He nodded. “When I was in Ireland, I was sent to a small town, and after I set myself up, I realized I wasn’t alone.”
“You weren’t alone,” I repeated. “You mean, one of them was there as well?”
“I mean two of them were there, Inessa. Two. Do you know how fucking crazy that is? Three sharpshooters for one job?”
“Jeez. Who were the people you were targeting? Al Qaeda?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” I argued.
“No, it doesn’t. But I realized something.”
“What?”
“I might never have come home to you.”
I stilled. “They were targeting you?”
“They might have been, but they weren’t. The people at the end of my scope were like me, snipers for hire… it could so easily have been me who was slotted to die that day.” He leaned up slightly and pressed his mouth to mine. “I was embroiled in an international incident in the making, and as I dealt with the politics, all I wanted was to come home.”
“To me,” I whispered.
“Yes," he growled, the words torn from him.
I felt his love.
His fear for me.
His rage that I could be hurt.
His need to have me by his side.
His admission was so raw and real that it had me clambering over him as I straddled his hips.
Looming above him, my hair flying around us in a curtain, I whispered, “I always want you to come home to me.”
“I may not be able to do that one day.”
The pain in his eyes made tears burn in mine. “You need to make sure you do. You’re not allowed to leave me, Eoghan.”
“I can’t control that, sweetheart. I lost that ability a long time ago when I was recruited.”
I bit my lip. “I-I don’t want you to go.”
His hands slipped down to my hips. “I don’t want to go either.”
“Are we in danger now?”
“I wasn’t in danger in the first place,” he reasoned. “But I could have been. It never mattered before—”
A cry escaped me. “Of course it mattered! If you’d died, we’d never have had this! We’d never have been together. I’d never have known you and what it was to love you and be loved by you.” I grabbed his shoulders. “And what would your mom and dad have done? They’d have lost it even more than they already have.” I felt the tears pouring down my cheeks and knew they landed on his face, but they ran unchecked, and we both let them. “Eoghan, you might feel alone, and in those situations, you might be alone, but you’re not. You’re not. You never have been.”
His mouth worked before he admitted, “How can we have a family, Inessa? I know you’re not ready for one, and I’m not either, but in the future, how can we? I can’t protect you from life and miscarriages and—”
This was about me.
Not him.
Not his own safety.
About mine.
This man, this control freak. My husband. The love of my life.
I pressed my mouth to his in a gentle kiss before I whispered, “You stand by my side, Eoghan. You do what Finn’s doing. You be there. You show up. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Before he could answer, I slipped my tongue along the curve of his lips, and as he parted them, I coaxed his into playing as I felt his cock stirring against me.
Whatever the hell this had started as, it had morphed as it always would, into him and me coming together, exposing our fears and baring our souls.
His hands rubbed the curve of my ass, his fingers pressing inward as they dipped between the cheeks, the tips slanted toward my labia.
As I rocked my hips, encouraging him to explore, I pulled back from our kiss and told him, “I want you by my side, Eoghan. Forever. Do you understand me?” I nipped his bottom lip to punctuate the point, and he growled beneath his breath. “I’m in love with you. I’ll always be in love with you. You do what you have to do, what you’re obliged to do, and I will never judge you for it. But you will come back to me. Always. Understand?”
His lips twitched into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Bossy.”
I shrugged. “You knew that already.”
His thumb stroked along the curve of my cheek. “You shouldn’t trust me.”
“You’re the world’s boogeyman, but not mine.”
His nostrils flared as he leaned up to connect our mouths, and before I knew it, he was flipping us over so I was lying on my back on the sofa. It was like before, yet not. If anything, it was night and day.
When his hips slipped between my legs, I grasped a hold of him with my thighs, moaning when he bound us together, sliding into me with an ease that came as a shock.
I didn’t think I should have been this wet, but hell, my body was as confused as my mind. Something that was compounded by his lack of movement as he stayed there, his cock burrowed away in my warmth as he hovered above me, his mouth brushing mine just, our noses kissing barely.
That seemed to go on for a lifetime. For hours and hours, months and years until I broke.
I caved in and whispered, “Eoghan?”
My hands moved over his head, nails scraping through his hair.
“Inessa?”
“Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“That’s all that matters.” I tightened my thighs around him. “We’re in this together.”
“For better or worse?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re getting a raw deal.”
“I don’t think so. At least, I don’t usually.” My heels dug into his butt. “Baby, please,” I panted. “Move.”
He ignored me—of course, he did—and instead, he bridged our hands together and rested them over my head. “I have this core deep inside me, Inessa. It’s ice cold. It never used to get warm until you. You’re dangerous for me.”
“You’re dangerously in love with me,” I countered as a wicked smile curved my lips.
“You should be going into PR, not interior design,” he rumbled.
As I registered how surreal this conversation was, a conversation that seemed to be occurring despite the fact his cock was being soaked by my pussy, I rasped, “Maybe I’ll do that after.”
“Maybe you will,” he agreed, confirming what I already knew—that he’d never hold me back—just as he urged our mouths into colliding.
His hips slowly started to rock, but each time, he barely moved inside me. I felt the vibration as I moaned into his mouth, which made him speed up.
Not much, not enough.
I groaned as he explored me, tasting me, savoring me, and I clenched his fingers hard to encourage him to quicken even more.
That was when he obeyed my silent demand.
From mega slow to super fast, I felt the change of pace like he’d taken me from zero to sixty in his Aston Martin.
He fucked me, all the while he stayed bound to me through our kiss and hands. The way my pelvis was arched, every thrust of his dick had him grinding into my mons, and I cried out when his fucking had me tearing my lips from his and screaming out my release just as he growled and poured his seed into me.
It was different than usual. Instead of feeling like I was soaring, it felt as if it tied me to him. As if he flew and I grounded him. But different wasn’t bad. Different was just new.