Page 33 of The Enemy’s Defector (Ivanov Syndicate #3)

NIKOLAI

I came home to find Katerina just getting out of the shower. She’d just dressed, if the dampness of the silky nightgown that clung to her skin was any indication.

As soon as I entered the room, she paused in brushing her hair and faced me directly.

For the first time in a few days, we were alone and both of us were awake.

Together again.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d moved and hadn’t bothered to tell me.”

I sighed, taking her sassy quip as a joke rather than a serious comment. Groaning lightly as I approached her, I said, “No. I was stuck in yet another meeting.”

“You’ve got a lot to catch up with, being gone for over a month.”

I reached her, instantly pulling her against me. When her arms wrapped around me automatically, I felt right again. “And now I’ve got more to catch up with you.”

She rolled her eyes and started to look away, but I gripped her chin and tipped her face up toward mine so I could kiss her.

Again.

And again.

With every brush of my lips over her soft, sweet mouth, she melted against me more and more. Sagging and breathing so softly, she practically curled into me and leaned on me for support. I didn’t want to render her silent and stuck in the intense spiral of chasing an orgasm with me—not yet.

Before she could moan and take this straight to bed, where it would damn well end up, I broke the kiss and stared into her blue eyes.

Dazzling bright with her intelligence, wit, and patience, her eyes captured me like they always did.

Like I counted on them doing for the rest of my life.

I would never tire of her. I was incapable of staying mad at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Blunt, to the point, and honest. That was the only delivery I had for her.

“I’m sorry too,” she said.

I raised my brows. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“Being mad at you.” She shrugged.

I laughed once and kissed her harder. “You had every right to be mad at me for taking over like that.”

“Nik, this is me. I know how it works. You’re expected to take over.”

“That’s not how we work. We’re partners, Katerina. We’ve always been a pair. A team.”

Her slow smile warmed my soul.

“If I’d known the details about your mother and that she’d died even with proper medical care, I never would’ve assumed or decided or?—”

She put her fingertips over my mouth. “I forgive you. And after we fought, I realized that you might not have known that my mother died during my birth.”

I caught her hand and kissed down her fingers, toward her wrist, with the intention to trail them even further. After a slight gap between us, I wanted to devour all of her. I wanted to kiss every single inch of her and worship her.

“I only knew that she wasn’t there, not why or how. And I’m sorry, Katerina, that you never had her.”

She drew in a deep breath.

“And I want you to know that no matter how much we might fight, you will always have me, this family we’ve created. All of my family. We’re all here for you.”

She furrowed her brow. “Did Grigory talk to you?”

“Huh?” I shook my head. “No. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Bullshit. That was too random for you to not have a reason.”

She shrugged one shoulder.

“Did you talk to him?” I asked, hoping she’d explain.

“I did.”

I couldn’t help but tense. “By yourself?”

She nodded, placing her hands on my chest and rubbing slightly. “Yes. But guards were nearby. And he was lucid.”

“So… he didn’t try to hurt you or have you taken away or…”

“No. He remembered me. He recognized me. And he remembered me from when I was a child.”

I nodded, curious and suspecting there was more to this mention of my father. But with her touching me—even non-sexually with her hands on my pecs—I wanted to shift this more into something else.

“I missed you,” I admitted as I lowered my hands to her sides. “I could hardly concentrate at these meetings.”

She smiled slowly, unbuttoning my shirt as she lowered her gaze. “It is different being apart from you when we were so close and stuck together when we hid.”

I kissed her, tipping her face up toward mine again as I bunched up the soft and thin material of her nightgown. Going slowly and lazily, as if we both wanted to treasure the tactile sensation of undressing, we worked on removing all the layers between us.

“I missed you too,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to interfere and hog you.”

“You hogged me anyway,” I replied between kisses, tossing her nightgown off to the side. “You’re always on my mind, Katerina. If you haven’t noticed, I’m obsessed.”

She laughed lightly as she finally pushed my pants down. Keeping our lips locked, I stepped out of them and shrugged off my shirt that she’d pushed over my shoulders. The fabric clung to my wrists, and I shook out of it as I guided her back to the bed.

