Chapter 16 #2
I pull the wheel hard and cut across the curb.
Gravel spits under the tires as I kill the engine.
My door slams behind me, the sound swallowed by the storm, and I stride into the park, not bothering with an umbrella. She lifts her head at the sound of my boots crunching through wet grass. Her eyes widen, and she rises too quickly, stumbling a little, like she hadn’t expected to be found.
Good.
Because I didn’t expect to be the one to find her.
“Nadya.”
She stiffens at the sound of my voice.
I stop a foot in front of her, water dripping off my coat, breath heavy, fists clenched at my sides.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I bite out. “Running off like that?”
Her chin lifts. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
“No?” I step closer. “Then who does, Nadya? Your father?”
“You followed me?” she says, not answering my question.
I don’t answer right away.
She’s shaking. From the rain or from me, I don’t know.
All I know is she’s standing in front of me and I want to drag her into my arms and scream at her all in the same breath.
“You lied to me,” I say, the words cutting between us like a blade. “You looked me in the eye every damn day—”
“You don’t get to yell at me,” she snaps, voice trembling. “You don’t even remember me.”
My heart pounds once—hard.
She’s right. And it only makes it worse.
“What do you want from me?” she demands, stepping closer despite herself. Her lashes drip with rain, her cheeks flushed with heat or humiliation or both.
“You had five goddamn years to tell me,” I hiss.
“And you had five goddamn years to remember me!” she fires back, voice trembling. “But you didn’t. Not once.”
Silence stretches thick between us, only the sound of rain crashing around us like a second heartbeat.
“I want to know everything,” I say, rain pouring between us like a wall we can’t cross. “Who are they, Nadya? Are they mine?”
Her mouth parts, but no sound comes out.
She swipes at her wet face, chest heaving, and then snaps, “Are you fucking serious right now?”
My jaw clenches. “You owe me the truth.”
She laughs. It’s bitter, like glass underfoot. “You want the truth? Fine. I met you almost six years ago. In Barcelona. You gave me a fake name. We spent the night together and you left the next morning like I was some layover souvenir.”
I take a step forward, heart pounding harder now for a different reason.
Barcelona.
The word slams into my chest like a blow.
“You’re saying—”
“I’m saying you got me pregnant, Konstantin,” she spits. “And then you disappeared. You never looked back. Never searched. I thought maybe I meant something to you, but you didn’t even remember me when we met again.”
She shakes her head, tears and rain running together now. “I thought you were just cruel,” she says, voice cracking. “But turns out you’re just blank. How convenient.”
“Stop,” I say, my voice low, strained. “You think I chose to forget you?”
She looks up, stunned.
“I don’t remember Barcelona,” I say slowly, my breath frosting in the cold air. “Not because I didn’t care. Not because you didn’t matter. Because I couldn’t.”
She blinks.
I step closer. “The night I left that city, I was ambushed. My father’s men found out I’d sabotaged one of his arms deals. It was the first time I ever crossed him. He sent them after me.”
Her expression flickers, shock cutting through her anger.
“I woke up three days later in a hospital outside Madrid with broken ribs and a fractured skull. No ID. No records. I didn’t even know where I’d been the week before. Just blank space.”
The memory’s still jagged. Still sickening. I’ve spent years trying to claw back what I lost in those days.
“And you—” My voice breaks. “You were in that lost time.”
She doesn’t speak. Neither of us does.
The rain soaks us through, but neither of us moves.
“I tried to remember,” I whisper. “I swear to God, Nadya. I never stopped trying. I knew something was missing.”
She’s frozen, staring at me, her arms wrapped tightly around herself like armor.
I take a shaky breath and push through the memory. “Lev found me in Madrid. Battered. Barely breathing. He got me out, brought me home. I had nothing on me—no phone, no ID, not even a wallet. They’d taken everything but the blood in my veins.”
I pause, eyes locked on hers. “He told me about Barcelona. What little he knew. He didn’t mention you—because he didn’t know about you.
You were…you were the piece I never recovered.
Some days I’d wake up and feel it—that there was a part of me still trapped in that city.
