SITTING IN THIS bustling café in Prague all this time later, Indy could not only remember how it had felt to kiss him like that.
She could feel it still.
Kissing him on that deserted street in Budapest had been foolhardy at best. She’d had two years to question her behavior, and she had. Oh, she had.
But she couldn’t regret it.
Kissing him had been like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
It was a shock—and it was no fairytale.
Because he’d kissed her back and there was nothing least bit tame about him. His lips alone were a revelation. He didn’t use his hands to hold her head in place, because he’d managed to do that with his mouth alone.
And Indy had ignited.
She’d melted into him so that her nipples, already so hard and so greedy, were crushed against that stone chest of his.
He’d angled his jaw and thrust his tongue against hers and she’d come from that alone in a shimmering, shuddering rush.
He’d torn his mouth from hers, muttering filthy-sounding curses in languages she couldn’t identify.
Damn you, he said then, his English sounding tame in comparison.
She knew, somehow, that he wasn’t cursing her. Not specifically.
Then he’d picked her up, swinging her into his arms while she still had all those delicious waves of pleasure moving through her. She had only been half-aware at that point. He’d carried her down the street to a dark and gleaming SUV waiting at the curb and then he’d climbed inside, pulling her over his lap as he went.
I’m surprised you can park here, she’d murmured while he tossed his gun in the glove box, because she’d been loopy and her clit had still been pulsing and she felt like maybe what had actually happened was that she had died. That this had all been some kind of extended death scene in her head. It was the only thing that made sense. I’m surprised no one stole this while you were off...doing whatever you do.
She’d been straddling him and that had meant she could look down into that astonishingly beautiful face of his and see it when something like amusement flickered there.
Nobody would dare steal from me, he told her.
Then his hand was on the nape of her neck and he’d brought her face down to his, so he could take her mouth once more.
And Indy stopped worrying about parking.
He’d shoved her skirt up and out of his way, wrapping his big hands around her thighs to pull them even further apart so she was mashed down against the thick bulge of his cock, a glory against her clit. And his fingers had slid beneath her thong in the back as he’d skated past her ass to find her wet folds. He’d opened her, then penetrated her with one finger.
Then another, finding her wet and hot and crazy for him, writhing to get even closer to him—his cock, his fingers, whatever worked.
He’d let out a long spate of swear words again, but that time, it had sounded like a song. Then he’d shoved her tank top up, securing the fabric beneath the strap of the little backpack she’d forgotten she was wearing, so he could get his mouth on her breast.
God. His mouth. On her breast.
In Prague, remembering, Indy felt herself flush all over.
Back in Budapest, she’d arched back as best she could between the steering wheel and his hard body, letting her head fall back into sheer bliss.
Indy had been lost somewhere between his mouth on her nipple as he sucked, hard, and the way she rocked her own clit against his cock. He was shockingly huge, and his fingers were blunt and too clever as they plunged inside her from behind.
In her head, it had gone on forever, but she doubted it had. Because she couldn’t take it and came again, clenching hard on his fingers.
You are a witch, he’d muttered.
Indy had felt like a witch. Sex was always fun...but this was something else. It was like every single part of her had been made for every single part of him. As if nothing he could possibly do to her would feel anything but amazing. Because they’d been built for this.
She’d looked at him and been his. Their eyes had met over a gun, for God’s sake, and there they were—and all Indy had wanted was more.
Reality couldn’t intrude. It hadn’t.
He’d reached between them. Indy had sat back as best she could, aware of the steering wheel digging into her in a way that should have been unpleasant, but wasn’t. She’d liked the little spear of not-quite-pain, because that had meant it was real. It had really been happening.
This liquid heat, this glorious, endless explosion had truly been happening.
And his cock was a thing of glory.
He’d pulled it out, wincing because he was so hard. Indy’s mouth had actually fallen open as she’d gazed down at where he rose between them. She’d felt her clit pulse and her core go molten.
You know what to do, he’d told her, and though his voice was quiet, there was that roughness to it, that command, that made her entire body break out in goose bumps.
But she’d felt that she did know what to do. That her entire life had been a dress rehearsal and that night in that SUV on an empty street in Budapest, of all places, had been the show, at last.
Indy had thought that very distinctly: At last.
She’d felt like crying. Like weeping with joy that she’d gotten to kneel up, even though her knees were still scraped—and that should probably have bothered her more. She’d felt emotional and beautiful and so connected to him it had hurt. It had hurt, when Indy was all about her fun and her orgasms, but even the hurt of it felt good.
And that was before she’d braced herself with one hand on the headrest behind him. Then reached between them so she could guide the massive head of his cock to her pussy at last.
At last.
