Chapter Six
Fuck, but Eve felt incredibly tight around his dick. Vadim wanted to rut her, fuck her hard and good, but this was Eve’s first time. He pulled his dick out, sliding back in slowly, until her nails scored his back, marking him as hers, too.
He thrust in and out of her, gritting his teeth, settling on a rhythm that suited them both. Eve locked her hands behind his neck, one hand in his hair, pulling him down for a kiss. She’d gotten bold, but he liked how she knew what she wanted. Crushing her lips, he moved faster, sweat-slicked body sliding against hers. Deep and deeper, he breached her most intimate places.
He changed the angle of his thrust and must have found her G-spot, because she arched her back.
When Vadim released her mouth, she mewled for him. He decided he liked that sound. He aimed for her sweet spot repeatedly. She held on, fingers on his shoulders, spurring him on. Vadim reduced them both to grunts and pants. Words had flown out the window a long time ago.
He reached for her left breast, pinching her nipple, and she cried out, eyes widening. Then every tense muscle in her body went slack. Eve’s eyelids fluttered shut as bliss swept her under. Seeing her in orgasm, his own crashed into him a second later. A few thrusts and the pressure building inside him broke.
The forest, the river, all of it fell away from his line of sight. He growled out his pleasure, emptying his balls into the condom. When he was done, he pulled out of her, disposed of the condom and lay next to Eve.
Vadim waited a few seconds for both of them to recover their breathing. Now that the hunger had been sated, would Eve regret her decision? She cuddled close, resting her face on his chest, her glorious, brown curls fanning out. Like silk, he remembered thinking, twirling one lazy finger into a loose strand.
“I didn’t know,” she began. “That sex could be that amazing. The initial pain seemed like nothing.”
She rested a palm over his left pectoral, over the heart that beat and bled for her alone.
“It wouldn’t have been like that,” she murmured, “if you didn’t pull those men off me.”
He closed his fingers over hers. Vadim wasn’t a fool. He knew sex hadn’t been the cure for anything, but they’d come to an understanding.
“I hate you a little. I know it’s childish and you saved my life. I’m grateful, but it’s still there, but with time, that will fade,” she said.
If he did possess the ability to rewind time, he’d change nothing. Only Eve mattered, and trying to save anyone else could have ended in her death or his. Vadim had been ready to die a long time ago, but this fiery young woman had stirred the dead ashes of his heart back to life.
“What’s going to happen next?” she finally asked.
“I have no intention of going back to that life.”
She tightened her grip on his fingers. “Can we really escape? Since I was a little girl, I always imagined what it would be like, if I wasn’t Charles Valentin’s daughter.”
“It’s possible.” He sat up, gathering her in his arms. She looked up at him with eyes far too old for her, but that had been unavoidable. He’d seen his share of violence, and she understood the world didn’t come in clear shades of black and white, too.
“I’m frightened,” Eve admitted. “My heart knows what it wants, but—”
Vadim pressed a finger to her lips. “That’s all that matters. You know I’m not the most decent man, but I’ll make sure no one can fucking hurt you again.”
“You’re all I have now,” she whispered. His parched soul, devoid of any emotion save what he felt for Eve, cracked a little at those words. If Vadim loved her enough, he’d set her free despite his claims to keep her, but her next words stumped him most.
“I think,” Eve murmured, “that’s okay. You’re the only one that mattered, the only person who ever saw me and didn’t think I was flawed or imperfect.”
Good days, bad days. Those were inevitable, but as long as he had his woman by his side, then Vadim wasn’t worried. There might be light at the end of the tunnel after all. First though, Vadim had to throw out the trash, paving the road to their future so Eve would stop having those nightmares.
****
Eve couldn’t sleep, not with the knowledge Vadim might be bleeding or dead somewhere. She flung the comforters aside, staring at the empty space where he usually lay. Her chest constricted, making it difficult to breathe. Padding to the nearest window, she opened it, letting the wind in.
Since they’d made love by the riverbank a week ago, it seemed foolish to stick to separate rooms. Once that one barrier between them had been crossed, it was easier. Eve didn’t regret her decision to stay with Vadim one bit, the thought of escape never entering her mind once. After all, she was always free to leave.
Vadim left the car keys in the bowl on the table near the front door. She had access to their shared bank account if she needed funds, and wherever she went, she knew he’d be watching her from the shadows.
Too bad Eve didn’t want to be anywhere but here. Why would she want to travel out of the country, to see the world, alone? Grabbing a robe from the bathroom, she tied it around her waist and padded outside with her cellphone.
Seeing zero messages, her worry intensified. Vadim had left that morning, telling her he’d be back in a couple of hours. She shivered despite the thick material of the robe. Vadim told her he planned on taking out the trash.
Eve was no fool. She understood what he meant, what he planned on doing. Vadim planned to take the head of the snake and kill Gustav, and yet she didn’t stop him from leaving. Part of her still thirsted for vengeance against the man who murdered her kin, had planned on eliminating them all for years.
