7

CASIMIR studied Lissa’s face. Not many women could weather a storm of silent weeping, have their heart ripped from their body, and still manage to look beautiful. She did. Her blue eyes remained steady on his, and he knew he had fallen hard and fast because of that look. She might be knocked down by the knowledge of the extent of her uncle’s treachery, but she got back up. She would always stand back up and she would hold firm.

“What is it, Casimir?” she repeated.

He took a breath, knowing he was risking everything. “You need to know you can count on someone, malyshka. We’re going to do this together. Beat them. All of them. Your enemies. My enemies. To do that you have to trust me.”

She hesitated and then nodded. “I do.”

Casimir shook his head. “You want to trust me, Giacinta, but how can you when you’ve known nothing but betrayal? You have to have doubts whether you want to have them or not. I can put your doubts to rest but in doing so, you will see Casimir. The real man. The killer.”

She shook her head. “That isn’t the real man.”

“It is. I am what they made me. I can’t separate the two. I lied to myself for a lot of years telling myself that it was the role I played—those men were killers—not me. But all of those roles, they were still me.” He shackled her wrist with gentle fingers and turned her hand over, palm up. “Through this mark, you can see into my mind. Everything. I won’t be able to hide from you. You will see that you will never have to have a single doubt about my loyalty to you. I can give you that. But you’ll also see all of me, and I’m afraid that will terrify you. Repulse you even. I’m not a good man.”

Her gaze searched his and he didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away from her. He was willing to strip himself bare for her. For this one woman, he would be whatever she needed. Do whatever she needed. There would never be another in his world. He waited for the verdict. His mouth had gone dry and blood thundered in his ears. He had faced death a million times and it had never felt like this.

“You’d do that for me?”

It was her tone more than her question that gave away the fact that she realized the enormity of what he offered. Holding her gaze, he nodded slowly. “I think it’s necessary, Giacinta, for both of us. Do I want you to see inside of me? Hell no. Hell no. But you have to know, not think, that you can count on me. We have to be closer than any two people have ever been. I’m willing to risk everything for a chance at keeping you. A few days of you thinking about what your uncle did and your trust factor is going to hit zero. I don’t want to be a casualty of the inevitable.”

“There’s a part of me that wants to pack up and run home to hide on the farm,” Lissa admitted. She leaned into him and rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “But I can’t do that. I don’t have the kind of personality that would ever allow me not to know the truth and then do something about it. I can’t leave the Sorbacovs’ threat hanging over us either, not when I know I have the best chance of anyone of getting close to them. As for my uncle and Arturo, if they really were part of the murders of my parents and all the people who worked for us, then I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t do something about that as well.”

“Malyshka, you have to think hard about that. I’m willing to take them out, but if circumstances dictate otherwise, could you do it? You have to know that before you put yourself in harm’s way.”

She didn’t answer right away. She kept her head down, pressed against his shoulder so he could no longer look into her eyes. He ran his hands down her back, along her spine, down to the curve of her waist and the indentation at the small of her back. The longer he spent in her company, the stronger he felt the bond between them.

“I’ve been going over my childhood, so many things that didn’t make sense that add up now.” She lifted her head and met his gaze.

His belly knotted. His arms tightened, trying to surround her with his strength. He wanted to shelter her next to his heart, the feeling of tenderness nearly overwhelming him. Simultaneously, he wanted to rip out her uncle’s heart and feed it to him. He wouldn’t mind spending a few hours making the man’s life unbearable until he begged for death. The two emotions warred with each other, and he worried that she would see that in him as well.

“He doesn’t have multiple sclerosis. That’s why he wouldn’t allow my father to talk to his doctor, or for me to ever see him ill. He went into his wing of the house and left to go to his family. I had to study night and day. Languages, reading maps, everything that could possibly help me along with my regular studies. Every type of weapons training and styles of martial arts, boxing and street fighting. I didn’t play with dolls or watch television, not unless it was a training exercise. All the while, he ranted about going after those responsible and how no law would ever bring them to justice. All along I thought I was the patient one, insisting we go slow and make everything look like an accident, but looking back at the conversations, he led me in that direction.”

