Chapter 4 Ruslan
Ruslan
Give – Sleep Token
Ishould’ve let him walk the moment he offered me the clean way out—thanked him for the mercy, turned on my heel, and left him standing alone with his decency.
That would’ve been the noble move, the smart move, the thing a son raised by Mikhail Dragovich is supposed to do when a liability opens the door for you to save yourself.
But I’m not noble, and I’ve never been smart where Salvatore Vieri is concerned. I saw the exit gleaming in front of us, heard it in his voice when he tried to draw a line, felt it in the way his hand shook just enough to prove he meant it.
All I had to do was step back. Instead, I slammed the door in his face and locked it from the inside.
Because I’m weak when it comes to him, because I’m selfish enough to keep what isn’t mine, because somewhere along the way he stopped being a habit and became the only language I speak fluently.
I tell myself I’m using him, collecting little details while he’s soft and open beneath me, but that’s just another lie I swallow because the alternative—admitting I’m the one being used—is intolerable.
Salvatore Vieri is the one thing in my life I know I should surrender for his own good, and he’s also the one fucking thing I can’t stop taking. He’s my worst impulse made flesh, and that’s why I can’t quit him.
He’s here tonight in my suite, wearing that brittle poise like he thinks it’ll survive what I’m about to do to him.
We’re only ten minutes past the last polite knock on the door, and I’ve already got him braced against the wall, fingers twisted in his hair, tongue in his mouth deep enough that he chokes on his own groan.
When I pull back, I keep hold of him by the roots, just to feel the shiver roll down his spine.
“You’re a fucking mess tonight, malysh,” I tell him.
His laugh’s thin, breathy—already cracked at the edges—and it sends a rush straight to my cock. “That’s your fault too.”
I slap his jaw just hard enough to ring bone. “Of course it is. I make beautiful things ugly, and you love it.”
His eyes burn at that—anger, shame, hunger all fighting for top billing—and God, I love him like this: furious and needy with no clue which urge to obey first.
“Don’t be soft,” he says, and there’s a tremble under the challenge. “Don’t treat me like glass when I’m begging you to be mean.”
I tighten my grip hard enough to make him inhale sharply. “Stop begging so sweet, then. Makes me almost merciful.”
His eyes flash with challenge, the Vieri arrogance sparking through the wreckage. Perfect. I shove him backward, not toward the bed—beds promise softness—but until the edge of the heavy desk bites into the meat of his hips and forces a hiss out between his teeth.
His hands fly back to brace himself, knuckles whitening against polished wood.
The room’s dim lamplight slants across his cheekbones, catching the faint tremor in his jaw.
Polished Vieri veneer stripped down to raw want and a dangerous little smile that tells me he enjoys every second of the cruelty I pour into him.
This is the part right before the fall. The last clear second before everything goes hot and filthy and simple in the way only bodies can make it when words have done too much damage already.
I know I should be thinking about endings. About my father. About my engagement hanging over my head like a blade. About how I need to break this off before it gets one of us killed.
None of it matters right now because my ruin is dragging his nails down the back of my neck, leaving burning tracks. “Please,” he snarls, as if the word disgusts him.
I pull back to meet his gaze and ask, because I need him with me for this, “Please, what, lyubimiy?”
The endearment hits him exactly where I know it will.
His eyes darken, his mouth parts, and for one second, the armor slips completely, and all I see is the man under it. Raw, wanting, and wrecked enough to hand me the truth if I ask the right way. “Don’t make me feel tonight. I can’t fucking do it.”
I cup the back of his neck and look at him for one long, hard second.
Then I answer the only way I can.
“There’s my whore, begging me to treat you like you’re nothing but a hole to fill,” I tease.
For all the ways this is going to ruin me, for all the ways I know better and do it anyway, there’s one truth I can’t fucking outrun.
He is my weakness.
He tips his chin up, challenging me to move first, but his grip on my shirt says he’s already surrendered the choice. I crowd in, thighs pressing to the inside of his, feel the sharp hitch of his breath when the desk edge digs into his lower back.
