Deception

Chapter 25

25

TOMASZ

T here are kids running around the place everywhere I look. Every time my stare flickers to the door, my heart pounds harder, adding an extra beat or two to its frenetic rhythm.

I made a mistake.

Leaving Lucy at the bridal store with the option to leave was stupid, and it’s going to show me for a fool. But Mama is right; I need to trust Red. Our family has enough enemies as it is. I need to know that she won’t bolt again and cause more problems because I won’t be able to stop myself from destroying anything or anyone that dares to come at her.

My father is the last to walk into the drawing room. Rage presses his lips into a harsh line that doesn’t bend for anyone, not even his brother-in-law’s grandchildren.

“This isn’t at all awkward.” Niko hands me a drink, coming to a stop beside me. “Your father is about to cut off your bollocks, and your bride is still nowhere to be seen.”

“At least he can find mine,” I tease back before taking a long gulp of my vodka. “They’ll be here soon.”

Not that I can be certain, because neither Mama nor Anton have called to inform me of the outcome of my olive branch. If Lucy is going to be my wife, she needs to pick a side. It’s black and white. She’s either a Vassily or a Stanton. There isn’t any grey space on this. No compromise. The Vassily name will protect her and make her a fucking queen, and I need to know that she will do whatever it takes for it. For me.

“I hope your certainty pays off.” Niko blows out a breath. “Otherwise, you’ll have started a war for nothing.”

“Wars imply that there is a fight or battle. There will not be one.”

“They’re threatening to take Vanya if you don’t hand them the girl.” Genuine worry tinges his remark as he sets eyes on my sister. It’s impossible to miss the way his entire body stiffens when he adds, “I won’t let them hurt her because of your fucking mistake.”

“Careful, Nikolai. Friendships don’t do well when one person is dead.”

“You could have any girl.”

“Yet, it’s not any girl I want.”

“And so there will be a war,” he says between clenched teeth before throwing back the rest of his drink.

“Don’t doubt my plan.”

My aunt and cousin’s wife meander in from the patio. Now that the sun has set, it’s colder. The sea breeze holds a slight chill that has them both joining Vanya by the fireplace, where she’s entertaining our cousin’s daughter.

The drinks are flowing as the staff brings out the hors d’oeuvres Mama picked out this morning. These are the family gatherings she loves, and I know that this is all impromptu and messy, but a part of me is glad to give her another good time. Or maybe I’m being as selfish as every man in this room believes me to be, and I’m giving myself another memory of her happiness.

Joining the other men, Niko takes a seat in one of the tall-back armchairs beside his father while I opt to stand like mine.

“You think inviting the Mikheil Sarapov to your wedding party is going to appease him?” Father turns to look at me with a disapproving grimace.

This is the first thing he’s said to me since he arrived earlier this evening after Mama corralled him into it. Much like with Vanya, he can never say no to her. Not only because of his affection, but because she’s always been a force to be reckoned with. A driving force behind his successes, and since she got sick, he’s lost his edge. It’s why marrying Lucy makes so much sense. The girl is fiery and brave, and when we’re married, I’ll be in the position I need to be for the men to follow me.

“Appeasing him isn’t my concern. I’m inviting him so he can see why his son died at my feet and that I would do it again. I will do it again…” Holding his stare, I step forward until we meet in the middle of the sitting area. There isn’t a single set of eyes that isn’t trained on us. “I’ll destroy anyone that threatens what’s mine.”

“Well, son, where is she, then?” he laughs, looking around as if to diminish my words.

Before I can reply, the door to the drawing room opens and Mama enters. She looks tired, but her light pink summer dress distracts from the sallow tone of her skin. She’s wearing the wig she hates, but her smile is resplendent as she takes in the room with a quick fluff of the golden, shoulder-length strands.

“Everyone is here already!” she sings, opening her arms to the children while she enters, and for a quick second, my heart falls to my feet.

