14. Vanya
14
VANYA
R ed fogs my vision.
Hatred boils over and I must lash out.
Nothing has ever stood in the way of my rage. I focus it, guide it, control it.
It has fueled me through my entire life. Seeing me into my position of power, getting Matvey and I through our parent’s deaths. For all the love I have for my brotherhood, my people, I must use my anger to protect them.
And when I fail…
The walls of my world are crumbling.
So the only thing I know to do is use that anger for revenge. Or it will consume me and I will burn myself out.
“I won’t fight you,” Ciro rumbles, squaring off with me, blocking my path.
I know he understands this about me, sees into my heart. So why is he doing this?
He of all people must know that I need blood, that killing my enemies is the only way to bring my soul peace. To quell my anger, even if it kills me.
My first punch grazes his cheek, feigning and kicking for his side. He dodges, blocks, twists, avoiding another strike.
My fists become a flurry of violent motion, flying for his face, his ribs, into his stomach. I am a storm of fury.
Yet he manages to deflect every blow, every kick as I intensify my assault, throwing myself at him with reckless abandon. I realize I am screaming with each strike, snarling as I claw at him, slamming my shoulder into him in my dash to get past.
But at some point my goal fades from my grasp.
I just want to lash out.
To take out my energy and helplessness and bitterness on someone, anyone.
“It’s all gone! Everyone is gone!” I shout at the top of my lungs, launching myself at Ciro, knees first. The blow sends him rolling back, head over heels, back onto his feet in a crouch. It knocked the wind out of him, I can tell.
But I do not care.
I rush in, not seeing the danger, the look in his eye.
Or maybe I do.
My kick swings wide and he swoops under me, lifting me off the ground, soaring around and down. He tries to lessen the fall, but my attempts to grapple his arm loosens his grip.
The earth hammers into my back, blasting the breath from my lungs.
Still, I try to rise, slapping his hands away, gasping.
I am an animal.
But I am tiring, the small meal I was able to keep down and the vodka I shared with my brother leave me weak and tired. My punches flash out, but Ciro does not block.
He simply accepts them, letting me take all of my frustration out on him. Slamming my fists into him over and over. Until my arms are heavy, my knuckles chafed and cracked. He just stands there and takes it.
This man who knows my pain. My struggles.
Something inside me cracks. Splits. Shatters.
The first sob wracks my body with the final hit to his chest. My head shakes back and forth in denial, but it is too late. The dam is broken.
I have not cried in years, decades. Since I was a little girl.
But oh, the tears come now, bitter and hot. Pouring out of me like an infection from a wound. I look up into Shakal’s eyes and see the same agony there, tears rimming his eyes, and I cannot bear it.
That I caused him pain.
The first man to ever tell me he loves me. The first man I have ever fallen for.
“I am so fucking broken, Ci…” I whisper, clinging to his shirt. Pathetic.
But his name on my lips draws his arms around me, pulling me close to him in the freezing night air. He is warmth, heat. He is a beacon of light.
Blasting away the darkness inside my soul, casting aside the voice in my mind that has always told me I do not want comfort or affection. Certainly not love. That it is weak.
“I am too, Van. I’ve always been broken.”
And he lifts me up, cradling me as he takes me into the house. He sets me down, dries my tears, wraps me in a blanket and holds me. What is this?
In moments he has a flame kindled in the old brick fireplace. The glow plays across the ceiling, the only light in the house, hiding my sorrow and shame.
“I am sorry for being so weak…”
“You do not have to be strong all the time.”
“You are wrong. I must. For family. See what happens when I am not? They die.”
“That is not your fault. No one saw this coming. No one could have stopped the man in the mask or protected Mat. He was one of the best fighters I know.”
“He is gone…” I sigh hopelessly.
“I’m still here.”
Looking up into those light green eyes. Seafoam. Warm waters.
And I feel my heart rise from the frozen depths of the abyss, replacing my desperation with desire. With a passionate need.
Just for him.
