His to Take (28 page)

Once more, he trapped her clit between his teeth—not hard, but enough to make her
yelp. As soon as the sting of pain dissolved, pleasure roared in. Her blood began
to boil. Sensations gathered and knotted between her legs. She knew this feeling.
He alone had given it to her before.

“Joaquin?”

“Hold on, baby girl. I’m not done tormenting you.”

“But—”

“Who do you belong to right now?”

Bailey hesitated, trying to find her brain. He lowered his head and licked her, avoiding
the one sensitive spot that would send her over the edge.

“Who?” he barked.

“You,” she managed to breathe out.

“That’s right. So you’ll wait.”

She twisted, trying to deal with her needy body and the relentless ache he’d created.
Instinctually, she cupped her breasts and gave her nipples another vicious tug. Joaquin
fingered her clit again and watched her, his eyes burning, vowing without a word to
give her the kind of ecstasy that would blow her mind. As soon as he touched her,
the orgasm loomed closer, taking over her body, an urgent swell of desire she wasn’t
sure she could delay.

She mewled and writhed, her legs falling open and begging him to fill her. He gripped
her hips with biting fingers and devoured her with his greedy tongue again, quickly
dismantling her self-control.

“So swollen. You want this.” It wasn’t a question. He knew it as fact.

“Yes. Please. Now.”

Some vague part of her registered that she was pleading with him for sex. She sounded
wanton and desperate—and she really didn’t care. As long as he satisfied the ache,
as long as he became one with her tonight and filled up all the dark, empty spaces
in her body and heart, nothing else mattered.

He gave her a low, seductive groan. “I love the sound of you begging, baby girl. Now
I’m ready to hear you scream.”

B
AILEY hadn’t even processed his words before he rose to his feet, pushed her farther
up the bed, tore open his fly, and shoved his pants down. His cock sprang free, thick
and purple and ready. He took hold of her hips, bracing himself. With all his breath,
he thrust forward and filled her, stretching her sensitive tissue, scraping every
aching nerve. Her flesh tingled with both the pain and the pleasure of his sudden
invasion. She gasped, dug her nails into his shoulder, and threw her head back.

“Look at me. Come!” he growled in her ear.

Their stares locked, and she lost herself in his hazel eyes as she splintered apart.
Her heartbeat thumped against her ribs, roared in her ears. Every muscle in her body
seized up. She stopped breathing, stopped thinking of everything except Joaquin. She
cried out his name as she clamped down on his cock. A feral groan erupted from his
lips as he pumped her furiously, prolonging the flare of ecstasy into something close
to agony, so sharp and acute. Her keening cry filled the room, bounced off the walls,
rang in her ears.

“Fuck, yes,” he encouraged on a long growl.

Under him she bucked and lifted. The explosion of bliss unraveled her entirely. She
closed her eyes, savoring the hard rush into climax.

“No, look at me.” He reached up and tugged on her wet hair.

Obediently, she opened her eyes again. This time, the connection shifted something
in her heart. It wasn’t just love, but possession. Every instinct told her that Joaquin
was claiming her as his for all time. Bailey willingly gave herself over. She’d never
experienced a man so intense, so bent on justice . . . so perfect for her.

But from now on, he was hers, too. She’d fight for him. She’d die for him. He would
complete her. He would be the one she built a new family with.

Maybe starting tonight.

The thought tripped another zip of need inside her, which he kindled with every demanding
thrust into her body, sending her over the edge once more.

Pleasure drugged her veins. She softened like melted butter all around him. Her sigh
of joy, coupled with her half-drunk smile, probably looked goofy. But in that moment,
she couldn’t have held her delight in for any reason. He made her sublimely happy.

Bailey had barely begun to relax when Joaquin withdrew and slammed her mouth with
a hard kiss, dipping inside like a man starving for her taste. His urgency awakened
hers again, and she kissed him back with all the passion only he roused.

“I need you. I have to . . . Damn it. Tell me if I’m too rough.”

Without any idea what he sought, she let him have his way. Bailey trusted him. He
might not be perfect. She might not agree with his methods all the time. But he’d
never hurt her on purpose.

“Yes.”

He sent her a primal snarl before he flipped her onto her belly and shoved his arm
around her waist. With a tug, he pulled her onto her hands and knees, supporting her
middle with the width of his steely forearm. A moment later, the head of his cock
probed her entrance, found her wet flesh parting willingly for him, then thrust deep.

She screamed. In this position, her passage felt more narrow. He took up every ounce
of space in her pussy—and then some.

“Did I hurt you?”

Was he kidding? “No.” She could barely catch her breath, but who cared when he delivered
that much pleasure? “It’s amazing.”

“You feel so fucking good,” he groaned, reaching up to pluck at her sensitive nipples.