A ghost I couldn’t name. Now I know why. ”
The words taste like regret. Like something I should’ve said years ago.
“I didn’t leave you,” I whisper. “I lost you.”
Rain sluices off the brim of my coat, pooling around our shoes, yet neither of us moves.
We stand there breathing the same ragged breath, the distance between our mouths no more than a tremor.
She drags the back of her hand across her cheeks—smearing rain, tears, mascara—and for the first time since Barcelona I see the softness she’s fought so hard to bury.
“I looked for you,” she whispers, voice trembling. “In every stranger’s face, every city skyline, I looked for the man who made me believe in miracles for one night.”
Those words split me open—clean, helpless, beautiful. I cup her jaw, thumb skimming the raindrops on her lips. “The miracle was mine, zayka. I just didn’t know its name until tonight.”
For a heartbeat nothing exists except the electric space between us.
I close it, holding her soaked face in my palms, and kiss her.
It isn’t gentle.
It’s six years of absence and a thousand silent questions answered in the press of her mouth to mine. She opens for me with a soft gasp, and rainwater slides between our lips, salty and sweet; her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer as if she can’t bear a single inch of air between us.
When I finally break away, we’re both breathless, foreheads pressed together, panting clouds into the downpour.
Lightning forks across the distant sky; thunder rolls somewhere above the palms.
“Konstantin…” Her whisper is a shiver against my tongue, and God help me, it unmoors the last of my control. I lift her with a rough gentleness, her legs instinctively wrapping around my waist as I carry her off the deserted path toward the waiting car.
The streets have emptied—city lights flickering through the downpour, traffic long fled from the storm. I open the passenger door, set her gently inside, then slide behind the wheel. The moment the doors shut we’re cocooned in dimness and the soft hiss of rain on glass.
She straddles my lap, rain-slick dress hitched above her thighs, and I drag my palms slowly up her sides, savoring the way her body arches into every touch.
My fingers weave into her wet hair, tilting her back so I can trace my lips over the hollow of her throat.
Her answering moan curls hot in the hush, making my own pulse stutter.
Fog blooms across the windows; the city outside disappears. My pulse thrums low and heavy as her thumb strokes my lower lip, then sweeps lower to the rapid beat beneath my ribs. “Nadya,” I breathe, awe and heat twined together, “I swear I’ll make this right.”
My fingers tangle roughly into her hair, pulling her mouth back down to mine, desperate for more. Our kiss becomes deeper, needier, edged with urgency—years of lost time fueling our hunger. Her hips grind instinctively against mine, making me groan into her mouth as heat pulses hard between us.
“Fuck, Nadya,” I breathe, pushing her wet shirt up impatiently, fingertips skimming soft, rain-damp skin. She gasps as I tear the garment away, baring her completely in the shadowed privacy of the car. Her full, perfect tits fill my palms, nipples tight and aching beneath my fingers.
I lean forward, capturing one peak in my mouth, rolling my tongue slowly, then firmly against the sensitive flesh.
Her breath hitches, head falling back as she arches into me, offering herself without reservation.
My cock throbs painfully as I tease her breasts, biting gently, tasting her sweetness, savoring the way her soft whimpers echo in the small space around us.
“Please,” she whispers, grinding herself down harder onto me, eyes dark and pleading. “I need—”
“I know,” I say hoarsely, trailing my hand roughly down her stomach, slipping beneath the waistband of her skirt to find her already slick and burning. I stroke my thumb deliberately across her swollen clit, making slow, torturous circles that leave her shaking in my arms.
Her hands grip my shoulders tightly, fingernails biting through fabric as she rocks herself against my fingers. I press harder, faster, desperate to see her lose control, my other hand gripping her waist so tightly it leaves marks.
“Konstantin,” she moans brokenly against my ear, her hips jerking, muscles tensing beneath my touch.
I slip two fingers deep inside her, curling upward, feeling her walls clench and pulse as I thrust rhythmically, claiming every inch of her.
Her breath shatters into a cry of release as she comes hard around my fingers, body trembling violently, her forehead pressed against mine as she clings to me.
