Casimir spent a good deal of time being a lover. He was expert at it. He could be anyone and easily became whatever his mark was looking for. Whatever they needed. He had complete command of his body at all times. He was that disciplined. He’d learned that discipline in a very hard, brutal school, but that had served him well over the years. His body never spun out of control. His cock never went hard and hot and aching, so painful he thought he might burst, not like now. Never without consent. Until now.
He’d lost that control somewhere in the hours on that plane, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. He’d been into his role, deliberately, for his own amusement, annoying her, getting under her skin, and somehow, she’d gotten under his with her soft-spoken kindness. His body forgot those long hours of harsh lessons and spun out of control. By the time they’d reached Italy, he was a walking hard-on, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a boy.
In his youth, before he realized there was no escaping the life monsters had chosen for him, he dreamt of a woman of his own. Fiery. Passionate. Oddly enough, a flaming redhead. Lissa was definitely everything he’d ever dreamt of. She’d been so calm on the plane with all of his taunting, but he’d seen the fire in her. Caught glimpses of it. She would catch fire fast, burn hotter than any volcano and come apart for him.
Her skin was softer than he thought possible. He’d managed twice on the plane to get into her space enough to feel the satin under his fingertips. Any more than twice and he would have totally creeped her out. She wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. The heat in her eyes warned him so he’d resisted touching her. Now, he couldn’t get enough of sliding his hands over her narrow rib cage to cup her breasts while he fed.
She was sensitive. Very sensitive. He took every advantage of that. His body might not be in his complete control, but he had enough experience to know when a woman liked something and when she loved it. Especially when something drove her out of her mind with pleasure.
He wanted her hands on him. His cock was so full he was afraid he’d burst with the urgent, demanding hunger roaring through him, but he couldn’t rush this. Couldn’t let his own need make him lose sight of what was most important. She had kissed him back, her kisses better than anything he’d ever experienced because she was kissing him, Casimir Prakenskii, not one of his many aliases. She knew who he was and she wanted him, not one of them. He might not know who he was, but everything he knew about himself was definitely hers. All of him. What there was left of him. It might be miniscule, but the real man was there somewhere, and that man belonged to this woman.
He hadn’t realized just how far gone he was. A man could only live so long in the shadows without an identity before the darkness consumed him. He’d made up his mind to try his hand at killing the Sorbacovs, both father and son. He knew they would be expecting those from the school to come after them, and they would be waiting. Kostya Sorbacov knew each of those students and what they were capable of. He would be looking for the master of disguises and suspicious of every man coming near them. Casimir didn’t expect to come out of the encounter alive, but he was fairly certain he could kill at least one, if not both of his targets.
Holding Lissa in his arms, his hands moving over her soft skin, his cock pressed tight against her body, his mouth on her breast, touched something deep in him, something he hadn’t known existed. She was like the sun itself. Hot and bright, burning for him. Giving him that light when he needed it the most – when he was all but lost. Her breathy little moans filled his ears. Music. Beautiful. Filling his soul.
He wasn’t a poetry kind of man. He’d skipped the lesson on hearts and flowers, but there it was. He needed her to see him. To want him. He needed her like he needed air just to breathe. All along he’d been swallowed by the shadows, but somehow, she found him and her bright light burst over him.
He kissed his way back up the slope of her breast, her throat, nibbled on her chin and took her mouth again, needing to catch one of those soft little moans and swallow it. Her mouth was like velvet, but so hot he thought he might burn there forever. Her nails bit into his shoulders, scored down his back, and she went a little wild against him. He loved that no one else had kissed her. He knew they hadn’t the moment her tongue danced so shyly with his. She was only for him. Made for him. Her body’s reaction was real. For him. He loved that. Needed it like a man starving.
She shuddered. Trembled. He deepened the kiss and slowly began to walk her backward toward his bed. He wanted to take her against the wall, right there, or the floor, anywhere at all, but this first time had to be the bed and he had to find it in him to be gentle. To keep the brutal need, so stark and raw, from swallowing them both alive.