Because she simply kept coming closer, closer until he realized she wouldn’t be slowing down. Fuck yes. Come to me, baby. Elias caught her up against his body, plastered her tight to his frame several inches above the ground, breathing against her mouth for a bracing moment, before diving into a kiss that rocked the very foundation of his existence.
Jesus. Jesus.
She tasted like chocolate, like sin, like salvation. There was a lack of experience that made him protective and triumphant at the same time. Mine. The tongue pressing to his and stroking it hesitantly, then with more confidence, belonged to him. The arms twining around his neck, the tremble skittering through her, the hair in his fists—his, his, his.
This was insane. It was fucking insane.
He needed to breathe, but he would rather die than break the kiss.
It was like he’d been starved for it his entire life.
She whimpered into his mouth and he countered with a soothing noise, running his thumb along her cheekbone, never quitting the incredible pace, the friction, of the kiss.
Roksana broke away, gasping, her eyes a brighter blue than they’d been before.
His heart was doing something crazy, his hands still moving in her hair. Memorizing her.
“I still have your key.” Her laugh was breathless. “Which room?”
“Nine fifty-six.”
“I’ll meet you there.” She wet her lips, her eyelids fluttering as if she was savoring the taste of his mouth. “This time tomorrow, temnota moya.”
He’d take it. He’d take anything. “This time tomorrow, Roksana.”
And then she was gone, but her impact on him?
That remained.
He could barely feel his limbs as he took his seat again at the bar, her sweet scent still clinging to his clothes. After a moment of recovery, which didn’t recover him at all, frankly, his gaze was drawn to the spot where the man she’d called a vampire had been sitting.
The chair was now empty.
A layer of ice formed on his skin, but he determinedly shook it off.
Vampires didn’t exist.
Tomorrow night? That was real.
Elias paid the tab, anticipation crackling in his fingertips. Kenny and Latte had mentioned meeting back up with Jenks and their commander later at the Encore, but Elias couldn’t bring himself to go back out. To go chasing excitement when he’d already experienced the headiest rush of his life. The night would only be downhill from there, so might as well head up to his room and work through this hard-on solo style.
God knew he’d be thinking of her the whole time. Before, during, after. Her hair spread out on his pillow, her sexy mouth open and gasping beneath his, her naked thighs squeezing his hips, even if she was only in his imagination.
He’d barely managed to strip off his shirt and kick his shoes into the closet when there was a knock on the door. His abdomen knit with immediate hunger, hope kindling in his chest. Was it Roksana? Did she decide tomorrow was too long to wait?
Please, please for the love of everything holy, let that be the case.
It had to be. She was the only one who knew his room number.
He hadn’t even told his teammates.
That marked the first time in Elias’s life he opened a door without looking through the peephole first—and he would pay for it.
Dearly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Moscow
Four days later
With a woeful wail trapped in her raw throat, Roksana burst through the front door of her mother’s home, her weak legs landing her on hands and knees in seconds. She crawled, fingers nothing but pale claws on the carpeted floor. “Mother!” she cried out, her voice ravaged from screams, her eyes blind. Except for the images that wouldn’t stop bludgeoning her. “Mother. Mother.”
A woman’s outline appeared in the darkness and made no move to turn on the light. “Yes? Roksana, is that you?”
“They’re dead! They’re all dead. Kira, Olga…all of my friends. Murdered.” Sobs wracking her body, she clawed her way across the floor, collapsing at her mother’s feet and curling in on herself like an infant, no way to stop the agony. No way to lessen the burn of sorrow. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called from the police station, the airport…”
“I was on a hunt, daughter, and only just returned,” Inessa said, as if that should be obvious. “Murdered by who?”
“Vampires,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why were they there?”
“The undead are everywhere, Roksana. I’ve been telling you this since birth.”
“But they j-just walked in off the busy street a-and—”
“Yes. And have you seen anything about it on the news?”
Television was a foreign concept to her grief-addled mind. The last time she’d watched anything on television could have been a year ago or an hour ago. All that existed inside of her was wild, untenable anguish. It took a club to her stomach, her lungs, her brain. There was too much of it. Any second now she would explode, her woe splattering on the walls, and there would be relief in that.