Chapter 12 - Avgust
Her mouth was still warm against mine when the kiss finally broke.
Ilana’s breath fanned across my cheek, uneven, shaky, and a little desperate.
I stepped back just enough to look at her.
Really look at her. Her green eyes were wide, lips slightly swollen from my kisses, and cheeks flushed.
Her pulse was fluttering at the base of her throat like a trapped bird. I could see she wanted me.
Her gaze was filled with desire, and I wanted to do nothing but devour her.
But instead of pinning her to the wall again and kissing her senseless until she forgot her own name, I forced myself to speak. “Come with me.”
Her brows lifted, breath still trembling softly. “Where?”
“Somewhere private.”
Heat flashed through her eyes, quick and bright.
She swallowed but followed silently, her hand soft in mine.
I quickly led her out of the living room and down the hallway, past the open kitchen, directly into my office.
She had been there before, but had never really explored the room like she had explored the rest of the house.
It was nothing but dark wood and tall shelves, with a leather couch towards the back of the room.
A low-burning lamp cast warm light over everything, especially the wooden oak table at the center.
The moment the door shut behind us, the silence changed.
It grew thicker. Deeper. And certainly more dangerous. She turned, leaning back against the door, chest rising and falling too fast.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered.
I stepped toward her until I could feel the heat of her body through the air.
“Whatever you want,” I said quietly. “And whatever you don’t.”
Her throat bobbed. “Avgust—”
“If you don’t want this, tell me no right now, and I will stop,” I murmured.
She didn’t.
Instead, her hand lifted slowly and pressed flat against my chest. I could still feel the slight shaking of her fingers, but that tiny touch burned through my shirt like fire.
I caught her chin in my hand, guiding her face back up to mine.
Her pupils were blown wide as her breath hitched.
When I kissed her again, it wasn’t wild and frantic like before but slower and deeper.
Reverent in a way I didn’t allow myself to be.
She melted into me instantly, arms around my neck as if they had always been there.
Her body was soft, pliant, and warm against mine, making me feel like the luckiest man in the world.
My hands slid to her waist, then lower, pulling her form flush against mine.
Her breath caught, and fingers curled tighter in my shirt.
“Ilana,” I rasped against her mouth, “tell me if you want me to stop.”
She shook her head immediately.
“No,” she whispered. “Please don’t stop.”
The single sentence nearly undid me. I kissed her harder and deeper this time, until she was trembling in my hands. I pushed her back until her back hit the large desk, my palms bracketing the side of her hips, locking her in my embrace. Her thighs parted under my touch without a single word.
I exhaled, long and unsteady.
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
She didn’t look away. Didn’t shy. Didn’t even flinch.
“Then don’t make me guess,” she whispered. “Show me.”
My control snapped. I lifted her easily onto the desk, her breath catching as she settled on top of it.
My fingers softly traced the inside of her knee, slow and teasing, moving upward until I hooked them into the waistband of her trousers and peeled them off in one single tug.
She gasped softly, head tipping back. Her hand fisted in my shirt as I continued to inch her bare skin, refusing to pull away.
“Avgust,” she whispered, only pulling me closer.
Her voice was soft and needy, making it even more difficult for me.
I was already rock hard, my erection straining against my trousers, but I didn’t care.
Tonight was just about Ilana. I took advantage of her exposed neck and kissed my way down her throat, her skin shivering under my mouth.
Then I lifted my head back up, searching her face.
“Last chance,” I said. “Tell me to stop.”
She looked right at me.
“I don’t want you to.”
That was all I needed.
I slid my hands beneath her thighs, guiding her gently, lowering her back onto the cool surface of the desk. She let out a breathy sound, one hand flying to cover her mouth.
“No,” I murmured. “I want to hear you.”
Her hand dropped. I touched the hem of her sweater and pulled it off in a single motion, revealing her smooth skin before me.
She was wearing a simple pink bra and panties, the color so pale it melted into her skin.
She was ethereal. Exactly how I had expected her to be.
Without a second’s delay, I kissed down her stomach, her skin trembling under each slow stroke of my mouth.
