Oceans of Fire (41 page)

Abigail lay under him, the floor hard against her back and her body melting around his. There were lines etched into his face that had not been there before and she reached up and traced them with the pad of her finger. She stroked his chiseled lips and ran her palm over his shadowed jaw. Even now, after they had shared so much, he could look so lonely. It never seemed to matter how much of herself she gave, she could see the loneliness in him. It was so much a part of him, he didn’t even seem to realize it was there.

“Why are you crying,
baushki-bau
?” There was a throaty growl of displeasure in his voice. He leaned forward and flicked at the tears on her face with his tongue. The simple movement had her muscles fluttering and tightening around him.

She turned her head away from him, but not before he caught the flash of pain in her eyes. His heart jerked. Immediately he eased his body from hers and went up on his knees to lift his weight from her as he glanced around, taking a quick assessment of the room. Their clothes weren’t the most salvageable. He was going to be making a run early in the morning to get her something to wear, but more importantly, there was no comfortable spot to sleep.

He picked her up, cradling her against his chest. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m a mess,” she protested, turning her face against his heavy muscles. He felt the touch of her tongue on his skin and his nerve endings jumped with pleasure.

“You’re
beautiful
.” He carried her through the house to nearest bedroom and followed her down to the feather mattress, kissing her face, her eyes, the corners of her mouth and teasing at her lower lip with small little nips before settling his body around hers, his arms holding her close. “Tell me why I make you cry.”

“Maybe I’m really happy.” She swallowed and attempted a watery smile.

“Truth seekers make terrible liars.” He kissed the tip of her nose, took a small bite of her chin and kissed her there too. “Why do you look at me that way sometimes after we make love? I’ve seen it before. You look so sad, yet I know you’re happy with me.”

She turned in his arms so she could look up into his face. “But are you really happy with me?” She retraced his rough features, exactly as she had earlier, and the memories of her doing the same thing flooded him. The way the pads of her fingers stroked over him as if brushing something away.

“I came halfway around the world to find you. I poured my heart and soul into letters that I painstakingly wrote. I had to mail the damn things from all over Europe because I was so paranoid someone would read them. I even set up a box in France rather than my country when I realized you were going to keep sending them back. With all that, I still persisted. Why would I do that if you didn’t make me happy?”

She shrugged, her gaze shifting away from his. Aleksandr caught her chin. “Abigail,
tell
me. Just say it out loud. Let’s get everything over with so we can live together the way we should have been all this time.”

“You like my body.”

He stared down at her face for a long time, trying desperately not to cry. He
loved
her body. What man wouldn’t love the lush curves and silky softness? He loved the way she was so responsive to him, the way she trusted him so utterly and completely. She was a haven to him, a secret place of absolute beauty in a world where he found most things bleak and ugly. Right now she lay nearly under him, pinned by his weight, her soft breasts pushing into his chest, nipples raking his skin, one leg tangled with his. His hand was cupping the round curve of her bottom, fingers caressing, and she never once shifted away from him. Never said enough. Never protested anything he wanted to do. She
gave
herself to him utterly and completely.

The lump in his throat burned. “I love your body, yes. I love everything about you, Abbey. Even your stubborn streak, although I think next time you turn it on me I’m going to turn caveman and be unpolitical and insensitive. Don’t you want me to love your body?” His hands slid down her spine and cupped the globes of her bottom, bringing her damp curls tight against him. “Every time I touch you, each time I take you, no matter how I do it, I’m telling you in the only way I know how just how intense my feelings are for you. There’s no real way to express in words the way I feel for you.”

“But afterward, when we stop, when it’s over, you look so lonely. I never want it to end because I know that look is going to creep back no matter what I do.”

There was an ache in her voice. Tears swam in her eyes.

His heart did a funny little melting thing he’d never experienced before. “
Ya lyublyu tibya
. Always. There’ll never be enough time in the world to spend with you. To touch you and make love to you. I love you always, Abbey. When we’re skin to skin and my body is inside of yours I know I’m home and I’m safe and I’m loved. I’ve never had that and maybe a part of me doesn’t trust it yet. I know I don’t just want to be dominant when we make love, I know a part of me
needs
it. I need to have you give yourself to me.”

