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His dark brows pinch together. Concern flickers across his face. But I pull him towards the alcove door and back into the main club. He comes willingly.
When we make it to the edge of the crowd, I turn around. I feel his body against my back. His breath on my neck. “Cora…”
It’s a question. A warning. A promise.
I reach back and hook my hand around his neck. “I just want to be here with you. For a little while.”
He hesitates for a second. Then he grabs my hand and twirls me around so we are face to face. “We can stay here as long as you like.”
Forever,I think.How about forever? Forever sounds nice.
67
IVAN
I hold Cora in my hands and try to forget the look on her face when I found her. The deep well of fear that opened in her eyes.
It was more than the fear of a woman cornered by a man. She lookedterrified.
What did Mikhail Sokolov say to her? What did he want with her?
Cora is clinging to me, spinning and swaying as the music blasts through the speakers. It’s so loud that I can’t think about anything beyond the beat and the rhythm of her body against mine.
I hold her tighter after every song, reminding myself that she is here. She is safe. She’s breathing and alive in my arms.
For now.
But even now, I feel eyes on us. Onher.
We keep to the edge of the dance floor. The crowd of my sister’s thousand closest friends give us a wide berth out of respect for me, but I feel them watching. Wondering.
I grip her waist and slide my hands around to the exposed skin of her lower back. I curve her against me, urging our hips together.
The chestnut waterfall of her hair catches the light. Her skin ripples with shifting colors. She’s a kaleidoscope in my arms.
I run my hand up her spine and then pull her back against me. My mouth finds her shoulder, her collarbone. I kiss my way across her skin while she drags her nails across my neck and tugs on my collar.
I know her body almost as well as my own at this point. The curves and edges of her. The places she likes to be touched. I want to revisit all of them now.
Yet there is still so much unexplored. So much I don’t know about her and her family. Too much.
I need to know this woman inside and out. For my Bratva and my future, yes—but for myself, too. Otherwise, the questions will drive me crazy.
Where did Cora come from and how did she tear down my walls so easily?
“Ivan.” She whispers my name in my ear as she draws a hand down my chest. Her fingers trail over my abs, scraping lower with the promise of more.
Oh, right. That’s how.
Amongst everything I don’t know, there’s one thing that is undeniable: I want her.
I grab her hand from where it’s resting near my waistband and tug her off the dancefloor. She doesn’t ask where we’re going. Doesn’t resist. Cora just twines her fingers through mine and follows as I lead her out of the club, through the empty room where Rooster and I just met, and into a service hallway beyond.
The hallway is dark and empty. Silent, except for the consistent bass of the music from the other room.
We fall together instantly. Forehead to forehead, we grapple in the darkness—for each other, for a wall, for hope that this might all end in a happily-ever-after.
She circles her hands around my neck. Her fingers play in my hair. Her thumbs stroke the muscles that curve down to my shoulders.
