He took a deep breath, taking time to slide his heated gaze down my face, concentrating on my lips, which was nerve-racking enough. When he dropped his dark eyes even lower, I shuddered in a way he must have seen.
“Ya tak skuchala po tebe, moya malen’kaya tselitel’nitsa. Ty stala yeshche prekrasneye, chem prezhde.”
I’ve missed seeing you, little healer. You’re even more beautiful than before.
His compliment brought another heated wave to my system, not because of the words themselves, but from the way he shook his head slowly enough that if I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have caught it.
“Mne skazali, chto ty umer.”
I was told you were dead.
“You’ve been practicing,” he said while lifting his arm, curling the fingers on one hand.
“Just in case another Russian man crashed into my life.”
“Has that happened?” He brushed his knuckles across my cheek and I leaned into him.
“Would you allow him to live if it had?”
He slipped his other hand underneath my hair, gripping the back of my neck. “No.”
“At least you’re being honest. Why are you here?” I was almost fearful of the answer.
There was no rhyme or reason to the way I was feeling, I was thrilled yet lost, butterflies swarming in my stomach and my mind incapable of processing that he was truly standing in front of me.
Yet he was.
“Why?” he asked as he lowered his head until our lips were almost touching.
I reminded myself he was a killer, someone my father said I should be afraid of, a man who’d all but destroyed the peace even after supposedly being killed.
“Because I made you a promise and I’ve come to collect. You’re mine, Rafaela. All mine.”
For the first time in three years, I enjoyed the way a man looked at me, with utter possession in his eyes and desire dictating his decisions.
For the first time in so long, I didn’t feel the way my father had instilled in me. The sense of being ruined.
Tonight, I was a woman wanted by the man she’d craved.
All the pain and all the heartache had almost been worth the pain. Almost. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Well, except for one.
With that, he pulled me into a rough kiss.
CHAPTER 23
Rafaela
He was alive.
My entire world shifted on its axis.
Again.
The kiss was a powerful moment, my entire body tingling like a ticking timebomb. A huge part of me didn’t want to kiss him back, but it would seem I was no longer in control of any aspect of my body.
Or my lips.