Casimir nodded. He was certain her uncle had the patience to carry out a long-term plan to reach his ultimate goal, which was to be the sole power of both families. Luigi wouldn’t have been able to take over both families immediately. If Aldo Porcelli and his father had been killed right away, even his wife would have suspected him. By slowly reducing the old guard, and then going after the men in charge, Luigi had positioned himself, over time, to be the natural choice for head of the family. He would have had to plant the necessary lies in his niece’s mind in order to make her think it was all her own idea.

“He sometimes sent me to boarding schools. Not for very long, but he said it was to gain an insight into other people. It never made sense to me. I was with other children. Gaining insights to how a child’s mind worked didn’t seem as if it was going to help me later down the road. Of course he was with his family during those times. It was his idea that I go to the States. Again, he needed me out of the way.”

“You’re intelligent, Giacinta. He couldn’t take the chance that you might see or hear something he didn’t want you to. You trusted him implicitly, but he still didn’t dare chance it.”

She took a deep breath and her gaze dropped to his throat. “Maybe you should get clear of all of this, Casimir. I have to see it through. I started something a long time ago, and I’m going to finish it.”

He shook his head, his hand sliding up her back, beneath her long hair to curl around the nape of her neck. “Look at me, golubushka.” He waited until she lifted her gaze back to his. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together. You may not want me right now, or trust me, but you need me. You’re mine, and I’m going to protect you and help you through this. The best way to do that is to show you who and what I am. You’ll see into my mind. I won’t be able to hide from you. Not anything. You have to be able to count on at least one person right now. Your sisters are a long way away, so you’ve got me. Only me. And, Giacinta, I’m more than up for whatever has to be done.”

He was looking forward to it. No job had ever been personal for him. This was. Still, he was a man of control. He was fire inside. He always had been, but he could twist those flames to be whatever he needed. He’d learned restraint from the many lessons of his youth. He was able to use the fire to his advantage, keeping it smoldering and under control all these years. The first loss of control he’d experienced since the days of his boyhood had been this night with Lissa in his bed.

Once more he took her wrist and turned her palm up to him, laying it over his bare thigh. He didn’t wait for consent. He didn’t want her to struggle with her decision. She was trying to protect him, and he didn’t need that from her. He needed trust. He turned up his own palm and took her other hand and pressed her thumb hard into the exact center, then repeated the action with his own thumb on her upturned palm.

At once the connection arced through both of them, much like an electrical current. The sizzle started in their palms and forked outward, spreading along pathways, nerve endings, straight toward their brains. He felt her in his mind and deliberately, he forced himself to open to her, to allow her access to his memories, to everything he was, both good and bad. He wanted her always. He didn’t hide that from her. He wanted a home and a family with her. He wanted everything with her, and he was ruthless enough to take it. To protect it. He didn’t try to keep that from her either.

His past flooded her mind. Memories of his mother and father. He’d been so young, but he’d been traumatized, just as she’d been, by their ugly deaths. He’d been ripped from his brothers, so frightened, just a young boy, beaten and threatened, humiliated and tortured to keep him off-balance and afraid of those who held power over him. Unashamed, he left himself open for her to see everything.

Casimir Prakenskii, like his brothers, had been forged in the fires of hell. Lissa wanted to weep for the young boy—for all of them. She’d suffered trauma when her parents and those she loved had been murdered, but her torment had been swift and then over. Casimir’s hadn’t ended for years. He’d been caned, whipped, had electrical shock applied. He’d even been water-boarded.

Training sexually should have been at least pleasurable, but it was all about performance and control. If he failed to control his arousal, he was beaten severely. If the woman failed to arouse him, she was beaten. Sickened, Lissa nearly pulled her thumb away, but then his memories of work were there. Years of being alone. Lissa had never really felt completely alone, not like he did.

She saw the many roles he’d played in order to get close to his targets. He’d hunted with great efficiency and patience. He’d refined his skills over the years, relentless in his pursuit and yet never hurrying or making a mistake. Consequently, he had a perfect record. He was sent out and didn’t stop until the job was done. She couldn’t help but admire his skills.

