Chapter 23 - Sasha
Sasha
The hotel receptionist doesn’t blink when Tony checks us in under fake names.
This whole weekend is theater. Dmitri’s idea—convince Adrian that Tony’s successfully isolated me from my family.
Tony told Adrian about the trip three days ago, giving him plenty of time to plant whatever surveillance he wanted.
The goal is simple: make Adrian think he’s winning while we feed him exactly what we want him to believe.
Money and discretion go hand in hand in Moscow’s luxury establishments. We’re just another couple seeking privacy, and the staff here are paid extremely well not to remember faces.
Tony carries both bags to the elevator. Neither of us speaks during the ride to the seventh floor. The silence feels heavy, loaded with everything we haven’t said since that note I slipped under his door.
Our room faces the Moscow River. Expensive. Adrian’s surveillance budget at work.
As soon as we’re in the room, Tony sets the bags down and starts his sweep. He checks the bathroom first, running his hands along the mirror frame and under the sink.
I kick off my heels and join him, moving to the windows while he works. “Tell me about your uncle,” I casually prompt as I examine the curtain rods. “Something I don’t know yet.”
Making conversation during a sweep sounds more natural than working in silence on the other end. My brothers taught me that.
Tony emerges from the bathroom and moves to check the baseboards. “Why the sudden interest?”
“Because I want to understand where you learned to be patient.” I run my fingers along the window frame myself, checking for anything unusual. “What made him that way?”
“His wife died when he was thirty-two. Cancer.” Tony kneels to examine under the bed. “They’d been trying to have kids for years, but it never happened. After she died, he threw himself into the restaurant because it was the only thing that made sense anymore.”
“That sounds like he was running from his grief.” I move to the nightstand and open the drawer to check inside.
“It was. At first.” Tony stands and crosses to check the closet. “But then my parents died, and suddenly he had this angry, traumatized eight-year-old who didn’t understand why everyone kept leaving. I broke things. Said awful things. Tested him constantly to see if he’d give up on me too.”
The lamp on the nightstand sits at an odd angle. Someone moved it and didn’t put it back quite right.
I reach to straighten it, and my fingers brush something small and hard attached to the base where it meets the stem.
There.
I don’t pull my hand away. Just let my fingers rest there for a moment, feeling the shape of it. Professional grade. Not some cheap device you order online.
I turn to look at Tony. He’s hanging up a jacket in the closet, but he glances my way.
I let my eyes flick down to the lamp, then back to his face.
He stops what he’s doing and crosses to me, like he’s just continuing the conversation naturally.
“What did he do?” I ask. “When you were testing him?”
“He’d just clean up whatever mess I made and start over. Every single time.” Tony reaches the nightstand and adjusts the lamp himself. “Never got angry. Never threatened to send me away.”
We’re being listened to. Right now. Every word we say is being recorded.
Tony’s eyes meet mine. There’s a question in them—what do we do?
I could play innocent. Pretend we don’t know. That’s what Dmitri would probably want.
But I’m not Dmitri. And I’m tired of letting Adrian think he has power over me.
I make my decision in the space of a heartbeat.
“Did you ever ask him why?” I step closer to Tony.
“Yeah. One day after I’d broken his favorite coffee mug.
” His hand is still on the lamp, fingers covering the device.
“He said some things are worth the wait. That the best meals take hours to prepare, but rushing them ruins everything. That people are the same way—you can’t force someone to heal or trust or love.
You just have to be there when they’re ready. ”
I reach up and touch Tony’s face. My brothers would call this reckless. But my brothers also taught me that sometimes the best defense is refusing to be a victim.
“Is that what you’re doing?” I whisper. “Waiting for me to be ready?”
Tony’s voice goes rough as he replies, “I’m waiting for you to decide if I’m worth the risk. There’s a difference.”
I let my hand slide from his face down to his chest, where I feel his heart beating fast under my palm. “And if I decide you’re not?”
“Then I’ll accept it. But Sasha, I’m not going anywhere until you make that call. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
I unbutton the top button of my blouse with my free hand.
Tony watches my fingers. “What are you doing?”
“He’s listening anyway.” I whisper as I unbutton the second button. “Let’s give him something worth hearing.”
Understanding crosses Tony’s face.
Adrian is obsessed with me. Has been since London. And now he gets to listen while I choose someone else. While I want someone else. While I give myself to the man he hired to destroy me.
It’s perfect psychological warfare.
I unbutton the third button, and Tony has my face in his hands before I can get my shirt open. He kisses me. Hard. Demanding. I kiss him back with everything I have, pouring all my anger at Adrian and confusion about Tony and frustration with this whole situation into it.
I yank at Tony’s shirt while he spreads the fabric on mine open. We’re frantic now, desperate, shedding clothes like they’re suffocating us.
My blouse hits the floor. His shirt follows.
Tony’s hands find my waist as he pulls me flush against him. I can feel how much he wants this. Wants me.
“Bed,” I gasp between kisses.
He backs me toward it without breaking contact. His hands slide over my skin—my waist, my ribs, up to cup my breasts through my bra.
I get his belt open. The buckle clinks. Then his zipper. He kicks off his pants while I shimmy out of my jeans.
We fall onto the mattress together in just our underwear. Tony covers my body with his, and his body weight on top of me feels perfect.