I take his lips, cupping his face and pulling him to me. His skin is flushed, his cheeks red from my attack. So I kiss them, closing my eyes to worship him and silently ask for forgiveness.
The backs of his fingers caress my cheek, grazing down and around my head to draw me into a deeper, slower kiss, sucking my bottom lip and teasing into my mouth with his tongue.
Where we sparred in the bedroom the other night, tonight we explore. Taking our time.
His shirt has to go, and he flips it over his head, smiling softly over me as I lay back on the couch. Fingertips scan across his chest, his abdomen, and I know I have left him bruised. Sore.
So I scoop my shirt over my head, arching my shoulders back for him to see all of me.
Those eyes trace the contours of my breasts, my nipples.
Then we are skin to skin, devouring one another’s mouths.
His heart beats in time to mine, every breath inhaling more of him, his scent and his taste. All while cut, muscular arms curl around me. Ciro is stunning, powerful.
He rises up, pulling me with him and I straddle him, feeling his desire pressing hard between my legs. It never ceases to amaze me, his size, his thickness.
“I need to feel alive ,” I hum into his lips, flicking my bottom lip against his. He licks softly, toying with me.
“You brought me back to life,” he smirks, thumbing my peaked nipples, sending shivers through my body.
“Shut up and kiss me, fool.”
And he does just that. Stealing my breath away, igniting the fire in my core with every nip and bite of his teeth down my neck. Like it is his mission to sample every inch of my flesh. I am certainly willing to let him try…
Tiny explosions of delight erupt deep in my center with every sensation, especially when his tongue finds that spot at the base of my throat, where my neck meets my collarbone. I nearly cry out to the rippling aura of arousal that pulses through me with only a flick of his tongue.
As we explore one another, my walls crumble further, easing all of my tension.
Fingers massage into my back muscles, relieving aches and worries simultaneously. He knows just what to do to release me from my cage, to unleash me.
And that mouth that never seems to stop talking goes to work doing something he’s even better at. Each kiss is a blessing on my chilled skin, warming me from my night outside.
As if he set a fire in the hearth, my body comes to life with heat, radiating from within, sapped from his love and tender touch.
I inhale, savoring him.
Nothing has ever smelled so good, his hair, his sweat, the faint hint of cologne and soap.
He grips me now, tightly, firmly. And I know how strong his hands are from fighting with him, from the other night when he pinned me and made me come at the club. When he locked onto me in the safe house and plowed me harder than I ever thought possible.
Those powerful hands heal me as he takes his time tonight.
Treating me like I am the most precious thing in the world to him. Like I am delicate.
Lord knows I am not.
But to be catered to this way…
We stand together, still intertwined, still kissing. But we both need the same thing.
Our pants fall to the floor, his erect desire barely contained by his boxers. Already, I can feel that I’ve ruined my underwear, soaking through the fabric with my longing for him. Even more so when he barely grazes fingers around my cheeks, rubbing across me, sampling my arousal.
Hands brush back down my arms, up my back. Tracing figures, shapes, each one scintillating and raising my want of him.
Lips kiss down my shoulder, my arm, my wrist. He sucks gently there, discovering another spot that drives me wild. All the while, he watches me closely, drinking me in from head to toe, his gaze smoldering.
This man is my equal in every single way. He is far beyond me in wit. He is a match for me in passion and prowess, and he disarms me at every turn. He takes down my guard, my shield, and leaves me gasping, starving for more of him, thirsty for a single word out of his mouth. He leaves me exposed and I long for it.
So that he may know me better.
Running my hands over him, I cannot hold out any longer.
I drag his black boxer briefs down, releasing him into my grasp.
“Vanya…” he moans, smiling into my kiss.
“This. This is mine.”
“Yes. Only yours. Just like my love.”
“And this…” I pull his hand to my chest. Our eyes meet.
He said the words, only a short time ago. I do not know if I can say them back. But I can show him.
“Mine,” he states, nodding slowly.
