Finally, we’re alone. Mel has just taken a shower and is now lounging on the bed, her legs tucked under her as she watches me on the phone with Lucian, who is staying the night at his grandpa’s with Gianna and Romero.
“I’ll come get you tomorrow, figlio. You sleep well.” I place the phone between my shoulder and neck and walk towards the bed, holding my hand out to Mel, who crawls towards me, her eyes wary, her wet hair sticking to her head in places.
“Good night, papa,” Lucian says sleepily. My heart flips over. I’ll never get used to him saying that to me.
“Good night, champ. Let me talk to Uncle Daniel.” I press a kiss to Mel’s hair, a soothing scent of lavender seeping into my nose from the wet strands. She looks up at me and presses a kiss to my bare chest.
I’m feeling too many things all at once. Hurry to take over from Father even as I mourn his death, fear for Mel and my son, and anger at the Russians, who it seems have not stopped digging at us. Not that I expected them to.
“How can I help Xander?” Daniel’s voice is mellow and calm. The calmest I’ve heard from him so far. I guess he can be pretty calm when he’s not threatening me over his sister.
“You can keep my son safe. I’ll come get him in the morning, but I’d like to keep the news of his grandfather’s death away from him as long as possible.” I grunt into the phone. I have no idea how he’ll feel. He’s still a child, but it doesn’t mean he won’t notice his grandfather missing at the table. Especially because he had more of a relationship with the man than he did with me.
“I promise you, he’ll be safe. Even if that means my own life is at risk.”
I nod. I know he will be. Daniel is as good as dead if anything happens to my son. “Good. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I hang up the phone and drop it on the bed, running a hand through my hair. It’s been a long fucking day.
The men had left the house sometime after seven; we’d gotten Mother to stop crying and go into bed by nine. Daniel and Sedric had returned to the house earlier for Lucian, and I’d had to fight the urge to go with them for my son.
I wanted him in my arms; even Mel had looked longingly at the door as though she was feeling the same way. But she stood by me. Hadn’t moved from my side the entire day.
I don’t know how to feel about her. But I do know how I feel about her words. Her declaration to me just before she’d stepped out of Father’s study and spent the entire evening pretending she hadn’t just made my knee buckle under me.
I sweep her into my arms and walk down the stairs, grateful it’s just the two of us at home tonight, apart from the men standing guard outside. She smiles softly up at me, and I can almost guess the question on her parted lips.
I shake my head no. I’m fine. She’s asked me a thousand times already. But I am as fine as a man can be when he’s received news of his Father’s death and also had the woman whom he loves tell him she loves him. I’m all over the place, but I’ll be okay.
Especially because her words have put me on cloud nine.
I clatter down the steps, and when I reach the kitchen, I let her slide down my body. I tip her head up and blow a stream of air across her lips. She closes her eyes, and I watch her, my pulse spiking. If anything were to happen to this woman, I’d be a caricature of myself.
She opens her eyes. “What are you worried about?”
I quirk an eyebrow and kiss her lips gently. “Who says I’m worried?”
She lifts a hand and wiggles it between us, brushing at my forehead. I realize I’ve bunched my brows together. “This right here.”
I could tell her about the threat by the Russians. Ryder seems to think they’ve got something planned. Alec doesn’t know, and neither does Declan or Knox. Not while they’re mourning Father.
But I’ve had the men prepare for an attack. If the Russians do decide to attack our shipment or our men, we’ll need to immediately retaliate. They can’t ever think our ranks are open to attack.
But I don’t want to think about it tonight. Tonight, I want to sink into Mel’s warmth and let her remind me that there’s life for a living. Death will always hang over every human, but it doesn’t mean we have to live as though we’d die tomorrow.
I shake the somber thought from my head and tune in to find Mel still watching, her fingers gently stroking my forehead. “Nothing’s wrong, Mel. Nothing could be wrong with you here.”
She laughs gently, and I allow myself to seep in her warmth. I allow myself to be here in this moment with a woman I love. I twine my arms around her back and tug her closer. “Tell me again.”
Her brows tip questioningly, and those inviting lips clasped between her teeth. “Tell you what?”
“That you love me. Always will.”
She pulls out of my arms and turns towards the stove. “Are you hungry?” She says, refusing to answer the question.
I walk over to her. “Yes. But not for food.”
She leans against the counter, smiling, her face tipped up. There’s a hungry look in her eyes that I know for a fact is reflected in mine. “What are you hungry for?”
I press my front into her, my erection grazing the junction of her thighs, already dragging the robe she’d thrown on away. “Do you need to ask?”
She puts her arms around my neck and laves at my neck, her wet tongue licking at the pulse at the base of my throat. She sucks at it and then bites down, drawing a hiss from my guts. The air sticks in my chest, refusing to allow me another breath without her lips on mine.
I drag her head up and slam my lips down on hers, slipping my tongue between her lips, tucking her tight into my arms, lifting her hair off her neck, and hitching my hands around her waist to lift her onto the counter. “Have we christened this room yet?”
She wiggles and giggles in the back of my throat, the sound flowing over me like a cold waterfall. Washing away things I don’t want to think of. “I don’t know. Why?”
