Chapter 39 Pyotr
Pyotr
Daria is asleep against my shoulder before we clear the tree line.
Boris drives. Grisha rides shotgun. Nobody speaks.
I adjust my arm to keep the pressure off the wound and let Daria settle deeper against my chest. She’s wearing my jacket over her coat because she couldn’t stop shaking, and the cut on her left hand from the glass is wrapped in gauze from the med kit.
The drive to St. Petersburg takes four hours. Boris catches my eye in the rearview mirror somewhere near Vyborg.
“You good?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He nods and returns his attention to the road. That’s the extent of our debriefing. Boris and I have worked together long enough that the details can wait.
We reach the apartment at half past nine. Grisha clears the garage before I wake her.
“We’re home,” I tell her.
She blinks and looks around, disoriented. Then her gaze settles on my face, and something in it steadies.
Boris and Grisha sweep the apartment while I walk Daria upstairs. Two minutes later, Boris confirms the all-clear, posts men on the lobby door and the parking structure, and leaves. The front door closes behind him, and then it’s just us.
Daria is standing in the kitchen with her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the counter. I guide her to the couch, pull the blanket from the back, and tuck it around her shoulders.
“Stay here. I need to call Dmitri.”
I climb out the window and step onto the fire escape before I dial. He picks up on the first ring.
“It’s done,” I tell him.
“Confirmed?”
“Three rounds, center mass. Boris has the documentation.”
“The federal investigation has been redirected to Bogdan’s network,” Dmitri explains. “Daria’s name will be formally removed from the case within forty-eight hours, and the custody filing will be dismissed by the end of the week. Kira can come home. Tell my cousin to call Mila and arrange it.”
I come back inside and crouch in front of Daria. Her hands fit inside mine when I take them. “Kira can come home.”
She remains motionless at first, then every muscle that’s been holding her together for weeks releases, and pure, unguarded joy floods her so brightly that it transforms her face.
This is who Daria gets to be again.
She grabs her phone and dials with trembling fingers. I head for the balcony, but she catches my wrist.
“Stay.”
Mila picks up, and Kira’s voice fills the kitchen thirty seconds later.
“Mama!”
Daria holds the phone against her chest for one second with her eyes squeezed shut. Then she brings it back to her ear.
“Hi, baby. Guess what? You’re coming home.”
The squeal that comes through the speaker could shatter glass. Kira launches into a breathless monologue about the new dinosaur book Dmitri bought her, and Daria laughs and cries and nods along like it’s the most important thing anyone has ever said.
I lean against the counter and watch. This is what it looks like when a person gets their life back. Not a dramatic moment, just a mother on the phone with her daughter, listening to a five-year-old go on and on about nothing at all.
She hangs up fifteen minutes later. “Mila is driving her up tomorrow. She’ll be here by lunch.”
“Then we’d better clean this place up.”
She laughs, and the sound has no edge beneath it for the first time since I’ve known her.
We spend the afternoon putting the apartment back together.
Daria makes Kira’s bed with fresh sheets and arranges Rex’s backup dinosaur on the pillow.
I fix the cabinet hinge that’s been loose since I got here, and we take out the trash.
Normal tasks. Domestic and mundane and more satisfying than any mission I’ve completed.
By nine, we’re running on fumes. After a shower, I step onto the fire escape with a glass of water and lean against the railing, shirtless as the cold air bites into my skin. It isn’t long before I hear the window slide up behind me.
Daria wraps her arms around my waist from behind and kisses the scar on my left shoulder where shrapnel from Aleppo left a raised white line eleven years ago. She holds her lips there long enough that I feel the shape of her breath against my skin.
I turn and take her face in my hands. The bruised shadows under her eyes remain, but the woman looking back at me isn’t checking for threats or bracing for the next blow. She’s just here.
“Come to bed,” she prompts huskily.
My cock springs to life as she takes my hand and leads me down the hallway. Inside the bedroom, she closes the door and opens the top drawer of the dresser. Then she turns back around, holding a pale, gray silk scarf.
I raise an eyebrow.
“I want to try something.” She meets my eyes. “Blindfold me.”
I search her face for any trace of doubt. Her jaw is set, and her fingers are steady on the silk. This isn’t a request born from panic or adrenaline.
I take the scarf from her hands and run it through my fingers.
“Stop means stop,” I remind her.
I step behind her and gather her hair to one side, draping it over her right shoulder. Then I fold the scarf once, press it against her closed eyelids, and tie it behind her head. Snug but not tight. Two fingers fit beneath the knot when I check.
“Can you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. Don’t move.”
I circle to face her and pause. She’s standing in the middle of the bedroom with her hands at her sides and her chin slightly raised, waiting.
Trusting. The scarf covers her eyes but leaves her mouth and jaw exposed, and her lips are parted just enough that I can see the quick rhythm of her breathing.
It’s sexy as hell.
I start with her collarbone. One fingertip, tracing from the hollow of her throat to the point of her shoulder. She shivers and tilts her head to give me room. The same path on the other side, slower this time, and she bites her bottom lip.
“Pyotr—”
“Patience.”
