41. Vasiliy #2
I’ve been intimate with many women throughout my life—call me a common whore if you want—but I’m beginning to think I’ve never been truly touched by any of them at all.
I’ve been traded and consumed, used and gambled with.
I thought it was the same thing, but it’s not.
A real touch is both free and costly at once, like the way Octavia reached for my hand in the middle of the night, even when her thoughts were so dark, she couldn’t rise in the morning.
It’s a desperate craving I can’t stop thinking about.
Climbing onto the blankets, I settle above her covered legs and roll the soft tank top up to her ribs. Her pale skin practically glows in the darkness, calling to me. I get to touch her whenever I need to. My lips brush her navel, summoning her soft moan.
Gluttony.
“How’d it go?” she whispers, voice scratchy with sleep.
I kiss lower, trailing down her stomach to the curve of her hips.
“It went okay,” I say, punctuating the response with a nip on her hip.
She lets out a needy sigh, distracting me. Her legs hook around my ass in one of the S locks we practiced in combat yesterday, effectively rolling me onto my back. I grunt, landing on the mattress.
She flipped me.
Pride and something significantly less honorable pump through me at the sight of her strong thighs nestled on either side of my hips.
“What does okay mean?” Her nervous face hovers directly above mine. “Do we have to go on the run? Do we stay here?”
She pesters me with the questions, but all I hear is one word, over and over.
We.
We.
We.
The sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. I capture her chin, searching for her lips, but she pulls out of reach.
“Vasiliy.”
I sigh, unable to stop my lips from curving into a smile. She says my name unlike anyone else, and I swear I could listen to it over and over, painted with the intricacies of her beautiful voice.
“Hmm?” I respond, distracted.
She tilts her head, frowning down at me. “You know how you and I can understand each other without having to say a single word?”
It’s true—inexplicable as it is. Sometimes I can read every single thought in her head simply by the position of her brows and the look in her eyes.
Other times, I don’t even have to glance her way to feel her response.
Her voice is so dominant in my mind, it drowns out all the horrible sounds I’ve been collecting through the years.
I reach up to pull her face back down to me, but she resists, pulling back with a serious expression. “This is one of those times, Vas. I know something happened in that meeting.”
“I don’t want to talk about the meeting right now.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m the one in charge, then,” she says, confidence pouring over her voice. I’ve created a monster, I think, smiling back up at my pretty little brat.
“And how do you figure that?”
Her thighs tighten around my hips. The action has my dick hardening.
“I have the pussy. You want the pussy.”
A chuckle bursts from my chest at the simplicity of her logic, but then she shifts her hips lower, settling warm heat right where I need her most. Then she rolls over me. I go dick-drunk on the spot, desperate to give her whatever she wants in order to be inside her again.
“Dangerous game you’re playing there, baby. I’m not sure you’re as unaffected as you act.” I slip my hand between her legs, rubbing my thumb right where she needs it. I’m pretty sure the furious moan that pulls from her throat will star in every fantasy I have from now on.
“Vasiliy.” Her weight disappears from my cock, and she crawls up to sit on my ribs. Her head curves down, placing the sweetest kiss on the tip of my nose. “I need to know what happened.”
I stare up in exasperation.
“I will reward you,” she tacks on, sweetening the deal.
Goddamn it.
“They’ll let me stay under the guise of your dad looking into our kidnapping. Afterward, they think I’ll return to Solokov’s HQ in New York.”
I hate the breath that hitches in her throat. “You’re leaving?”
“No,” I whisper, hands roving over her hips. “Not you. Never you.”
“I don’t understand,” she says. “So we are running away?”
“Not if I can help it. You just found your family. I’ll figure it out, okay? This meeting was just about buying more time.”
She looks down, unconvinced by my words.
“Then why did you seem so stressed when you came in?” She lowers her body to mine, hugging my torso tight between her limbs.
Wrapped around her is the safest I’ve ever felt.
It makes me feel like a fucking superhero, capable and willing to do anything necessary to bring that playful smile back to her lips.
I’m not the hero, of course.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen myself through the eyes of men like them,” I admit. The bedroom is dark, save for the stream of moonlight pouring through the window. The perfect place for whispered secrets forgotten in the night.
“How do they see you?”
I hum thoughtfully. “As a pawn on their chessboards, traded back and forth. An item with a single intrinsic value.”
Her head pops up. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“You are not a fucking pawn!” she says, fingers threading through my hair and yanking my head back.
My eyes widen unbidden. “I don’t ever want to hear that again.
You are the most valuable person I’ve ever met.
The biggest piece on the board. You are worth a million of those assholes, and if they don’t see your value, we are not staying here! Did Dad make you feel like that?”
I think my jaw is stuck open, and my pupils have definitely squished into devoted little hearts as I stare up at a face frozen in fury.
“No, Sasha didn’t make me feel like that.
It’s just the way it is in the Bratva. Once you find something you’re good at, it becomes your identity.
I’m an interrogator. That’s all I’ll ever be to them.
It’s the only thing that makes me a valuable member of their organizations.
” I sigh, staring past her gorgeous face to the dark ceiling behind.
“It was difficult to listen to, though, after so many weeks with you. You make me feel like I can do so much more.”
“You can, Vas, and you’re not going to work for anyone who doesn’t understand that. I don’t care if that means we buy new identities and kidnap your little sister, or simply fight the battle on the home front. I’m in charge, remember?”
I haven’t shed a single tear since I was a boy, and even then, I knew better than to cry in front of members of my family. Still, out of practice as I may be, I find my eyes clouding under Octavia’s fervent support.
“Yes, moya zlaya,” I whisper, pulling her lips to mine. “You’re in charge.”