Page 33 of BRATVA'S Avenging Bride
I suck her clit hard in response and she bucks against me.
“Arrogant bastard,” she gasps.
“Accurate bastard,” I respond, grinning as I remember one of our conversations from earlier in the week and slide two fingers into her wet channel.
Her hips rock back and forth, grinding her against my face as I chase her clit with my tongue. She tastes like soap and that sweet, muskiness that is all her. When her walls begin the quiveragainst my fingers, I double my efforts against her clit and she shatters above me with yelps of surprised pleasure.
“Okay, maybe you can fix some stuff with that mouth of yours,” she says once her orgasm has fully subsided.
She folds forward, taking my face in her hands and kissing me deeply, sweeping her tongue hungrily over mine. Then she pulls back, breaking the kiss and looking into my eyes.
“Come on then.” She tugs me up to standing. “If you want to put a baby in me in time for this ridiculouspayment, you better get started.”
Epilogue
Katherine
Six months later
The city looks different from up here on the roof. Brighter somehow. Maybe it’s just me.
The old nightclub is gone, replaced by steel and glass of a new building that gleams silver under the morning sun. The sign out front already readsThe Firebird.
Mira came up with the name after hearing Matvey call me it in Russian. She and Lena run it now. A women’s cooperative, safe, independent, untouchable. Matvey made sure of that. He says it’s their territory now. Their future.
I rest my hand on the curve of my stomach and feel the faintest flutter. It’s still new, fragile, but real enough to take my breath away.
Our child.
The first pure thing either of us has ever created.
The rooftop garden smells of rain and basil. Matvey insisted on building it himself, even though his men thought it was beneath him. He’s up here now, shirtless, swearing in Russian ashe tries to fix the irrigation line. Watching him curse at pipes and plants might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
He looks up when he feels my gaze, that dangerous smile breaking across his face, the one that still makes me forget how to breathe. He wipes his hands on a towel and comes toward me, slow and sure, like time itself bends around us.
“Careful,” he says, his voice softer than anyone else ever hears. “You shouldn’t be standing too long.”
“I’m pregnant, not porcelain,” I tease, but I let him wrap an arm around my waist anyway, his palm resting protectively over the spot where new life blossoms beneath my skin.
“You’re everything,” he murmurs against my temple. “You and the fire you gave me.”
I turn to face him, tracing the scar on his palm, the one I gave him that night in the dingy little apartment that was more hovel than home. It’s healed now, a faint silver-white line. He says it reminds him that pain can make you whole.
“I never thought I’d get this,” I whisper. “Peace. Love. A life I chose.”
He kisses me then, slow and deep, and I feel it everywhere. The promise, the power, the endless devotion.
When we finally pull apart, the city hums below us, alive and bright and burning with possibility.
“I used to think the fire destroyed me,” I say, watching sunlight catch on the steel frame of the new club. “But it didn’t. It forged me.”
Matvey’s hand tightens over mine, possessive and tender all at once.
“You’re my phoenix,” he says.
“And you’re my flame,” I answer, smiling as the baby kicks again, strong and certain. “Guess we’ll just keep on burning.”
The wind shifts, carrying the scent of smoke and salt and something sweet, and I realize I’m not afraid of it anymore.