Then he turns me, lowering me to the couch and kneeling before me. In the light of the crackling flames, he is cut from stone. A sculpture of a god.
Such a hard man, a calloused man. Who now caresses my body with the gentle but insistent touch of a lover. Despite the harshness of our world, or maybe to spite that hard life we live.
Ciro does not waste time.
His thumbs massage my ass apart as he lifts my legs, running his palms up and down my thighs before resting them on his shoulders. Kissing down the inside, he sets my skin tingling, center flexing in anticipation of him. And after the first time he did this…
I can barely contain my excitement.
But he is intent on doing it his way. He kisses the outside of my black silk thong, letting me feel the heat of his lips and his breath through the thin fabric. If I was wet before, now I am drenched. His fingertips play at the edges of the fabric, easing it aside. The look of raw passion in his eyes is enough to make me shake.
He is my undoing.
So much so that when he finally drags the mess of silk down and tosses it away, I whimper, my hands trailing across my stomach. My hips writhe, my hands grip my tits, squeezing them to relieve the ache I feel in them.
“I could do this all night…” he mutters, lowering his mouth to me, watching my wide-eyed stare.
“You promise?”
His grin makes my toes curl.
Then the entire world narrows to one thing. One sensation. His tongue, lashing along my crease.
The sensation spreads to every part of me, stoking a flame that lay dormant in me. Setting the whole fucking world on fire.
Each flick along my apex, circling, curling and fluttering, sends my mind reeling. Pure bliss soars up along my spine, blossoming out in firework sprays of pleasure in my calves, into my toes. Through my chest, emanating out to my fingertips buried in his hair.
I am careening toward a precipice.
And I welcome it.
Ciro doubles down, increasing the speed of his heavenly tongue and twirling his fingertips just inside my opening. Then he does something completely heart-stopping.
Latching his arms around my thighs, he spin, lifting me off the cushions. He drops to the floor, resting his head where my back just was, planting my knees on the couch, never once letting up with his tongue.
I roll my hips, adjusting my position over him, gripping the back of the couch. His eyes track me, locked onto my figure with an avid longing that makes me ravenous.
And from his angle, I am in control.
His thumb toys at my entrance again, and I arch my back to give him better access, his lips locked around my throbbing peak. That devil’s tongue will be the end of me.
All of him will.
Rocking back and forth on his face, I let my head fall back, giving myself over completely to the rapture of riding Ciro Diamante’s mouth to the edge of existence. I tense, deep inside, my climax building for seconds, minutes.
My breath shudders in and out of my chest as the first crests of those waves whisper to me of the onslaught to come.
“Oh Ciro…oh Ciro…Cirooooh!” I cry, letting every bit of my angst, passion, stress, and desire burst forth from my core, erupting up through my chest and voiced in song. This man is a fucking legend. He is my king, and my throne.
My body roils without any constraint, no regard for anything but the pulsing orgasm wracking my frame. And Ciro nods in time to my bucking hips, keeping pace with me, driving me onward with that flickering tongue tip and a deep, rolling of his knuckle against the center of my bliss inside.
My forehead drops to the back of the couch as he slips out from under me. I cannot move.
But I am so far from done. And to let him know, I simply wag my ass, dipping my back into a deep, languid arch and spreading myself for him.
Peeking out from under my arms, I watch him in the firelight, standing in his glory. Every inch of his body is muscle, cut from marble. Shadows play along the curves of his arms, the dip in his hips. Leading down to his knee weakening prowess, standing tall and impossibly thick.
I quiver pulses within me, longing for him.
And he does not disappoint.
His head slides along my crease, up between my cheeks, dragging back down like there is no time, nothing else in the world but me. My heart pounds, my legs tremble.
Closing my eyes, I wait, savoring the anticipation.
Soon, his cock is slick with me, gliding along, up and down. At the bottom, he circles my apex, making my ass bend back toward him. At the top, he teases my other entrance, making me tighten up, my jaw dropping.
Wondering what he has planned.
I am panting when he finally places his immense head at my entrance.
