Page 6 of Owned By Shadows

We’ve not touched each other this way since that night, and suddenly, I know that if I don’t have her now, I will die as surely as Roman did. With a snarl at that thought, I sink inside her, her walls gripping me so fucking tight because she’s not quite ready for me. I don’t care, not even with her gasp of pain. I just keep pushing until I’m once again flush with her, buried to the hilt.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers as I hold still, panting. My head snaps up to find her looking over her shoulder at me, her beautiful eyes heavy with lust and sadness. “His death is not your fault, Roo.”

My jaw works, then my lips peel back as I practically hiss at her, my fingers digging into her lush hips. In punishment, I pull almost all the way out, then slam back inside her wet heat. Her body accepts my intrusion more readily this time, her gasp part pleasure-filled, and it makes me angry.

“It’s not your fault,” she repeats, and I make a sound between a yell and a growl, repeating the move until I’m fucking her with such force her breath punches out of her. “It’s. Not. Your. Fault.” Her words are panted, and a sob falls from my chest.

“Yes, it is,” I rasp, my hips punching into her from behind as the words are dragged from my lips. They sound foreign, like they’re not mine at all. “I didn’t even know he was gone until it was too late.” Tears mix with the water on my cheeks, my pace no less punishing as I give a voice to the thoughts that have been plaguing me for two fucking weeks.

“It’s not your fault, my love,” she replies, ending on a moan when I swivel my hips while buried inside her, hitting her G-spot. “You are not to blame.”

“Then why does it hurt so much?” I beg, my thrusts becoming shallow as I crowd her against the tile wall, my body needing to feel hers. I can’t stop the movement of my hips, needing her more than I need air at this moment. “Why does every breath I take feel like a betrayal?”

“Because you loved him, Roo,” she whispers, her face turned to the side, her eyes open even as her lashes flutter. They’re dotted with moisture, a mixture of tears and the droplets from the shower, which still flows to the side of us.

“I miss him so fucking much, Lamb,” I confess, my hands leaving her hips, one going to her hair and pulling her neck back so I can stare into her eyes. The other kneads her breast, playing with her nipple. “It’s like I’m split in half and one side is missing.”

“I know, my love,” she chokes out, a moan falling from her plush lips as my hand leaves her breast, circles her stomach, and dips between her legs.

Like the rest of her, her clit is engorged and begging for attention, so I give it some, strumming and playing with it as I fuck her slow and deep.

“Never leave me, Lamb,” I order her, heat pooling low in my stomach, pleasure skating up and down my spine as her pussy clenches and releases around my cock. “You are the other half of me, and I can’t survive without you.”

“I’m here,” she tells me, her voice deep and husky as her body tightens, her release almost upon her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I bury my face in her neck, my hips picking up speed along with my fingers on her clit, desperate to feel her fall apart as I do the same. It takes mere moments, her climax setting off my own as we explode together. I’m buried so deep I don’t know where I end and she begins, and even though she’s already carrying a child, I push my hips deeper, filling her up with my cum.

Both our chests heave with panted breaths, my body wrapped around hers as the shower continues to fall and we just exist. Then the pain flows back in, but it’s not as sharp as before, not as cutting.

“I love you, Iris,” I murmur into her hair, placing a kiss on her temple and just holding her to me.

“I love you, Rowan,” she answers, her arms pulling mine around her, and we spend a few moments just holding each other, breathing each other in.

I’ll never be the same without Roman. He was a fundamental part of me, perhaps the better part. But as I stand here, holding the woman who is now also a part of me, I know that one day I’ll be okay. Because she is the reason to keep going, to wake up each morning and take my next breath.

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOU’RE SPECIAL” BY NF

ROMAN

Apparently it takes around three and a half hours to get to St. Petersburg, but I sleep for most of it, Nikolai rousing me when we’ve landed.

“Lev, we’re here,” he tells me softly, his hand stroking my face as I blink my eyes open. I wince as I go to stretch, pain radiating from my shoulder and causing me to grit my teeth to stop from crying out. “Careful.”

“I wouldn’t need to be careful if you hadn’t shot me, wanker,” I grumble, but he only laughs, helping me to sit up. It’s then I realise that I’m untied, and by the lack of a dead arm, he must have done it a while ago. “Don’t expect any thanks for untying me.”

He grasps my chin in his fingers, and although I’m screaming at myself to shake him off, my traitorous body allows him to lift my chin to meet his dark gaze. The heat in his eyes has me sucking in a breath, my insides warming.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have you tied up again soon,moy Lev,” he purrs, but it doesn’t sound like a threat. No, it sounds very much like a dark promise and one that, once I’m healed, I may even enjoy.Fucking stupid, sexy Russian. “We need to get you dressed. It’s colder here than in England.” He steps away from me, opening a hatch and taking out a bag, setting it next to me on the bed and then unzipping it.

I glance down and realise that I’m only in a pair of black boxer shorts, which aren’t mine. My brows dip down in a frown. “Whose boxers are these?”

He looks over at me, holding what looks like a brand new pair of black Levi’s. “Mine.”

My eyebrows raise, my lower stomach heating again at the idea of wearing his underwear. Then I stop breathing entirely when he steps in front of me again, dropping to his knees. He’s right. Fucking. There.

There’s nothing I can do as my dick fills with blood and jerks in my borrowed boxers, the idea of his lips wrapping around it consuming me completely.

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