Page 99 of Brutal Unionn
Or maybe one right move.
I can feel his breath on my lips—tea and warmth and something else that makes my skin pulse with anticipation.
His eyes flick from mine to my mouth, and drunkenly my eyes follow the movement, focusing on the quiver of his lips as he speaks to me.
“I have loved you,” he says, voice low, voicecertain,“since the moment I laid eyes on you in the back of your brother’s van.”
I lean forward without thinking, drawn by the sound of his voice, the warmth of his body, the softness in his eyes that I’m almost never allowed to see. I want to feel his mouth on mine, feel the truth of those words pressed against me—but just as my lips hover close enough to touch, he pulls back.
Not far, but enough to make me pause.
His fingers find the underside of my chin, and with the barest pressure, he tilts my face upward until I’m forced to look him in the eye.
“I have loved you since the moment you told me to fuck off,” he murmurs, the corners of his mouth curling with something that might’ve been a smile, if not for the weight in his voice. “I loved you even when you basically sent me to my death. You see—” his thumb brushes under my jaw, slow and grounding, “—I’m fine with you loving me now, because there was a time I just loved you.”
His eyes bore into mine, forcing my entire body to light up like a Christmas tree.
“But I know now... what I feel for you is more than love.” His voice lowers further, until I can feel it in my throat as much as I hear it. “It’s anobsession.”
I swallow hard, pulse spiking, something tight coiling in the center of my chest—not fear, not resistance, but something far more dangerous. The sensation of beingknown.Of being seen so completely that hiding becomes useless. His hand still cradles my face, thumb grazing the edge of my cheek like he’s anchoring himself to this moment.
“I am completely consumed with you,” he breathes. “Three years without you and I felt like a ghost. I tried to outrun it. Disappear into jobs, aliases, silence. But it was always you. Every time I closed my eyes.”
His other hand slips around my waist, pulling me closer until there’s no space between our bodies, only heat.
“I’m not alive when you’re not here, Nadia.”
The words settle between us like a confession and a curse. And still, I don’t pull away.
I can’t.
Because I feel it too—the magnetic ache, the constant hum of him beneath the surface of everything I do. Even when I hated him. Even when I tried to forget him. He was always there, the quiet force behind every decision I made. And now, hearing it—feeling it—something deep in me settles. Like his words were always meant to live in the raw, unguarded place between my ribs.
I stare up at him, the heat of my body trembling beneath skin stained with someone else’s blood.
My breath comes out in a ragged burst. “Just fucking say it, Sho.”
He huffs a soft laugh, low and rough in his throat, and before I can blink, his arms pull me into him. We’re both on our knees, chest to chest, the space between us erased in an instant. His skin is warm against mine, bare except for the thin waistband of the gray lounge pants hanging low on his hips. His torso is solid heat, all tan muscle and tension, the ink of his tattoos shifting over his ribs with every breath.
“I love you, Nadia,” he says, his voice quiet but unmistakably certain.
And then I’m on him.
The words hit me like a match to dry earth. My blood-slick hands reach for his shoulders, dragging across skin. I crash my mouth into his without care for the blood, the filth, or the trembling edge I’m standing on. There’s no grace in it. No sweetness. Just pure need.
He grunts beneath me, mouth catching mine hard. His hands don’t hesitate—one cups the back of my head, fingers threading into my damp hair, while the other grips my waist, pulling me down flush against him. I straddle his lap without thinking, jeans stiff with dried blood and knees digging into the floor, my tank top clinging to my skin, streaked with sweat and the aftermath of the man I just killed.
But Sho doesn’t flinch.
Not at the blood.
Not at the spit still clinging to my cheek.
Not at the way I kiss him like I’ll never have this again.
He meets every frantic push with calm, every wild kiss with something deeper—slower. His lips move against mine with the ease of someone who’s waited for this moment and won’t let it slip away.
When I pull back, breathless and raw, our foreheads rest together, his chest rising fast against mine. I feel the damp heat of my own skin smearing against his, the metallic scent of blood thick in the space between us.