“I think we’re about to.”
She bites down my lips, sucking at my bottom lip and hissing as I cup her breasts in my hand, hefting it through the robe. She mewls and goes to tilt her head back, but I don’t let her lips go.
I slip my arms around her back and tug her so her ass is on the edge of the counter, pull away and bend my head towards her thighs, pulling the robe off as I go.
I press a kiss to her thighs, spreading them wide so I can step fully between the sleekness of her smooth legs. “Tell me you love me.”
She leans back on her elbows, but her eyes are hot on mine. “I’d much rather you just took me.”
I skim my finger over her clit, bending my head to tug gently at the nub until she cries out. I tease my fingers over her wet folds, stroking and skimming and caressing until her legs are spasming.
I roll my tongue over her core, licking at her like she’s the tastiest, most moist dessert in the world, and I’ll never tire of it.
She’s moaning, her legs tightening around my head, her hands in my hair, tugging at me. I lift my head and kiss my way back up her stomach, kissing a trail to her breasts where I bite down hard, her groan of pleasure causing my cock to jump in my shorts.
When I reach her lips and kiss her hard, she bites down just as hard on my lips. “I want you to fuck me, Xander. I know you want to just as much.”
I want her; it’s driving me to the brink of distraction, not sinking into her warmth, into the blistering heat of her body, but I’ve been thinking about this all day, craving it all day, needing it all day. “I think I want to hear you say you love me much more.”
She pulls away from my lips, and her hands stroll down my body, slow and telling until she runs them over my chest, and I stand still until finally they rub at me through my shorts. “I think you’re lying, Xander.”
Her eyes are questioning, her voice tuned low. I watch her eyes, but she doesn’t look up at me. Instead, she keeps her eyes down on me, rubbing and stroking until I have to swat her hand away for fear I’ll come before I’m seated as deep inside her as I can go.
“Why the hell would I lie about this? That was the one thing I had to look forward to today; kept thinking about your eyes as you’d said them, the certainty in their depths. I want to hear it again.”
She bites her lips and lifts her head finally, hurt and something akin to temper swimming in them. What have I done now? “You didn’t say anything.”
I chuckle, incline my head, and suck at her neck, right at the pulse she so enjoys sucking on my own skin. “Did that piss you off, baby?”
“You’re a jerk, Xander Amory!” She snaps, leaning back to give me more access to her.
“And you’re mine.” I push my shorts off my hips, my heart pumping blood too fast, my cock thick and ready on my fists.
I bring myself to her folds, slap my cock against her clit, and watch as she fights the pleasure rolling through her. She doesn’t want to give in first. I chuckle again.
I line myself up at her entrance, slamming into her just as I whisper a truth she never should’ve doubted. “I love you, Melissa Sedric. I think sometimes I can’t breathe because of how much I worry about you. The way I want to keep you with me is crazy. The way your smile heals my world, the way I love our son is indescribable, the way you care about me, the way you crave me, it’s just the same way I want you.”
I punctuate each of the words with deep, settling, speaking thrusts into her, slamming into her tight, sleek warmth, pulling out despite the way she clenches around me with each stroke, with each pull back, she pushes against me, pulsing around me, needy in much that same way I was.
Her eyes are watery. “You didn’t say a word.”
“Because we were in a hurry. I needed you this way, totally with me, to let you know that I love you. That you’re mine. That I’m yours. That I’m not going anywhere you aren’t.”
Her chest rises and falls rapidly, her nipples tightening right before my eyes. “Oh, Lord. Fuck me, Xander. I think I’ll go crazy if you don’t. I need to come. Right now!”
That was a wish I could fulfill. I jerk my hips into her, our bodies slapping together, her fluids making it so easy to fill her. Her face flushes, and her breathing becomes harder, more erratic, more in touch with my ragged one. The pleasure torching my body, dragging me closer and closer to my orgasm, must be in hers too.
“Cum for me baby, I need you to come now.” I grunt, snapping faster and faster into her, stroking at her nipples and bending my head to bite at her nipples and bring her closer to the brink.
She nods, becoming wetter and clenching more. Her body almost makes me come; it’s taking all of my control not to blow inside her.
She parts her lips and shakes her head, lifting her head to scream her orgasm against my lips. She sinks her tongue in but doesn’t move.
Feeling her fluttering and pulsing against me, I slam into her once more, my body tingling from my fingers down, spreading white-hot pleasure like heaven over my skin.
I slide into her and spew my seed into her, bending my head into her neck and falling over her heaving chest. I allow my head to rest on her, breathing in time with her loud gasps. She kisses my ears softly. “I LOVE YOU.” She whispers.
I know she does. She’s home. And finally, the pain spills over my skin, rash and hot; they sting at my eyes. I pull away, my body inside hers, and finally agree that I’ll miss my Father. “I wish he didn’t have to die now.” Not now, when I am just getting closer to him. When I am old enough to understand why he’d been the way he’d been. When I might just have to be the way he’d been.
She tightens her arms around me, and tears spring into her eyes. “Oh, Xander.”
That night, we fall asleep together, her arms flung over mine, my hands over her stomach, her breathing singing in my ears.
