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Those lips touched mine briefly, and the only thing that kept me from missing them when they left was his voice.
“I’m comin’ with ya, angel. Ya understand?”
I nodded even though I didn’t understand. I didn’t need to. All I needed was this.
“I’m not lettin’ you go. I’ll never fuckin’ let go.”
His voice broke as he lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my ring finger, and my eyes shot open in horror.
“No.” I was dizzy and weak, disconnected from my body. It felt like I was drifting away from it somehow. Away from him. I wanted to cling to him tighter, and maybe I was, but I couldn’t feel my hands.
I heard men laughing and speaking in Russian.
I smelled sawdust.
And I saw blood.
So. Much. Blood.
It gushed out of my leg in bright blue spurts, a fountain of starlight that seeped and spread around us.
And somewhere, far away, a countdown had begun.
Looking up, I drank in a face I’d only seen in my dreams … and in a photograph I kept in my pocket. But I almost didn’t recognize him through his agony. His haunting gray eyes were squeezed shut, his loose black curls had been shaved off, and his mouth grimaced as his silent wail echoed in my ears.
“Knife,” I whispered, wanting him to fight for us. Wanting him to fix whatever was happening.
But as the countdown continued, his pain only grew. I saw the moment it became unbearable. The subtle smoothing of his features as a decision was made.
And I felt the same sense of peace wash over me when I realized what I needed to do.
Reaching for his ankle, Kellen and I locked eyes as my hand wrapped around the handle of his boot knife and his wrapped around mine.
Then, as the light pooling around us began to swell and pulse, enveloping us in a serene blue embrace, Kellen smiled in understanding.
This time, things would be different.
This time, we’d throw that knife. Together.
“One.”
It felt like the dream had started over.
The heavy eyelids. The weightless body. The gentle lips pressed against mine.
But it was real. I could tell by the things that weren’t familiar. The scent of my lover’s clothes. The muffled staccato of two dozen machine guns firing at once. The sensation of being wet from the knees down.
Wrapping my arms around Damian’s body, I smiled against his worried mouth and kissed him back as a euphoric, tingly river of relief rushed into my extremities—further proof that I was not, in fact, dying.
But the way Damien’s body responded heated that river, turning it into a lava flow.
My name was an answered prayer on his lips as he unleashed all of his worry, his fear, and his anguish on my welcoming mouth before tearing himself away to look out the window and assess the situation.
Whatever he saw must have satisfied his fear because, soon, his attention was back on me, his hands roaming from my face to my throat to my head to my heart. It was as if he needed confirmation that it was still beating. And it was. My pulse pounded beneath his palm, every swell of blood pressing harder against the surface, trying to get closer to him.
And I felt that same pulsing sensation between my legs, where Damien’s body was pressed against mine. Thick and hard and needy. He rocked against me in desperate, involuntary thrusts, and his tongue mirrored that movement, filling me, but not enough. It would never be enough.
My blood was on fire as I tore at Damien’s belt, freeing him as he pulled my shoes, leggings, and underwear off in seconds flat.
