Page 105 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

I want him here.

I need him here.

“No!” I cry out. I latch on his hand. He looks down at me, surprised. “No,” I say again, quieter. “Don’t leave. Please stay. Help me.” After everything that has happened, I need to touch him. I need to feel him.

I look into his eyes for a moment. They’re churning with dark storms. Like he’s weighing what this might mean.

I want to tell him that nothing means anything anymore. Everything I once took for granted is now dead or gone or both.

All we have is this. All we have is each other.

“Please,” I say again in a hoarse whisper. I pirouette slowly until my back is facing him.

His fingers graze up my side and find the zipper of my dress. At the merest touch, a shiver glides down my arms.

“You want this?” he asks in a low, rough rumble.

“I need it.”

“You want me to reclaim you? You want me to make you all mine again?”

“I’m begging you, Dima. Please, please, please.”

Dima slides the zipper down my back and I’ve never been more relieved. I want this garment gone. Burned up. Along with every trace of Taras Kreshnik.

The dress puddles to the floor at my feet. I’m naked without it. I stay still and hug myself, eyes closed, goosebumps prickling over my skin. Dima reaches around me and turns on the shower.

Steam rises immediately, fogging over the mirror. Dima holds my hand. Helps me step over the rim of the tub and underneath the warm flow of the water. The blood sluices off of me and down into the drain.

Other stuff flows away, too. Six weeks of sleepless nights. Of pain. Of wondering who has my son. If he misses me. If this is destroying him.

Nightmares and fears and agonies drain away. Not gone forever—but gone for a moment, at least.

For one pure, blissful moment.

My eyes are still closed, head tipped back in the spray, when the curtain opens and Dima steps in. It felt so good I almost forgot he was there.

My eyes pop open—and my God, he’s gorgeous.

I realize all at once that he’s seen me naked, but I haven’t seen all of him yet. He kept his clothes on at the clinic all those months ago and there was no reason for him to undress in front of me while we were on the run.

Moments ago, I felt ready to collapse. But now, my body is alert. Alive.

I drink him in. Dima’s shoulders are broad, rippled with muscle and tattoos. His chest tapers down to a trim waist and a deep ‘V’ that arrows right towards his massive cock. His skin seems to glow and the tattoos inked all over him seem to move like they’re alive.

“Are you okay?” His voice is a low rumble that I feel deep in my belly.

I nod. “Getting there.”

Dima turns around and grabs a bottle of shampoo. He squirts some into my hand and I lather the soap into my hair, scrubbing at my scalp, desperate to get to a new layer of skin. One that Taras has never touched.

When I feel a hand glide down my stomach, my body tightens. I look up. Dima is watching me carefully. His gray-blue eyes are cautious, but not uncertain. His hand is sudsy and he starts smoothing body wash over my skin. The callouses on his fingertips scrape gently over me, and I want to feel him everywhere.

“Dima, I…” I bite my lip and go back to washing my hair. My consent is written in the way I arch my body towards him for more.

My hands barely work. I try to scrub at my hair, but with every brush of Dima’s hands, lower and lower on my belly, around my waist, on my back, I feel like I’m losing my coordination. My body jerks, my nerves unsure how to handle this influx of pleasure.

Then his hand slips between my legs.

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