Turbulent Sea (38 page)

Ilya moved up her body, unable to stop himself, holding her thighs apart, positioning himself between her legs, watching the arousal on her face, the deep red on her breasts, his marks of possession coming up on her soft skin. She whimpered as he dragged her legs over his shoulders and leaned into her, the broad head of his cock seeking the warmth of her tight channel. He waited a heartbeat, his eyes on her face. She was so beautiful, so hungry for him, dazed with pleasure.

He surged forward, sinking in to the hilt in one fast, hard stroke. Her slick, hot feminine channel clamped down on him as he threw her into an orgasm. Muscles constricted, hot silk winding tighter and tighter, rippling with life around him, squeezing and milking until she had him gasping with the fiery streaks tearing through his body. She writhed under him, increasing the fiery sensations so that lightning sizzled and hissed through his bloodstream.

He plunged again, a deep, hard stroke causing those tight muscles to drag over the thick length of him. He swore another bolt of lightning streaked through his body, from his toes to his head. Electricity crackled in the air around them, leaping from his skin to hers.

Joley watched the harsh lines in his face deepen with lust as he stretched her impossibly, filling her to the point of madness. His hips began a rhythm that left her breathless, unable to do more than keen in a thin, ragged voice as the tension in her grew and grew. Fiery heat engulfed her, spreading like a storm through her body, but centering deep, where the torturous pleasure bordered on pain. There was no release, only the continuous building of need—more need—more hunger—more of everything.

It was wrong. This was wrong. She lay stretched out, her hands tied, allowing him to command her body, to do whatever he wanted, and she loved the control he had over her, craved the edge of fear and pain that made the music all the sweeter as he built the song between them with his hands and mouth and body.

Joley began to fight, sobs welling up. She was just giving herself to him, surrendering everything she was again. What was wrong with her? She was sinking further and further into that dark place inside of her, and if she kept it up, she'd never be free.

"This is wrong. There's something wrong with me." Because she liked having him take her over and rule her body. She wanted to be screaming out with pleasure; she didn't care if he tied her up or made her crazy—she wanted to be with him any way she could have him. "This isn't right."

It took a moment, with the blood roaring in his ears and pounding in his groin, for him to realize she was really in distress. Ilya froze, still buried deep in her body, thick and hard and feeling the silken walls encasing his shaft. She wanted him. Her body couldn't lie, yet her distress was genuine. The more she struggled, the more her body tightened around his, until he wanted to give himself up to the loss of control and just drive into her over and over until he was a part of her, imprinted forever deep inside of her, until she recognized fully that they belonged together and only he could give her the things she craved.

He forced his body to remain absolutely still. "
Lubov moya
, what is it?" His voice was gentle, as tender as he could manage when he was at the height of his need. "Tell me what's wrong and we'll fix it."

"Look at me—at us. This isn't love. I'm tied to the bed and letting you do anything you want—begging you to take me. I don't want to be like this. I don't. I want love, Ilya, not just sex. This is sex." She wasn't making sense, the words tumbling over one another, her chest heaving as she sobbed, pushing her hard nipples into the heavy muscles of his chest. She'd promised herself—
promised
, but not only was she under him, she was pleading with him for more.

Ilya immediately braced himself over her with one arm and reached above her head to her wrists with the other. "You're not tied up, Joley. Stop struggling,
laskovaya moya
, and let me get this. It's just looped over your wrists. I was tired last night and afraid you'd open those stitches." He slipped the scarf from her wrists and took each to his mouth, pressing kisses there. "See? You're fine. I would never do anything to you that you didn't want."

She forced herself to be honest with him. She owed him that when she could feel his body stretching hers to the limit, when he was pulsing deep inside of her, breathing hard to control himself, when she had not only encouraged him, but
begged
him to take her.

"That's the trouble, Ilya. I do want this. I want anything I can get from you. I'm terrified of losing myself, of losing who I am and what I stand for. I barely know you, and I'm willing to let you do anything to my body. That's not love. It's obsession with sex. I swore I'd never do this, that when I was with someone it would be because he loved me and I loved him. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know this is my fault. I can't pretend it's yours. I wanted you—I still do." How could she possibly deny that, when her body was rippling around his, demanding he continue? "I think I'm going insane."

