Page 43 of Desperate Crimes (Mergers & Acquisitions #6)

I t’s been two fucking weeks of hell.

Two weeks of healing, of ice baths and wound dressings and check-ins with private doctors.

Two weeks of pretending I’m fine, of letting her coddle me like I’m made of glass—when every time she brushes against me in those soft little pajama sets she wears to bed, I feel like I’m going to snap.

Not from pain.

From want.

From need.

From the ravenous, soul-crushing hunger I’ve been caging ever since I came back from the jungle alive, bloodied and branded by what happened—and anchored only by one thing.

Her.

Leanna Fury.

My wife.

My obsession.

My reason.

She doesn’t even know what she does to me.

Curling beside me with her book in hand and that faint rose-scented lotion clinging to her skin, she lets out one of those soft little sighs— the kind that hits me like a sucker punch straight to the heart.

Her head finds its way to my chest like she was made for that exact spot. For me.

Like I’m her pillow.

Her safe place.

And maybe I am.

Maybe that’s the part that destroys me the most.

Because this girl—this woman, my wife—could’ve had anyone.

A world full of polished men with smiles that came easy and hearts that weren’t forged in fire and blood like mine.

Men who didn’t come from a legacy of power, violence, and vice.

Who didn’t have venom in their veins and plans written in shadows.

Not that I gave her much choice. But she didn’t know that.

And still, she didn’t pick one of them.

She picked me.

Well. No. That’s not the whole truth.

I stole her.

Dragged her into my madness, marked her with my name, and wrapped her in a web so tight it would’ve choked anyone else.

But not her.

Leanna Fury stayed and she fills the role each day like a fucking sunrise— glorious, righteous, and holy.

Even after the fear.

After the chaos. The secrets.

Even after the part of me that’s too much for most people revealed itself fully, completely.

She stayed.

And every damn day she chooses me again.

That should scare me.

But all it does is root this obsession deeper into my bones.

Because how can I not be obsessed with the woman who sees every twisted, brutal, dark part of me and still chooses to lay her heart in my hands?

How can I not worship her when she trusts me like this?

Trusts me to know what to do. To protect her. To satisfy her. To love her in all the ways no one else ever could.

And the way she’s resting now—her breath slow, steady, her fingers tracing lazy, mindless patterns against my chest like she doesn’t even realize she’s tattooing herself onto my skin?

It ruins me.

Because there’s softness in her.

Warmth. Beauty. And it doesn’t weaken her— not even close.

It’s strength wrapped in velvet.

Steel beneath silk.

That same softness carved out a space in the middle of my storm and made me kneel.

No one’s ever done that before.

Not for real.

But Leanna?

She didn’t have to try. She just existed. She just was.

A girl who wore chaos like a perfume and wrapped it in rosewater.

A daughter of titans. A creature of black roses and blazing fire.

My Persephone.

My reason.

My ruin.

And I would kill for her.

Burn down everything for her.

I already have.

And if she ever asked me to do it again?

I’d smile while the world turned to ash.

Because this— her head on my chest, her breath in sync with mine, her body curled into me like I’m not a fucking monster —is everything I’ve ever wanted.

And I will never let it go.

But— yeah, there’s a but —I can’t take another goddamn night of pretending I’m some fragile thing when all I want is to take her apart.

Tonight I’m done waiting.

“I can’t take it anymore,” I growl as we settle into bed, the words ripped from somewhere low and aching in my gut.

She looks up at me, blinking. Concern on her face.

My sweet little lamb. My deadly little lioness.

Images of her with a gun in her hand flash through my mind and it shouldn’t affect me this way—but my cock grows even harder beneath my boxers.

“What? Are you okay?” she asks, brows furrowed, voice soft.

“No, Wife. I’m not.”

I sit up against the headboard, my muscles twinging in protest, but I don’t give a damn.

My gaze is on her— only her.

“You know, you have got the perfect mouth, Wife. Did I ever tell you that?”

Her cheeks flush.

“It’s the kind of mouth that makes a man addicted.”

She fills her lungs with air. The move makes her shirt slip off one shoulder and teases me with just a peek of skin I need to taste.

“Nico,” she whispers my name, and I close my eyes.

“Say it again,” I murmur.

“Nico, are you alright?” she asks half worried, half suspicious now.

She knows that tone in my voice.

That edge. That need.

“Not yet. Come here,” I growl, gripping her hips and pulling her onto my lap like I’ve wanted to do every damn night since we got back.

“Nico!” she gasps, hands flying to my chest. “You’re hurt?—”

“Not that hurt,” I groan as I slam my mouth to hers.

The kiss is rough.

Desperate.

Possessive.

Because I need her to remember who I am. What we are.

I cup the back of her neck and the curve of her perfect ass, dragging her against me so she feels exactly how hard I am for her.

How long I’ve been starving.

Fuck, she’s soft.

So good.

So mine.

I slide my hand up under her top, fisting the fabric as I kiss her deeper, my tongue licking into her mouth like I’ve been dying of thirst and she’s the only thing that can quench it.

