Chapter 17 - Alexei
“She’s asking for you.” Katya’s voice through the phone is threadbare while Sofia’s naked body burns against mine, her thigh pressed against my cock that’s been hard since dawn. “She’s getting worse. The doctors are concerned.”
Sofia shifts in her sleep, unconsciously grinding against my length, and I have to bite back a groan. Her breath warms my chest directly over Mikhail's initials, each exhale a reminder of what we did last night. What I let her do to me. What I did to her.
"Is she still compis mentis?" I manage, my free hand sliding down to grip Sofia's hip, holding her still before her movements make me lose what's left of my control.
"Not really. She’s confused. She keeps asking if Misha is there. If you've brought him home." A shaky inhale from my sister. "Alexei, you need to come to Moscow. Now."
My mother is dissolving into nothing while I'm here, corrupted by the woman I should have killed, my cock still sticky with her arousal.
The weight of last night crashes over me: the taste of her lips still coating my tongue, mixed with the salt of her tears when she came so hard she cried.
The memory of being buried inside her tight heat makes my cock throb harder against Sofia's thigh.
How she gripped me like she'd die without my dick filling her.
How she clawed bloody furrows down my back while I fucked her into the mattress.
How she told me she deleted intelligence that could save her family while my cum was still leaking from between her legs.
And I let her own me right back. Let her ride my cock until I begged like a desperate fool. Let her see me shatter completely when she clenched around me and whispered my name.
"No. I have things to deal with here."
The call ends, and I dump the cell phone on the bedside table. I stare at the ceiling, duty crushing down like concrete. Sofia's hand spreads across my chest in her sleep, fingers twitching. Her touch burns.
I should wake her gently. Instead, I study her in the morning light: hair tangled across my pillow, lips swollen from my kisses, from wrapping around my cock. My bite marks on her shoulder spell out possession.
Sofia's eyes flutter open, drowsy blue that guts me before she's fully conscious. She smiles, unconscious, genuine, before reality returns. The smile falters but doesn't disappear.
“You’re still here,” she says.
She sits up, sheet falling to reveal perfect tits, nipples already hardening in the cool air. My mouth goes dry.
She pulls the sheet up, covering the masterpiece. The loss is immediate.
I sit up, letting the sheet slide off my chest and puddle at my waist, the air cold against my skin.
“This is my room,” I say, and the possessiveness comes out like a growl, deeper than I intended.
A perverse part of me wants her to flinch, to show some sign of submission, but Sofia just tilts her head, chin high, watching me with cool detachment.
Her face is still sleepy-soft, but her eyes—icy, sharp, bladed—track every movement, every word.
My gaze sweeps the length of her, the way the sheet outlines her body: the curve of her shoulders, the soft dip at her waist, the muscled tension in her arms as she clutches the fabric to her chest. I want to rip the sheet away and pin her, to see if she’ll fight me or yield.
I want to mark her again, to watch her try to hide the bruises and bite marks I leave behind.
I want her to see just how much of her is already mine.
“I own everything in here.” I drag my gaze up to her face, let her see the hunger in my eyes.
Sofia’s lips twitch. Maybe she thinks I’m bluffing, or maybe she knows I’d rather devour her than hurt her. She’s wrong. I can do both.
I look away first, rolling my shoulders, feigning boredom.
I reach for the water glass I left on the nightstand, but as soon as I move, she does too—a flicker of intent beneath her sleepy veneer.
Her hand dips under the pillow and then snakes under the mattress in a swift, practiced motion, and before I’ve even registered the threat, the blade is at my throat.
It's a short, curved knife, the kind used for gutting and skinning, not for decor. It glints in the light, the edge so thin it practically vibrates with anticipation. She presses it to my neck, just enough for me to feel the steadiness of her hand, warm skin and cold steel.
“Are you sure about that?” She smiles—sweet, mocking, dangerous.
The blade kisses my jugular. A bead of blood wells up, hot and slow.
I can feel it roll down my neck, sticky and stimulating.
My heart kicks into a higher gear. It would take nothing for her to open my artery, but I know she won’t, not unless I give her a reason.
I stare her down, and for a second we just breathe the same air, suspended together at the knife’s edge, both of us waiting for the other to flinch.
