Midnight Sanctuary (Bugrov Bratva #2)(57)

I smile. “Can I get you anything to eat?”

“Chocolate,” she mumbles. “I kept dreaming about chocolate.”

I get to my feet, grateful for something to do. “You got it. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Uri is the only one in the kitchen when I get there. He looks up at me in alarm, more scared than I’ve ever seen him before. “Is she… Did he…?”

I shake my head. “She’s hurting, but I think… I think she’ll be okay.” I step closer to him and cup his face. “You’re an amazing brother, Uri. You brought her back home.”

“But is it too late?” he wonders.

I shake my head again. “She’s still in there. She’s just been through a lot. We need to give her time. We need to be there for her.”

“Thank you, Alyssa,” he says quietly, his eyes heavy with the weight of his words. “For taking care of my sister as though she’s your own.”

I place my hand on my stomach. “These babies make us family now.”

He bends down and kisses me gently on the lips. And for the first time in weeks, this kiss is free from guilt or sadness or fear.

This kiss feels like a new beginning.

It feels like hope.





35





URI





Alyssa radiates exhaustion when she slips into our room that night. That’s clear enough even in the dark. There’s moonlight streaming in through the gable windows and it pours onto her face. She looks like an angel. A tired angel, yes, but still as beautiful as the diamond-encrusted sky outside.

I lean off to the side and turn on the bedside lamp. She yelps and whips around in place. “You’re awake,” she murmurs when she sees me.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

The truth is, I could sleep. Tonight is the first night in forever that I feel like I could close my eyes and pass out for days and days.

I just didn’t want to sleep without her.

“How’s she doing?” I ask instead of saying any of that.

“Sleeping.”

She starts undressing, shucking off her dress and discarding it onto the divan in front of the bed. When she turns to the side, I admire her silhouette. She’s so gorgeous in the half-shadows, in the beams and patches of silvery moonglow. She’s flawed and flawless and perfect and mine.

As she crawls into bed, she adds, “It took a while. She was tired, but I think she’s scared to sleep. Nightmares.”

I nod, doing my damndest to ignore my stiffening erection. “Understandable.”

“I think she was relieved to be in normal clothes,” Alyssa mumbles. “She ate a lot, though it took a while. Then we stayed up talking for a bit. I did most of the talking. It just felt like she wanted to listen to normal things. Household things, pregnancy things. Stuff that can’t hurt her. I—”

When she interrupts herself with a yawn, I raise my eyebrows. “You need rest, too, Alyssa.”

Her face screws up with irritation. “Polly needs me, Uri. She has to come first for a while.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I’m fine.”

Her fierceness gives me just an inkling of the kind of mother she’s going to be. Strong, independent, deeply protective. A mama bear in the making. A lioness guarding her young.

“Don’t worry about Polly tonight. She’s just down the hall. If she has nightmares, I’ll be there.”

A guilty furrow appears in Alyssa’s brow. “I doubt she’ll have nightmares tonight.” Biting her bottom lip, she admits, “I… may have mixed a sleeping pill into her bedtime tea.”

I let out an impressed laugh. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

She clutches uncertainly at my elbow. “I just want her to get a decent night’s sleep. Did you see those dark circles? No fourteen-year-old should have dark circles that bad.”

“Breathe, kiska. I don’t disagree. You did the right thing.”

She looks up at me and traces her fingertip down the cliff of my jaw. “Speaking of dark circles, you need to sleep, too.”

I push her back onto the bed, my lips sliding down to her breasts. “Sleep is not what I’m interested in right now.”

She lets out a soft giggle. “Seriously? After the day you’ve had?”

I let my tongue loll over her nipple. “This is exactly what I need after the day I’ve had.”

Her fingers slide into my hair as I tease her nipples into hard peaks. She writhes around underneath me, teasing my cock with her soft warmth, with the grinding of her hips and the mewling little exhales that slip past her lips. Then I slide down lower and start passing my tongue up and down her wet pussy.

“Aah,” she gasps. “Yes… yes… like that… mmm…”

Once her juices start flowing onto my tongue, I circle her clit until she’s on the brink of orgasm. Then I push myself up onto my arms so that I can guide my cock inside her.

I have to grit my teeth to keep from letting loose like I normally would. Everything about her begs me to unleash the carnal part of my brain. The part that wants to fuck her as hard as I can. I want to burn her up from the inside out. Make her head explode, just so she can feel for even one second how I feel every second of every day I spend with her.