Because it had felt like she’d already waited a lifetime and she hadn’t even known his name.
But Indy had known it was true, even then. She’d been looking for him, for that wildfire connection between them and his dangerous saint’s face, for a lifetime already without realizing he’d been her goal all along.
Something she couldn’t have realized until she’d seen him, could she? Because only then had it been clear.
His hands had not been gentle. He’d shoved one into her hair and the other had gripped her ass, hard.
Indy had known many things then. That he was not a good man in the way she’d previously conceived of that phrase. That what she was doing was not a good idea, no matter how it felt. And that no one would ever understand how this had not only happened—but why she had made it happen.
But she had never been the good sister.
Because she also knew—as their gazes had clashed again, as she had notched the wide head of his cock at the mouth of her pussy—that this man was her fate.
That she had always been meant for this.
Right there. With him.
Now, he’d ordered her.
She hadn’t understood until then that she’d been waiting for that, too. For him.
It had felt like running to the edge of a terrible cliff and then throwing herself off. And not caring at all, in the final moment, if she would fall or fly.
Indy had slammed herself down, impaling herself on him.
And she’d screamed out as she did it because he was so big that it hurt, so big that it was wildly, astonishingly uncomfortable to take all of him like that, and so fast.
But she’d known there was no other way to do it. It was like a kind of virginity because it was him. Them. It was theirs, the agony she was prepared to put herself through for one staggering beat of her heart. Then another.
And it had been entirely worth it when his mouth crooked up in one corner.
Foolish girl, he’d said in that quietly dark way of his that made everything in her sing. I like that you want to suffer for me.
Then he’d moved.
And any suffering she’d felt was gone that easily.
Because he’d fucked her like he’d known all the same things she did.
Like his cock, that big, battering ram of a cock, had been specifically designed to hit everywhere she’d needed it. He’d kept his hard hand on her ass, lifting her and slamming her in time with his thrusts, so that all she could do was melt into it. Become part of it.
His other hand, tangled in her hair, had kept her arched back so he could get his mouth on her throat, her lips. Down to her breasts and back again as he liked.
And he’d liked.
Indy had lost track of how many times she’d come. Again and again. Over and over. Because it turned out that what he liked, she liked, too.
And on he’d gone anyway, because he’d been making them one.
It was some kind of magic, fusing them together. Imprinting them on each other, because this was fate.
Maybe it might look like a simple fucking, but Indy had known better.
He was making them real. He was making sure the both of them knew that neither one of their lives would ever be the same.
Because how could anything have been the same after that?
When he came she could feel him inside her, scalding her, and she’d loved that, too.
And then, for a while, they’d had to stay like that. Slumped into each other in the front seat of his SUV because neither one of them was breathing too well.
He’d recovered first. He’d lifted her, muttering another curse when she’d made a little sobbing sound at the loss of his cock. He’d set her in the passenger seat beside him, then winced as he’d folded his cock back into his jeans.
I am Stefan, he’d told her in that growl of his that had made her think of wolves again. She’d smoothed her red skirt down toward her thighs and shivered. Stefan Romanescu.
Indy, she’d replied. Indy March.
Indy? He’d sounded as if he was tasting her name the way he’d tasted her nipples. What kind of name is this?
Short for Indiana.
Indiana, he’d murmured, another long, deep taste.
Indy had nearly come again, just from that.
He’d looked around—out to the street and in his mirrors—in a way that told her more things about him. That he had some kind of military background. That he was just as deeply dangerous as she’d thought he was, if not more, because he wasn’t anything so simple as a thug.
But none of that had changed the fact that he was hers.
Nothing ever will, a voice in her had intoned, solemn and sure.
She’d curled her knees up beneath her and hadn’t cared where her skirt fell. The thong she’d simply moved to the side made her pussy feel even more wet and swollen, because it kept grabbing at her. Reminding her.
Not that she’d needed reminding.
We didn’t use a condom, she had pointed out.
You American girls are all on the pill. He hadn’t even looked at her as he started the car, then pulled out, roaring away from the curb and into the dark Budapest streets in a manner that told her he knew them well. And if you give me something, eh. Then we both have it. A memento, maybe.
She’d laughed, then shrugged when he’d shot a dark look her way. I don’t have anything. Yours is the only cock that has ever been inside me without a condom.
His gaze had caught at her, intense and too blue. The only one that ever will be, Indiana.
And she’d accepted that, because she’d felt it, too.
Fate.
Stefan had driven her straight to the airport.
I don’t know what your travel plans are, but they must change, he’d told her, another command. It came easily to him, she’d understood. It was who he was, maybe. You must leave here. Tonight. And do not return.
