Chapter 76

• Perhaps it was due to the chaos of her evening that she found herself distracted from the thoughts rising to the surface in response to his proximity, memories swirling around them. Yet nothing compared to the rapid thudding of her heart and the way her spine arched in attention toward him.
• "You think I am running away because I am a coward?" His nose brushed against her chin, intensifying the moment.
• "No, Anastasha. I almost watched you die," he replied, his groin pressing against her parted thighs, forcing her to gasp at the hard, undeniable length of him. "I feel an overwhelming need to have you, but I cannot, not in the way I desire that would reassure me of your vitality, of you being alive, in my arms, breathing. Hot and alive; warm, not cold like a damned corpse with a bullet in her head. Yet, given everything you have been through, I cannot indulge that desire."