The touch shocked her system and replaced her sated heaven with the enslaving grip
of desire again. How could he do this to her so quickly? So easily?

She hadn’t even answered that question before he upped the stakes, leaning over her
back and sliding his hand up her breast, over her collarbones, affixing his fingers
around her chin. He tilted her head back and ground into her sex with short, deep
strokes that sent off another violent wave of tingles.

“You’re like the drug I can’t get enough of. When I’m not inside you, all I can think
about is fucking you. When I am, I don’t think of anything but filling you completely
and owning you.”

His words made her shudder as he drove her into a spiral of panting, reckless desire.
No denying that his possessive grip made her feel as if she was his completely. She’d
never felt anything like it and knew down to her bones that only he could take her
here.

Beneath his body, Bailey wriggled, gyrating with him. Together, they found a rhythm.
A tilt of her hips as he pulled back dragged his steely length over all the nerves
that made her gasp and claw the cheap comforter. She shoved back onto him as he plunged
into her with a harsh grunt. Over and over and over, a seemingly endless rhythm. Bailey
lost all sense of time, the world around them, even her next breath. All she needed
was Joaquin. The way he dragged his sweat-slick chest over her back as he fucked his
way even farther inside her with every thrust stunned her. She heard thunder in her
ears, saw stars behind her eyes. Damn it, the heavens parted.

Her body jerked with anguished bliss, and she came apart again with a scream.

Joaquin cried out—the sound somewhere between shock and sensual pain. He lost his
rhythm. She lost her mind. Together, they soared into the euphoria of wrenching climax.
A wet splash scalded her insides, and Bailey felt him coat her with his seed.

The thought of conceiving should have terrified her. Ballerinas who had babies usually
kissed their careers good-bye. She’d worked her whole life to be the best. Already,
she knew she stood a great chance of being chosen for more than a minor part at her
audition next week—if she could, in fact, go.

Somehow, none of that seemed as important as having this man and the product of their
love to share her life with.

Thoughts like that were so dangerous, but if he avoided being close to everyone, as
Kata said, why was he here, risking the possibility that she might have his child?
She had to hope that somewhere deep inside Joaquin’s heart, he wanted more out of
life now than to roam it in lonely solitude. She had to hope that he could love her,
too.

*   *   *

AN hour later, they sat in bed, eating pizza. Joaquin grinned as he reached for another
piece and bit off a huge chunk of cheese. “Favorite memory?”

Bailey thought for a moment, then giggled. “When I was about eight, my adoptive mom
found a rescue dog named Beau. He was a little dachshund-terrier mix. He was definitely
my dad’s dog, always trying to be a man’s man, despite how little he was.

“One time, my dad moved the barbeque under the overhang near the kitchen because it
started raining. The house had two sliding glass doors to the yard, and one was just
off the breakfast nook. So my dad was standing there grilling next to the glass doors,
right? My mom loved cactus plants. She had a whole bunch of them along that glass
door. Beau raised his front paws up onto the glass to be closer to my dad, but then
he couldn’t get down on his own. He ended up straddling the cactus. I was upstairs
doing homework and my mom was in the laundry room. Next thing we know, we heard this
huge yelp and came running. Beau was doing his best to stand on his tippy-toes over
this big, round cactus plant, poor baby. It wouldn’t be funny except . . . my dad
had to use a pair of tweezers and get all the stickers out of the dog’s underbelly
and guy parts. He spent an hour consoling the dog, while trying not to howl with laughter.”
She frowned. “I think that’s one of the few times I remember my adopted dad seeming
like he was happy. It wasn’t the best day of my life, but something that always makes
me smile. What about you?”

His grin widened to a teeth-flashing smile. “When I was fifteen and had my first real
girlfriend, we had this big date planned. She was a year older than me, and I won’t
lie: I was hoping to get lucky. I wanted to look good for this girl, so I washed everything
I intended to wear that night. I also did a load of whites so I’d have clean underwear.”

Bailey laughed out loud. “Eager, were you?”

“Stupidly so.”

“Anyway, Kata had a new red shirt and wanted to play a prank on me, so she sneaked
into the laundry room and slipped her shirt into that load, which I’d washed in hot
water. Let me just also say that I’d decided that I should wash every pair of underwear
I owned that day.”

Bailey’s jaw dropped. “So they all came out pink?”

“Oh, yeah. Like a weird, vivid tie-dyed pink. I wanted to kill her. Sometimes, I think
it’s a miracle she made it to adulthood.”

“So did you get lucky that night?”

“No.” And he still sounded sulky about it.

