Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
VANYA
Micah was warm beneath my hands. Pliant and smelled like a field of wildflowers.
He was also still a little anxious. Every now and again, I could see a tremor running through his body, but every time I followed that with a pass of my hands, he’d let out the smallest sigh and collapse a little further into the mattress.
I knew what he needed: control.
To control. To be controlled. He felt off-kilter and unsafe after his home had been violated. What this man—this stalker—this monster had done was the worst sort of violation.
I hadn’t realized how cruel the action was. From a person who didn’t need their hands to see, I hadn’t realized what Hunter had actually done to Micah until I’d watched him nearly fall apart when he couldn’t find his own sofa.
And then it all clicked.
Then I understood the abusive action the man had taken. He’d ripped Micah’s world out from under him. His safe space. His home. His sense of security.
The only place he didn’t need to rely on anyone else to verify the world around him.
It didn’t take me long to get him panting and begging. Two fingers, a large dollop of lube, and his legs spread in a wide V over my mattress. His fingers clawed at the sheets as I, once again, walked him to the edge, then pulled back.
Over and over until the gorgeous flush in his cheeks had spread to his neck and shoulders. He was desperate, humping his beautiful cock against the bed under him, just enough friction to work him up, but not enough to tip him over.
“Please,” he begged, his breath wheezing.
“Not yet, my love,” I said in my own native tongue. He couldn’t understand me, but he didn’t seem to notice I wasn’t speaking English. I pressed my fingers deeper, spreading them wide, and when he shuddered and moaned into the pillow, I lifted my hand and smacked him on his right ass cheek.
“Oh Jesus, oh fuck,” he gasped, voice thready, on the edge of control. “Vanya. Vanya, please,” he sobbed.
I smacked him again. Then again.
I was becoming an expert in his body. We had not established a phrase that he could say for me to stop, so if he ever even uttered a syllable that sounded like no, or enough, it would end immediately.
For now, I would pay attention to what he needed. What he craved.
The world was too soft on him. His mother had pushed him to his limits and yet had shielded him from all the little bumps and bruises life handed out to teach children how to be strong.
He had been robbed of who he was by too many people in his life. And if I could give him this one small, significant thing, then I could go to my grave feeling like I’d done something important.
And, if after all this was over, he let me keep him, I would also go to my grave happy.
“Vanya,” he begged again as I grazed his prostate with the pads of my fingers. “I need to come. I really need to come.”
“Yes,” I told him. I used my free hand to turn him onto his back without pulling out of him, and he nearly kicked me in the face, but it was worth it to see his expression.
His brows were high on his forehead, beads of sweat decorating his ruddy skin. His lips were parted, nostrils flaring, hands spasming like they didn’t know what they were supposed to do.
His cock, flushed, small, head pulled fully out of the foreskin, was leaking all over his lower stomach.
“You are so beautiful,” I murmured.
“I need you,” Micah answered back.
I would have fucked him, but tonight wasn’t for me, so I shouldered his legs a little further apart, then sucked the head of his dick between my lips.
He gasped, then cried out as I took him all the way into my mouth. He fit perfectly, fat, heavy, throbbing in the center of my tongue as I curled it around his shaft. His hips began to buck as he fucked my face, and I pumped my fingers in and out in the same rhythm.
When he slowed, so did I. When he went faster, I echoed him.
It didn’t take my brilliant, gorgeous little goalie long to pick up on that, and he set the pace. He teased himself, fast then slow, slow then fast. A deep, hard thrust into my mouth, which I followed up in his ass.
I felt it when he realized he was ready to let go. His hips began to slam, a rhythmic thrust over and over, his thighs squeezing around my ears as he fed me his climax.
I swallowed heavily and gave his prostate a hard rub, milking him of everything he had left, and when I licked him clean, his hands had fallen to his sides, fingers loose, mouth open with his soft breath.
I watched the pulse in his neck as it began to slow and fade back into his skin, and only when I was sure he was ready for me to let go did I pull away.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered.
“I will just clean you up.” I eased off the bed and fetched a cloth with cold water because I couldn’t stand to be away from him for too long.
He curled in toward me as I knelt on the bed, and he didn’t move much as I swiped him clean of come and spit. Dropping the cloth beside the bed, I tucked us both under the sheets, then let him rest his head on my chest as his arm fell over my waist.
