Chapter 17
Lev
There is a very small part of me that knows I should stop this.
It gets its arse kicked. I release her wrists and pull my cock out, sliding my hand over it slowly.
Her gaze drops, and she takes over.
Her fingers close around me, and she strokes once, twice, slow and deliberate, testing how far she can push before I break.
My control frays at the edges, but I hold it.
Barely. This woman has no idea what she does to me, yet here she is, straddling my lap in my room, her bare skin warm under my hands as I grip her waist to steady us both.
I let her set the pace for a moment longer. Her breath quickens above me. She leans in and brushes her mouth over mine again, not quite a kiss, more a challenge. I answer it by sliding one hand up her back and fisting her hair lightly, holding her exactly where I want her while she works me harder.
“Fuck, Varvara,” I say against her lips. “You keep going like that, and this ends before I get inside you.”
She smiles against my mouth. It’s a smile that says she knows exactly the power she holds right now. It only makes me harder. I reach between us, find the button on her jeans and pop it open. She lets me go for long enough to climb off me and shove the denim down her hips along with her underwear.
When she settles back down, bare and wet against my cock, I groan. She rocks her hips once, coating me in her heat. I grab her arse and lift her just high enough that the head of my cock pushes against her.
She adjusts and sinks down. Slowly. Inch by inch. Her pussy opens for me, and my head drops back against the chair as she takes me inside her. She gasps, fingers digging into my upper arms.
I thrust up. Hard. She cries out and moves with me, riding each stroke. I meet her every time, driving deeper, watching her face twist with pleasure she tries and fails to hide.
Her nails scrape over my chest. I love the sting.
It grounds me. Reminds me this is real, this is mine.
She sets a desperate rhythm, and I match it, one hand on her hip to guide her, the other sliding between us to circle her clit with my thumb.
She jerks and moans my name. The sound hits me low and fierce.
I fuck her harder. The chair creaks under us. Her thighs shake against mine. She is close already. She clenches around me, making broken sounds. I press harder on her clit and watch her fall apart, her body locking tight as she comes hard with a cry she tries to bury against my neck.
I don’t give her time to recover. I stand, still buried inside her, and carry her to the bed. She wraps her legs around me, and I lay her down, never pulling out. Then I drive into her again, deeper now, while she clings to me and gasps my name, making me harder.
When I come, it is with her name on my lips and her pussy milking every last drop from me. “Fuck, Varvara.”
I stay there, buried deep, breathing hard against her hair. I pull back just enough to look at her face. Her eyes are closed, lashes dark against flushed cheeks. Her chest rises and falls rapidly beneath mine. I brush a strand of hair from her forehead, and her eyes flutter open.
The look she gives me is complicated. Want mixed with regret. Satisfaction tangled with fear.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re about to say. Just don’t.”
I withdraw slowly, and she makes a small sound that goes straight to my cock again. I ignore it and straighten up, kicking off my shoes and letting go of the pants around my ankles. “Who was he?”
I ask, using this moment of vulnerability to ambush her.
It’s truly fucking awful, but I want to know so I can kill him slowly and painfully.
Her green eyes zero in on mine, burning with an intensity that makes me wish I hadn’t started this.
But here we are.
“I don’t know,” she says eventually. “I was attacked on my way home from work.” She crawls up the bed and curls up under the duvet.
I don’t say anything, rage and frustration building in my blood.
I go to the bathroom, run a sponge under warm water, then go back to the bedroom to clean her.
She lets me pull the duvet aside to wipe away my cum leaking from her.
She doesn’t speak. When I’m done, I toss the sponge back into the bathroom and climb into bed beside her.
She shifts away from me immediately, putting space between us that I don’t like but understand.
“Tell me what happened,” I say, keeping my voice level.
“Why? So you can go full Bratva psycho and torture information out of innocent people until you find him?”
“Yes.”
She turns her head to look at me. “You’re insane.”
“That’s not news to either of us.”
She pulls the duvet higher, covering herself completely. “Two years ago. I was walking home from a late shift at the club. It was dark. He came out of nowhere. Grabbed me from behind, dragged me into an alley.”
The rage turns outwards, and I curse, dragging her towards me. She lets me.
I hold her against my chest, feeling the tension in her body. She doesn’t fight me, but she doesn’t melt into me either. She just exists there, caught between needing comfort and hating that she needs it from me.
“He mugged me, took everything and ripped my shirt. He groped me and ran off.”
“And the police?” My voice is cold. Flat.
“They gave me a crime number.”
“Fucking useless,” I say.
“I tell myself it could’ve been worse, but it—”
“No,” I say firmly. “Don’t do that. Don’t minimise it. It happened to you, and you get to feel whatever you want about it.”
She snorts gently. “You’re validating my feelings?”
I shift uncomfortably because she’s right. This isn’t me. I don’t validate feelings. I solve problems with violence and intimidation.
“I’m trying something new,” I say.
She makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be disbelief. “Well, stop. It’s weird.”
“Noted.” I tighten my arm around her. “But I meant what I said. If I find him, he’s dead.”
“You won’t find him. It was two years ago. He could be anywhere.”
“I have resources.”
“Lev—”
“I’m not discussing this with you. You don’t get a say in whether I hunt him down or not.”
She goes rigid in my arms. “That’s my trauma. My assault. You don’t get to decide what happens with it.”
“I decide what happens to anyone who hurts what’s mine.”
“I’m not yours.”
I roll her onto her back and hover over her, pinning her with my body weight. “No? You just let me fuck you. You came on my cock. You’re in my bed, Varvara. In the Bratva, that means you’re mine if I want you.”
“That’s the most chauvinistic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Hang around, moya sladkaya, that is nothing.”
“You’re a pig,” she spits.
“Maybe, but you loved riding my cock, and I will take the image of you coming all over it and replay it in my head for years to come.”
This fire between us is real. Dangerous. But mine.
“You’re beyond saving,” she says, but her voice wavers.
“Who said I wanted saving?” I brush my thumb over her bottom lip.
“And now that I’ve had you, I’m not letting you go.
You can run, you can try to hide, and you will want to when things get more intense than this.
But know that I will track you down and drag you back here by your hair if you act on it.
Mine, moya sladkaya. Remember what I said about the Bratva when those thoughts go through your head. ”
She stares up at me, her mouth slightly open. But I don’t give her time to respond. I climb off her and move to the other side of the bed, where my clothes are. I get dressed as she pulls the duvet up higher, using it as her shield against the world. Against me.