With an indulgent laugh, peace settled into Bailey. She and Joaquin talked not like
people escaping a dangerous murderer together while hunting priceless information,
but simply like lovers enjoying each other’s company. Again, that sense of perfection
and rightness seeped into her veins. Never in her life had she ever felt like she
truly belonged anywhere or with anyone. But Bailey knew at a deep, visceral level
that she belonged with this man. She wanted to tell him that—and admit she loved him.
She didn’t do it. Had she ever said those three words to someone as anything more
than a passing joke?

If so, she didn’t remember it.

“Worst memory?” she asked him, wondering if he’d open up.

He lowered his piece of pizza and turned his thoughts inward. “The death of my father
was probably it for the longest time. I remember seeing him that morning before he
left for work. He ruffled my head and told me that my sugary breakfast cereal would
rot my teeth. He was drinking coffee, which I told him would rot his brain. It was
one of our rituals. Hearing the news of his death that evening was hard, but surreal,
you know? It really hit me the next morning when I poured my cereal that he’d never
again tell me not to eat it. I shoved it all in the trash and went to my room and
punched my pillow until my knuckles were bruised. But I never ate that cereal again.”

Bailey’s heart broke for the little boy who had idolized his fallen dad. In some ways,
she’d been lucky to be too young to truly remember the family that had been taken
from her. The memories she’d recovered earlier today had been the first to make her
feel any connection to the Aslanovs. She’d realized that they’d truly loved one another.
She’d experienced her first sense of loss for no longer having them in her life.

Joaquin remembered every moment of his heartache. She reached out to caress his shoulder
and kiss the corner of his lips. He tasted faintly of pepperoni. She met his stare,
certain that her expression would tell him that he’d become her moon and her stars.

Bailey held her breath, wondering if he’d try to disconnect. Was their intimacy now
simply too much for him to handle? To her shock, he leaned in closer and layered his
mouth over hers softly, lingering for a long minute.

“You’re easy to talk to, even about my dad. You understand.”

“I do. You loved him. The loss was difficult.”

He shrugged. “You lost a lot more. Today seemed really hard on you. I’m so proud of
you for pushing through. So many memories rushed back to you. Were you surprised?”

“Completely. But it was as if driving up to the little farmhouse unlocked some key
in my head. The dreams I’d had for so long merged with the actual memories I’d hidden
away. Suddenly, I had all the pieces of the puzzle. I didn’t expect that.”

“I think a lot of people would have just lost it at that point. But you didn’t dissolve
into tears, just soldiered on.”

“I’ve got to. If I want a future, then I have to dig all this up. So . . . I guess
we need to try to figure out where the rhyme Viktor taught me might be referring to.
I wish he’d put something in the words themselves to give me a clue.”

“What he gave you was already a lot for a five-year-old to remember. He had to have
known that. Do you remember if he sang that rhyme to you all your life? Or do you
remember when he taught it to you?”

Nipping at her lip, Bailey considered the question. “I remember he sang it a lot the
night before all the bad stuff. That morning, too.” She frowned, trying to sharpen
fuzzy memories, but it was like looking at a series of snapshots or short home movies
depicting various moments. “When we sang the song those last few hours, I already
knew it. I remember being excited to show him how well I remembered it.”

“So it wasn’t completely new?” Joaquin leaned closer to her. As he propped his arm
over his bent knee, the blanket barely covered his hair-dusted thighs and his cock
pooling low in the space between his legs.

Bailey tried not to be distracted, but he was so gorgeous, so male, it was impossible.

“No.” She managed to drag her thoughts into the conversation—mostly by jerking her
stare down to the piece of cooling pizza in her hand.

“Do you remember if he took you anywhere before that? Do you remember a time when
he might have shown you the dock or the painted fence? Or ever demonstrated how to
find the ‘mouse’ he talked about?”

Wasn’t that the question of a lifetime—literally? She blew out a breath and set her
half-eaten slice of pie back in the box. Closing her eyes, she tried to think back,
grab any memory that snagged her attention. They seemed awfully random. Mikhail putting
a little toy truck down the toilet and clogging up the plumbing. Annika trying to
help their mother cook and burning her hand on hot grease, requiring a trip to the
emergency room. Her mother complaining about having to stay in a tent on a camping
trip . . .

“That’s it!” She sat up and blinked Joaquin’s way in excitement. “We went camping.
I don’t know exactly when or where, but I remember my dad getting this idea that we
needed a family vacation and packing everyone up in the car suddenly. My mother wasn’t
the sort to ‘rough it,’ but Viktor wouldn’t hear of hotels on an outdoor excursion,
so we bought a tent and took it from location to location. It wasn’t ridiculously
hot or cold, so I’m guessing it was either spring or fall.” She tried to latch on
to one of the memories swirling through her brain. “I think fall. I remember looking
at big golden leaves at one of our campsites. Anyway, one morning, my dad took me
fishing. I remember it now because my brother wanted to go and threw a hissy that
my dad wouldn’t take him.”