Chapter 30 Daria
Daria
The nightmare rips me awake with Bogdan’s name stuck in my throat.
I’m drenched in sweat. The sheets are twisted around my legs like restraints, and my heart is hammering so hard that I can feel it in my teeth. The bedroom is dark except for a sliver of light beneath the door, and standing right outside it, I hear Pyotr’s footsteps pause.
Of course, he’s already there.
The door opens before I can call out. Pyotr fills the doorway with one hand on the frame, and I can tell from the way he’s dressed that he hasn’t slept. He’s been walking his circuit.
“Bad one?” he asks.
He crosses the room in three strides and sits on the edge of the bed beside me. His hand finds the back of my neck, warm and steady, and he holds me there until my breathing slows.
“Same one?” he asks.
“He had Kira.” I rub the heels of my palms against my eyes. “He had her, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there.”
“It wasn’t real."
"It sure as shit felt like it.”
The nightmare is already fading, but the feeling it left behind isn’t. The buzzing, frantic energy that crawls under my skin after a bad dream won’t let go. My mind is spinning, looping through tomorrow and every scenario I've imagined a hundred times.
“How do I shut off my brain?” I whisper. “It won't stop. Every time I close my eyes, it just starts again.”
He slides his hand up to the base of my skull as he says, “There are ways. You could give someone else control for a while. Let your body take over, and your head gets quiet.” His hand stills. “But only if you want it. And only if you trust me.”
The words land deep in my chest.
“I trust you.”
“That's not the same as saying yes.”
“Yes.” I pull my hands from my eyes and look at him. “Yes, I want that.”
His body goes rigid as he cocks his head to the side. “Are you certain, golubka?”
I take a deep breath, gathering the courage to be as honest as I’ve ever been.
“Pyotr.” I keep my eyes on his as my hand finds his belt. “Tonight… I don’t want careful. I don’t want gentle.”
He catches my wrist and sucks in a breath. His voice drops low enough to vibrate through my knees. “Then tell me what you want.”
My pulse hammers so hard I feel it in my throat. “I want you to be harder with me.”
“Say what you mean, Daria. Say it.”
I draw my bottom lip between my teeth before I respond, “I want you to spank me.”
He doesn’t move. For three full seconds, the only sound is my breathing.
“Why?”
“Because it quiets my head.” I swallow against the knot in my throat. “I need it given, not taken, from someone I trust.”
He releases me and drags his thumb in a single line down the inside of my forearm, following the vein. Then he stands, towering over me, and offers his hand.
I take it. He pulls me to my feet like I weigh nothing.
“Stop means stop,” he reminds me as he steers me toward the bedroom with one hand on the small of my back. “You say that word, and everything stops. No questions or negotiations.”
“I remember.”
“I need you to say it back.”
“Stop means stop.”
He closes the bedroom door behind us and turns me around to face him. Then, he cups my jaw with one palm and runs his thumb across my bottom lip, and I feel the roughness of every callus.
“I have conditions,” he tells me. “You count out loud. Every single slap, you count. Second, you keep your eyes on me. You don’t look away.”
I nod.
“Words, golubka.”
“I count out loud. I keep my eyes on you.”
He holds my gaze for one more heartbeat. Whatever he’s searching for, he seems to find it, because something releases in his shoulders. He sits on the edge of the bed and draws me forward until I’m standing between his knees.
“You don’t ever have to earn me with pain.” He says this so quietly I almost miss it. “But if this is what you want, you’ll take it the way I give it.”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he turns me around and slides his hands up the backs of my thighs, pushing my nightgown over my hips. The fabric bunches at my waist. He hooks his index fingers into the waistband of my underwear and pulls them down to my ankles. I step free.
“Over my lap.” He guides me forward with his palm flat against my stomach, and I lower myself across his thighs. The denim of his jeans is rough against my bare skin. His left hand settles between my shoulder blades to steady me.
“You good?” He asks.
“Yes.”
The first strike lands on my right side, firm enough to sting but controlled enough to promise more. I suck in a breath at the declaration of intimate control.
“Count,” he reminds me.
“One,” I moan.
He rubs warmth back into the spot with his palm, smoothing circles over the skin until the sting melts into heat. Then he lifts his hand. The second strike falls on my left side, matching the first in force and placement.
“Two,” I announce with pleasure.
Again, he presses his palm against the impact, rubbing warmth into the sting. He brushes his thumb along the curve where my thigh meets my backside, and my hips push toward his hand before I can stop myself.
“Good girl. Breathe.”
The third lands harder. I gasp, and my fingers clutch the bedsheet.
“Three.”
He traces the shape of the mark he just left, gliding his fingertips across my heated skin until goosebumps race down both legs. “Still good?”
“Yes,” I assure him, breathless.