He wants bruises tonight—inside and out, marks that’ll sting under starch and silk tomorrow morning, reminders that despite all his polished control, he begged not to be spared.
I lean in, drag my lips over the shell of his ear. “Hands flat, pretty thing. You move them before I say, I’ll walk out and leave you dripping for me.”
He shudders—God, he loves threats—and plants his palms flat on the desk, spreading his fingers wide, spine arching just a little to present for inspection. He could shove me off any time he likes; we both know it. The obedience is a gift he gives because he likes the way it makes me snarl.
“Can’t decide if you’re brave or stupid tonight,” I tell him, popping open the first button of his shirt slow enough to make him crazy. “Asking to be treated like trash.”
“Not trash,” he spits, but his voice is already unsteady. “Yours.”
Mine. The word punches straight through every barricade I pretend to keep in place. I answer by ripping the next buttons instead of undoing them; little mother-of-pearl disks ricochet across the hardwood just so he’ll hear how little I care about the cost.
I shove the ruined shirt wide. Dark hair dusts his chest, thick at the center line, tapering to the trail I’ll lick later—masculine in every way. The kind that leaves delicious scraps of friction on my tongue. I lean down, bite a mark high on his chest hard enough to earn a broken Italian curse.
He writhes but keeps his hands where I told him—good boy—and when I pull back, teeth aching from how hard I clamp down, I watch the blood rise purple under his skin and feel my cock throb mean in my trousers.
“Still want me cruel?” I ask.
“Crueler,” he whispers, and that razor-edged smile curves again. “If you stop now, I’ll beg someone else to finish the job.”
Jealousy lights through me bright as nitro. I palm his jaw, squeeze until he winces. “You so sure I won’t break your fucking neck for that?”
“You won’t,” he breathes, eyes glittering. “You like my neck too much.”
He’s right, and we both know it. I dig my thumb into the hinge of his jaw, force his head back, and spit a slow stream onto his tongue. He groans, rolls the taste in his mouth like sacrament. The sight almost undoes me.
I shove his trousers down to mid-thigh, not caring when the fine wool tears at a seam. The desk edge carves into the soft flesh of his lower back; the bruise will be perfect tomorrow, purple blooming under golden skin exactly where my hands are bracketing him now.
I drag my knuckles up the front of his briefs, feel his cock jerk, then tug the fabric down viciously. He’s hard, flushed, wet at the tip. Beautiful. I could feast on the sight alone.
“I’m going to hurt you,” I promise.
“Finally,” he growls, voice wrecked with anticipation.
I drop to my knees—my favorite vantage point because it puts bruises on me, too—and push his thighs wider until the desk wobbles. I grip the base of him, lean in, and drag my tongue from root to tip in one long, filthy stripe that makes him hiss as if I’ve burned him.
I don’t give warning; I swallow him to the base, nose buried in musky hair, sucking until his thighs quiver against my ears. I scrape teeth under the crown and feel him choke off a shout. His hands slam the desk, wood groaning, but he doesn’t lift them.
He tastes like salt and expensive sin. I suck him until my jaw aches, pull off with a pop, then slap the head against my tongue, eyes up, loving the impossibly starved expression on his face.
He’s panting, a bead of sweat trickling from his hairline down his temple, his control shattered into glittering shards only I get to hold.
“Hands,” I warn, just as his left twitches.
He wants to kill me; I can see it. Wants to kill me and thank me in the same breath. He slams them flat again, whimpering, “I’m losing it—please.”
“Ask,” I say, and his nostrils flare because he hates asking. “Say it, or I stop, Salvatore.”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched.
“Ask me nicely, Lyubimiy.”
“Please,” he chokes out eventually, everything in the word a contradiction: pride and surrender, defiance and devotion tangled up until neither of us can tell which is which. “Please let me come.”
“Where?”
“Your mouth. Need to see you swallow it.”
