For a few moments he kept fucking her in the rough manner of a man who could care less about the woman he was rutting, but she kept whispering it in his ear, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and soon he broke.
His strokes went from rough to tender, and his hand wrapped around the nape of her neck as he pulled her face forward. He kissed and kissed her, like a man who had been starved of kisses for a very long time. And if this had been his plan to try to shut her up, it backfired, because she moaned the words against his lips. “I love you, I love you…”
Soon an orgasm began to blossom inside of her, unfolding like a flower as he moved into her, not stopping until she was shuddering against him, unable to continue speaking the words in her heart because she was so overcome.
Soon after, she felt him swell inside her and then spill his seed into her in a rush of moving bodies, cold adobe wall, and lovers finally reunited.
Later she lay on top of the Navajo spread with him and told him everything from the start, about growing up in New Jersey with her father, about the events that led up to her killing Hector Mendez’s son, and her many years on the lam afterwards.
He didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. Just finally telling someone, anyone, the entire saga brought her more peace than she had felt in years.
“I’m sorry I kept all of this from you,” she said, lying against his chest. She could hear his heart thumping beneath her ear. “But I wasn’t trying to lie to you. I was honestly trying to protect you. I already lost my father and Sparkle’s all caught up in my mess. I didn’t want someone else I loved to get in harm’s way.”
She looked up to see how he was taking all of this, but his face remained impassive. She quickly ducked her head again, so she didn’t have to see his reaction as she said, “Also, this just in: I’m pregnant. So if you’re still planning to kill me, I’m asking that you give me six months so no one else has to die because of what I did.”
Still he didn’t answer, but the speeding up of his heartbeat told her he had heard every word.
“Suro?” she asked.
“I’m a hit man, but that doesn’t mean I’m without honor. I don’t kill women,” he said,”and I never planned to kill you.”
“You didn’t?” she asked. “Then why did you take the case?”
“For the reason I’ve done every crazy thing I’ve done over the past six months,” he answered. “Because of you. Now go to sleep.”
“But—”
“Go to sleep.”
So she went to sleep. It wasn’t hard. She’d had a strange and crazy day, the low point being when she was fairly sure she was going to die by Suro’s hand. But she was still alive. She’d confessed everything, and she was in the arms of the man she loved. That was enough for today, she thought, and let sleep pull her under.
She woke up a few hours later in a pitch-black room to the sound of her burner phone ringing. More than a little confused by the unfamiliar surroundings, she fumbled around in the dark for a light only to discover when she turned it on, Suro was gone. Moreover, the room was empty. His suitcase was gone, along with any other signs he’d ever been there.
If not for the fact that her lady parts felt pretty worked over, and she was buck-naked and in a hotel room at the Cliffrose Inn, she would have thought maybe she had hallucinated the whole thing.
Still confused, she made her way to the ringing phone and picked it up when she saw Sparkle’s number. “Sparkle—I mean, Jennifer, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Sparkle said. “But there’s a big guy here. He told me to call you.”
She sighed. “Is it a big black guy named Dexter?” she asked.
“No, I know who Dexter is.” Sparkle answered, not bothering to lower her voice. “It’s a big white guy. His name is Alexei Rustanov. And he says Suro sent him.”
CHAPTER 21
LACEY hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets in their relationship. Apparently Suro was not only a hit man by trade, but he also hung out with Russian billionaires. At least she thought Alexei Rustanov was his friend.
The only explanation he had given before hustling Sparkle and her to his private jet, which Sparkle had recognized as the one that had taken her from Rise Academy to Chicago, was, “Nakamura asked me to pick you up, take you back to our home in Texas, and keep you there until further notice. So that is what I am doing.”
His home in Texas turned out to be a rather large compound in the middle of a small Texas town called Drummond with twenty-four/seven security. Even if Lacey had thought about running away again, and considering the weird circumstances, she did think about it, she doubted she would have gotten past the front gate. And even though he was kind enough to put her and Sparkle up in the “guest house,” which was actually a large, two-floor villa, she felt like a very well kept prisoner.
They had a dedicated housekeeper who came to take their order for dinner every night. Also, there was an upright piano in the living room, so Sparkle was A-OK with the situation, even if her mother was not.
Lacey had expected to be there for a few days, but then a whole week passed by without so much as a text message from Suro or an appearance from Alexei Rustanov. The enigmatic billionaire had apparently flown all the way to Santa Fe to get them himself but then hadn’t bothered to check in with her after dumping them in his swanky guesthouse.
Not to mention she was bored out of her skull. Say what you want about being a somewhat seedy manager/creative accountant for a strip club, it had at least always been interesting. Staying in the villa was way better than waiting tables in some hole-in-the-wall in Santa Fe, but she soon tired of the steady diet of television and listening to Sparkle play the piano in the background.
She was just considering hatching an escape plan, when she heard voices arguing outside of the villa’s front door.
“There is no reason to disturb them, Eva,” came Alexei’s stern voice.
“Don’t you even try to talk to me right now,” came another voice, heavy with a Texas accent. “I can’t believe you have these people up in our house and weren’t even trying to treat them like guests.”
“They are not guests, they are a favor.”
“If they’re staying on my property, they are guests. And what kind of Texan calls guests ‘a favor’? That’s just downright inhospitable.”
“I did feed them,” he pointed out, between what Lacey assumed were clenched teeth. “And as you know, I am not a Texan. I am Russian.”