Her hands framed his face. She kissed his throat, his chin, and he felt her tears on his skin. Her body moved beneath his, a small subtle shift, pliant and welcoming. She was killing him. How could he ever show her what she was to him? His hands tangled in her hair, pulled her head back to look into her eyes. “Don’t leave me again, Abbey. Don’t do that to me. I’m never alone when I’m with you.
Never
. No matter how I look, I don’t feel alone when you’re with me.”

“I love you so much it hurts, Sasha. I don’t think I could go through another separation.”

“You satisfy me completely, Abbey, never think that you don’t.” Aleksandr nuzzled her neck as he wrapped his arms around her, his body fitting around hers protectively. “I love the way you smell after we make love.”

She smiled in the darkness. “I think you’re primitive. You want your scent all over me.”

“That too.” He pressed his body closer, wanting to crawl inside of her skin. “After you were gone, I would lie awake at night and remember you, the curves of your body and how soft you were.” His hand cupped her breast, his thumb sliding over her nipple. “Like this. Full and round and so damned soft you feel like heaven.” He closed his eyes and burrowed his face into her wealth of silky hair. “I remembered every detail. And when I couldn’t sleep I’d think about how your body curved, every valley, your hips and ass. I love your ass.”

“You were obsessing, Aleksandr. That’s not a good thing.”

“Maybe not, but it kept me sane.” He kissed a spot between her shoulder blades. “Before I met you, I had a satisfying life. I got up in the morning and had my coffee and went to work. Whatever case I was working on consumed my morning, afternoon, and evening. Sometimes I worked until two or three in the morning. Looking back, I realize I didn’t have friendships. I didn’t dare. Betrayal is a way of life and getting too close to anyone is dangerous business. When I met you, the first thing that really hit me was the way you smiled at me. It was so genuine. It lit your eyes and your face and seemed to be coming from somewhere inside of you. You didn’t want anything at all from me.”

His teeth nipped her skin, his tongue flicking the small mark. “I wanted something from you and I was ashamed. I’d never felt shame before. It was a new and very unpleasant experience for me. I wanted our chance meeting to be real.”

“I was hurt when you first told me,” she admitted, “but now it doesn’t seem so terrible. At least we did meet. I loved the way you touched me. Very strong, very sure, guiding me through a crowded street.” She smiled at the memory. His face has been so strong, remote, so completely bleak, yet confident. He had been a puzzle to her. The more she was in his company, the more layers she discovered. The first time he laughed, her heart had soared and she’d known he was the one. That he’d always be the one.

She had loved being the person to put that laughter in his eyes. He smiled, but rarely with his eyes and when he’d laughed, her entire being had responded.

“I didn’t know people like you existed,” he confessed. “I grew up in a school. A place where they trained us. We didn’t have mothers and fathers, we had teachers. We worked at skills all the time and that was our playtime. We didn’t know others had different lives, because it seemed natural to us.”

Her heart ached for him. She shifted position again, her back to him, pressing her buttocks tightly against his groin, her face buried in the pillow. If she cried, he would stop talking about his past. He always stopped if he thought she was upset and as much as it hurt to hear his childhood, she wanted to know. He was always so matter-of-fact. It was never a bid for sympathy. He had known no other way of life and it seemed natural to him. Duty. Work. Acquiring necessary skills. She knew his teachers had shaped a weapon, sharpening his mind and building on his natural athletic ability and his reflexes.

His hand stroked her silken hair. “We had to ask for our food in at least three languages. We were never allowed to just use one language when we spoke. If I said anything to a teacher, or to anyone else, I had to say it three times.” He lifted the hair from the nape of her neck, his lips trailing over her skin. “I didn’t mind. It was a challenge to be able to do it, but not all of the others had a gift for languages and it was harder on them.”

“What was hard on you?” His teeth and mouth were driving her slowly crazy. He nibbled and licked and sucked and her body was beginning to respond to the stimulation with a slow burn.

She felt his smile against her neck. “I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do. If I thought I had a better way to accomplish something, I did it my way.”

