run. I shake my head and stare down at him, biting my lower lip.

One by one, I undo the buttons on my flannel and let the shirt slip away.

He gazes upon me like I’m Helen of Troy. Aphrodite. His goddess. Hiseverything.

War. Death. Blood. For Cupid, one taste of me would make it all worthwhile.

He reaches for me like a starving man begging for bread.

I grab his face and squeeze.

“Tell me your name,” I demand. “Say it.”

“There’s no going back once you hear it. You can still walk away, Rose. If you leave now and tell Olympia I took you, they’ll let you back in. They’ll come for me, but you’ll live. You can be a handler again.”

Nothing has ever sounded so horrifying. There’s no going back. There’s no receding from the fullness in my heart.

I lean in, growling in his perfect face. “You’d kill for me? I’d go to war for you, too. You’re all I’ve thought about since Paris. I thought I’d never see you again, and I would have slowly rotted if that were true. Before you, before your touch, I was dead. You pulled me from the Underworld….”

“Maybe we should go by Bonnie and Clyde,” he jests. “We might meet a similar end.”

“I’ll happily die with you,” I whisper. “As Rose, and…”

A moment passes before he reveals himself.

“Alexei.” Just like me, I think it pains him to speak the name. “Alexei Malis.”

The shadows have been lifted. There’s nothing to protect us now.

“Alexei…” I test the name on my lips. It fits just right. “Alexei.”

“Rose.”

We tease a kiss. Our first kiss as ourselves.

Our first step into a world where we will always be hunted, together.

Alexei opens his mouth, tongue waiting for me. I lick him slowly, I take his taste and claim it.

“Fuck me, Alexei,” I breathe onto his lips. “And don’t stop saying my name…”

I’m lifted off the floor before I get the words out.

Alexei holds me in his arms, searing my body red with his clawing fingertips. He tastes like the lake, fresh, clear water.

“You’re mine,” he pants, eyes wide and wild. “And I’m yours. If they come for us, I’ll kill them all.”

My warrior. My assassin. My God.

He’s only got one weapon that I’m interested in right now.

I slide my hand down his pants and let his cock know that I’ve missed it. Alexei—Cupid, until now—has been hiding in my dreams every night since Paris.

---