I swallow and look down at my lap, where his hand is holding mine in a tight, possessive grip. I hate the fact that I can’t just brush this stuff off, the way Julian seems to. Sure, he still has some nightmares about Maria, but this ordeal with the terrorists appears to have hardly fazed him. By all rights, he should be the one freaking out, not me. I was barely touched, whereas he’d undergone days of torment.

I’m weak, and I hate it.

“Nora, baby, listen to me.”

I look up, drawn by the softer note in Julian’s voice, and find myself captured by his gaze.

“This is not your fault,” he says quietly. “Any of it. You’ve been through a lot, and you’re traumatized. You don’t need to pretend with me. If you start to panic, tell me, and I’ll help you through it. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” I whisper, strangely relieved by his words. I know it’s ironic that the man who brought all the darkness into my life is helping me cope with it, but it’s been that way from the beginning.

I’ve always found solace in my captor’s arms.

“Good. Remember that.” He leans over to kiss me, and I meet him halfway, cognizant of his injured ribs. His lips are unusually tender as they touch mine, and I close my eyes, my remaining anxiety fading as heated need warms my core. My hands find themselves on the back of his neck, and a moan vibrates low in my throat as his tongue invades my mouth, his taste familiar and darkly seductive at the same time.

He groans as I kiss him back, my tongue curling around his. His right arm wraps around my back, bringing me closer to him, and I feel the growing tension in his powerful body. His breathing speeds up, and his kiss turns hard, devouring, making my body throb in response.

“Bedroom. Now.” His words are more of a growl as he tears his mouth away and rises to his feet, dragging me up off my seat. Before I can say anything, he wraps his fingers around my wrist and marches me toward the back of the plane. I give mental thanks that Dr. Goldberg is sound asleep and Isabella went back to the front of the plane; nobody’s there to see Julian dragging me off to bed.

As we enter the small room, he kicks the door shut behind us and pulls me toward the bed. Even injured, he’s incredibly strong. His strength both arouses and intimidates me. Not because I’m afraid he’ll hurt me—I know he will, and I know I’ll enjoy it—but because I’ve seen what he can do.

I’ve seen him kill a man with nothing more than a leg of a chair.

The memory should disgust me, but somehow it’s exciting as well as scary. Then again, Julian is not the only one who’s taken a life this week.

We’re both killers now.

“Strip,” he commands, stopping a couple of feet from the bed and releasing my wrist. The sleeves of his button-down shirt are ripped out to accommodate the cast on his left arm, and with the bandage across his face, he looks wounded and dangerous at the same time—like a modern-day pirate after a raid. His right arm is bulging with muscle, and his uncovered eye is startlingly blue in his tanned face.

I love him so much it hurts.

Taking a step back, I begin to undress. My blouse is first, followed by my jeans. When I’m wearing only a white thong and a matching bra, Julian says hoarsely, “Climb on the bed. I want you on all fours, with your ass toward me.”

Heat slithers down my spine, intensifying the growing ache between my legs. Turning, I do as he says, my heart pounding with nervous anticipation. I remember the last time we had sex on this plane—and the bruises that decorated my thighs for days afterwards. I know Julian is not well enough for anything that strenuous, but that knowledge doesn’t diminish my trepidation or my hunger.

With my husband, fear and desire go hand in hand.

When I’m positioned to Julian’s satisfaction, with my ass at the height of his groin, he steps closer to me and hooks his fingers in the waistband of my underwear, pulling it down to my knees. I quiver at his touch, my sex clenching, and he groans, his hand trailing up my thigh to delve between my folds. “Your pussy is so fucking wet,” he whispers roughly as he pushes two large fingers into me. “So wet for me, and so tight . . . You want this, don’t you, baby? You want me to take you, to fuck you . . .”

I gasp as he curls those fingers, hitting a spot that makes my whole body go taut. “Yes . . .” I can barely speak as waves of heat wash over me, clouding my mind. “Yes, please . . .”

He chuckles, the sound low and filled with dark delight. His fingers withdraw, leaving me empty and pulsing with need. Before I can object, I hear the sound of a zipper being pulled down and feel the smooth, broad head of his cock brushing against my thighs.

“Oh, I will,” he murmurs thickly, guiding himself toward my opening. “I will please you so fucking well”—the tip of his cock penetrates me, making my breath catch in my throat—“you’ll scream for me. Won’t you, baby?”

And not waiting for my response, he grips my right hip and pushes in all the way, startling a gasping cry out of my throat. As always, his entry batters my senses, his thickness stretching me nearly to the point of pain. If I hadn’t been so turned on, he would’ve hurt me. As it is, his roughness only adds a delicious edge, intensifying my arousal and inundating my sex with more moisture. With my underwear down around my knees, I can’t open my legs any wider, and he feels enormous inside me, every inch of him hard and burning hot.

I expect him to set a brutal pace to match that first thrust, but now that he’s in, he moves slowly. Slowly and deliberately, his every movement calculated to maximize my pleasure. In and out, in and out . . . It feels like he’s stroking me from the inside, teasing out every bit of sensation my body is capable of producing. In and out, in and out . . . I’m close to orgasm, but I can’t get there, not with him moving at this snail’s pace. In and out . . .