She spotted Vadim’s binder containing information on the Petrovich family by the side of the couch, forgotten over the past few days. Vadim had the information in an online backup somewhere else she knew, but he liked seeing the information on paper so he could make connections.
Realizing she wouldn’t be able to sleep, especially with the knowledge Vadim might be out there in God only knew what state, she fixed herself a hot cup of chamomile tea. Eve sat on the kitchen counter, staring at her cellphone screen.
Eve knew some part of her had been flawed, like her mother claimed, for falling hard and fast for a man like Vadim, but she’d lived with a family of killers. Family came first, her father always insisted, but some men had backstabbed him and betrayed him in the end, too. They’d been his flesh and blood, too. Besides, she came to the realization that she had no right judging Vadim.
She gripped her cup, until no more steam came out. The liquid tasted cold on her tongue when she took a sip. Her nerves hadn’t settled at all, but when the front door rattled open, she jumped, ran to it, then halted.
What if it wasn’t Vadim?
A bandaged hand shoved the door open. Relief filled her at the sight of her man, but Vadim practically staggered in. Eve took quick stock. Bloodied, bruised, but her man was alive, and only that mattered. Had he been shot? Hard to tell yet, but she needed to tend to him soon.
She let him lean on her and felt the press of his lips on the side of her neck a moment later.
“You need to sit. Come on.” She led him to the living room couch, bidding him to sit. “Wait here, I’m getting the first aid kit.”
She retrieved the supplies from the bathroom. Eve had some first aid training. She’d thought the skill useful in case one of her father’s men dropped in the house, injured but refused to go to a hospital.
“Take off your shirt and the vest,” she ordered, helping him peel off the soaked fabric. Since he couldn’t reach the straps, she undid his bullet-proof vest. She winced at what lay underneath, drying blood and blossoming bruises.
“It’s not bad as it looks,” he muttered. “Were you always this fussy?”
“Hush, I need to focus.”
She worked in silence for a bit, but had been relieved to see that aside from a few bullets that sliced through skin but didn’t penetrate or rapture any important organ, Vadim was fine. Eve let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She placed the bandages and disinfectant back in the box, and threw away the dirty gauze and bloody cloths, only to find the couch empty.
The door remained open. Heart kicking, she padded out only to see Vadim’s profile under the stars. She approached him, tentatively at first, before wrapping her arms around his waist. He startled, then rubbed at the goosebumps that appeared over her arms.
“You shouldn’t be walking around.”
“Are you ordering me back to bed?” he asked in an amused voice. “No serious injuries.”
She glowered at him, and he turned, spinning her so they looked at each other in the eye. Unable to hold her tears, she let them fall, and pounded her fists against his chest. It felt like punching a wall. Vadim let her, though, until all the anger and frustration melted away.
Vadim closed his hands over her wrists, pulling her close to lick her tears away, before angling her mouth for a rough, wet kiss that made her insides melt. When he pulled away, she stopped crying.
“Do you have any idea how worried I was?” she demanded, only for Vadim to lean in close again, the kiss slow and tender, surprising her.
Vadim pulled away.
“You can’t keep doing that to solve problems,” she complained.
“What about sex?”
She blushed. Eve didn’t often have nightmares anymore. It was as if Vadim’s presence chased all the ghosts and demons away. She slept snugly, with his limbs wrapped possessively around her body, sometimes with his cock buried deep within her. When their bodies were joined, she felt like a new person, stronger and braver.
Eve had loved her family, even though they thought of her as an inconvenience. She’d continue to mourn for them, but when she tried to think of any good memories, she came up with few. Her parents had been too busy to raise Clarissa and her, and none of the family paid much attention to the chubby girl who had no value save the Valentin family name.
She’d felt invisible her entire life until Vadim saw her. One didn’t choose their family, but Eve could choose her man.
Eve leaned against him, and he wrapped those corded arms around her, holding her as long as she needed to be held. Over his shoulder, she saw the thick cluster of trees that made up the walls of their fortress, their home, his and hers. Beyond the forest, was the curve of a mountain, and above it, silver stars streaked across the inky darkness of the night sky.
Beautiful, she thought in wonder. For two souls raised in the underbelly of violence, standing here with the one man who owned her, body and heart, she felt nothing but contentment. Peace. At last Eve could close the door to the past and cast her gaze to the present.
He rested one hand on the curve of her back. “It’s done.”
“Done?”
Oh, she understood Vadim had been honed since young to take lives, but part of her still couldn’t believe the man who’d murdered her family rotted in some unnamed grave.
Vadim nuzzled her neck before answering her.
“Gustav is dead, and without the family head, his lieutenants would be scrambling for power. We’d be safe for a while, but I’ll remain vigilant. Let them come for us. I’ll fucking kill everyone.”
“Will the cycle of vengeance ever end?” Eve asked, although she knew the answer to that. The answer might be never, but it didn’t matter, because as along as she had her man by her side, they were going to be okay.
“I love you,” she murmured, running her hands up his body, resting them over the heart that beat, calm and confident. Hers. This gorgeous and lethal male belonged to her as much as she to him.
Vadim grazed her bottom lip with his teeth. “I fucking love you, too, princess.”