Still, along the way, with as many hits as he’d made, things had been bound to go wrong. He bore those scars. The worst were on his face and scalp and had come from a fellow student targeted because the man had switched sides. He’d begun working for the Russian mob, using his skills for monetary gain. The elder Sorbacov hadn’t liked that.

Lissa held her breath as that particular memory unfolded and she saw the weapon the target had used to try to take Casimir’s head off. The man had forged the blades, curving them to fit over a skull and face like a mask. He wielded it as a sword, slamming the cage of sharpened steel onto his victims in order to hold them in place for the kill. The more they struggled, the deeper the blades penetrated.

Casimir hadn’t struggled. He’d allowed the assassin to pull him close and he’d struck with his own blade. It had taken longer to remove the mask of blades from his face and skull than it had to kill his opponent. Who had that kind of discipline? What would it take to be that man who could have his face and skull slashed to pieces, blood running everywhere, and calmly kill his attacker and remove the horrible device?

Then she was seeing past the roles, into Casimir, where he hid that last little piece of himself. He was loyal to a fault. He’d chosen her. His angel. He thought of her that way. His angel of justice. A sword honed for a good cause. He considered himself the darkest devil, a demon forged in the fires of hell. He had that fire burning in him, never to be put out. She shook her head at the way he looked at both of them.

Still, for all that, he wanted no other woman. There was only the real woman—Giacinta Abbracciabene—in his mind. In his soul. Somehow, she had crawled in where no one else had ever been. She’d slipped past his guard and was firmly entrenched. She was his choice. He gave her his heart completely. Utterly. Absolutely. His loyalty to his brothers ran deep, a choice he’d made long ago, but his loyalty to her was all encompassing. There was no way to deny it. He couldn’t fake that.

Lissa didn’t understand the connection between them. Why he would want her. Why she would be his choice so completely. How he knew and accepted the fact. But she couldn’t deny the connection, nor could she deny the way she felt about him. Maybe it all happened too fast, but she didn’t care. She’d wanted him before the mess she was in, now she wanted him even more. Someone in her life had to be real. He saw her. He thought her extraordinary. He accepted the real Giacinta.

He’d made himself completely vulnerable to her so she refused to do less. She gave him—her. Everything she was. He was her choice. She had made that decision when she gave him her body. This was different. This was more. She made the choice to give him her heart and soul. Her loyalty. All of it. No matter how little time they had, or how much, she wouldn’t take that back.

She let him see her childhood. Luigi had been cold at first, unable to even kiss her or comfort her, but she’d put that down to the awkwardness of a man who didn’t have children or a family. His affection came over time, slow and distant, occasional hugs, with Lissa always initiating contact. She had thought she was teaching him how to show affection.

She gave him everything. The terrible loneliness. The guilt that she couldn’t find all those who had participated in killing her family. The love she had for her chosen sisters. The fear when Luigi sent her away to the United States. The careful planning of each target and her reaction after. Casimir walked away coolly, the job done. She spent hours throwing up in the bathroom. Still, her determination to bring the killers to justice was every bit as strong as his resolve to do his job to the best of his ability—and stay alive.

She gave him how she felt about him. The chemistry. The exhilaration of feeling such an attraction to him. Of having him recognize and see her. The emotions burning inside of her, fiery hot, passionate, blazing with hunger for him. Just him. Fear that it wasn’t real. Fear that like everyone else in her life, he would disappear. Fear that her sisters would find out who she was and think her a monster.

Casimir closed his eyes and let himself relax for the first time since he’d realized her uncle had to be behind the killing of her family. Lissa accepted him as he was. The real Casimir Prakenskii with his unredeemable sins. She saw into him and still had that fiery craving for him. His woman. She would take the bad with the good.

He lifted her palm to his mouth and kissed the faded mark very gently. He was a man forged in hell. There shouldn’t have been gentleness or tenderness. The fire in him alone should have precluded those emotions, yet with Lissa, they were his first emotions. He was already an addict when it came to her. The craving for getting as close to her as possible, for her taste, for her body. It was all there, but wrapped up in his deeper emotions.