“Obsessed with me?” she taunted as she lay back, scooting slowly and not afraid to show me herself.

And I saw it all. Her smooth skin, still flat over her stomach.

Her lean arms and legs as she shifted onto the mattress so I’d have room with her.

Those pink pussy lips glistening with her arousal, and her breasts.

I groaned at the sight of them, swaying and bouncing as she moved.

I was always a boob guy, and hers were works of art.

She noticed me staring, raking my gaze over her. Cupping them as she leaned on her elbows, she rubbed her thumbs over the hard nipples and grinned, teasing me to come closer.

“I swear they’re bigger now,” I muttered, following her over the bed before leaning down to capture one nipple between my lips.

She arched her back, thrusting her tit toward me. While she cupped her hand on the back of my head to keep me licking and sucking right where she wanted me, she lowered her other hand to stroke my dick.

I ground up into her hand as I fingered her, spreading that cunt for me to fill it.

Soon.

Too soon.

After not being with her for more than a day, I was impatient to have her and sink deep inside her. I wanted this to last, to be slow and lazy, but I couldn’t be choosy. The next time, we’d go slower.

Because right now, as desire charged through me and made my dick harder and stiffer, I knew I couldn’t hold back. Patience was a joke at this rate, but I tore my mouth off her breast, leaving both of them wet from my tongue, and headed lower.

“I am obsessed with being able to call you my wife,” I told her, kissing my way along her ribcage.

“I’m obsessed with looking forward to our child,” I added, kissing her stomach.

She gasped as she stared at me, so turned on and needing me that she seemed two seconds from begging for me to fuck her.

“And I’m obsessed with watching you when I touch you.” Poised between her legs, I looked up at her as I extended my tongue until the tip swiped over her pussy.

“Oh, fuck, Nik. Me too. I can’t get enough of this. Of you.”

Keeping my eyes on her, I closed my mouth over her and gave her more of what she wanted. Licking, sucking, and even nipping, I didn’t stop until she was nearly coming on my tongue. She humped my face, so eager to get there, but I paused.

“I’ll give you everything you want, Katerina. Whatever you desire. All that you need, I will give it to you,” I promised.

She nodded, wincing with the urgency to get relief. I could tell she was wound up tightly, and I felt like a god on earth to be able to be the one to please her like this.

“I want you,” she got out around panted breaths.

“You want my mouth on you as I fuck your sweet pussy with my tongue?”

She whimpered, nodding more.

I resumed teasing her, building her up, but as she started to come, crying out loudly, I leaned up and braced myself to slam my dick into her.

“You want my cock stuffing you?”

“Yes!” She cried it out partly as a word and partly as a strangled sound as she continued to come.

I notched my head at her sopping wet entrance, then thrust all the way in. Just like every time, she gloved me. Fitting me so perfectly, like she had been made and put in this world for me alone, she sucked me in and squeezed me. I wouldn’t last. I wanted her too badly.

“You want my love, Wife?”

She opened her eyes, blazing blue and full of that connection I never wanted to lose.

“Because you have that,” I said as I pumped into her, relishing the sensations of her pussy still coming. “I’ve loved you all my life. And I don’t intend to ever stop.”

She sobbed, meeting me in the middle as I slammed into her one more time and came hard.

“I love you, Nik,” she exclaimed. “I love—” She lost her ability to repeat it, breathing so harshly as she came again, with me this time.

My heart was full. She’d stitched me back together with that declaration we’d never shared before.

I slumped over her, falling over her as I rode out the rest of my orgasm and shot my cum so far up in her. Out of breath from how we’d finally stated our love for each other, I hovered over her and rolled so I wouldn’t crush her with my weight.

Once she was on top of me, draped over me and catching her breath, I held her close and shut my eyes to bask in the perfection of reuniting with my wife.

With my woman.

The one I’d loved for so long that it was second-nature for me.

She was the one I would protect and love until my last breath, and I would do all I could in my power to prove it to her each and every day. Even if it meant killing her uncle for her, just to keep her safe.