Page 223 of Gilded Cage (Kovalyov Bratva 1)

I feel more tears come. But these tears are grateful.

I remove my hands from around my own body and place them against Artem’s chest.

“Thank you, Artem,” I say softly.

He nods, and all I realize is how badly I’m craving his touch, how much of my strength flows from him now.

I think about the hell he must have gone through in the aftermath of his wife’s murder.

I can recognize that pain in him now. It simmers in the rage that I now know he keeps locked away in his chest.

He has learned to control it, but with difficulty.

I was right—knowing the truth has changed everything.

I can never look at Artem the same way again.

I can never think of Cesar in the same way again.

I love him still, but my love for him is different now. It has to be.

“How did you survive it?” I ask, looking up at Artem. “The grief. Losing her.”

“Not well,” he admits. “But I had Cillian then. He got me through that dark time. He told me that one day I would see a light at the end of the tunnel. I called him a fucking fool at the time, but now I can see he was right.”

“He was?” I ask, grabbing that one tiny string of hope dangling before me.

“Yes,” Artem says with a decisive nod. “The tunnel came to an end eventually and I saw the light. I saw the light the day I met you.”

60

Artem

A Few Days Later

She rocks back and forth on top of me. Her hair flies wildly around her head and her lips part with a moan that sends a jolt of electricity straight to my cock.

My fingertips graze against her belly that has only just started to swell.

Esme falls against my chest, her breathing erratic and filled with notes of pleasure. I wrap my arms around her and flip us over so that I’m on top.

“Harder, Artem,” she gasps. “Harder.”

I bury my face in the crook of her neck and ram into her with violent thrusts. When that’s not enough, I hook her legs over my shoulders so I can drive deeper.

“Yes,” she moans at once as I find the right spot. She squeezes around my cock and her hands scrabble to cling to something, anything—bedsheets, pillows, my flexing thighs.

When her orgasm comes, it comes hard. Her sounds go silent and it looks for a moment like she can’t breathe.

But then the levee breaks and she dissolves into an endless stream of whispers and curses and pleas to never stop.

It pulls me closer and closer to the edge, too, until I can’t hold back anymore.

“Esme, I’m going to…”

She flips around frantically, takes my cock in two hands, and brings her lips right to my tip.

The suction of her wet mouth around me pulls the seed out in fiery ropes. She swallows me greedily, desperately.

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