She leaned into him, still holding his palm, her thumb pressed there. Her long lashes fluttered. He loved her lashes. Thick. Red gold. Feathery and turned up, surrounding deep blue, very vibrant eyes. Her hair fell around her like a curtain of fire. “Thank you for being here. I would never have suspected him and in the end, he would have killed me. You saved me.” In more ways than one.

He heard the echo of her thought just as if she’d spoken aloud to him. He was very aware of the legacy in his family, the ability to talk to each other telepathically once they were connected by that psychic thread. He hadn’t realized just how intimate that would be, her voice whispering in his mind, touching him inside, driving away every vestige of loneliness.

That soft whisper brought his body to life, his cock stirring hungrily. He lifted her off his lap and tucked her under the covers. She was exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically. “You need sleep, golubushka.”

She shook her head, not lifting it from the pillow. “I can’t sleep here. He can’t know about us. He’d come after you, Casimir. You know I’m right.”

“I know I have to keep you safe. I want you with me, so there’s no chance he tries to arrange an accident early. I’ll watch over you, let you sleep a couple of hours, and then I want you again. After that, you can slip back into your room and we’ll get ready for the day. You’ll have to insist on Tomasso being with you, not Arturo. Find a reason.”

Casimir slid down in the bed, curling his body around hers, hooking her around the waist and pulling her into him until she was partially under him. He waited for her to relax, to melt into him in the way she did when she accepted him. It took a little longer than he expected and he found himself smiling. Lissa wasn’t a woman to blindly obey. She would think out every decision for herself. He knew he was a controlling man, but he liked that she wasn’t a woman to be controlled. It would make for fireworks, occasionally, but he could live with that.

She fell asleep fast, drifting off with a small sigh, leaving him wrapped around her, indulging himself by letting his fingers caress her skin just below her breasts, occasionally brushing the undersides just because they were so soft and he could. Her hair smelled wonderful, a faint, almost elusive scent he knew he would never grow tired of.

First, before any of the others, they had to get to the dog handler. He had a few questions for the man. He wanted absolute confirmation before they proceeded with any plans. He was positive he was right and Luigi Abbracciabene was a treacherous snake of the worst kind, but he wanted proof for Lissa. He would get that proof for her—for both of them. If they were correct and Luigi was guilty, then while she reported her successful removing of Cosmos Agosto, he was going to take care of Arturo. He didn’t want to be nice about it either. With Luigi being Lissa’s alibi when Arturo died, her uncle wouldn’t suspect her of making a move against him.

Lissa moved, her body pulling in on itself, knees curling, drawing up so that she was in the fetal position. He tightened his hold possessively. She made a soft sound of distress in her sleep.

“Shh, lyubov moya, you’re safe. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.” He stroked caresses down the back of her head in an effort to soothe her.

Another small sound escaped and with a sinking heart, he realized she was weeping in her sleep. That tore him up. He lay there in the dark, holding her close, whispering to her in Russian, tempted to sing her a Russian lullaby, and all the while he planned out Luigi’s death. If he’d ever once thought to prolong a death, or torture someone, it would have been Luigi.

“You’re breaking my heart, Giacinta,” he whispered against her ear. “You have to stop.” He was growing desperate. He wasn’t a man who felt desperate, and yet, there it was, she was turning him inside out.

He cupped her breast, his thumb sliding gently over her nipple while he nudged the thick mass of hair from the nape of her neck so he could kiss his way across that tempting strip of skin. The soft weeping continued, but she turned from her side to her back so he could make out the distress on her face. The deep sense of betrayal. Grief for her lost family. She’d accepted the fact that her uncle had been the man behind the murders of her family. She knew Luigi had spared her in order to shape her into a weapon to use to further his cause. She also knew he had no choice but to kill her when the last obstacle in his path to become head of both families was removed.