Until Red follows behind her. Brilliant blue eyes flutter to mine with a beaming grin that makes it impossible for me to move while I take her in. The black dress moulds to her body like a glove, wrapping over the full swell of her breasts, leaving only a peek of sun-blushed skin. Her beauty is jaw-dropping as she takes a step towards me and stops when I go to her.

Although her hair is tied into a knot at her nape, soft tendrils frame her face, making her painted lips impossible to resist when we’re close.

“You chose me,” I say, my voice rough with relief and lust as her body presses to mine.

“Yes,” she breathes back. Flattening her hands to my chest, she strokes over the lapels of my dinner jacket with her thumbs. With a lick of her lips, Lucy murmurs, “You’re a man of your word, and I’m a woman of mine. I told you I’m yours, and you said you would keep me…that will never change.”

“Did you say goodbye?”

Tears sparkle in her eyes. Although they’re sad, she’s still holding the quirk of her lips in place as she replies. “Yes.”

“She gave birth to you, but she is your enemy now. She’s one of them , and you are one of us. Do you understand what that means?”

Looking around the room, Red edges impossibly closer, a hand trailing up to hook around my neck as she rolls onto her toes.

“I choose you.” Pressing her forehead to my lips, she sighs when I kiss her. Then looking up at me, she adds, “It means that if anyone comes for you, they come for me too. And I will fight beside you no matter who they are.”

“Because you’re mine.”

“Because I’m yours.”

I don’t give her a chance to draw her next breath before I crush my lips to hers. My hands slink around her waist, flattening to the exposed small of her back. Smooth, velvet skin warms my fingertips, the heat permeating through me until I have no choice but to pull away or else I take her away from the party. As tempting as it is, I want them all to see and accept that Lucy is going nowhere. And if they care about the Vassily name and lineage, they will protect her at all costs. As I have.

* * *

Dinner ends with my mother having the last word of the toast. It’s a tradition that my father has simply accepted because, like Lucy, my mother has always fought the status quo.

“Za schast’ye!” She raises her champagne glass before adding, “I za lyubov.”

Turning to face Red as she raises her glass, I brush a short, silky wave behind her ear while toasting, “Happiness and love.”

The smile on her face falters with her hitched breath. I’m not sure whether she’s about to laugh or cry with the way her lips quiver.

“It’s bad luck not to drink the toast,” I tell her, nudging the champagne glass to her lips.

We both take a sip as her free hand slips from the table to my thigh. It’s rare for her to initiate contact between us, not like this. She took me by surprise in the car earlier, and right now she’s doing it again as she leans into me and kisses my cheek. It’s pure affection that makes my entire being go haywire. From the hastening thrum of my pulse to my vibrating insides and knotting stomach.

“So, are you ready for the big day?” Zoya, my cousin’s wife, asks which only invites Mama to discuss all the plans that she and Lucy went through this morning.

The conversation takes a life of its own as Zoya and Mom trade seats with Emin and my father so that they’re closer to Lucy. Not Vanya though—the girl who sat at a stranger’s bedside praying throughout the night shows no interest in joining them. I don’t like it, but I won’t call her out right now. Not in front of everyone so that the attention is on her. It would defeat the purpose of tonight, and so far, it’s going as well as I intended it to.

Not before long, Mama is excusing herself to bed with Vanya glued to her. Perhaps she feels her closeness to our mother is threatened by Lucy and Mama’s obvious liking to her. Whatever it is, she’s going to drop it and move on. I won’t have her making shit difficult, especially when a whisper from her could make things harder between me and our father.

“Time for bed, kiddos,” Zoya calls to the two boys that are still running around, pretending to shoot each other around the furniture with their fingers.

“Oh, come on, Mom!” one kid gripes back at her, stomping his feet to where she’s standing with her daughter sleeping in her arms.

“Something wrong with your feet?” Andrei snaps at him.

“No, Papa.”

“Walk properly, then, and don’t talk back to your mother.” When I laugh, he turns to me and says, “Wait till you have your own. All this shit you’re causing…”

“That’s what always happens—it comes back to bite you on the ass,” my uncle snickers, beckoning the boys closer with his finger. “You’re too big to give your grandfather a kiss?”

