I would move mountains for this woman.
She snuggles in close and presses her lips to mine, just a brush to test my interest. I’m tired, but I’m still fucking interested. I move a little closer and so does she, parting her lips and sliding her tongue along the seam of mine. I run my hand over her hip, slipping down to her knee, and I slowly lift her leg, encouraging her to wrap it over mine.
We kiss for minutes, slow and deep and relaxed. There’s no rushing, no urgent need for release. Just the feel of us together without limits or fear. As my cock gradually thickens, I wedge it between her legs. I reach down between us to rub her clit, feeling how wet she already is for me. Without hurry, I angle and push my cock inside her, my hand on her lower back dragging her closer. She sighs into my mouth and I taste her love on my tongue.
We hold each other this way, kissing deeply, hips rocking slowly. I can’t think of a better way to wake up. We rock and grind lazily, making love with our bodies connected deeply. The craziest thing is that I don’t even need to come—and I don’t think she needs it, either. This grinding is about our connection and the connection alone feels like heaven on Earth.
In fact, neither of us come this way.
We rock, we caress, we kiss, we moan.
And at some point along the way, we fall asleep like this, tangled up in each other.
Together.
In love.
Free and finally home.
EPILOGUE
Anya
3 Years Later
“Are you ready for this?” Ezra grins as brightly as the sun.
My smile is no dimmer. I snatch his hand at my side and squeeze tight, the old, familiar bundle of nerves and excited energy pulsing from within me. I’m practically bouncing with excitement.
The smell of being in an open theater, a nearly full house in the audience, the thrill of the performance to come excites me in a way it never has before. Anxiety grips me, too, in a strange sort of way. I’ve been looking forward to this performance for months, but I never imagined I would be this nervous about it.
Ezra locks our fingers together and squeezes a little tighter. “Whatever happens on that stage, it’s going to be perfect. You know it is.”
I sigh, trying to blow out the anxiety. Ezra’s touch helps to calm me, just as it always has.
The sounds of chattering fade into silence as the performance time nears, as they dim the lights and make the announcement to silence cell phones and enjoy the show. My heart kickstarts in a rush.
It’s okay.
It’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be amazing.
When the curtains on the stage suddenly part down the middle, I gasp, my heart leaping into my throat and stifling my breath.
But it only lasts a moment.
Ezra shifts our two-year-old daughter, Faith, to a more comfortable position on his lap and she giggles in transit, reminding me that everything is okay as long as our family is together. I rub my hand over my pregnant belly, take a deep breath, and smile.
The music begins to play and Brandon’s recital group walks onto the stage in a straight line—well, as straight as a line can be with ten four-year-olds—and their tiny fists are on their hips as they march out.
“There he is!” I whisper excitedly, spotting him at the end of the line.
Brandon looks out at the audience and I wave at him excitedly, knowing that I shouldn’t because he is the most distracted child in history. He spots us sitting there together in the third row and doesn’t see the line stop. He keeps walking and bumps into the little girl in front of him, bouncing back a step. He giggles and the audience does, too. The children perform the steps of their synchronized routine and it’s all lovely and good, but then it’s time for Brandon’s solo. He moves in front of the line of children, now with their hands on their knees, bobbing up and down to the beat of the music, and he starts his routine.
I never could have imagined that the product of Ezra and I—a contemporary dancer and a ballerina—would turn out to be a tiny breakdancing prodigy. Prodigy may be too strong a word, but that’s what he is in my eyes.
Watching him spin and kick and dance and move in his own special way absolutely melts my heart. I remember when I first met Ezra, back when Nikolai wanted me to break him, and I’d mistakenly thought he might be a beat boy, a hip-hop dancer, judging by his clothing and the way he carried himself. But I’d been wrong. Looking at Brandon now, I almost have to wonder if that’s what I had seen in Ezra at first—if I’d already seen the first hints of our future son that day when I looked into his bewitching green eyes.
Brandon and Ezra do look so much alike.
Brandon finishes his solo on the floor, lying on his side, elbow on the stage and his head propped in his hand. It’s the most adorable, casually cool pose for this four-year-old charmer. He points a finger gun at the audience and winks and the house erupts into laughter and cheers. Ezra taught him that move, told him he’d have the audience in the palm of his hand if he did it.
And, of course, he was right.
Faith claps, her tiny little hands slamming together awkwardly as she sits on Ezra’s lap.
This, right here, this moment…it’s everything.
It’s the life I thought I’d never have.
It’s the life I’d been so sure was stolen from me forever.
But Ezra found me in my captivity and saved me. He kept his promise and now we have forever together.
I look at Kostya and Lidia to my right and it still amazes me how quickly and easily they connected—right from the start. He smiles at her, leaning over to whisper something into her ear, and she absolutely lights up. If someone had told me eight years ago that I’d someday be helping my little sister plan her wedding to the man who kept tabs on me for Nikolai, I would have laughed.
But I suppose stranger things have happened…and they have.
I became an advocate in my own case against the four families, working with the private team Ezra had hired to rescue me. It took years of diligent work and it took my open and honest bravery…it took coming out publicly and sharing what I knew. Going public was a huge risk, but Ezra and I knew we could face it together. We knew we would rather risk the danger of exposure for a chance at taking them down, rather than being on the run our entire lives.
But the risk was worth it.
It was worth it because we fucking took them down.
We found the Vittoris’ island with the help of expert trackers, and Renata and Lorenzo were arrested. I don’t know what happened to Olivia and their baby, but I hope they’ve found peace somewhere out there in the world.
Murphy disbanded his factories and worked with the authorities, earning himself some level of immunity from conviction. Part of me wanted him to spend the rest of his life in jail because he was one of them, too. But another part of me was okay with his immunity. He had saved my life and had given me a place to hide safely from the four families. I was grateful for that, and for Stella, too. They’re still married, as far as I know.