Casimir wanted to weep along with her. That kind of treachery was beyond measure—beyond comprehension. He found it took all of his discipline, every bit of his control, not to stalk downstairs and put a bullet in the man’s head. Instead he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. Her face was tear-wet.

“Giacinta. Lyubov moya, open your eyes for me.”

The terrible emptiness swallowing her whole receded just a little, pushed aside by the velvet caressing voice breaking into her endless loop of a nightmare. Lissa wanted to reach for the voice, but she couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t break free, not when she was so broken, pieces of her scattered on the ground all around her. Luigi had done that. Her beloved uncle.

She had worried about him for so long. Every time she came to see him, he had to spend time alone in the wing of his house suffering with his bout of multiple sclerosis. Now she knew: while she worried, he spent time with his wife and family so he would have an alibi when she took down another member of the Porcelli family. He’d left her with nothing at all.

“Come on, malyshka, look at me. I’m right here. Nothing can get to you. They’ll have to walk through me to do it. Open your eyes. Come back to me.”

That voice. Mesmerizing. Hypnotic. Impossible to ignore. Rough and sexy. Pitched low so that the sound sank through skin to her bones, branding her. Forcing out the nightmare—only it wasn’t a terrible dream. Betrayal and treachery were realities in her life. If she opened her eyes, even for him, for Casimir, she would have to face those things. She would have to admit defeat, that her uncle had won. He’d broken her when not even the deaths of her parents had done that.

“Giacinta.” The voice changed tone. Commanding. No longer coaxing. “You have to look at me.”

She didn’t want to obey. He would see she was an empty shell, that Luigi had managed to destroy her. Still, there was no way to ignore that tone. Lissa lifted her lashes, her heart so heavy she feared it was a stone in her chest. She felt him there. Casimir Prakenskii. Her rock when the world had shifted out from under her so hard and fast. A deep chasm had opened under her feet, threatening to drag her under, drowning her, and there he was.

She stared up at his face. Strong. Masculine. Cut beautifully, like a Greek sculpture, every line perfect. Strong jaw. That hint of a dark shadow. Long lashes. Glittering eyes so mercurial they stole her breath. His mouth drew her attention, his lips sinful, a wicked promise of pleasure she knew he was more than capable of keeping. Mostly, she saw strength in him.

He was beautiful. Gorgeous. He smiled at her, a gentle smile, a flash of his white teeth, his eyes drifting possessively over her face, taking in everything, assessing her emotions. Watchful. Caring.

“Golubushka. Little dove.” He whispered the endearment softly.

Her heart turned over. A sound escaped, a low, keening whisper of loss. She reached up to touch him. To find him solid, not a dream. She needed reality in a sea of uncertainty, and he was there. His bare chest was pure, defined muscle. His arms rippled with muscles. So strong, not just physically, but in every way.

“I’m lost, Casimir,” she whispered. Telling him the truth. Giving him her greatest vulnerability. She’d never felt so lost in her life.

She kept her gaze fixed on him. Casimir, the man who would see her through this terrible blow. The loss of her last living blood relation, a man she’d loved most of her life. She’d clung to him, believed in him, and deep inside, she felt shattered.

“You can’t be lost, Giacinta, not as long as you’re with me. I’ll always find our way. Just hold on to me. We’ll get through this together.”

She didn’t think that was true. She had always considered herself strong. She’d worked hard to make herself that way. She’d never felt like this. Not even when she’d been a grief-stricken child. She’d had a purpose then. She knew who she was. She was proud of that person. Now, she didn’t know anything.

“He shattered me, Casimir,” she confessed. “I’m so broken. Into a million pieces. I can’t think what to do.” To her horror, she heard the tears in her voice. She wasn’t weak. Yet now, when she needed to be strong more than any other time, when it was necessary to be decisive and take charge, two of her greatest strengths, she was falling apart.

“You aren’t, malyshka, you aren’t broken. Luigi Abbracciabene could never break you. Never. He knocked you down. Hard. It was a hit, Giacinta, a blow that put you down, but you’re going to get back up. That’s what you do—what you’ve always done—and it’s what you’ll do this time.”