“No,” the younger of the two shoots back. “But you say that ladies are always first.”

Taking Lucy’s hand, he makes a big production of kissing it.

“Get your own, wise-ass.” I playfully push him away when he wiggles his brows at me with eyes glinting a mischievous shade of blue.

The way Lucy combs her fingers through his hair makes me wonder what kind of mother she’ll be. Especially with the soft, goofy smile she gives him. Earlier, when Ana was awake, she was fawning over her too. Children seem to be a soft spot for her, and when she stands to walk with Zoya to the stairs, I can picture her carrying our children. Where she’s involved, I imagine a lot of things that normally wouldn’t grace my thoughts.

“We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow,” I tell my uncle as I stand and excuse myself.

“Shouldn’t you be saving yourself for the wedding night?” Niko calls after me.

“I’m not the one marrying a nun,” I call back at him, earning myself a glare from my father.

By the time I catch up to the girls on the stairs, the two boys are holding Lucy’s hands.

“Here,” I tell Zoya. “I’ll take her up for you.”

“We’re on the second floor. The room at the end,” she says, carefully handing me her daughter before we take the next flight of stairs. “Unfortunately, this princess is still sleeping in our room.”

We reach the second floor, and while I follow Zoya to the room, Lucy heads up to our suite.

“I like her,” Zoya tells me as I put her sleeping girl on the bed. “She’s cute.”

“Don’t fuck with her though,” I laugh, leaving her to deal with the two boys tearing the room next door apart.

The suite is barely lit by the moonlight, but it’s impossible for me to miss Red standing outside on the balcony. Before I go to her, I grab the jewellery box from the safe in the bedroom closet.

“Why did you pick this place?” she asks as I stand in the open doorway, admiring her silhouette in that dress.

It’s been impossible to take my eyes off her the entire night. My hands have ached and itched to touch her every second. And now that we’re alone, my dick is throbbing to get inside her.

“You told me you like the sun.” Standing beside her, I note the two tumblers of vodka sitting on the stone chess table as I open the box in my hand and hold it to her. “It’s not a conventional ring, but we’re not conventional people.”

“It won’t be a conventional marriage either.”

Taking the string of diamonds from their cushioning, I drop the box into one of the lounge chairs.

“I won’t just be your husband,” I say, holding the necklace up with both hands. “And you won’t just be my wife.”

Coming closer, she licks over her lips when her throat touches the glittering thread. “You’re my master, and I’m your pet.”

“There is no you without me.”

“I’m at your mercy,” she says.

The whisper of her words scorches the air between us as I clasp the choker around her slender neck and then tug her hair loose so that it falls around her. My hands meander down the curve of her back all the way to her ass.

“What are you wearing under your dress?”

“Nothing,” she answers my question with a hitch to her breath. “You took my underwear.”

“Good. That’s how I always want you. Ready to take my cock whenever I want with nothing in the way.”

Red nods, the rise and fall of her chest deepening with her trembling breaths when I hold her chin with my other hand.

“Unless I tell you to cover your cunt, you have no need for panties.”

Blue eyes lower to the ground when I stroke down her throat, tugging at the neckline of her dress so that the sleeves fall off her stunning shoulders, revealing the freckles I adore. I’ve never laid eyes on anything so beautiful in my life. Every inch of skin I expose causes my cock to grow harder. My hunger for her becomes a voracious pang. It’s taking all my control to rid her of the dress in one piece.

“You’ll wear skirts and dresses unless I say otherwise. Understand?”

She nods again when I step back to get a good look at her naked form. Exquisite doesn’t do her justice. Full teardrop tits peak with the murmur of the breeze over her skin, and perfectly rounded hips make her a fucking wet dream. A siren that has me completely under her spell. With her hands flattening to the outside of her thighs, Lucy peers up at me.

“Who am I, Red?”

“My master.”

“So how do you reply?”

“Yes, master, I understand.”