Her breath grew uneven, and her fingers gripped the edge of the desk.
“Yes, please.”
I used my right hand to reach the clasp behind her back and unhooked her bra, taking off the barrier between my mouth and her pink, swollen nipples.
She moaned as my tongue encircled them, finally taking the bud in my mouth and sucking on it.
She moaned loudly while my other hand softly tugged at the band of her panties, while my thumb stroked her growing wetness from over the fabric. She was turned on.
I could see it.
I moved away for just one second and took off her panties in a single motion, revealing her tight cunt in front of me. Her lips were swollen, with a slight dusting of hair on her pubic area. My eyes bulged as I looked at her, my dick throbbing painfully. But I ignored it.
“Avgust, please,” she whispered, her eyes on mine.
I removed my hands from over her and instead looked into her eyes.
“Tell me what you want.”
“You,” she said without hesitation.
“What do you want me to do to you, Ilana?” I whispered, still not touching her, especially when she seemed desperate for my touch.
“Please touch me,” she whispered, her cheeks turning pink.
“Where?” I asked, knowing I was making her suffer on purpose.
“My pussy. Please touch my pussy. I need you.” Her words came out in the form of a soft cry, making me groan from need.
Without even a second’s delay, I stroked her cunt with my fingers, her wetness staining my entire hand.
She continued to moan under my touch as I bent down in front of her, my head in perfect alignment with her wet lips.
I expertly used my tongue to lick a line over her throbbing clit, and she moaned so loudly it almost sounded like a shout.
I tugged her clit between my teeth, all the while inserting two of my fingers inside her.
“Fuck, fuck, yes,” she shouted as I began to fuck her with my fingers, while my tongue pleasured her pulsing clitoris. “Just like that.”
“You like that?” I asked, pulling my mouth away.
“I do,” she nodded, almost crying.
“You are such a good little girl, Ilana. Lying naked in front of me, getting fucked by my fingers. Now I want to hear you shouting my name. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Avgust,” she replied, her hands clutching the table so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
I took my fingers out from inside her and began to fuck her with my mouth instead, making her moan even louder.
Her hands shot to my head, and her fingers fisted through my hair, trying to pull me closer into her pussy.
I fucked her body with my tongue and fingers until her back finally arched, and I could sense she was nearing climax.
“Avgust, Avgust, Avgust,” she was shouting my name in a way that anyone standing outside the door would be able to hear her. “Yes… ah… I am about to come.”
I waited, keeping my pace steady until her body stilled and she fell apart, orgasming right in my mouth.
Her grip grew tighter as the last remnants of her orgasm got out of her, her body shaking uncontrollably.
I held her through all of it, until her body finally calmed down.
I gathered her in my arms and carried her to the sofa, where her hands immediately went to my belt buckle, but I stopped her, shaking my head.
“Later,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “Right now, you only need sleep.”
She fell against me without thinking, her hand resting against my shoulder, breath still uneven.
I picked her up and kept her on my lap, while continuing to hold her with both my arms wrapped around her small body.
She felt small, fragile, and breakable, and I wanted to do nothing but protect her from everything.
After a long, quiet moment, her voice brushed my chest.
“Avgust, will you help me?”
I stiffened.
She lifted her head, eyes half lidded but focused on mine.
“I need to know why they took me,” she whispered. “Today, talking to Timofey made me wonder why me? And you have the resources and connections to find out more about these men. Please.”
Her hand curled into my shirt.
“I can’t do it alone.”
She neither begged nor manipulated; she simply asked for what she wanted. Staring at her, something in my chest cracked open.
“Fine,” I said before I could think. “I’ll help you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, voice fading, sleep tugging at her. She curled back into me again, her breath warming my neck, and I held her. Until she surrendered completely, falling asleep in my arms at last.
***
Ilana slept in my arms longer than I had expected.
Long enough for dawn to press pale light through the narrow gap in the office curtains and for my muscles to go still.
Long enough for me to admit that the thought of anyone else touching her made my blood run cold.
