Page 129 of Shadow Waltz

He writhed, hands finding the diamond collar and clutching it tight, his body arching off the bed as I sucked him, worked him with my mouth and fingers, making him fall apart in stages. I kept him there, on the edge, pulling off with a wet pop whenever he got too close, until he was begging and cursing, promising anything if I’d just let him come.

I slicked more lube onto my cock, pressing the head against his entrance and pausing, just to watch the way his face twisted with need. “You want this?” I asked, voice low and rough.

“God, yes, I want it, please, Luka—please, I need to feel you, need you inside me, now?—”

I pushed in slowly, inch by inch, watching every twitch and shiver, every gasp and desperate plea. His hands locked around the collar, his eyes squeezed shut as I bottomed out, filling him completely. For a moment, I just held there, buried to the hilt, my chest pressed to his back, my mouth against his ear.

“You feel that?” I whispered, grinding my hips in slow circles, letting him feel every inch. “You’re mine. Alive. Here. No one’s ever going to take you from me.”

He keened at the words, body arching up, and I fucked him slow, deep, with the kind of intensity that bordered on worship.My hands roamed over his skin, leaving new bruises, new fingerprints, marking him as mine over and over.

We lost ourselves in the rhythm, hips slamming together, sweat mixing with lube and tears and the sharp tang of fear that never fully faded. The world outside—the sirens, the threat of discovery, the knowledge that we might not survive another day—faded until there was nothing but this, this desperate claiming in the dark.

I shifted, angling my hips so I could hit that spot inside him that made him see stars, made him sob my name with every thrust. My hand wrapped around his cock, stroking him in time with my thrusts, bringing him to the edge over and over.

His climax hit suddenly, brutally, his body clenching around me, voice breaking as he sobbed my name. He came hard, spilling over my hand, his whole body going taut and then limp as I fucked him through it, never letting up, never giving him a chance to come down.

I followed a moment later, shoving deep inside him, groaning his name as I emptied myself, hips jerking with the force of it. For a moment, the world was nothing but heat and friction, the slide of skin on skin and the thrum of blood and heartbeats.

Afterward, we lay tangled together in sheets that smelled like sex and gunpowder, sharing warmth and the quiet satisfaction of bodies well-used and hearts completely given. My hand found the collar, tracing the diamonds, grounding myself in the feel of him alive and safe and mine.

22

BAIT FOR THE CROWN

ASH

The plan was mine, born from desperation and the kind of cold calculation that came from understanding exactly how our enemies thought. I sat across from Luka in our makeshift command center, watching his face cycle through emotions too complex for easy categorization as I outlined what would either save us or destroy everything we'd built together.

“No,” he said before I'd finished explaining, voice carrying the kind of absolute authority that had built an empire from blood and shadow. “Absolutely fucking not.”

“It's the only way,” I replied, keeping my voice steady despite the way his rejection made my chest tighten with something that felt like grief. “They know us, Luka. They know how we think, how we move, how we protect each other. The only advantage we have left is giving them exactly what they expect to see.”

I activated the wall monitors, showing him the intelligence Mason had compiled over the past week. Federal surveillance patterns, criminal organization movements, the systematic netclosing around us with methodical thoroughness that left fewer options each passing hour.

“Look at this,” I said, pointing to coordination patterns that made my stomach clench with their implications. “They're not just hunting us anymore—they're herding us. Every safe house we've used, every contact we've relied on, every route we've taken to avoid capture. They're forcing us into smaller and smaller spaces until we have nowhere left to run.”

Luka studied the data with the same analytical intensity he brought to everything else, but I could see the protective instincts warring with strategic thinking behind his eyes. He understood the logic of what I was proposing, but he also understood the cost.

“There has to be another way,” he said, though his tone suggested he'd already reached the same conclusion I had.

“There isn't,” I said quietly. “They have unlimited resources, international cooperation, and intelligence on every aspect of our operations. The only thing they don't have is the willingness to kill me in front of you.”

“They want to use what we have against us,” Luka said, understanding the psychological warfare that had replaced simple violence. “Turn what makes us strong into what destroys us.”

“So we let them try,” I replied, leaning forward until I could see my reflection in his eyes. “We give them the opportunity to capture me, to use me as leverage against you. And when they think they've won, when they're certain they understand how to control you through me, we remind them why underestimating us was their last mistake.”

The plan was elegant in its simplicity, terrible in its requirements. I would make myself vulnerable, allow our enemies to believe they could use me to manipulate Luka into surrender or tactical errors. But the deception wouldrequire absolute trust between us, perfect coordination, and the willingness to risk everything we'd built on the belief that our bond was stronger than whatever torture they might devise.

“They could kill you,” Luka said, voice barely above a whisper. “Before I could reach you, before the trap could be sprung, they could decide you're more valuable dead than alive.”

“They could,” I agreed, because lying about the risks would serve no purpose except making us both feel better about choices that had already been made. “But they won't. Because they understand that a dead hostage has no leverage, and leverage is what they need to make you surrender.”

I moved around the table until I could cup his face in my hands, feeling the tension in his jaw, the way his pulse jumped under my fingertips. “They think love makes us weak,” I said quietly. “Let's show them how wrong they are.”

The preparation took eighteen hours, eighteen hours of memorizing signals and protocols, of planning contingencies for scenarios that ranged from ideal to catastrophic. But it was the emotional preparation that proved most difficult, the process of accepting that success required temporary separation from the person who'd become the center of my universe.

“The collar stays,” Luka said as we ran through the final details, his fingers tracing the diamond necklace that had survived everything we'd endured together. “Whatever happens, whatever they do, you don't let them take it off.”