“Ciro…if you keep teasing me like this…”
“Yes?”
“I am going to murder you.”
“Funny, because I am just dying to be inside you.”
This should not turn me on so much. But it does. Everything he says is pure desire.
And he never ceases to amaze me, surprise me. Tugging at my arm, he draws me around, pulling me into an embrace, kissing me sweetly. Tenderly.
Tiny fireworks pop in my head as he twirls that tongue between my teeth, massaging mine with his. I nudge him back, savoring the taste of his kiss.
His arms around me feel almost as good as the sex. And that startles me more than anything.
Even more so when he lays me down in front of the fire, cradling my head, kissing my chest, my neck. No one has ever treated me this way.
With such dedicated passion and care for my desires. My needs.
My leg skims up his side as he rolls over me, settling right where I want him. His stiff prowess presses into me, promising me pleasures to come. Reaching down, I pull at him, urging him on.
He does not disappoint.
Tonight, I do not want “teasing.” I need to be made love to.
His first foray into my core is slow, spreading me wider as he closes his eyes. I watch him sense every inch of his way into me. It’s fantastically arousing.
My walls adjust to him, swallowing his shaft every deeper.
The next thrust is just as purposeful, long and sumptuous. I would let this continue forever, letting the pressure build over time. But I am impatient.
Hooking my calves around his ass, I pull him in.
He bucks his hips smoothly, sliding out. I pull him in again.
We tug back and forth, finding our pace, our rhythm. It’s tantalizing and hypnotizing, the pulsing beat of each stroke, punctuated by the soft grind of skin on skin. His arms around me. Our lips joining as we fall into one another.
Losing ourselves to the moment.
There is only him. Only me. Then there is only this, us. Our union.
All I feel is Ciro, swelling within me, an aura of sensual rapture consuming me. I am aflame, writhing in the throes of his heat. He ignites me. Engulfs me, even as my inner sanctum engulfs his mighty pillar, drinking him into me.
Every sensation is an orgasm, microscopic pops of ecstasy in my mind, erupting constantly along my skin, sparks shimmering behind my eyes.
Soon, the roll of a tidal wave swells too.
It sweeps me up, into the current of my oncoming climax, carrying me toward absolute release. The first is rolling, a rippling rush through my muscles, blossoming in my chest, flooding my skull with euphoria.
I don’t have time to stop and savor it.
Another one hits home again as soon as the first abates. Distantly, I hear Shakal moan with a smile in his voice, knowing what he is doing to me. Warm air tickles my neck, shivering along my heightened nerves.
And still, he fills me, drives himself into me powerfully. Drives me toward heaven.
He must feel it too, the sweetest caress of my satin depths, hugging and drawing him to me. Every recess of my being feels each exultant plunge. And when he begins to join me on my unwinding, he slows. Dragging this out.
Making me drift farther into his spell.
He is everything. And he knows just how to make me feel…everything.
His love is so full, hard, impossibly big. It pushes me to my limits. And Ciro is getting close to his limit, I can tell.
“Mmm,” I breathe into his lips, flexing internally around his strength, “I can’t wait any longer. Come with me.”
“I want…”
“Yes.”
“More…”
“I will give you more. Just—” His deep, growling vocalization interrupts me, making me grin.
The grip of intoxicating liberation shudders through me and I clamp down what little control I can over my pleasure, holding out, waiting for him.
I won’t last long.
His speed increases and so does the maelstrom of gale force climax that crashes into my mind, through my body.
“I’m—”
“Yes!”
“Come into me, Ciro!” I beg him, I demand, wrapping my entire body around his as he plunders my core. We both reach the edge of oblivion at the same moment, leap off.
Falling. Soaring.
Together.
I spill over, as he spills into me. Coating him. Overflowing, spreading between us. My fingers drift down, sampling the disaster of our love, glistening in the flicker of dwindling firelight.
And I whisper his name over and over as I drift into a tingling reverie, curled in his arms.
Here, I feel…complete.
Unlike anything I have ever known.