But even knowing so, there was nothing he could do about it now. Even if he overcame his own aversion to exposing the ugliness and madness in his past, telling her now would only disturb her more. And this he wouldn’t do.
But if he couldn’t satisfy her need to know, he could offer her what neither of them had been truly alive without. The all-consuming intimacy that they’d never be able to find with any other. At least he could give that to her for now. While she still wanted him. The man she thought he was.
His steps resumed as he started to unbutton his shirt. By the time he opened the shower, he was still clothed but he couldn’t wait any longer to have his hands on her.
It all happened at once. He got drenched, she gasped at feeling his entry and he was wrapped around her, taking her from her slump against the wall back against his thundering body, into the shelter of his no longer containable passion.
She twisted around to face him with a cry, her eyes streaming with both water and tears, glittering with one unspoken question.
He answered it. “I can’t let you go.”
He tried to obliterate the distance she’d put between them but her trembling hands flattened against his soaked shirt, pain filling her eyes. “I can’t have this be the only reason.”
A self-deriding and loathing huff escaped him. “The one thing that stopped me from taking you was trying to do what was best for you. For me, holding back has been a hell second only to the years without you, to when I lost Alex and thought I’d lost you, too.”
He thought, hoped, his confession would appease her, at least explain his behavior. But what she did next had him so stunned his heart forgot to beat.
Anastasia slapped him with all her strength.
That wasn’t saying much, compared to the blows he’d sustained in his life. But from her, it brought him to his knees, figuratively, as he realized just how much he’d hurt her.
She glowered up at him through the jet of water, her enraged eyes the most beautiful and overpowering he’d ever seen them.
“That’s for all these years of hell.” Then both hands slammed on his chest, wet, sharp lashes of fury. “And that’s a reminder to stop making un
ilateral decisions on my behalf.” Next she pummeled him, as if she wanted to storm his being, to break down his barriers. “And that’s for driving me mad with your contradictions, with all the things you think you’re protecting me from.” Then her hands were knotted in his hair, bringing his face down to hers for an openmouthed, desperate kiss, her voice a hot tremolo breaching him to his very core. “And that’s for saving me, for being the only one I’ll ever crave. The absolute best and worst thing that has ever happened to me.”
Before he could try to even think of how to deal with her lightning-fast mood changes, she pushed him away again, hands clawing at his shirt as if it was her worst enemy, tearing at the sodden material, ripping off the buttons he hadn’t undone.
“And that’s for coming in here still clothed,” she panted as she attacked him, lips and teeth suckling and biting at every inch of flesh she’d exposed. “For making me wait again.”
Everything that had ever held him back, every shred of control, every dread, every heartache, snapped, unleashing the longing and hunger that had been accumulating inside him.
Grabbing her hands, he pinned them above her head against the wet wall, while his other hand skimmed her lush curves greedily. But Anastasia wouldn’t be held back anymore, squirmed to escape his hold, to continue exposing him to her hunger. He lasted only moments before he stopped her fumbling efforts and shredded the remainder of his clothes,
Shoving them away, he kneeled before her, looked up at her, this woman who embodied everything that mattered. As she sobbed his name over and over, he rubbed his lips, his whole face against her scar, the evidence that she’d survived, that he’d been given a second chance, one he’d almost wasted.
“Anastasia.” He reiterated her name like a prayer, soul and body rioting with savage poignancy as he rose and lifted her off her feet.
As she crushed her swollen, hard-tipped breasts against his chest, rubbed her firm belly against his steel erection, he wrenched back at her lips. “No more waiting, moya dusha, never again.”
He boosted her efforts to clamp her legs around his buttocks, fusing their lips as he flexed his hips until his erection nudged her entrance. He went blind with arousal as her hot, molten core scorched him, her face scrunching with extreme lust as she opened to him fully.
But as he began to ease himself inside her, she bit down hard on his lip. “I can’t bear slow or gentle. Give me all you have, all your strength and greed. Devastate me. Finish me.”
“Anastasia, moye serdtse...”
And she was his heart. He could have more easily withheld his next heartbeat than deny her what she needed. Holding her gaze, he thrust inside her, hard and fierce, invading her with the power they’d both been going mad for, stretching her beyond her limits. Her scream of agonized exultation tore through him as she consumed every inch of him in her clenching hunger.
At last, he thought, groaned, over and over. At last.
Incoherent with the pleasure, with the possession, but still needing more, he filled his savage mouth and hands with her flesh, needing to plunder all that she was, leave no fiber of her being unclaimed. Her body yielded to his invasion while he watched greedily as wonder, pleasure and relief splashed across her magnificent face, squeezed out of her in splintered cries.
He’d filled her depths with that first ferocious plunge. He dropped his forehead to hers, overwhelmed, transfigured.
“At last, moya dusha...”
Her graceful back was a deep arch, letting him do it all to her. “Yes, Ivan, yes... I missed you, went insane missing you. Give me everything now. Ivan, please, now...”