I push into the blade, closing the gap, daring her to finish what she started. The knife bites at my skin, stinging. Sofia’s pupils flare and for a second, I see the calculation in her: the weighing of risk, the cost of violence versus the cost of losing this game.
So I just lean in, let the knife cut deeper, let her feel the thrum of my pulse under her weapon. I want her to know that I’m not afraid of dying, only of losing her. I want her to see that the blood is nothing, that she can cut me open and all she’ll find is more want, more need.
She hesitates. The knife trembles. She’s not used to this kind of standoff; maybe she’s never had someone who wanted the pain, who’d take it and give it back. That shakes her more than the threat of death, I think.
Finally she hisses in frustration and tosses the knife aside. It catches air, spinning, and lands on the hardwood floor with a flat, metallic clatter. She wipes her palm on the sheet and it leaves a faint streak of sweat.
“Oh, quite sure,” I tell her, voice low and even. “Getting more certain with every passing hour.”
She is sitting on the bed with her legs straight out, sheet pulled up to her chin.
I straddle her and the sheet falls off me, my cock hard and proud between us.
My hand finds her throat, thumb pressing slightly too hard, feeling her pulse race.
She parts her lips, and I know she's already getting wet.
Her pupils blow wide, hips shifting beneath the sheet. Even marked and sore, she responds to my violence like foreplay.
I cut her off with a brutal kiss, claiming her mouth like I own it. She melts against me, hands grasping at my chest, trying to pull me closer. When we break apart, we're both panting.
I duck my neck and grab the sheet between my teeth then slowly drag it down her body, exposing her perfect tits, her soft belly, and those hips that haunt my dreams. She gasps as the cool air hits her, or maybe because of her exposure.
With one firm finger on her sternum, right between her breasts, I press her back until she falls onto the mattress.
Looking up at her, I see her soft, flat belly, and between the peaks of her breasts, that golden halo and those large blue eyes, looking down at me.
Her lips are parted and she’s panting, every movement causing her breasts to heave.
With a sly smile, I move lower, pulling the sheet down with my teeth until I expose her pussy, then I open my mouth and take in her perfect pinkness.
She is slick, glistening with need, and my cum is still visible on her inner thigh.
Laid out before me, she looks like every dark fantasy I've ever had, and the sight makes me so hard it hurts.
“You want the sheet to cover you?” I ask
“No,” she gasps.
“Why did you have the sheet pulled up to your neck, printzessa?” I twist a strip of white linen between my knuckles and drag it across her perfect thigh, slow, letting her see the threat of it, the promise.
She’s got a flush high on her face and her lips are parted, still a little bruised from my mouth, and I can’t decide if I want to bruise her more or smother her in kisses. I want both. I want everything.
She glares at me, lips tugging into a tight, defiant smirk. “Maybe I didn’t want to see your face the moment you realized how much you need me,” she says. Her voice is hoarse from screaming my name last night, and the memory of it makes my cock harder, if that’s even fucking possible.
I laugh—a sharp, barking sound—and crawl up her body to take her by the chin. Cotton-wrapped fingers, just enough pressure to remind her I could crush her windpipe if I wanted, but I won’t, not yet. “You’re the one who cried, Sofia. Not me.”
She bites at my thumb, and for a split second I hope she draws blood.
I want to leak for her, to mark her inside and out, but she lets go before her teeth break skin.
I can feel her heartbeat through her jaw, fluttering like a trapped bird.
“What do you want?” she whispers, and there’s no tremor in her voice, just naked challenge.
I answer by ramming the fabric-wrapped finger straight into her cunt, pushing hard so she’s forced to arch her hips, to feel every inch as the linen soaks up her slickness.
She’s so wet the sound of it is obscene.
I twist my wrist until the cloth is wound tight inside her, then grind my palm against her clit, just to make her squirm.
“Here’s your precious sheet, kotyonok,” I say, and her moan is frantic, drawn out, the kind of sound that would get her killed in a safehouse, but here in my house, the walls are thick and the only person who might hear is the girl herself.
She bucks, grabbing my shoulder with both hands, nails digging crescents into my skin. The pain makes me dizzy with want. She’s not the kind of girl who’ll ever submit, not really, but I’ll break her a little more every day and see what kind of monster comes out on the other side.