I shrug out of my dinner jacket, throwing it onto the same lounge chair as the jewellery box.

“Undress me, pet.” The order comes out gruff with the way my pulse is punching the back of my throat.

Dropping to her knees, she starts by unlacing my shoes. Every move is measured as she undresses me from the bottom upwards, finishing with my shirt when she’s back on her feet.

“Come,” I tell her, threading my finger through the diamond choker and tugging her beside me until we’re in the bedroom. “Get on the bed.”

Subservience suits her as she follows my order without pause or question. Her graceful moves are an aphrodisiac on their own, and I can’t help but stroke myself to the way her body flexes and moves.

“Hands and knees. Ass in the air.”

Nearing the edge of the bed, I grab the box sitting on the futon beside it. I wasn’t entirely certain that she would return to me, but I still prepared for tonight. Maybe we are that tied to one another already that my subconscious was sure of it.

I deposit the box on the bed, opening it to take out the lube and plug. Skittish eyes flash to mine, the first sign of fear or panic as they flash back to my erect cock, where it bobs close to her face.

“It’ll hurt at first,” I tell her, trailing my palm down the side of her body until I’m standing behind her. “But you’ll like it. You like it when I hurt you, don’t you?”

Swatting the plump globe of her ass, I savour the hiss of her breath as it pushes from her lips. Her back bows when I swat it again, harder this time, each spank getting harder and closer together until my handprint glows back at me even in the muted light. Panting, Lucy slips forward onto her chest when I round my hand to her pussy.

“Your pussy is so wet…so ready for me…” I tease, dipping a finger into her clenching entrance as she begs, “Please…”

“Please, what?” Pulling my finger out, I slap her pussy. The loud, wet thwack echoes around us, bleeding through her cry.

“Master! Please, master,” she chants with her entire body tensed and her hands clutching at the cushions above her head.

“What do you want, malyshka?” I ask, swiping her juices from her pussy to her asshole. “What do you need, my pet?”

“You, master…” she sobs into the sheets, rocking back into my hand when I palm her cunt, scissoring my fingers around her clit. “I need you…”

“I’m going to take all of you. I’m going to own you…every fucking inch of you, and I’m going to make you feel so damn good.”

Pumping lube to the top of her crease, I watch as it trickles down to her asshole while I continue palming her pussy and edging her clit. My thumb works the tight pucker of her ass, applying pressure as she moans and groans. I can barely contain myself when I take the plug and run it up the inside of Lucy’s thigh, picking up her arousal and lube. The cool metal makes her quiver as I trail it up her slit to her ass and slowly ease it in, little by little, relishing every squirm and whimper, every lament for more.

When it’s fully seated, I press my thumb to the bejewelled top, rounding while I press my cock to her cunt. With her toes curling, Red rocks back into me, her engorged lips slicking my length.

“Tell me, pet, how does it feel?”

“Full…so fucking full…” she blusters back.

“Full,” I correct with a hard smack to her ass. “So full. Watch your tongue, Red, or I’ll tease you all night.”

“No, master, please…” Her desperate plea makes my muscles knot tighter.

I can’t keep this up. I’ve been thinking about this all damn day. Now, I’m ready to fuck her until I’m buried so deep that she’s crying for me to stop and have mercy on her body even as it chases its release.

Grasping her ankle, I tug her flat onto her front. The sight of her body writhing for me is euphoric. It sparks a need inside me that is uncontainable. I’m incapable of ignoring it or restraining myself as I straddle her hips on the bed. My hands trail up her back until they reach her underarms and I can drag her up the bed with me.

There’s a moment where the only sound is our ragged breaths. An instant where everything ceases to exist. My only want and desire is the woman beneath me. Nothing else matters. There’s only Lucy—my Red—and our tangled heartbeats.

“You are the only woman I will ever need.” The words murmur from my lips, scripting over her back with a shiver and goose pimples that swell beneath my tongue as I lick and suck a wet, open-mouthed kissed trail to her neck.

As much as the bastard in me wants to physically obliterate her, there’s a bigger part—one that has never existed before—that needs to worship. I need to show her what she means. What her choice means.