She drew in her breath as Casimir bent his head and brushed his mouth over each eye, taking the burn away. He left a trail of kisses along her high cheekbones, sipping at the wet streaks, replacing the tears with tiny darts of fire. That fire seemed to find its way into her veins, warming her when she was so cold.

“I still feel so lost and alone, Casimir. He did that to me. Took everything, the foundation of my life, right out from under me. He made me afraid. I haven’t been afraid since that horrible day when the dogs took us down.”

Casimir’s heart turned over. Her eyes, so vivid, as blue as the deepest sea, looked up at him with trepidation, with that lost, forlorn look he could barely stand to see in her. So vulnerable. So alone when she wasn’t. She needed to see him standing beside her. He’d hold her up, support her in any way he could because she would always be his choice. “You aren’t alone now, lyubov moya. You’re safe here. It’s okay to feel broken. Even if you were in a million pieces, I’d find every one and put you back together again.”

He was so beautiful. A rock. She felt steadier just looking at him. His voice was pitched low, but he spoke with absolute conviction and she found herself believing him. Believing that she wasn’t as broken as she felt inside. Luigi had knocked her down, but she wasn’t out. She would never be out. “He did this thing. I know that he did.”

He nodded his head slowly. She didn’t flinch away from the truth this time. A part of her had held out hope when they were talking earlier, but she’d thought about everything, every little detail of childhood, growing up in Luigi’s home. Pieces of the puzzle she hadn’t ever known were missing fell into place. She knew, as she was falling to sleep, that Luigi had committed treachery far beyond what she could ever have conceived of. She would get proof before she made her move, but she knew, beyond all doubt, that he was guilty.

She reached up with an unsteady hand to rub her palm along Casimir’s stubborn jaw, feeling the dark shadow bristling against his mark on her. The spikes rasped over her body, along her skin. There was compassion in his eyes. Tenderness. Heat. But he knew the truth too. He wasn’t going to lie to her. He knew Luigi had orchestrated the hit on his brother and family.

“Kiss me, Casimir,” she whispered. “I need you to kiss me.”

He didn’t hesitate. His hand framed her face and his mouth took hers. Gentle. Coaxing. She parted her lips, allowing his tongue to sweep inside and tangle with hers. His mouth was pure fire. She wanted to stay there. Burn there. Let the flames sweep through her, consuming every ugly detail of her life.

She tasted love for the first time in her life. She didn’t know if he knew it or not, but it was there, mixed with hunger. With lust. With need. Love tasted different. Tender. Beautiful. She needed that now more than any other time in her life.

She had to blink away tears all over again. She had never thought to taste that emotion. Certainly not now in her darkest moment. She kissed him back, melting, feeling the fire in her grow, losing herself in his mouth so she wouldn’t have to think anymore. She didn’t want to think, only feel. Still, having him was terrifying. What if he left her too? What if she had him—like this—and then he took himself away? She wouldn’t recover. Lissa pressed back into the pillows, her heart beating wildly, fear shaking her.

Casimir lifted his head a scant couple of inches, his gaze drifting possessively over her face. For the first time he saw how young she was. She was self-possessed. Disciplined. She had never felt young to him, but now, with her world upside down, he saw her so clearly. She had every reason to be terrified—and yet none at all. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not. Ever.

He brushed a kiss over her lips, those beautiful, soft, full lips, more tempting than anything he’d known in his life. He blazed a trail of fire down to the pulse beating in her throat. That sweet spot allowed him to know she was breathing. She was alive. No one had taken her from him. He kissed that pulse-point, feeling her heart pounding beneath his mouth. His tongue. Her skin tasted like paradise.

He kissed his way along her collarbone. She was a woman of steel, her spine as tough and even stronger than most men’s, but right then he could feel how delicate she was, how fragile her bones were. He took his time, finding his way over the lush curve of her breasts to the valley between them. He buried his face there, inhaling. Tasting. His shadow rasped against her soft breasts. He felt her answering shiver.