When she finally stirred against my chest, her lashes fluttering, her fingers curled lightly into my shirt, she looked soft. Young. Too untouched for this world.
“Oh,” she whispered. “I… fell asleep.”
“You did.” My voice was low, raspier than I intended. “You needed it.”
A faint blush warmed her cheeks. She pushed herself upright, smoothing her hair, avoiding my eyes for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“For collapsing on you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I stood up, offering her a hand, and she took it, realizing she was still naked. I turned around and got her sweater, and she quickly threw it on, then began carrying the rest of her clothes in her arms.
“Timofey?” she asked.
“He left before sunrise. He was fine. Feeling much better.”
Her shoulders loosened a little, tension easing. “Good.”
Sunlight was beginning to filter in through the windows, and my office looked alive once again, reminding me of the request she had made last night.
“Do you still want to do the investigation about your kidnapping?” I asked her as I fired up my laptop.
“Yes,” she nodded. “I need to know. Where do we start?”
I picked up my laptop with one hand and sat at the opposite side of the table, pulling out a chair for Ilana. She eased into it, tucking her hair behind her ear in a nervous little gesture. Her scent, clean, soft, and faintly floral, curled around me like smoke.
“We start,” I said, “with everything you remember.”
She nodded slowly.
“I remember that they spoke Russian,” she said. “But not Moscow Russian. Their accents were… rougher. Colder. South, maybe, or farther east.”
I glanced at her sharply, not realizing that she was so perceptive.
“And they called each other by nicknames, so I did not catch their real names at all. I don’t even remember their faces properly because they were mostly always in hoods except for the two men who tried to take me again and got killed.” Her jaw trembled as she spoke about it, but she hid it well.
I nodded and opened a file on the laptop that listed faces, dossiers, and symbols tied to smaller Russian crews operating in the states.
“Anything looks familiar?”
She leaned closer, her shoulder brushing mine unintentionally.
Her brows knitted. “Not yet. But… I wasn’t exactly fully conscious when they took me, so it is hard for me to remember anything anyway.”
“Did they give you a reason for kidnapping?”
“My brothers,” Ilana said quickly. “According to them, it had something to do with my brothers. I think they were exacting revenge on my brothers by kidnapping me.”
“Tell me about your brothers.”
She stilled, then looked down at her hands.
“They’re good people,” she whispered. “Hardworking. They have built everything they have today from nothing, and I have seen them work for it.”
A small, fond smile tugged at her lips. She clearly loved them.
“They fight a lot and stress too much,” she continued, “but they are everything to me.”
“Is it possible for your brothers to have enemies?”
“It is,” she admitted softly. “They can be business competitors or people who want what they have built. But I never thought any of those enemies could be violent. At least not like this.”
“You don’t know the things people do for leverage, or revenge, or information, Ilana,” I said, my mind already working. I had the feeling she didn't want to tell me too much about her brothers, which was why she still hadn’t told me their names.
“You are right. In this case, they kidnapped the weakest link,” she said bitterly.
I shook my head. “No. Not weak. You survived something most people wouldn’t be able to walk out of alive.”
She swallowed hard while I clicked through another set of files, and she leaned in, even closer than before. Her hair brushed my arm while her breath was warm on my skin. None of it was sexual or intentional or conscious. But it was intimate in a way that was somehow worse.
“I wish I knew more or just understood why any of this happened.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said quietly.
An email popped up on my screen, signaling a message with an attachment from Timofey.
It must be the details about the new family.
Ilana noticed the email too, but did not say anything, so I quickly crossed it off, not wanting to give any unnecessary details to her.
She turned her head at the same moment that I did, and we were suddenly inches apart.
Her breath caught, the space between us tightened, and it became electrifying.
“Avgust…” she whispered.
The way she said my name wasn’t pleading or innocent, but full of need.
I reached for her jaw with purpose, and she leaned into my touch without hesitation.
Her lips parted as if on instinct, and she didn’t pull away or question.
I held her firmly in my arms and kissed her slowly, but it soon grew hungrier.
There was nothing but her.
Now or ever.