“Turn over,” I order while flipping her onto her back.

In the muted light, her eyes sparkle up at me, making my chest squeeze around my frantic heart as I sit back onto my heels and pull her over me. Chest to chest. Mouth to mouth. I drink every trembling gasp as I lift her, my cock finding her entrance, before I lower her onto me.

“Oh… Oh, God…” she hisses, hands clawing at my shoulders while I part her ass, a cheek in each palm while my fingertips hold the plug deep. “You’re… Toma-Ma-Master… Oh, God…”

“Look at me, pet,” I demand as her cunt chokes around my cock. So fucking tight that it hurts too fucking good. When she meets my stare, half-lidded and overcome, I tell her, “You don’t come until I say so.”

Slamming her the rest of the way down, I flex up, bottoming out and causing Lucy to scream as she goes limp in my arms. The hoarse pleas and cries become louder, more garbled, completely crazed as I fuck into her, a hand toying with the plug while the other knots into her hair.

Perspiration slicks her long locks to both our bodies as I rut into her clenching cunt.

“Don’t come,” I warn when she begins to shake and tense.

With her hands moulding to my jaw, Red touches her forehead to mine. “Please, please… I can’t…”

Tears streak down her face, and before they drip, I drink them up, licking them and savouring the tang of her despair for me. It tastes as potent as the tug of her soul on mine, of the light and hope she holds inside her, and I want it all. Every dredge. Every drop.

“Who do you belong to, Red?”

“You, Ma-Ma?—”

Cutting off her choked reply, I ask, “Do you love your master?”

A sharp gasp escapes her. A quick breath that upends the moment between us, leaving the question hanging for far too long, making it almost impossible to hold back the violent need to force her to give me what I want.

The caving of her chest when she exhales causes me to hold still, watching while more tears flood her eyes and her hands grasp my face harder.

It’s all there in her eyes even before Red admits it with a whispered “Yes.”

Toying with the plug in her ass, I tell her, “You’re going to come, and you’re going to make it quick.”

I don’t care for anything else right now apart from taking all her love. The urge to break her heart is beyond anything I’ve ever felt, and only so that I can piece it back together in such a way that she can never leave me. In a manner that it’ll fall apart and shatter without me.

With another thrust, I drive inside her hard enough that she’s knotting her fingers in my hair to hold herself in place. The clamping of her cunt makes my muscles coil tighter. If she doesn’t come soon, I won’t last much longer.

“Eyes on me, malyshka,” I grunt into her ear.

The softness of my voice is gravelled with my need as I nip down from her ear to the corner of her mouth. Then, as she opens her mouth with a deep gasp, I lick over her fat lip, sucking it into my mouth as I adjust myself beneath her so that I’m leaning into the mound of cushions and she’s riding my cock.

With my hand still tangled with her lengths, I grasp her throat with one hand while I brace myself on the other, holding her in place while I fuck into her with her tits trembling between us with every thrust.

Spectacular. That’s the only way to describe the sight of her taking me to the hilt. Our flesh slapping together as she stutters incoherent curses and crazed screams. Eyes on me as tears stream down her face and red tendrils billow around elegant shoulders.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, pressing my thumb into the bottom of her jaw. “Is my cock too much for your tight little cunt?”

With her hands grasping my wrist, Lucy squeezes and scratches at me the harder I fist her delicate neck in my hand. From the moment I laid eyes on her, I’ve wanted nothing more than to snap every dainty bone in her body. And as she comes for me with a strangled cry, there isn’t a part of her that doesn’t shatter. Tense muscles lax, leaving her limp in my hold while her body convulses with her orgasm, and I ease the toy from her ass.

Breathless, Lucy barely utters a sound as I flip her onto her back and kiss her. With my weight pressing her into the mattress, I hook her legs over my hips as I push inside her again, drinking down the vibrations of her silent hums as I give her what she wants. I love her from the inside out. With my tongue savouring and my body tangled in hers. All night long.