Lissa’s hands went to his shoulders as if she might push him away. There was tension in her as she trembled beneath him.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Memorizing you. Loving you,” he answered against her tight little bud of a nipple. His tongue swiped gently. “With every breath I take, Giacinta, I’m loving you.” She deserved gentle. Tender. She needed gentle and tender. She was afraid of it, afraid of trusting it, but she needed it now more than the fire burning through both of them.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer under him as he took the lush mound deep into his mouth, flattening her nipple onto the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Her breath hissed out of her and her legs moved restlessly.

His shadowed jaw rubbing roughly against her sensitive skin enhanced the stimulation of his mouth and tongue. He added his teeth—gently. Just a small nip but she reacted, gasping, her hips bucking.

“Easy, malyshka, you need gentle tonight. I’m going to make absolutely certain you know you’re loved.” He murmured the vow against her breasts, nipping again and then slowly beginning his journey down her body. He wanted to claim every inch of her. To love every inch. She didn’t know how much she needed gentle, but he did, and she was going to get it.

He memorized her body with his palms, sliding over her silky skin. The lush curves, the sides of her breasts, under them, all along her narrow rib cage, and then sweeping down to her waist. He followed his hands with his mouth, using his lips to kiss her, his tongue to stroke velvet caresses and his teeth to nip and show her how nerve endings fired under a slow assault.

His blood roared in his ears, rushed through his veins straight to his groin until he was so full and hard he thought he might burst. Just touching her did that to him. Looking at her. Feeling the silk of her hair against his body. The satin of her skin sliding under his palm. She was so beautiful, a woman he never believed he could ever have. His own.

He kissed her belly button, nuzzled her flat stomach and allowed his hands to drift lower, over her hips, tracing the bones there, lower still to her thighs. He felt her muscles shift and ripple, dance with arousal. His mouth moved lower, his hands parting her thighs, giving him access to her heat. His tongue swiped a slow, easy taste, languid and lazy, taking his time.

The breath slammed out of her and her hips bucked. She cried out his name, her fingernails digging into his shoulder. He tightened his grip on her hips, pinning her down so he could continue his exploration uninterrupted. She was pure liquid fire. She tasted like heaven, and he indulged himself. This was for her . . . but he couldn’t resist.

He’d forgotten. The taste of her was in his mouth when he woke in the early morning hour, but still, he’d forgotten just how good it really was. The first few minutes were purely selfish. Her nails bit deeper and her breath came in ragged gasps as his mouth and tongue took her up so that the tension coiled tight and fiery deep inside her. He added a finger, pressing deep through her tight muscles.

“Casimir.” Her breath exploded out of her lungs.

“Let go,” he commanded softly. “Just let go, lyubov moya, let it take you.” He kept up his assault on her senses, his mouth greedy, but still as gentle as he could be when he wasn’t a gentle man. “Nothing is hotter to me than watching you come apart for me.” He meant that. He loved looking into her eyes. Giving her that gift. The sound of her voice, breathy, ragged, gasping his name. It was music. Beautiful. A paradise he never thought he could ever have.

Her eyes on his, she did exactly what he commanded, her channel, scorching hot, clamped down on his finger, and his cock jerked hungrily. She shuddered, her hips writhing, pushing deeper against his finger, her hands moving over his shoulders and down his arms to his wrists.

“Please, honey, I need you.”

He wasn’t going to make her beg. Not this time. This time he wanted her to know in every single cell in her body that she was thoroughly loved. He wanted her to feel him, branded inside her, deep, where she would never get him out. He pushed her knees up and apart and moved over her.

“Wrap me up, malyshka,” he ordered softly. “Lock your heels around my hips. I want to feel every inch of you against me.”

He circled his cock with his fist and pushed the crown into her hot, slick entrance. The feeling was excruciatingly beautiful. Tight. Hot. Scalding. He waited while she obeyed him, while she circled him with her arms as well as her legs, until every inch of her front was melted into his.

Fire was there. Her fire. His. He felt it in his belly, a roaring he couldn’t quite control. He felt it in his cock as he pushed through her fiery sheath, forcing her to give way for his invasion. So tight. So perfect. He didn’t power through. He forced himself to keep to the gentle, leisurely pace that he knew was killing both of them.