I kiss her again, gentler now, swallowing her gasps, murmuring softly against her lips.
“I’m not letting you go again,” I say fiercely. “You’re mine, Nadya. Always have been.”
My heart pounds like a desperate drumbeat, each thud marking the moments lost between us. I’ve never needed anything as badly as I need her right now. Nadya. My woman. My obsession.
She kisses me again, deep and hungry, her lips swollen and warm against mine. Her skin burns under my fingertips as I stroke her bare back, pulling her impossibly closer. She rolls her hips against me, igniting a fire that nearly consumes all reason.
“God, I need you,” she whispers, pressing kisses down my jawline. Her voice is shaky, filled with need that mirrors my own.
“You’re mine, Nadya,” I say, my voice hoarse with raw emotion.
Her hands fumble with my shirt, shoving it from my shoulders as her body arches impatiently into mine, bare breasts pressing urgently against my chest. Skin to skin now, she feels even better than memory could ever serve. I let out a low growl, the sensation tearing through me, raw and hungry.
She lifts slightly, just enough to give me room to undo her skirt, sliding it from her hips until there’s nothing left but heated skin and trembling limbs.
Nadya’s eyes meet mine, a blazing intensity burning between us that almost steals my breath.
Her lips brush mine, soft and aching, her voice a ragged whisper.
“I need you, Konstantin.”
Something primal and possessive ignites inside me. I quickly undo my pants, freeing myself, groaning as she sinks down onto me, enveloping my cock inch by inch, tight and slick and perfect. Her head tips back, a low moan escaping her throat, sending a shudder through my entire body.
“Fuck, Nadya,” I breathe, voice rough and reverent all at once as her pussy clenches around my cock.
She responds by rolling her hips slowly, deliberately, drawing out every sensation, every bit of pleasure.
I grip her waist hard, fingertips digging into her soft flesh, guiding her movements.
Soon we’re both gasping, breaths uneven, fogging the windows around us as our bodies rock desperately together.
Her cunt continues to throb, milking me.
I have to close my eyes briefly to will myself to slow down.
“Nadya,” I say hoarsely, looking into her eyes, wanting her to understand just how deep this goes. “I won’t ever lose you again.”
“I believe you,” she whispers, starting to move gently, rocking her hips in a slow, torturous rhythm. Her thighs tremble around me, her fingers clawing gently at my shoulders. Every movement sends sparks straight to my balls.
My brain may not remember her, but my body does.
My hands grip her hips tightly, guiding her, urging her to move faster, deeper. She responds with a moan, arching her back beautifully. I get a brief glimpse of what our first night together might have been like.
Her hips grind desperately now, searching for that sweet friction that will send her over the edge.
I reach between us, thumb pressing firmly against her swollen clit, circling and teasing as I move inside her, feeling her muscles clench deliciously around me.
And with the other hand, I hold up a breast to press kisses and swallow her nipple in my mouth.
“Oh, God…Konstantin!” Her voice breaks, her eyes squeezing shut, body going taut as she shudders violently around me. She throws her head back, crying out as her climax crashes through her, every muscle trembling with pleasure.
I grasp her waist tightly, holding her steady, not letting her come down from her high before pushing deeper, losing myself in her heat. She braces one hand against the fogged window, leaving a perfect, desperate handprint on the glass as I drive into her again and again.
Our bodies move relentlessly, claiming, giving, worshipping each other in the cramped confines of the car. She murmurs my name again and again, like a sacred prayer, fueling my need to possess and protect her.
I bury my face against her neck, roaring out my release, hips pressed tight against hers, emptying myself deep within her, claiming her body and soul.
We stay tangled together long after the world around us quiets, our ragged breaths mingling softly. Her fingers trail gently over my sweat-slicked skin, soothing, healing.
I draw back just enough to gaze into her flushed face, brushing damp strands of hair away.
“I won’t lose you again,” I murmur, my words both promise and vow.
She tightens her hold, pressing a gentle kiss to my jaw. “You won’t.”
And as I hold her in the darkness, bodies still joined, warmth and hope bloom quietly between us, filling the space that hurt once claimed.