Page 10 of Savage Princess

“What happened?” I ask quietly, and Levin’s mouth twitches on one side, an expression that could be a smile, but if it is, it’s a sad one.

“I eventually fell in love with her,” he says quietly. “It was impossible not to. But it affected my job. It affected how I handled the mission. She was undercover with another man, and it drove me insane knowing they were together. It distracted me. I took chances, made decisions that I never would have under other circumstances. It almost got us killed then, and later—”

His voice breaks, cracking as he cuts off, his hands clenched on his knees. I can see the pain written across his face, how much the memory hurts, even so many years later. “If I’d kept my head down and not gotten involved,” he says finally, “she’d still be alive.”

I can’t think of anything to say, anything that sounds right for the moment. There are questions crashing through my mind, condolences, a dozen different sentences, and they all seem wrong before they ever reach my lips.

“She was a graduate student before she stumbled into my world,” Levin says quietly. “Before she got involved with the wrong guy and ended up on our radar as someone who could be useful. If I’d let her go after that job was done—she’d be an archeologist by now somewhere. Maybe a professor. She might have a husband and kids. She almost certainly wouldn’t bedead.”

The last word is bitten off, full of so much self-loathing that I can almost taste it, palpable in the air between us. A shudder goes through him as he swallows hard, his fingers pressed into his bare knees until the skin turns white, and I can see how much pain he’s in. How deeply he blames himself, after all these years.

I understand then, very clearly, why he was so reluctant to ever touch me. Why he’s trying so very hard to keep his distance. And I want, more than anything, for him to understand that closing that distance doesn’t have to mean repeating the past all over again.

“What would she have wanted?” I ask quietly, tucking my legs under myself as I face him. “Do you really think she would have been happier without you? It sounds like she loved and wanted you just as much as you did her.”

A flicker of jealousy ripples through me at that thought—at the thought of some other woman tangled up with Levin the way I now have been, whispering his name and him whispering hers, at the idea of him loving her, giving her passion and devotion that I can’t get out of him…maybe not ever.

And then, just as quickly as it comes, it vanishes, and I feel momentarily ashamed. His wife is dead, and has been for a very long time. There’s no reason to be jealous of a dead woman, even one who he so clearly loves still. She’s gone, and from what I can tell, I don’t have a chance anyway.

It certainly isn’t very good of me to be jealous of something that’s causing him so much pain.

Levin’s jaw clenches, that small muscle there leaping as he turns his head away. “Unhappy is better than dead,” he says flatly. “Anything is better than dead. Death is final. As long as you’re alive, you can find some happiness, no matter what. She could have found joy in her work, in a family, even if it wasn’t what we had. She has nothing now. And I–”

He breaks off again, his voice thick with grief, and I can feel the pressure of it.This is what he feels all of the time, every day,I realize, seeing his shoulders slump under the weight of remembering it.

And yet, I’ve seen moments where he’s not entirely bowed by it, when he’s been happy, even jovial. I’ve seen him happy to be alive, even if he carries this with him all of the time.

As long as you’re alive, you can find some happiness, no matter what.

“Where do you find happiness, then?” I ask softly. “Since that happened?”

I see his jaw flex, but he says nothing. The silence grows, heavy and oppressive, until he finally lets out a long breath.

“Go to sleep if you can,” he says quietly, still not looking at me, and I know the conversation is over.

—

I do fall asleep, eventually. It’s fractured, punctuated by waking moments where my eyes flicker open, and I see Levin still sitting in the chair, looking out of the small crack in the curtains, wide awake despite the fact that he must be every bit as exhausted as I am. I know he must be thinking of her, and I wait for the waves of jealousy again, but all I feel is sadness for him, and how unfair it is that someone so brave and good is still hurting so much.

In between, my sleep is full of dreams of him, of the night on the beach when I’d convinced him to let things go further, of his lips on mine as he’d turned me in his arms and the close, safe warmth of his arms as he’d held me close. I dream of his hands on me, stripping away my clothes, of fingers and lips over bare skin, of pleasure that I could never have imagined before him.

I dream of him filling me up, long, sure, slow strokes that bring me to the brink over and over, the weight of his body on mine, his mouth slanted over mine, and I hear his voice in my ear somehow at the same time, whispering my name, whispering words that he never said outside of a dream.

I love you. Don’t leave me. Stay with me. I love you, Elena. I can’t ever let you go.

The dream brings me to the very precipice of pleasure, shuddering there with the memory of his cock inside of me and his lips on mine. I wake up flushed and hot, my thighs sticky with arousal as I hear the sound of the shower running in the adjoining bathroom.

An image of Levin naked and wet fills my head, sending a fresh throb of desire between my legs, and my hand sleepily creeps down my stomach, seeking out my aching clit.

I have a few minutes, surely, I think to myself, still not entirely awake.I’ll hear when the water turns off.

My hips jerk when my fingers graze over my slick, hard clit, the flesh throbbing under my touch. My legs part without thinking, and I feel myself clench, that hollow aching spreading through me as my fingers start to circle over sensitive nerves, the pleasure tingling over my skin.

I’m still half lost in the dream, in the memory of the way he’d felt inside of me, hard and thick, the pleasurable weight of him pressing me down into the blanket. I hear him groaning in my ear as he throbs inside of me, my teeth sinking into my lower lip to bite back a moan as my fingers move more quickly over my clit, pushing me closer to the edge that I was already on the precipice of.

I remember the way he’d surged inside of me, struggling not to fuck me as hard as I know he’d wanted to, wanting to go slowly, to make it as good for me as he could. I remember coming under the sweet wet heat of his tongue, his hands on the inside of my thighs, holding me open for him as he’d made me come and come—

I’m so close.I’m more fully awake now, but lost in the pleasure, my breathing coming faster as my fingers roll over my clit, and I imagine that they’re Levin’s fingers, his tongue, the pressure of his body grinding against me as he fucks me, his cock thrusting hard and deep, on the verge of filling me up with the hot rush of his cum–

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