Four. Five. Six. Each one cracks through me and sends heat flooding between my thighs. He alternates sides, never striking the same spot twice in a row, and after every impact, his hand returns to soothe and praise. His voice stays low and steady, never above a whisper.
“Eyes on me,” he reminds me when I announce the seventh slap.
I crane my neck to look over my shoulder. His face is focused and serious, every ounce of his attention devoted to reading my body. When our eyes connect, his grip tightens on my shoulder blade, possessive and protective.
“One more?” he asks, and I nod vigorously.
“One more,” I plead.
Eight lands with a crack that rips a cry from my throat, and he catches the sound by pulling me upright into his lap. I’m straddling him before I register the movement, with his arms locked around my waist and my stinging backside against his thighs.
He palms the back of my neck and brings my forehead to his. “Breathe with me.”
I match his breathing. Slow inhale. Slow exhale. The sting pulses and fades into a deep, spreading heat that rolls through me.
“You did so good.” He presses his mouth to my temple. My cheek. The corner of my jaw. “So good, golubka.”
With shaking hands, I pull his shirt over his head.
He lets me. I run my hands over his chest, his stomach, the scars that map every mission and every fight and every promise he’s kept.
He watches me touch him with a patience that borders on reverence, like he’d sit here all night and let me trace every mark on his body without asking for anything in return.
But patience isn’t what I want. I want him.
I snatch his belt and yank it open, and he lifts his hips enough for me to push his jeans down. Then I’m sinking onto him, taking him in one slow drop that punches the breath from both of us.
“Look at me.” His massive hands encircle my hips, anchoring me rather than guiding.
Our gazes lock, and I roll my hips. I set the pace—slow, grinding, and deep enough that I feel him everywhere from my clit to my ass. His forehead drops against my collarbone, and his breath comes hot and ragged against my sternum.
“You’re safe.” He says it into my skin like a vow. “You’re with me.”
I cradle his head against my chest and ride him until my thighs burn and my breathing fractures. He drags both hands up my ribcage, thumbs tracing the underside of my breasts. He lifts his head and takes one nipple into his mouth, and my body jolts.
“Don’t stop.” I weave my fingers through his hair and hold him there. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He drags his mouth to the other breast and reaches between us. He presses his thumb against my clit and circles it with the same patient, devastating focus he gave to every strike.
The orgasm builds like a wave—slow, then sudden, then everywhere at once.
I come with my face buried in his neck, choking on sounds I didn’t know I could make.
He holds me through every second, still circling his thumb, his other arm banded around my waist like he’s the only thing keeping me from shaking apart.
“That’s my girl,” he praises between pants. “Give me everything.”
I’m still trembling when he rolls his hips up into me, and the overstimulation nearly breaks me. I gasp and grip his shoulders, nails biting into his skin, and he picks up his rhythm—harder now, faster, with both hands locked on my hips while he drives into me from below.
“Tell me yes,” he grits out.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He buries his face in my neck and comes with a groan that vibrates through me. His arms crush me against his chest, and we stay tangled together, breathing hard, our foreheads pressed together and our heartbeats hammering.
Neither of us moves or speaks. We just breathe.
Eventually, he lifts me off him and lays me down on the pillows, where I close my eyes.
I hear the faucet run in the bathroom before he returns with a glass of water and holds it to my lips until I drink.
Then he pulls his shirt—the black T-shirt that smells like him—over my head and eases my arms through the sleeves.
He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He checks.
One by one, he traces my wrists with his fingers. Both fine. He turns me onto my stomach, pushes the shirt up, and runs his palms over the spots he struck, inspecting each one before he presses gentle kisses onto the heated skin until I sigh against the pillow.
“Nothing broken?” I giggle.
“Nothing broken.” He tugs the shirt back down and pulls the blanket over me. “Stay.”
Then he leaves the bedroom. Through the wall, I hear the front door lock turn.
The deadbolt. The chain. His footsteps move to the kitchen, where he checks the window latch.
Then the bathroom. Then the hallway. The same circuit he walks every night.
The same ritual that used to unsettle me and now feels like a lullaby.
He returns and slides under the covers beside me before he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling my back against his chest, and tucks his chin against the crown of my head.
For the first time in years, Bogdan doesn’t follow me into sleep.
No threats or a cold voice on a blocked number. No dreams of running with Kira in the dark. Just the weight of Pyotr’s arm around me and the steady, even rhythm of his breathing.
When I open my eyes, the room is still dark. Pyotr is standing at the dresser with his back to me, loading magazines into his Makarov. The duffel Boris brought sits open on the floor beside him. He’s already dressed in boots and a tactical vest, and there’s a holster strapped across his shoulders.
He catches me watching and pauses with a magazine halfway home.
“Go back to sleep,” he urges. “We don’t move for another couple of hours.”
I pull his shirt tighter around me and close my eyes.
Just a couple more hours before we end this.