“Where are my things?” he murmured.
He hadn’t asked me that before. I had to assume it was because he was still feeling afraid and lost. “Clothes are on dresser, beside the bathroom door. Shoes in front. Phone on the nightstand. Cane beside it. You are safe here.”
“I know,” he murmured. He didn’t nestle. This wasn’t cuddling.
He was clinging, and I held him back just as tight.
“You are safe here,” I repeated. Maybe he knew, but I wasn’t sure he’d believe anyone in this moment. “Get some rest.”
“I…” He didn’t finish his sentence, and I didn’t ask him to. I lost myself in the rhythm of his breath, and though I didn’t expect it, I found it impossible to resist the darkness creeping at my edges, and I gave in.
He was leaving.
I was entirely unsurprised as I drifted toward consciousness, but I was a little bit annoyed, especially considering we were about to head out for a ten-day roadie, and I wouldn’t get to see him before we left.
I’d had plans for that morning. Breakfast on the terrace, some coffee to wake us both up, possibly sucking a little more dick before talking him into a real cuddle.
Instead, I heard him sneaking out of the room long before I was ready to be awake. The sky was just starting to go light, and as much as I wanted to stop him, I knew he needed this.
I couldn’t solve this problem with a hard spanking and a long fuck. That was sticking a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. Micah needed to figure out how he wanted to handle this Hunter situation, and then he needed to ask for help.
So I let him leave, listening as the front door shut, and then I knew he was gone.
I confirmed it when I found the bag he’d brought over was also missing. The only evidence he’d been here was the toothbrush he left on the side of the sink. It was dry, so I felt bad for his Uber driver, but that was his business, not mine.
I had to hold in my hurt over this. I needed to breathe and step back because this situation was complicated, and being my normal self was not going to make things better.
But I was going to make a couple of calls.
Artyom was six years older than I was and very pragmatic. He would also be up this early in spite of being on the other side of the country, which made me feel better about making the call as I headed for a protein shake before my morning workout.
“Vanya,” he said by way of answering.
My siblings and the other Russian guys in the league were the only times I ever got to speak my language, and it was very soothing.
“Are you busy right now?”
“Does it matter?” he asked flatly.
“Tyoma.”
He sighed loudly. “No, Vanya. What’s the problem.”
“I have a friend…”
“A friend?”
I let out a small growl. “Do you want the details? A diagram of his dick size, or—”
“Fine. A friend,” Tyoma groaned. “What’s the problem?”
“He has a stalker.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “I’m not going to get into dirty business just because you make bad choices.”
“This isn’t dirty business. He’s a hockey player with the blind league. He met this guy on a dating app. The guy started stalking him, and then it got bad.”
“How bad?”
It was easy for me to explain it when I didn’t have to search for words in English, and by the time I was done, I could hear Tyoma typing something on his computer. “Can you help?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll need access to one of his devices. I can do it remotely, but someone will have to be on his computer. It’s not like the movies, you know.”
“Yes, yes. You never miss the chance to remind us that your job is boring as fuck.”
“Do you want my help or not?” he demanded.
“I want your help, and your job is dull. Neither of those things are a lie. But thank you. I’ll see what I can do. I really want this man to suffer after everything he’s done.”
“Do you,” Tyoma said, then faltered for a moment. “Has Katya met this friend yet?”
“No. She’s still not back. But I’d like her to.”
“So.” He stopped again, then let out another breath. “So he’s…something to you.”
I couldn’t answer that. I wanted him to be. Desperately. But Micah wasn’t letting me in. Not the way I wanted to be let in. “We’ll see. I’ll let you know.”
“Alright. Call me when you can get access to the stalker’s phone or computer, and we’ll go from there. If he has something on your friend, I will find it.”
“Thank you.”
“Mm,” he grunted, and then the line went dead.
My family wasn’t big on goodbyes—short or long. We weren’t very affectionate to each other, but we loved each other. We would fight for each other. Kill for each other.
Die for each other.
And Tyoma knew that if I was going in this hard for someone, it wasn’t casual. He knew me better than that, and it was an odd comfort to be able to share a little about how I was feeling with someone, because I had promised Micah we would keep this to ourselves, but the burden was heavy.
And so was my heart.