Page 189

Her breath caught with an audible hitch. The air heated around us, and when the show ended, we didn’t say a word. We simply stood and left the main floor in unison, our silence punctuated by the occasional breathless laugh until I successfully locked us in the private owners’ bathroom upstairs.

Xavier and I were the only people who had access. Clean marble counters. Polished floors. Backlit mirrors.

Much nicer than the club’s public restrooms, and much better suited for the activities I had in mind.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here,” Ayana breathed when I picked her up and set her on the counter. “We should be downstairs with—oh.”

While she’d been talking, I’d hiked her dress up and pulled down her underwear. I knelt before her and teased her clit with a gentle lick. “You were saying?”

“Um.” She sounded dazed. “We shouldn’t…downstairs…oh,God yes!”

Satisfaction filled my chest as I drew her clit in between my lips and sucked. She went fucking wild, and I didn’t hold back as I ate her out right there in the club bathroom. I didn’t stop until she gushed all over my face in a screaming orgasm.

There was no sweeter sound in the world.

I rose to my feet and undid my belt. Lust streaked from the head of my cock down to my aching balls. No matter how many times we were together, it always felt like the first time.

Ayana was still shuddering from the throes of her climax when I gripped her hips and lined the tip of my cock up with her entrance. She was on birth control now, and we rarely used condoms anymore.

Thank God. I didn’t have any on me, and if I had to wait one more second to be inside her, I was going to explode.

I groaned at the slick, bare feel of her when I finally sank balls deep into her clenching pussy. She wrapped her arms around my neck and held on for dear life while I fucked her, sweet and slow and then hard and fast, until we were both drenched in sweat and lazy, post-coital contentment.

It said something that I would rather be in a nightclub bathroom with Ayana than anywhere else on the planet without her. Sex or not, I would’ve been happy as long as we were alone.

“Merry early Christmas,srce moje,”I murmured.

Ayana smiled, her face glowing with such happiness it made my heart squeeze. “Merry early Christmas, my love.”

I stilled.My love.

We’d avoided using the L word so far, not because I didn’t feel it—she’d been the only woman for me since the moment I set eyes on her, even if I hadn’t known it at the time—but because I didn’t want her to be pressured into saying it back until she was ready.

More than a month had passed since her kidnapping, but she was still grappling with the events of that day. She saw her therapist twice a week, and sometimes, nightmares plagued her in the darkness. I had saved her life, and I didn’t want her to conflate that with love.

Ayana framed my face with her hands, her eyes bright. “I love you,” she said. “Not because you saved my life but because you’reyou.” It was as if she’d read my mind. “Grumpy, sweet, smart, loyal…a little stabby at times, but no one’s perfect.” She smiled at my small huff. “I’min lovewith every part of you, Vuk Markovic, and I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. Tonight just happened to be the night I found the courage to do so.”

I love you.Words no one had ever uttered to me before—not in the romantic sense. It didn’t matter because I’d never cared to hear those words from anyone else.

They only held power coming from one person’s mouth.

“Say it again.” My voice was so thick and rough I hardly recognized it as mine.

“I love you,” Ayana repeated huskily. Her eyes shimmered beneath the lights.

I love you I love you I love you.

Nothing had ever felt so right.

I dropped my forehead to hers. “I don’t deserve you, Ayana Kidane,” I whispered. “But fuck, I love you too.”

If hearing those words lit me up, saying them out loud set me ablaze in the best way possible. These flames were sweet and exquisite, not destructive, as they swept away the ugliness from last month to make space for new memories.

And as Ayana and I kissed again, our tongues sweet with the taste of our words, I had a feeling there would plenty of new memories to come.

Epilogue

VUK