Page 76 of Assassin's Mark
Silence.
“What?”
Nothing.
“Look, you got yourself here, and I’m sure you can get yourself home.” I didn’t want him to leave, but I couldn’t accept a year of being alone without an explanation. I just couldn’t. “Thanksfor the flowers.”
Levi cursed, squeezed his fists so tight he shook. “I— Fuck!” His head snapped up. Molten steel locked on to me, captured my gaze, just as Levi had always held me captive. “I couldn’t wait another fucking minute to see you,” he bit out. Moved closer. “I tried, I really did. Told myself you deserved someone far better than me. Told myself you deserved your freedom. But…” He tookanother step, then another. “I couldn’t do it, Abby. I couldn’t stay away. I need you.”
I need you.
I closed my eyes against the relief sweeping through me. I’d needed him too, far more than I’d allowed myself to think about, because if I had, the hollow space inside me would have swallowed me whole.
This time it was me moving closer. I raised a hand to the stubbled cheek I’d longed to touchfor a year now. My fingertips grazed the rough texture, the strong, stubborn line of his jaw, the softness of his lips. A sigh of pleasure escaped me, mingling with Levi’s.
“Abby, I…” Another gravelly curse bit through the air. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not—”
My finger pressed against his lips silenced him. I stared into those eyes I’d missed so much, gathered my courage,and took a chance for the second time in my life. “You know all you need to know.”
I kissed him. So carefully I brought my lips to his. Brushed them over, refamiliarizing myself with his texture, his taste. Levi startled, his hand going automatically to my hip.
And then he took over.
There was no escaping—and I didn’t want to. His hands were everywhere, gripping my neck, molding my breasts,dragging roughly over the flat plain of my belly as he cursed into my mouth about clothes and need and now, now, now. My body felt like I’d been doused in flames, every touch sending me closer and closer to the pleasure I’d longed for through far too many lonely nights. I needed his skin, needed his mouth, needed him inside me with a desperation I couldn’t fathom, much less put into words. But mybody could tell him, and did. My tight nipples, my eager tongue, my searching hands.
In moments my shirt and bra were off. Levi lowered his head, his hungry mouth latching on to one hard tip. A keening wail left my mouth.
Levi let go. “Undress me,” he barked, then went right back to my breast. As long as he sucked, as long as his mouth was on me, I could obey. Or try, at least. My fingers fumbledthe buttons of his shirt until sheer desperation had me grasping both sides and yanking it open. Buttons flew everywhere, but when Levi’s gaze met mine, it burned even brighter.
“Come here.”
He pulled me to the table, yanked out a chair, and sat. For one crazy moment, all I could think was, here? In the kitchen? Then he had me between his knees and his mouth took my untouched nipple and I couldn’thave cared if we were in the middle of the street as long as he kept right on touching me. I slid my fingers through his hair, holding him close, a moment of softness in the sheer brutality of his taking, and gloried in the feel of him, the smell of him, the heat of him in my arms, on my body. He’d come back to me. Every minute of the past year, I’d longed for him, and here he was. Finally.In my arms.
Cool air kissed my lower belly, my legs.
“Step out,” Levi commanded. He leaned back from me, watching as I kicked away my pants and panties, his hands busy at his fly. The long length of him pushed out as the zipper lowered, and my mouth watered, but when I would’ve gotten to my knees, Levi’s grip kept me up.
All of me. One minute I was on solid ground, and the next I was in hislap, straddling him, that hard erection I’d wanted to taste pushing without quarter into my body. I gasped, groaned, the sounds mingling with Levi’s grunts of pleasure as he forced his way in one thrust at a time until he was seated to the hilt. Only then did he calm.
“I’ve needed this. Needed you, Abby.” He nipped the inside slope of one breast, then the other. Palmed my ass and forced my hipsin a circle, pleasuring us both. “God, I needed you so fucking much.”
Steely eyes pinned me as surely as his hands did. “Say it, little bird.”
Say what? That I loved him? I did; I’d known it for a year.
A brutal grip lifted me along his shaft, then released me. My own weight impaled me on him ruthlessly.
He nuzzled my nipple, bit it lightly. “Say it.”
“I need you.”
With the words, my bodyclenched on his, a flood of arousal easing his way. Relief filled the eyes staring into mine. “Again.”
“I need you.”
“Again.”
I kept repeating it, staring down into molten steel as he sucked the nipple he was torturing into his mouth and set up a brutal rhythm with his hips. Over and over, again and again, my core tightening until I thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to push back in, butevery time he managed to, as if my body knew exactly how to pleasure us both. And it was pleasure—harsh, breathtaking, rough pleasure that exploded in my core and behind my eyes, tearing me apart and remaking me all at once, every spasm putting one more piece back into place until Levi climaxed inside me and finally, finally made me whole once again.
