Page 124 of Shadow Waltz
“Everywhere,” Luka replied, voice guttural as he shoved my pants to my knees, then lower, baring me to the cold concrete and his hands. “Every surface, every position, every way I can claim you before they try to take you away from me.”
He didn’t bother searching for lube—just grabbed the emergency kit from the wall shelf, hands shaking as he snapped open a packet of lubricant meant for medical triage. There wassomething almost reverent about the way he slicked his fingers, about the way his hands trembled as he spread my legs and slid one slick finger inside, working me open fast, almost brutal, the slide burning with both need and urgency. He added more lube, not bothering to warm it, not slowing down as he pushed a second finger inside, scissoring me open with a kind of practiced violence that made my cock ache and my eyes sting.
I braced myself against the wall, cheek pressed to cold concrete, panting, every muscle trembling with anticipation and fear and hunger. Luka kissed the back of my neck, the collar, biting at the sensitive skin just below the clasp. “You’re mine,” he growled, barely more than a ragged exhale, and I believed him because nothing in my life had ever felt so inevitable.
He spat into his hand, mixing it with the lube, slicking himself as he lined up behind me. There was no warning, just the sudden, overwhelming pressure as he pressed inside, pushing past resistance with a force that bordered on violence. I cried out, not from pain but from the sheer relief of being filled, being claimed, beingwantedthis much, this desperately, when the world outside wanted us erased.
He fucked me against the wall, each thrust driving me higher, scraping my chest against concrete, marking me with a different kind of wound—one that would fade, but never really disappear. The rhythm was harsh, relentless, his hips slamming against my ass with the kind of power that bordered on punishment, and I welcomed it. I needed it. Needed to feel the raw edge of him, needed the pain to drown out everything else, needed to be reminded that I was still alive, stillhis, no matter what hell waited above ground.
“Harder,” I choked out, because I wanted him to lose control, wanted him to give me everything, wanted him to fuck me like this was the last time, the only time that mattered.
He responded with a brutal snap of his hips, fucking me so deep I saw stars behind my eyelids. His hands found my wrists, pinning them above my head, holding me in place as he rutted into me, sweat and blood and lube slick between us. I could feel him shaking, feel the violence barely leashed under his skin, feel the desperation that made him rougher than he’d ever been. There was no room for tenderness, only the need toconsume, to burn, to leave a mark that no one could ever erase.
Every sound echoed off the concrete, obscene and echoing in the small space, a symphony of skin on skin, of breathless moans and strangled curses. I bit down on my own wrist to keep from screaming, but Luka wanted the noise, wanted to hear me, wanted to fill the bunker with evidence of what we were to each other.
He let go of my wrists long enough to grab my hair, yanking my head back so he could watch my face in the dim, flickering light. “Look at me,” he demanded, voice low and rough, and I did, eyes wide and wet and hungry.
“This is what they want to destroy,” he said, thrusting harder, deeper, grinding against that spot inside me that made my toes curl. “This is what they’ll never have. You, undone. You,mine.”
He spat again, messy and feral, letting it drip onto my cheek, marking me even as he fucked me open with savage intent. His other hand snaked down to wrap around my cock, jerking me in time with his thrusts, his grip just shy of too tight, rough and demanding.
I was close, so close I was shaking, but he didn’t let up, didn’t slow, just kept driving into me with the same punishing rhythm. My back scraped against the wall with every thrust, raw and stinging, but I didn’t care. I wanted more, wanted everything, wanted to be destroyed and rebuilt in the image of his desire.
“Tell me,” Luka said against my ear, his breath hot and desperate, “tell me this was worth it. Tell me you don’t regretchoosing me instead of whatever normal life Reddick offered you.”
The vulnerability in his voice hit harder than any confession, because it revealed exactly how much our situation was costing him. This man who’d built an empire from nothing was asking me to validate choices that had led us to a concrete bunker with federal agents closing in from all directions.
I twisted in his grip, reaching back to drag him closer, needing him so deep I couldn’t breathe. “Every fucking second,” I gasped, my hands fisting in his hair as he worked me toward climax with the same methodical intensity he brought to everything else. “Every moment of danger, every enemy we’ve made, every line we’ve crossed—worth it for this.”
He bit my shoulder, leaving a mark that would outlast any of the bruises or cuts, and then he reached between us, slick with lube and spit, and stroked me harder. “Come for me,” he ordered, and I obeyed because there was nothing else left, nothing else in the world but the two of us and the pleasure-pain of being claimed at the end of the world.
When I came, it was with his name on my lips and his collar around my throat, pleasure and terror mixing in ways that reminded me why our love had been deemed too dangerous to allow. This was what they were trying to destroy—not just our criminal activities, but the possibility that people like us could find happiness in each other instead of just survival.
Luka didn’t stop, even as I shook with aftershocks, still rutting into me with desperate abandon. He grunted, hips stuttering, and then he came with a violence that nearly knocked me off my feet, filling me, claiming me, marking me from the inside out.
We collapsed together onto the cot, bodies tangled, breath harsh and ragged. My skin burned from friction and concrete, my ass leaking with evidence of everything we’d survived. Lukapulled me close, pressing his face into my neck, his arms wrapped so tightly around me it was almost suffocating.
For a while, there was only the sound of our breathing, the distant threat of sirens, the pulse of blood and adrenaline in my ears. I felt empty and full all at once, devastated and remade in the shape of his hands.
He kissed me again, softer this time, lips gentle on my bruised mouth. “No matter what happens,” he whispered, voice wrecked, “I’ll never let them take you. I’ll burn the city first.”
And I believed him, because that was what love looked like for people like us: desperate, dangerous, a promise written in sweat and blood and lube on the walls of a bunker at the end of the world.
I curled into him, letting the fear and exhaustion and love wash over me, knowing that this moment might be all we had left—but that it was enough. Because we’d survived one more night, together, and in a world built on violence and betrayal, that was the only victory that mattered.
The peace was temporary, broken by the buzzing of Luka's secure phone with intelligence that would determine our next moves.
“Mason,” he answered, voice carrying the kind of weary authority that came from leading during impossible circumstances.
“Sir,” Mason's voice crackled through the encrypted connection, “we've intercepted communications suggesting the federal sweep has been moved up. They're hitting all known safe houses within the next twelve hours.”
I felt Luka's body tense against mine, muscles coiling like springs under pressure. “How certain?”
“Ninety percent. Multiple agency coordination, local law enforcement cooperation, and intelligence suggesting they have real-time tracking on at least six of our people.”
“Which people?”
The pause that followed felt like eternity compressed into seconds, and I could feel something terrible building in the space between question and answer.