“Did you get into trouble?” She closed her eyes as his hands cupped her breasts and his strong fingers began a slow assault on her sensitive nipples.

“I often was reprimanded. I think it was considered part of the training. We weren’t allowed to make a sound or answer back when they beat us. I think it set the stage for working as an operative in the event we were captured and tortured.”

His erection was growing against her, hardening into a persistent bulge. She felt a small drop of moisture on her cheek. His hips moved in a slow, languorous rhythm, almost lazy, almost as if he couldn’t help trying to burrow into her softness.

“You were just children,” Abigail protested. “It wasn’t right.” She couldn’t stop from pushing back against him, rubbing her bottom over him in a slow glide, resting her head back against him so she could arch her breasts into his hands.

“We didn’t know any different,” he said again. “How the hell do you get so soft?” His hands were calloused and rough yet she never protested. Abigail never stopped him from touching her and that meant everything to him. Sometimes he felt starved for touch. For her hands on him, for his hands on her. He massaged her breasts, tugged on her nipples, his mouth at the nape of her neck.

“You need to sleep,” she said, but her body slid against his in invitation.

He closed his eyes briefly, savoring what a miracle she was. Her invitation. Her acceptance. The way she seemed to know what he needed. “I can’t sleep. My mind won’t shut off.”

It was often that way. Most nights he got up and paced when he couldn’t sleep, or brought out his case files or studied the data on the computer. Lying in bed holding Abigail usually allowed him enough peace to rest, but not tonight. Tonight there were knots in his guts. Fear that she might disappear still stabbed through him. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to accept him the way he really was. He had been shaped at a young age to be ruthless and cold when needed, to do whatever it took to get the job done. There was a dark side to him, one that Abigail had glimpsed before. And he knew that part of him scared her. Maybe would always scare her.

“I’m not going to give you up again, Aleksandr.”

“You said you were terrified of me.”

She laughed softly. “I said I’m terrified of how much I love you. There’s a huge difference.” She pulled out of his arms, shoving the heavy comforter off of them as she knelt beside him. Her long red hair fell in a silken cascade and brushed intimately over his stomach. “You need to sleep.”

“You sound like a little dictator.” His body was all at once fully erect, stiff and hard and aching. He slid his hand over his pulsing shaft. He wanted her again and again. There was no end to it. Right now he fought the urge to catch a fistful of hair and drag her head down to his full, painful erection.

She licked her lips, watching him with her mysterious green eyes, eyes that had gone slumberous and sexy. Her breath came faster and her breasts lifted enticingly with each drag of air she took in.

“I am. You don’t need to be thinking about anything right now.”

Her hands reached for his pulsing erection and his breath left his lungs in a long rush. She looked so sexy rising above him, her breasts full and rounded and swaying as she moved over him. The curve of her butt enticed him and he brought up his hands to stroke her rounded cheeks.

She suddenly bent her head, her hot mouth taking half of his erection deep into her mouth. “Oh, hell, Abbey,” he gasped, his hands coming up to tangle in her hair. Her mouth was pure hot silk, tight and moist and gliding over him with wicked intent. One hand stroked his tight sac and the other gripped the base.

He angled his head to get a better view of her lips sliding up and down him. Her mouth was wet as it slid over his shaft, leaving behind a gleaming trail of moisture. She was so beautiful he wanted to weep, so sexy a part of him felt nearly animalistic in his need for her. The sight made his heart pound ferociously and drove every sane thought out of his mind. Her tongue did some kind of swirling dance and need knotted his belly. He’d just had her yet he was ready to erupt with the heat of her mouth and her tongue doing a wild tangle. She breathed and he felt it vibrate right through his shaft. She worked her throat and his entire body jerked.

“You have to stop. You’re going to make me come too fast and I want to be inside you again.” His fists tightened in her hair, his thought to drag her head away from him, but his body had other ideas and he held her to him as his hips thrust deep. He could feel the silken heat of her mouth, tight like a glove, and a hoarse moan escaped before he could stop it. “Again,” he ordered, his voice unrecognizable. “Do that again.”