67
IVAN
I hold Cora in my hands and try to forget the look on her face when I found her. The deep well of fear that opened in her eyes.
It was more than the fear of a woman cornered by a man. She looked terrified.
What did Mikhail Sokolov say to her? What did he want with her?
Cora is clinging to me, spinning and swaying as the music blasts through the speakers. It’s so loud that I can’t think about anything beyond the beat and the rhythm of her body against mine.
I hold her tighter after every song, reminding myself that she is here. She is safe. She’s breathing and alive in my arms.
For now.
But even now, I feel eyes on us. On her.
We keep to the edge of the dance floor. The crowd of my sister’s thousand closest friends give us a wide berth out of respect for me, but I feel them watching. Wondering.
I grip her waist and slide my hands around to the exposed skin of her lower back. I curve her against me, urging our hips together.
The chestnut waterfall of her hair catches the light. Her skin ripples with shifting colors. She’s a kaleidoscope in my arms.
I run my hand up her spine and then pull her back against me. My mouth finds her shoulder, her collarbone. I kiss my way across her skin while she drags her nails across my neck and tugs on my collar.
I know her body almost as well as my own at this point. The curves and edges of her. The places she likes to be touched. I want to revisit all of them now.
Yet there is still so much unexplored. So much I don’t know about her and her family. Too much.
I need to know this woman inside and out. For my Bratva and my future, yes—but for myself, too. Otherwise, the questions will drive me crazy.
Where did Cora come from and how did she tear down my walls so easily?
“Ivan.” She whispers my name in my ear as she draws a hand down my chest. Her fingers trail over my abs, scraping lower with the promise of more.
Oh, right. That’s how.
Amongst everything I don’t know, there’s one thing that is undeniable: I want her.
I grab her hand from where it’s resting near my waistband and tug her off the dancefloor. She doesn’t ask where we’re going. Doesn’t resist. Cora just twines her fingers through mine and follows as I lead her out of the club, through the empty room where Rooster and I just met, and into a service hallway beyond.
The hallway is dark and empty. Silent, except for the consistent bass of the music from the other room.
We fall together instantly. Forehead to forehead, we grapple in the darkness—for each other, for a wall, for hope that this might all end in a happily-ever-after.
She circles her hands around my neck. Her fingers play in my hair. Her thumbs stroke the muscles that curve down to my shoulders.
“I should have stayed in bed with you.” She speaks softly, breathlessly, but her voice still sounds loud after the noise of the club. “Things were better there. Just the two of us…”
To force down all the words I can’t speak, I lean forward and press my lips to hers.
She gasps against my mouth and then leans into it. I smooth my hand down her back to the base of her spine. The curve of her ass beneath the flimsy fabric of her dress is soft and pure.
I should stop this.
Mikhail Sokolov was here. Who knows who else could be lurking nearby? We’re alone in a dark hallway, compromised and vulnerable, and it would be so easy to sneak up from any angle.
But the more of her I touch, the more I need. Stopping is not an option. When I look down at her, the hunger in Cora’s eyes mirrors my own.
“I want you,” she whispers with kiss swollen lips. “Right here. Right now.”
That makes two of us.
In one movement, I pin Cora against the wall and wrap her legs around my waist. It’s nothing like the slow, lazy tour I took of her body last night. The way I laid her out on the mattress and mapped every inch of her.
This is half-crazed and furious.
She unzips my pants and wraps her soft hand around the hard length of me. I drop my forehead to her shoulder and release a bone-deep groan.
“This is just like the night we met,” she murmurs. “The two of us against a wall in a dark corner. Me…not wearing any panties.”
I push her dress even higher up her thighs and swipe my hand over her exposed center. Over the evidence of how much she wants this, too.
“You came out with no panties on?” I circle a thumb over the sensitive nub between her thighs. She gasps, biting on her lower lip to keep a moan inside. “I thought you said no debauchery.”
“Hm. I do recall saying that.”
“Then what do you call this?”
She grinds her hips against my hand. “I meant no debauchery while I was out. While we were apart. But I… I…”
I slide a finger inside of her. “You what?”
“Oh, God.” Her green eyes are hazy with lust. “I wanted to think of you. While I was gone. I… I wanted to come back home to you tonight… Ready.”
The beast inside of me practically purrs.
“But I’m ready now,” she whimpers. “Don’t wait. Take me now.”
I couldn’t wait if I wanted to. I pull my hand away and Cora is quick to position me at her opening. She works me into her warmth so all it takes is one shift of my hips before I’m filling her to the hilt.
I drive her against the wall while she clings to me. I pump every ounce of fear and rage and lust and desire in my body into this moment.
The weight of the night disappears while I’m inside of her. Nothing matters beyond her breath on my neck. The weight of her in my arms.
And when she cries out, clamping down around me as her orgasm pulses through her, I’m convinced she’s the single most important thing in the world.
So I close my eyes and give her everything I have, too.