Ilya framed her face and brushed kisses over her, catching her tears on his tongue. "You aren't insane, Joley. This was meant. My mark is on you. What do you think that means? Do you think it would work on just anyone? You were born for me. Me alone. To love, to cherish, to protect, to bring you pleasure. I was born for you for those same reasons."

She stopped thrashing and fighting beneath him, lying still, tears running down her face, but she was listening to him and there was hope in her dark eyes.

"Great sex is about total surrender, Joley," he whispered and shifted his body just a little, sending a streak of fire scorching the sensitive knot of nerves deep inside of her. He pressed deeper. "It's giving yourself wholly to another person." He kissed the corner of her mouth, a soft brush of his lips that made her heart want to melt. "In order to do that, you have to truly trust your partner, and trust is a priceless gift."

Joley couldn't close her eyes and savor the sensations rushing through her body because it was too important to watch his face—his eyes, those amazing blue eyes as deep and as turbulent as the sea she loved so much. He moved slow and easy, sending flames dancing over her, but leaving her needing more. The slow buildup was nearly worse than the wild, passionate tango he played for her.

His mouth moved against hers. A soft enticement. "Do you know what I believe love is? It's the same. It's total surrender—giving yourself to your partner, putting their needs and desires above your own and trusting them…" He nuzzled her throat. "
Trusting
that person, Joley, to do the same for you. Isn't that what we're doing here? Tell me,
lubov moya
, because that's what I thought we were doing—loving one another."

His voice was pure sin, whispering over her body, sliding past every fear, every guard, and wrapping her heart in warmth. She wanted desperately to believe him, but…

"Tell me you do not feel love in my touch, Joley," he continued and bent to brush her throat with his mouth. "Tell me this doesn't feel like love to you."

He pulled back, almost leaving her body, and she wanted to sob for his return. When he surged deep in a fast, hard stroke, he took her breath, sent her stomach flipping and the heated muscles in her sheath melting into a pool of need.

"You don't know me, Ilya. How can you love me?"

The small, forlorn note in her voice tore at his heart. "I've been in your mind every night for nearly a year. We've talked for hours, all night sometimes. I know everything I need to know about you to know I love you. And I can learn the rest, because I'm going to have a lifetime for learning."

His mouth settled on her, a long, slow, almost lazy kiss, while his body began a rhythm similar to his stroking tongue. He kissed her thoroughly, with all the tenderness a man as rough as Ilya could manage. When he lifted his head, he braced himself over her.

"Put your arms around me, Joley. Want me as much as I want you."

Her body clenched around his, tightened and gripped, holding him to her as her stomach muscles bunched and her breasts ached. "You know I want you."

He shook his head. "Not sex, Joley. Want
me
. The man. Your man. Want to spend your life with me, want to be my best friend, my lover, my everything. Put your arms around me and give yourself to me."

She stared up into his blue eyes. The pupils were wide and dark with a need that tugged at her beyond anything she'd ever known. What did she know about him? She'd lived around Jonas too long not to recognize the signs of a man with a code.

She'd spent too much time in Ilya's mind, piecing together all the memories and seeing glimpses of colors behind the darkness of his aura. He had to be working undercover, and that kind of a life molded and shaped men into something altogether different.

She searched his eyes for a long time, looking for truth. "How do I know what's real about you and what isn't?"

"I can't answer that, Joley."

She moistened her lips and tried to be strong, when everything in her ached to hold him close, to comfort him. "You have to give me something, Ilya. You're asking me to trust you with more than just me. I love my family. Several are in law enforcement. I would be trusting you with their lives as well. I need more than my body's absolute trust in you."

He was silent a long time, his body still, but locked with hers. "Joley, you've been around Jonas long enough to suspect what I do. I've spent my entire life training for or living undercover."