One slow inch at a time. He watched himself disappear into her body. So beautiful. He could feel the slow assault, his thick cock forcing her muscles to give way, to stretch to accommodate his size. It felt as if a fiery fist clamped down around him, her muscles like a vise, stroking and caressing with velvet flames. Slowly, relentlessly, he forced his way, inch by slow inch, into her until he was seated deep, holding her still, letting her body adjust to the burning, stretched feeling. Letting his adjust to the fire.

Her mouth rounded, her lips forming his name, but only a soft groan escaped. Her lashes fluttered and her hips pressed deeper into him, urging him without words to move. She needed movement. Wanted it. Demanded it. She was so beautiful under him, her body swaying with every movement of his. Her breasts jolted invitingly, nipples hard little pebbles against his chest, the feeling unbelievably erotic to him. Her hips bucked harder, trying to drive down on him, to force him into compliance.

“You can’t move, malyshka,” he cautioned, clenching his teeth against the pleasure radiating out from his cock to the rest of his body. She gripped him so tight, the fire so hot, it bordered on pain, yet he didn’t want it to ever end. “I’m not going to last five minutes if you don’t hold still. You’ve taken away my control.” He’d worked hard for that control. It had been beaten into him and now, when he needed it most, when it had never failed him before, he was in danger of losing it completely.

“I don’t think I can stop moving,” she confessed, panting, biting her lip, trying to still her body at the command in his voice.

He loved that about her. She tried to do what he asked, no matter how difficult, and staying still was difficult. He smoothed his hand over her bottom, those luscious curves he found so intriguing, taking a breath, wanting to live right where he was. He moved then. Slow. Withdrawing. All the way, almost losing contact. Her eyes widened and her ankles locked tighter, as if she could hold him to her.

He surged forward with a hard, fast stroke, driving through her tight folds so that the friction was nearly unbearable. Fire streaked through his body. She cried out, clutching at him, sliding her hands down to his hips to grasp him, to try to urge him to keep going. He withdrew again, even slower this time and, eyes on her face, he began a slow, steady assault on her nerve endings. Driving in slow, retreating even slower, allowing her fire to surround him, to grip and milk.

“Casimir.” She wailed his name.

He kept the slow, steady buildup, keeping the friction right over her sweet little button, just enough to drive her wild, not send her careening over the edge. It cost him. Sweat beaded on his body. His blood thundered in his ears and roared through his veins. All the while he moved in her, loving her, he felt the assault on his own body, the power gathering like the force of a volcano rumbling, waiting, holding off for the bigger explosion. Arousal was so intense it was painful, arcing through his thighs, boiling in his balls, jackhammers drilling into his skull, and yet all of that only added to the pleasure burning through him.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened. Fingernails bit deep. She went over the edge hard and fast, so unexpected, with such force, she swept him along in the wildfire. He plunged into her, several hard strokes while the flames burned over them, consuming both of them, and her cries reverberated in his mind.

He collapsed over top of her, pinning her small body beneath his, letting her take his full weight while he buried his face in her neck, his heart pounding wildly, his lungs raw and aching, his entire body sated. Aftershocks shook them both, her body still alive, rippling around his.

He lay there for far longer than he should have, letting his heart pound, absorbing the feel of her under him. Savoring it. She didn’t protest or attempt to push him off. She kissed his temple and rubbed her hands along his back.

“Ya lyublyu tebya,” he whispered, meaning it. He shifted his weight off of her, but stayed buried in her, his hands framing her face. “Do you understand, Giacinta? Did you hear what my body said to yours?”

She traced his lower lip with the pad of her finger. “I heard you, Casimir. I feel the same way. Thank you. I needed you tonight and I should have known you’d be here for me.”

He rolled, taking her with him so that she sprawled over top of him. Grasping the covers, he pulled them over both of them. “Go back to sleep, golubushka. I’ll wake you before you have to get back to your own room.”

She laid her head over his heart, her hands moving up and down his shoulder and biceps as she drifted off to sleep, knowing he would watch over her.