She whimpers.

God, yes.

“Tell me you missed me,” I rasp, voice wrecked with lust and something darker.

“Of course I did?—”

“Tell me you want me.”

“I—Nico—yes,” she breathes, already squirming against me, her thighs tightening on either side of mine.

I kiss her some more, fondling her beneath her clothes until she’s desperate and writhing on top of me.

I slip a hand between her legs and groan. Her shorts are soaked.

So wet. Already drenched. And all for me.

“Two weeks,” I grind out, biting her bottom lip. “I’ve been aching for you, Wife. Watching you walk around the house in those little pajamas, smelling like rose petals and heaven, and not being able to touch you the way I want?—”

“You needed to rest?—”

“I need you.”

“Nico,” she mewls.

“Need to feel you, Princess. Need to sink my cock in your hot little pussy.”

Her breath catches again.

I lift her shirt over her head and toss it aside, then slide my fingers under the waistband of those little shorts I’ve come to hate with a burning passion.

They’re gone in a second.

And now she’s naked in my lap.

Finally.

“I want you so bad. You’re so hot for it too, aren’t you, Wife?” I whisper against her throat as I drag my tongue down her pulse.

“You’re on fucking fire. And I’m going to burn in you tonight.”

“Nico, please,” she gasps, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Just promise you won’t hurt yourself. Be careful?—”

“I’ll be careful with everything but my cock,” I growl, guiding her down over me.

She sinks slow.

Hot. Tight. Perfect.

I nearly black out from how good she feels.

“Goddamn, baby,” I groan, biting down on her neck. “You kill me.”

She cries out, her hips grinding, her nails digging into my skin.

And I let her ride me slow, holding her in place, letting her set the pace even though all I want is to flip her over and wreck her.

But I won’t. Not tonight.

Tonight, I let her claim me.

I need her to mark me.

With her body.

With her voice.

With her tears.

With her love.

Her sweet, unconditional, only for me love.

Because I’m hers.

I’ve always been hers.

From the first moment she looked at me with those wide, dark eyes that saw everything and still didn’t flinch.

Her hands tremble on my chest, but there’s no hesitation in her as she rides me like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.

As if reclaiming me—body and soul—is as sacred to her as it is to me.

It is. I fucking know it is.

“I was so scared I wouldn’t find you,” she whispers, voice choked, eyes shining in the moonlight spilling through our bedroom windows. “That you were gone from me.”

“I was coming back to you,” I growl, voice raw with everything I feel, everything I am. “And no one will ever take me from you again. I swear it on my soul, Leanna. On every dark, damned part of me.”

She gasps when I grip her hips, lift her, and bring her crashing back down on my cock.

Hard. Deep.

Home.

Her pussy strangles me like it’s desperate to keep me locked inside forever.

And God help me, maybe that’s exactly what I want.

That’s when I finally understand the depth of my desperation for her.

Because this raw slide of skin on skin?

No barrier.

No condom.

I’m bare inside her. It’s amazing, but not enough.

With nothing but her hot, silken heat wrapping around me and claiming me in the most primal, possessive way possible, I know I need more.

I need her to bear my children.

Because the thought of filling her up with my cum?

Of flooding her womb with my seed until it takes, until she’s mine in every way a woman can be?

It undoes me.

My balls ache.

My spine locks.

My vision narrows to nothing but her flushed, wild expression as she rides me faster, more desperately, like she needs this as badly as I do.

“Come for me, Wife,” I rasp, my voice dark and commanding. “Show me what I mean to you.”

Her cry is guttural. Raw. Holy.

“Nico—oh God, Nico!”

Her eyes flutter closed, her head thrown back as her orgasm crashes through her like a storm breaking against the cliffs.

And I lose it.

The last sliver of control I had shatters.

I flex my hips and fuck up into her, watching her fall apart as my own climax tears through me like lightning made flesh.

I come hard.

Flooding her.

Filling her.

Branding her from the inside out with every desperate pulse of cum that spills deep into her womb.

There’s so much— too much —and it leaks out of her in hot, sticky streams.

But I’m not done.

I push it back in with my fingers, with my cock, murmuring against her skin like a prayer, “Keep it in there, Princess. Suck it from my body. Keep it all until it takes.”

And she moans.

God, how she moans—like she was born to take everything I give her.

I keep moving, even as we’re both shaking and slick with sweat.

Even as our mouths open and our hearts thunder.

Even as the world melts down to just this bed, just this room, just us.

Our eyes lock, and I kiss her— tongue licking into her mouth, desperate to taste every inch of her, to feel her breath become mine.

We come again.

Together this time.

Slow. Deep. Desperate.

And it’s more than pleasure.

It’s bliss.

It’s heaven.

It’s the underworld reborn—ours and ours alone.

The Wolf Princess.

The Viper Prince.

Bound in blood, sweat, and sacred obsession.

And I know with absolute certainty that nothing has ever been more perfect.