Page 109 of Lash

She twists to kiss me, cupping my balls and tenderly massaging them. "I know."

"I'm sorry, my love, I—"

She nips my lip to silence me. "Iwantedit like this. I needed you. Needed to feel you bare. Nothing between us."

"But you're not…are you on birth control?"

She shakes her head, teasing my lips with hers, a smile curving her lips. "No."

"Then…" I start.

She slides up to let me slip out of her, groaning as she loses me, and then turns to kneel above me, black hair a curtain around our faces. "Then, Nicolae, my love, I will happily, eagerly, and joyfully bear your child." She flattens against me, giving me all of her weight, and her sex is wet against my belly, breasts smashed flat between us. "There is nothing that would bring me more joy than to fill our lives with a child. I know—it is madness, considering how short a time I have known you as an adult, but I know my heart, my love.Youare my heart. You are my life. My future."

My eyes burn, and she kisses them softly, with exquisite tenderness. I cup her bottom and tell myself to breathe. "Tati, I—"

She cradles my face, and kisses the corner of my mouth. "I am not afraid. I am not worried. I am happy." She nibbles my lower lip. “Now. Tell me whatyouare feeling, Nico, my love."

"So many things. I wouldn't have thought, even two weeks ago, that I could ever…" I huff, fighting for composure. "That I could ever feel this way again. So loved, and so full of love. I would never have thought that the idea of—" My breath leaves me in a ragged rush as the words abandon me. I try again. "I was so…happy and proud to be a father, Tati." Tears flow, and I cannot stop them; she doesn't shush me or wipe them away,just rests her chin on her folded hands on my chest and gazes at me as I weep, love and acceptance and understanding written clearly on her lovely face.

"So proud," I whisper. "So happy. I didn't feel ready, but I was happy. I had everything, Tati. And then it got taken away from so fucking brutally, and I…" I swallow, shake my head. "I never thought to have that feeling again. And it scares me how much I want it."

"I want it too, Nico."

"How can you be sure? What if—what if this is just…adrenaline and danger making us feel this way?"

She sniffs a laugh, dismissing and unworried. "Do you really believe that?"

"No," I breathe, blinking hard. “No, I do not."

"Neither do I, you silly man." She wipes at my cheeks, then, smiling, tears of her own gleaming in her eyes like diamonds sparkling in the sun. "I have had boyfriends and lovers. I have lived with men. I am not a child, Nicolae. I am a woman. I know my heart. I know myself. I have even loved before—young love, foolish, infatuated love, but still a kind of love. Andthis, Nico…" she shakes her head.

Her gaze bores into mine, intense and demanding truth, searing away the lies and doubt and fear, leaving only the purity of what has grown between us since I opened my eyes to see her in that hangar in Zagreb, shirt torn open, fear in her eyes, tear tracks staining her cheeks.

“This, with you?” She licks her lips, shakes her head again. “It is…pure. It's wild. It's powerful. It'sreal, Nico. Who can say how love forms, hmm? For some, it builds over years. For some, it's like a dandelion, bursting to life faster than you'd believe, popping up seemingly overnight, and then fading to nothing, blown away by a gentle breeze. For others, it's…comforting and gentle. For Mama and Tata, it was like that. Soft, sweet, andgentle. It wasn't intense, but it was no less powerful for all that. And you and me, Nico, my love, it's…all of that." She cups my face and searches me intently. “We have lived a lifetime together in the last few days or weeks or however long it's been. I do not doubt my heart, and I do not doubt yours."

"My god, Tatiana. You are the bravest woman I've ever met. So courageous, and so fierce. The way you love me, it's like the sunlight when I have been lost in the cold shadows for so many years."

She buries her face in the side of my neck. "I guess I feel like everything I've been through in my life has been for a purpose—for this, for you. There have been so many times that I've wondered why this has to happen, why I have to go through that—growing up my father's daughter, being kidnapped, seeing people killed, I hated it. I wished so many times that…" she huffs. "I hate saying it now that he's gone, but I often wished I had a different father. One who wasn't a gangster. But now, it all makes sense. I'm not afraid. I mean, I have been afraid, but I know I can handle things. My life has made me strong. It's prepared me for this. For life with you. So I can be the woman you need."

“You are." I swallow hard, gazing at her, knowing the love I feel for her blazes in my expression.

She lets out a long, contented sigh, and then wiggles her sex against my belly, smearing wetness. "Take me to the shower," she commands, whispering the words in my ear as a hot breath. "And let me fuck you again."

"As you command, my love. And with a will."

firefights, nicknames, and sore vaginas

Tatiana

Idon't think I've ever had sex as many times as Nicolae and I did in the forty-eight hours we spent in that hotel room in Rio. We order room service and eat it naked on the bed. We shower together and make love in the shower—Nico turns me to face the wall and frames me from behind, slides inside me, and fucks me roughly, with delicious power, his strong hands gripping my hips and jerking me backward into his thrusts.

We drowse in the bed watching an old action movie badly dubbed into Portuguese, and wake up in the middle of the night, restless and unable to get back to sleep.

We crack open a bottle of whiskey from the bar and get tipsy together, and I push him onto the carpet and ride him until my breasts ache from bouncing so wildly, edging us both to the verge of climax and then stopping with his cock buried deep, teasing us away from the edge, and then fucking him to the edge again—when he finally comes, it fills me and surges out of me and coats us both in the sticky smear of our mingled essences, requiring another shower.

We make love slowly and sweetly the next morning, order breakfast, sip coffee, and make plans for the future—mainly the logistics of migrating my business to America.

That day is much the same as the one before, full of sweet cuddles and kisses, rough and indelicate fucking, slow and deliberate lovemaking, whispers and cries, shouts and wails, groans, whimpers, moans, laughter, tears…