But—
I need time, he’d said with an urgency that she’d felt inside her like her own heartbeat. Two years. Then I will deal with this. With you. Do you understand?
Two years? She’d blinked the unexpected emotion away, not sure what was happening to her. Not sure words existed to describe what had already happened, much less what had still been happening. Stefan...
He had taken her jaw in his hard hand. Keep that pussy greedy for me, foolish girl. And enjoy as many inferior fucks as you can with my blessing. I want you limber.
He had given her the key, told her a time, made her memorize the address.
And she hadn’t heard from him since.
Indy blew out a breath at her café table in Prague. She drank down the last of her coffee.
She hadn’t told anybody what had happened to her in Budapest. Because what could she say? Instead, she’d flown back to the States. She’d surprised her sister and moved in with her when her latest disappointing roommate had moved out.
She had cried when her skinned knees healed, because it had felt as if the loss of those scrapes took Stefan away from her. And she’d spent the last two years in New York because she’d lost the thirst for it. She’d been everywhere. She’d seen everything. And she’d found what she’d been looking for without knowing it—but she couldn’t have him.
Yet.
Yet, she would whisper out loud in her bed at night, holding on tight to that key. Yet.
For a while, she hadn’t wanted to bother with sex—for pretty much the first time since she’d discovered it in high school—because what was the point? When you’d had the very best, why backslide into less than that? The first time she’d let a cute boy in a Brooklyn bar take her home, it had made her feel as close to empty as she’d ever been.
But when she thought of sex as keeping herself fit enough to be worthy to fuck Stefan again, that changed everything.
Indy had impatiently waited out her two years. She had kept herself limber.
And now she was ready.
She left the café with only twenty minutes to go before the meeting time. The gorgeous old city gleamed bright in the summer sun, but all she could think about was the house up in the hills that she’d stared at on Google Maps a thousand times.
Indy took a cab out of Prague proper, crossing the river and scaling the hills into a neighborhood she’d read a lot about, these past two years. Upscale. Quiet. Wealthy.
Her heart was going wild in her chest and she pressed the heel of her palm hard against it, feeling something like giddy that this was finally happening. She knew that if she’d told anybody what she was doing, they not only would have told her something was wrong with her, they would have tried to talk her out of coming here today. They certainly would have tried to impose their grubby reality all over what she knew was her destiny.
Her older sister in particular, bless her.
The cab dropped her off in front of the correct address, a house that sprawled over a sizable piece of property right on the road. Indy pulled out her key and walked toward the door, unable to hear anything but the way her blood rushed through her. She thrust it into the lock on the front door, held her breath, and turned it.
The bolt clicked open.
Indy pushed her way inside, having absolutely no idea what to expect, but aware that she was no longer holding her breath. Because the key worked. It worked. She hadn’t let herself think about what she would do if it hadn’t. She slipped it back over her neck as she shut the door behind her, taking comfort in the familiar weight between her breasts.
Inside, the house seemed light and airy—or possibly that was just the foyer she stood in that soared upward to a set of skylights. She could hear music playing, something smoky and instrumental, and her impressions of the house seemed to shudder into her from afar. Clean. Nearly stark, were it not for the odd pieces of intriguing art set here and there. Or the surprisingly ornate banister of the grand stair directly in front of her.
She followed the music through a sitting room on the same floor that opened into another, nearly blinding her with all its great windows that looked down over Prague and the Vltava River that cut through it.
But the music wasn’t coming from those rooms or the bright gallery beyond, so she kept going. She wound her way down a hall until she came to a study at the end of it, drenched in the same sunlight.
And froze, because he was there.
Stefan sat in an armchair next to a bookcase, far more beautiful—and brutal—than she’d recalled. His poetic blue eyes came to hers. Held.
And she was sure she heard some kind of thunderclap in the distance.
It still felt like fate.
Better still, that gaze of his on hers felt like a command.
Indy only realized then—as she started moving toward him, unable to tear her gaze from his—that she hadn’t been afraid that he wouldn’t be here. That hadn’t really worried her. But she had been afraid that he would be here—but that she wouldn’t feel this again.
That she wouldn’t feel all this heat and glory, greed and longing.
This sense of coming home in a strange place.
And through it all, fate making them one.
The way she knew they had always been meant to be.
As if she’d been built for him alone.
Indy kept moving until she stood before him. She shrugged off the small backpack she wore and tossed it aside. Then she sank down on her knees, there before his outstretched legs, and smiled up at him as if he’d given her the world.
Maybe she thought he had.
Already.
“Finally,” she whispered, gazing up at him.
“Finally,” Stefan agreed, with a voice like gravel and a hard, bright light in his gaze that made her feel like she might be shimmering. Inside and out. “We can begin.”