Chapter 101: Chapter Forty-Six

Alice

The countdown had started.

We slept another three hours before I woke up with a hot Russian mouth between my thighs.

I spread my legs, my back arching as I gripped the sheets. “Don’t stop.”

I could feel his smile against my thighs, my body buzzed with each touch of his tongue. He pulled away too soon.

And then his hands were on my hips, slowly moving up to my breasts, like he wanted his bare hands to memorize every inch of skin, to ingrain them in his memory.

I knew it was almost time.

I’d been keeping track.

Or maybe my heart just knew without having to look at the clock.

We had two more hours before whatever was going to happen… happened.

He still kept me in the dark.

Maybe it was better that way.

Maybe it wasn’t.

But he asked me to trust him, so I did.

Blindly.

“I watched you,” he confessed. “When they brought you in, I watched you, and my response to you hurt, it fucking hurt, like something had zapped my heart forcing me to notice it again.

“And then I hated you for making me feel anything. Now I can’t imagine being numb again.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, and when he opened them, they were glassy.

I did that.

I was making the monster cry.

My lips trembled.

He kissed them then, pressing his mouth to mine. “I promise I’ll try. I promise I’ll try, but if I can’t… if I can’t do it, I need you to ask me.”

“Ask you?”

“I need you to ask me to kill you.”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

“I can’t take the risk that they would torture you, that they would gang up on me, I’m not their blood, so in this scenario I don’t have the pull that Chase does. Just promise me.”

“Kill me.” I locked eyes with him. “Ubei menya.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “It sounds too beautiful, too wrong coming from your lips.”

I smiled and made the mistake of glancing at the clock again. Ninety minutes with a man who should have always been mine.

“No more talking.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him down, only to have him adjust his position and flip me onto my stomach. “What are you—”

“Hmmm?”

“Never mind,” I said against the pillow as I felt his heat against my ass, the backs of my thighs.

I guess it made sense.

I’d always dreamed of an escape.

I just didn’t realize mine would be death by the very monster who saved me.

“I’ll be okay. No matter what, Andrei. I’ll be okay,” I promised.

He kissed my back, his hands spread wide across my skin. “I’ll follow you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “You won’t.”

“I will.”

“Don’t ruin these last moments we have together by saying something like that.” I almost turned back around, but he had me pinned down with his body weight. “Don’t. I can’t bear it.”

“Tears.” He swiped them with his fingertips as I turned my head to the side. “You shouldn’t shed your tears for a man like me.”

“Someone should, Andrei. Someone should shed tears for a man like you. You have years’ worth of unshed tears, unfulfilled promises—let me decide who I’ll sacrifice my tears for.”

He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “I will love you forever.”

I squeezed my eyes closed as more tears slid onto the pillow.

And then he was inside me, causing me to come up from the bed in pleasure as he pressed my hands down against the mattress, he was wild in his passion.

His hands bruising my wrists.

His body heavy and perfect against mine.

I would remember this for as long as I still had breath.

And I would be thankful that I was given at least a few short moments of perfection.

I could feel the intensity of this moment as it built up between us, as he whispered my name like a vow.

“Andrei,” I whimpered. “You’re my everything.”

“Alice…” He let out a growl. “You’re my fucking soul.”