He kisses my throat. My collarbone. Works his way down with single-minded focus.
When he reaches my bra, he pauses. “Can I?”
“Yes.”
He reaches behind me and unclasps it before he tosses it aside without looking where it lands. Then his mouth is on my breast, and I arch into the contact.
“God,” he murmurs against my skin. “I’ve been thinking about this day and night.”
“Then stop talking and do something about it.”
He takes that as a challenge. His tongue circles my nipple before he sucks it into his mouth. The sensation shoots straight between my legs. I grab his hair and pull him closer, not caring if I’m being too rough.
He moves to my other breast and gives it the same attention. Licking. Sucking. Using his teeth just enough to make me gasp.
By the time he’s done, I’m panting and squirming beneath him.
“Patience,” he teases with a grin.
“I don’t want patience.”
“Too bad.” He kisses his way down my stomach, pausing to nip at my hip bone. “I’m taking my time with you.”
When he reaches the waistband of my underwear, he hooks his fingers in and pulls them down. Slowly. Too slowly.
“Tony—”
“Shh. Let me enjoy this.”
He settles between my thighs and just looks at me for a moment with an intensity that makes me feel completely exposed.
Then he lowers his head and puts his mouth on me.
I cry out at the first touch of his tongue. He knows my body now. Knows exactly where to lick and suck to make me fall apart.
“That’s it,” he mumbles against me. “Don’t hold back.”
I grab the sheets and push my hips up, but Tony pins them down with his forearm, holding me in place while he works me with his tongue.
“Tony, please—”
He doesn’t answer. Just adds two fingers and curls them inside me while his tongue focuses on my clit.
The dual sensation is too much. I’m already close, trembling on the edge.
“Let go,” Tony instructs. “I want to feel you come.”
His fingers curl harder. His tongue moves faster. And I shatter.
I scream his name without a care in the world as to who hears. Don’t care about anything except the pleasure crashing through me in waves.
Tony doesn’t stop. He works me through it, drawing out every aftershock until I’m oversensitive and pushing at his head.
Only then does he kiss his way back up my body. He takes his time, kisses my hip, my ribs, and the valley between my breasts. My throat.
When he reaches my mouth, I taste myself on his lips.
“Your turn,” I announce, using my strength to flip us over.
Tony lands on his back with a surprised laugh. I straddle his hips and grind against him through his boxer briefs. The friction makes us both groan.
“Sasha—”
“Be quiet.”
I lean down and kiss him. Then I work my way down his body the same way he did mine.
I kiss his throat. His chest. Pause to bite the spot just above his hip that I know drives him crazy.
When I reach his underwear, I pull them off in one single yank. He’s hard and ready. I wrap my hand around him and stroke slowly.
“Fuck,” Tony grits out.
I love watching his face. The way he struggles to maintain control. The way his whole body goes taut under my touch.
I lower my head and take him in my mouth.
The sound he makes is somewhere between a groan and a prayer. I work him with my tongue, taking him deeper with each movement.
His hands find my hair. Not pushing. Just holding on like he needs something to anchor himself.
I establish a rhythm. Slow at first, then faster, using my hand where my mouth can’t reach.
“God, Sasha. Your mouth—”
I hum in response. The vibration makes him curse in Russian.
I can feel him getting closer. Feel the way his thighs start to shake. But I pull back before he can finish.
Then I straddle him again, position myself over him, and sink down in one smooth motion.
We both moan at the feeling. The stretch. The fullness. The perfect way we fit together.
“Move,” Tony demands, grabbing my hips.
“You move.”
He thrusts up hard. I brace my hands on his chest and meet him stroke for stroke.
We find a brutal rhythm, that fast and desperate. There’s nothing gentle about this. Just need and want and the knowledge that someone is listening to every sound we make.
Good. Let him hear this. Let him understand that whatever control he thought he had is gone.
I lean forward and kiss Tony while we move, swallowing his groans as I let him swallow mine.
“Touch yourself,” Tony requests against my mouth. “I want to feel you come around me.”
I reach between us and find my clit. The added sensation makes me clench around him.
“Yes. Just like that.”
I’m close already. Tony must feel it because he starts thrusting harder. Deeper. Hitting that spot inside me that makes my vision blur.
“Good girl.” he demands. “I want to feel you come on my cock.”
The combination of his words, the angle, my own fingers—it’s too much. I come apart while I call his name loud enough to echo off the walls.
Tony follows a heartbeat later. He buries his face in my neck and groans as he empties himself.
We stay locked together for a long moment, both breathing hard. Both trembling. Neither willing to move yet.
Finally I lift off him and collapse on the mattress beside him. The sheets are tangled around us. My heart is still racing.
We lie there in silence. I stare at the ceiling while my heartbeat slowly returns to normal. Tony’s hand finds mine on the bed between us, and he laces our fingers together.
“For the record,” he whispers, keeping this just between us, “that was real too. All of it.”
I squeeze his hand but don’t answer.
Because I know it was real. I felt it in every touch, every kiss, every moment. The way he looked at me. The way he held me. The way he whispered my nickname like it meant something.
But saying that out loud feels too much like admitting things I’m not ready to admit.
So instead I just hold his hand and let myself believe—for tonight at least—that maybe we can survive this.