"If you lived that long undercover as a hit man, as someone who runs in violent circles, how do you know who you are?" The thought was terrifying, because when she looked at his aura and listened to the strands of his song, there was more blood and death, more darkness than light, and it was so blended, so mixed together, she couldn't tell what the truth was and what the lie was.

He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. "Do I know what's real and what isn't? Not anymore. I live the way I have to in order to survive every minute of every day. Do I do abhorrent things? Yes. Do they bother me? No, not anymore. The lines blurred a long time ago. You are the only thing real in my life—the only thing for absolute certain.
You
. If you don't save me, I'm lost. I've known that from the moment I heard your voice. I didn't realize I was drowning in the blood until your voice came over the radio and everything in me went to pieces."

If you don't save me, I'm lost
. She heard the echo of those words in her mind. His voice was low, unemotional, but so soft the sound stroked over her skin and wrapped her heart in velvet. There was a plea—yet it was the stark truth. Ilya wasn't making a bid for sympathy, he lived his life in black and white and shades of gray.

"I can only give you who I am, whatever that is, Joley, but I can promise you'll never regret it. I'll never betray you. I'll always put you and your needs before my own." He kissed the tip of her nose, slid his tongue over the curve of her lower lip. "Even when you don't know what you want, like right this moment." His hands shifted, cupped her breast, thumbs rasping over her nipples until she wanted to cry out to him for more.

Joley slipped her arms around him and arched her body closer. "Then I'm glad my music touched you, Ilya."

He bent his head to the twin peaks, lapping and nuzzling with his hot mouth, teeth tugging and hands claiming. Each strong pull of his mouth sent a wash of liquid fire sizzling over his thickened cock. "I want to hear your screams again, Joley. I need to hear them and feel your body milking me dry." He braced himself over her.

She swallowed hard as he began to move again, long, slow strokes that sent sizzling fire streaking up and down her body. She gasped and clung to him, trying to be careful not to jar his injured arm.

"Your music saved my life, Joley. It changed my world."

"You've changed mine," she admitted. "I've never felt like you make me feel." Beautiful. Wanted. Needed. Sexy. More than sexy. And so hungry for him. She loved his body—the hard, defined muscles, his enormous strength, the things he could do just by looking at her, let alone touching her.

Every time his body thrust into hers, she felt stretched and full. She was burning alive, from the inside out. He began to pump into her hard and fast, building the aching need until she felt almost desperate for release. She reached for it—that perfect explosion of her body—but he pulled back, slipping her legs through his arms so he held her open for him and gave his body better leverage.

"Ilya." She gasped his name in a plea. "What are you doing?" Because she needed him, needed release from the terrible tension he'd built so fast.

"Marry me, Joley."

His face could have been carved out of stone, a vision of carnal lust, but his eyes—his eyes were alive with love—unmistakable love. Her body pulsed around his; she couldn't stop the involuntary writhing under him, desperate for the release only he could provide.

"Marry you?" She echoed the word almost blankly. Shocked. It was the last thing she'd expected.

"Say it. Promise me. I need to know you love me the way I am."

Her body shook, trembled with the aching tension. She could barely think straight. "Are you sure, Ilya? Are you really sure that's what you want, because marriage for me is forever."

He surged into her, another hard and fast stroke that forced a small scream from her sensitized body. He stretched her out on a rack of tormenting pleasure as he changed his pace, pushing through her tight, swollen muscles with excruciating slowness.

"Forever then, because there is no divorce for a woman with that mark on her palm."

She arched her hips, trying to force his penetration. "Yes then. Yes."

He lost what ragged control he had, plunging into her over and over again, his rhythm fast and hard and utterly devastating. He buried the long, full length of himself completely, driving deep with each stroke into her tight, silken channel. She screamed as every muscle in her body tightened, as her very bones seemed to contract, as every cell and nerve focused on one spot. His hips thrust harder, his arms locking her in place. Her muscles convulsed around him, rippling up and outward, sending shock waves of pleasure rocketing through her. Her body clamped down hard on his, taking him with her so that his hoarse cries echoed around hers.