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Her impassioned defense made my chest tight and my dick hard. Could it be as simple as she was making it sound?
She continued. “And I disagree with you. She was a threat. She was a trained assassin. I think as long as she was alive, she would have always been a threat.”
“Hardly,” I replied sharply, though Emmy wasn’t exactly wrong. I never would have fallen for Elena’s bullshit again but having her out there might have been a risk. She was a trained killer and I’d embarrassed her.
If Emmy’s arguments made sense, why was I arguing with her? She wasn’t upset or sickened by what I’d done—why was I trying to scare her off?
As I stared at her beautiful, trusting face, I knew why.
This was my last frontier. This was one of the last barriers I could use against her. She had slipped inside me so deeply, my survival instincts were going crazy. One part of me wanted her to pull away in outrage and slam out the door, giving me space and ridding me of this uncomfortable intimacy.
Unfortunately, that part was small compared to the other part in me. The beast, the territorial animal, that knew I’d never let her go. Not now. Probably not ever.
As if reading the conflicting emotions on my face, Emmy straddled my legs again. My hands slid up the smooth skin of her thighs under the hem of her shorts to grip her ass. I pulled her more snugly against my dick which gave an answering jerk, eager to remove the clothing between us. No, I wasn’t giving this up. She was made for me.
“Ivan, you have to stop tormenting yourself about this. What if it had been me? What if someone had attacked me and though they were disarmed, I still killed them. What if I had killed Orlov today? Would you hold it against me?”
Just the thought of her at Orlov’s mercy, him taking her again, made my body stiffen with rage, but I understood her point. “Of course not.”
An adorably smug smile broke out across her beautiful face. “See? Why should you be any different?”
I was shocked to feel an answering smile tugging at my mouth. Shocked that after such a heavy conversation, after sharing the darkest parts of my life with her, she could still smile at all. That I could.
I shook my head, resisting her easy logic. I wasn’t sure I could ever release the complex array of emotions that stirred when I thought back to my relationship with Elena. The acidic taste of betrayal, the crippling shame, the corrosive anger—they’d been my constant companions for years. But when I stared into Emmy’s accepting, loving hazel eyes, something definitely eased, lightened. She was a walking, talking sexy as fuck miracle. A ray of light shining into the dark corners of a life that felt like nothing but dark corners.
I rubbed her soft cheek with my thumb as she gazed at me with hope, hope that her words had done something to make all the agonizing memories, dark thoughts, and self-flagellation disappear.
“What the fuck do you see in me?” I blurted out. Her interest, her devotion, her love—none of it made any sense to me. I’d been an asshole most of the time I’d known her—ignoring her letters, sending her mixed messages, flashing hot and cold. She apparently saw something in me, but it was hard to imagine what.
Emmy flushed and shot me another impish smile. “I don’t know. I’m not going to get all dopey and say it was love at first sight, but there was something about how you took care of me that night, how you prioritized me over your own discomfort and triggers. Triggers I didn’t know about obviously.” Her elegant features twisted in remorse. “I’m so sorry, Ivan. I had no idea how you felt about being touched. I figured you were annoyed because this hysterical teenager wouldn’t let you go. I didn’t know there was so much more to your resistance.”
I gave her a kiss, accepting her apology and knowing that she couldn't have understood what I was going through that night.
“Anyway, I felt this…I don’t know. This pull, this connection. It wouldn’t leave me alone, I craved more contact with you, sucked up whatever scraps of information I could get, whether from your intermittent emails or comments from Katya—I even asked Nikolai about you once.” She covered her face in an incredibly cute display of embarrassment.
I pulled her hands away, hungry for her every expression as she described her fixation on me. I felt like an ego-obsessed asshole, but hearing all the ways someone as brilliant, creative, and gorgeous as Emmy was unbelievably gratifying. I knew she had a crush, her letters made that obvious, but to hear her share the extent of her feelings was flattering and sexy as hell. “What’s wrong with asking Nikolai about me?”
She gave me a deadpan look. “Are you serious? Nikolai was only around our house because of Hannah. He is a nice guy, but he didn’t come around to chat with me, let alone chat with me about the Russian mobster I had a crush on. You should have seen his face when I brought it up. He looked horrified to be dragged into some kind of girl talk about where you were or if he had heard from you. Oh, god, I cringe every time I think about it.” She covered her face again and I was shocked to hear myself chuckling. Her self-deprecating mortification was endearing and amusing. “And top of it, he had no information. Or at least, he said he didn’t but that he might have said that to escape the conversation,” she said, her hands still covering her face.
I snorted. “He most likely didn’t have any more information than you. He knew I was in Moscow, but then, so did you.” I tugged her hands down again and gave her a deep kiss, pulling her against me. “Don’t be embarrassed, milaya devushka. I love it. It pleased me that you wanted to stay connected to me, even though I didn’t act like it. I was trying to protect myself. I knew you were my downfall.”
Her sparkling eyes widened. “Downfall?”
I cupped her jaw. “That night with you…that was the first time I’d spent with a woman in years. First time I’d allowed anyone to touch me for any significant length of time. First time I ignored my instincts in order to take care of another person. It was the most intimate I’d ever really been with anyone. Ever. Until now. I knew…I knew if I let you in, I’d be vulnerable again. It freaked me out and fucked me up.”
“Ivan,” she whispered, her expression tender.
She started dropping soft kisses on my mouth and all of the emotion of the moment quickly converted to passion. Her hips wiggled against me and I gripped her ass and slid her pussy up and down my cock.
“What kinds of things did you think about when you thought about me, huh, neposlushnaya devochka?” I whispered near her ear before biting her earlobe.
Lust was clawing at my stomach, heat pooling in my groin, making me desperate to sink inside her tight as fuck pussy. I was about to peel her little shorts off and do exactly that when the doorbell rang causing her to jump.
“Motherfucker,” I grunted. “That’s the goddamned food.” As badly as I wanted to fucking ignore it, I knew she needed to eat.
Her head back and laughed. “Well, that killed the mood. I hate to say it, but I’m kind of glad it’s here. I’m starving.”
The musical sound of her laugh transformed my irritation. I gave her a hard kiss and lifted her off my lap, and adjusted my hard dick before the fucking delivery person got the wrong goddamned idea. “Me too, but not for Pad Thai,” I grumbled, though I wasn’t really bothered.