I unbutton her shirt from the top down, taking my time, and letting the fabric fall open in stages. When the last button gives, I push the shirt off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. Her bra is black lace. I unclasp it with one hand and add it to the pile.
Without the scarf, she’d be watching my face and reading my reactions the way she always does. Blind, she has nothing to focus on except the places where my skin meets hers.
I drag the back of my knuckles down her sternum, between her breasts, and across her stomach.
Goosebumps follow every inch. When I reach the waistband of her jeans, I undo the button and pull down the zipper one tooth at a time.
She grabs my forearm to steady herself as I work the denim down her hips.
“Hands at your sides.”
She obeys. I can see the effort it costs her, the way her fingers flex against her thighs.
I kneel and kiss her hip bone. She jolts, and a sound escapes her that she tries to swallow. My lips cross the flat plane beneath her navel before I hook my fingers into her underwear and peel it down her legs. One step frees her, bare in front of me with nothing but the silk across her eyes.
I rise and guide her backward until her calves hit the mattress. “Sit.”
She lowers herself to the edge of the bed. I press one hand flat against her sternum and ease her back onto the pillows. Then I strip off my pants and settle over her, bracing my weight on my forearms.
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
I start at her ear, grazing the lobe with my teeth, then the spot beneath it that makes her pulse jump under my tongue. From there, I trail down her neck, collarbone, and the valley between her breasts.
I remain at each spot long enough to feel her react, to feel the hitch in her breathing or the arch of her spine. Without her sight, every response is magnified. She grabs fistfuls of the sheets beneath her and twists them when my mouth finds her nipple.
“Tell me yes,” I murmur against her skin.
“Yes.”
I drag my mouth lower. Across her ribs. Over her stomach. Along the crease of her hip where her thigh meets her torso. She’s trembling, and her hips are lifting off the mattress before I even touch her where she wants me most.
I slide my hand between her thighs instead, using two fingers to trace through slick heat without giving her the pressure she’s chasing. She groans and angles toward my hand.
“Stay still,” I order.
“I can’t—”
“You can.” I press my palm against her hip and hold her down. “Trust me.”
I work her with slow, teasing strokes, circling but never landing where she needs it. Building the ache in increments until her breathing goes ragged and her hands abandon the sheets to find my shoulders.
“Pyotr, please—”
“Please, what?”
“I need you inside me.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “Please.”
I position myself between her thighs and push inside her in one long, measured stroke. She arches her back off the mattress, and the moan that leaves her is deep enough to vibrate through both of us. Buried to the hilt, I hold still and let her adjust.
“Breathe with me,” I tell her.
She matches my breathing. Inhale together. Exhale together.
Then, I start to move.
Slowly at first. Long, dragging strokes that pull nearly all the way out before snapping deep again.
She wraps her legs around me and digs her heels into the backs of my thighs.
Every sound she makes is amplified by the blindfold, and every gasp is louder because she can’t see what’s coming next, only feel it arrive.
I change my angle and find the spot that makes her body lock up. She cries out, and I keep the same angle, depth, and rhythm. I take my time, because this isn’t about adrenaline or survival or proving we’re alive. This is about afterward. About the life that starts now.
“Stay with me, golubka.” I press my mouth to the hinge of her jaw. “Right here.”
Her inner walls tighten around me, and I reach between us to rub my thumb against her clit in steady circles. She bucks beneath me, and I pin her hip with my free hand and keep going.
“Let go,” I whisper against her throat. “I’ve got you.”
She shatters with her hands fisted in the pillow above her head, and my name tearing from her lips in a sound I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
Every pulse and contraction pulls me over the edge with her.
I groan into the curve of her neck and spill inside her, and for a long, suspended moment, the world narrows to the two of us tangled together on sheets we’ll have to wash before Kira arrives tomorrow.
I ease out of her and reach behind her head to untie the scarf. The knot gives easily. When I pull away the silk, she blinks against the light with wide pupils and swollen lips.
“Hi,” she whispers with a satisfied grin.
“Hi.”
I kiss her forehead, then each closed eyelid, then the tip of her nose, which makes her smile. I check her wrists even though they weren’t bound, because the habit is older than the reason. Then, I roll off the bed, walk to the kitchen, and return with a glass of water.
She drinks half of it and sets it on the nightstand. I pull my shirt over her head the way I always do, easing her arms through the sleeves. Then, I cover her with the blanket and walk my circuit.
Front door, locked. Deadbolt. Chain. The kitchen window is latched, and the bathroom window is, too. Kira’s bedroom window, the one that will have a sleeping five-year-old behind it by tomorrow afternoon, is secure.
I return to bed and slide in beside Daria. She tucks herself against my chest the way she does every night, and I wrap my arm around her waist.
Tomorrow, Mila will drive Kira up from Moscow, and this apartment will be loud with dinosaur facts and the mayhem only a child can generate.
And I’ll stand in the doorway of Kira’s room the way I’ve stood in a thousand doorways, watching for threats, checking locks, and making sure the perimeters hold. Except this time, I won’t be guarding a client. I’ll be guarding my family.