I fucking love him for that. I take him back deep, press my tongue flat, hollow my cheeks.
Five thrusts and he’s gone, voice strangled as he spills, hot, bitter, and messy, down my throat.
I swallow every pulse, ride the aftershocks until he’s sagging, chest heaving, hands finally breaking position to tangle in my hair.
When I stand, he’s shaking violently, eyes glassy with ruin and pride both.
I flip him without ceremony, bend him over the desk so his cheek kisses polished wood.
Yank the remnants of his trousers the rest of the way off, and spread him open with rough hands.
He moans into his arm, pushes back eagerly.
I suck my fingers into my mouth and drag them over his hole, pushing past resistance in one slow thrust.
He groans, shoulders tense, head bowed. “More—need you inside me. Hard. Now. Fuck me, Ruslan—make me feel it tomorrow.”
I don’t make him wait. Condom on, lube quick and careless, then I grip his hips and bury myself to the hilt in one relentless drive. He’s tight, pulsing around me, greedy as sin for every brutal inch.
I shove him flat and use the leverage to pound him hard. The desk slams the wall repeatedly; a lamp topples and shatters across the floor, glass chiming in time with my thrusts. Tomorrow, someone will wonder about the noise. Tonight I own every sound.
“Harder,” he begs again, cheek streaked with sweat, lips parted, voice ragged.
I brace one hand at the back of his neck, shove his face down, and fuck him hard.
Every thrust is punishment and gift. The slap of skin, the crack of wood, his breath hitching on every impact—it’s music.
I reach around, fist his half-hard cock, jerk him in rhythm until he’s babbling Italian endearments back at me between moans, too far gone to hide how much he loves the hurt.
“Mine,” I growl, biting his shoulder hard enough to leave teeth marks. “My refined Italian prince, just a hole for me now.”
He clenches around me at the degradation, and I snarl, pistoning faster. Stars burst behind my eyes as pleasure shreds what’s left of shame.
“Tell me who owns you.”
“You—fuck—Ruslan Dragovich owns me—”
“That’s right.” I fist one hand in his hair, jerking his head back so he’s forced to look at his reflection in the dark pane of the window: him, feral, beautiful, mine. “Touch yourself,” I order.
He fumbles—finally free to lift a hand—wraps fingers around his cock. Three strokes and he’s coming hard, choking on my name, walls clamping tight enough I see stars. I follow with a broken snarl, burying himself to the hilt, pulse spilling heat into the condom.
We stay like that while our breathing steadies: him draped over the desk, cum cooling on mahogany; me still inside him, weight crushing him safe. He turns, chest heaving, mouth split in a wrecked grin.
I cup his jaw, thumb across his bruised lower lip. “You beg beautifully.”
He nips my thumb. “And you break things beautifully.”
When I pull free, he slumps, boneless, still trembling.
I dispose of the condom, wipe him gently even though he said no tenderness—because I like reminding him I choose when I’m cruel and when I’m kind.
He watches with heavy-lidded eyes, satisfaction and wreckage mingling, a smear of blood blooming where I bit him. He’ll treasure that.
“You good?”
He nods, throat working. “Yes.”
I press a soft kiss to the back of his neck and step away to grab a towel. He turns, leans against the desk, watching me with something unreadable in his eyes. Vulnerability tries to creep in around the edges. He kills it with a smirk.
“Still think I’m glass?”
I toss the towel at him. “Shatterproof, apparently.”
He catches it, wipes himself off, then steps close, crowding me the way he did when he stormed in here. Our sweat mingles with the faint scent of his cologne still clinging to that ruined shirt.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” he says quietly. “We’re still fucked.”
“Probably,” I admit. “Worth it, though.”
He laughs, shaky but pleased, and begins collecting destroyed clothing with hands that are steadier than mine.
Whatever hell waits tomorrow, whatever fresh knife my father sets at my throat, whatever suspicion Aldo Vieri sharpens for his heir—I’ll walk into it carrying the taste of this man on my tongue, and that will be both my shield and my downfall.