Chapter 16
ARTYOM
“Her and Ava are both home, sir.”
Ivan confirms her whereabouts every night since the gala and it’s a weight off my shoulders when he confirms they’re safe.
I wish I could keep them both here with me, but I know that with Denis and Polina plotting whatever they’re plotting, it was better to let her go home.
I’m the main risk to both of them right now.
That doesn’t mean I’m not stepping up her security arrangements.
“But there’s another issue,” he continues.
My heart pounds against my ribcage, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach as he explains the guards he’s seen watching Nina during the day.
Different guards from the ones that I’ve assigned her.
“Whose are they? What do they want?” I demand, my hands curling into fists.
I’m not an anxious person, but this is enough to drive me mad.
I’ve brought Nina and Ava into danger because of one dance at a gala, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.
“We’re working on it,” he replies. “We don’t want to cause an issue near her apartment building.”
“Right, right. Of course.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
A gang shootout in her backyard is the last thing Nina needs while her best friend recovers from a gunshot wound in the hospital.
“What if I distract her? I’ll make sure she doesn’t notice what you’re doing.”
We make a plan. One that means I get to see Nina tonight.
I’ve barely seen her since the gala a week ago. She’s been working, and visiting Lily in her spare time, who has woken up from her coma but is still looking at a long recovery. I don’t want to remind her I’m the reason she ended up there.
I race across the city to her apartment, nodding to Ivan where he’s sitting behind the front desk. It was a good move, to install him as the doorman at her apartment building. It fulfills my need for her constant safety, at least.
“Boss,” he grunts as he lets me into the elevator. “I’ll keep you updated on the plan.”
The place is nice, if a little dated. I add renovations to the mental list of things that I could do to make Nina’s life easier and more comfortable.
I stride down the cream-carpeted hallway and knock at her door. Apartment 5b. “Can I come in?”
Nina looks at me for a second through the crack in the door. She looks exhausted, her wide eyes rimmed with red as though she’s been crying. I want to make her feel better. I want to erase the pain I’ve caused her.
“Why are you here?” she whispers. “It’s late. Ava’s asleep.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
“Art…” I still get chills when she says my name, even if it’s with annoyance. “You can’t come around here like this.” Her tone is final, resigned, but I will not let her get rid of me that easily.
She goes to shut the door, but I stop it with my hand.
“It’s an emergency. I need to talk to you about something,” I improvise.
I don’t want to freak her out by telling her about the guards. She flinches at just the suggestion of urgency.
I know she’s remembering what happened to Lily. I told her it was because of a conflict happening in the Bratva.
Little does she know, it was conflict driven by my own mother.
“Fine,” I move to walk inside, but she places a hand on my chest. “But there’s a price, Art. Someone once told me that everything has a price.”
I quirk an eyebrow, but she’s not smiling. “Name it.”
“You’re going to be honest and tell me what the fuck you’re doing all this for.” She opens the door to let me in, and I cross her small kitchen to sit at the table.
The place is exactly how I imagined Nina would live. Everything is clean. Compact. Organized. She doesn’t like chaos, and it shows.
“The guards, the hospital, everything. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your people are tailing me all day.” Nina keeps her voice low, shooting a look towards the door that must be Ava’s room.
My throat bobs, and I hold my hands up. “Guilty as charged.”
“Why? What is it all for?” She runs a hand through her brown hair, which is loose around her shoulders. “I don’t understand anything you’ve been doing lately. You’re still not being honest with me.”
My phone buzzes with a text from Ivan, but I ignore it. I have faith in him to handle the guards.
“My fucking family, Nina. That’s the danger.”
I explain everything to her, how Denis and Polina have gone mad in their search for power.
“Well, shit,” she says quietly when I’m done. “I knew your family was bad, but I didn’t know they were that bad.”
I grimace. “They’re the worst.”
“Not as bad as mine. I can one-up you on family trauma, Art.”
“You might be the only person who can.”
I don’t know everything about Nina’s family, but I know her childhood was hard.
Her father was a police officer who beat his children, and his wife, with total impunity from the law.
Nina’s way out of that household was to study, obsessively, and be the perfect child.
It’s why she’s so terrified of breaking the rules.
“Abusive dad, remember? That beats a power-hungry mom and uncle.”
“You win the trauma Olympics,” I hold up my hands. “But only because my dad was too dead to be abusive as well.”
“Touché,” Nina smiles at the dark joke and raises her glass of water to me. “To coming from an utter shitshow and wanting to be better than them.”
I raise my glass to her. “That we can agree on.”
My chest bursts with pride at the smile on her face. Even in her darkest moments, I can put that there. I take her hand and swipe my thumb over that silken patch of skin on her inner-wrist.
“Nenoka,” I say, getting on my knees before her on the chair. “Let me make you feel better. I know it’s hard. But I can make this all go away for a second. You know I can.”
Her amber eyes flare with interest, but she pulls her gaze away. She bites her lip nervously, and I resist the urge to trace my thumb over that perfect, plush flesh.
I reach for the belt on her dressing gown.
“Art…” she cautions, a warning tone in her quiet voice.
I growl quietly. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this pussy since I tasted you on the stairs. I’m starving.”
Nina lets out a quiet sigh. “Fuck it,” she murmurs, unknotting the belt of her dressing gown and showing me everything.
Perfection.
It was rushed, when I tasted her in the stairwell, but here I can take all the time in the world. We have all night. There will be gunshots that I don’t want her to hear, and I want to make sure her mind is a whole world away from danger, from fighting, when that happens.
At first, I just stroke her soft skin and inhale her scent, taking my time to appreciate her. I’d forgotten how sensitive she is.
Just from my touch, she’s starting to get wet, her pussy glistening with moisture and the intoxicatingly lovely smell of her.
My cheeks brush against her velvety soft inner thighs, and with each touch, she responds. Her core tensing. Her face flushing. Her nipples forming tight peaks. She lets out a sharp gasp as I pinch her nipple between my index finger and thumb, then roll it.
I have all of her attention, her eyes going unfocused with pleasure as I play with her.
Nina can hate me all she wants, but I know she craves this just as much as I do. And that’s enough, for now. This is my way in.
I haven’t even tasted her cunt yet and already I’m hard as steel, my cock rubbing tight against my pants.
She claps a hand over her mouth to suppress her moan when I do dive in.
Good God, she tastes even better than I remember. I hum my approval against her sensitive flesh when she spreads her legs wider, allowing my tongue to enter her and explore her tight wetness.
Sweet and light and delicious as I lick her all the way from her ass to her clit.
This is a form of worship, I think, and as she starts to make quiet little gasps, I can feel her losing control, her muscles spasming around me.
I hear the gunshots in the distance, faintly, while Nina shudders around me. She doesn’t notice a thing, too focused on what my tongue is doing.
I don’t stop. I let myself forget what’s happening too, and focus on reminding her that she’s mine.
Something different happens this time. I’m taking my time, playing with her, making sure she doesn’t just explode the way she did the other day on the stairs.
Her soft thighs are next to my cheeks, the taste of her covering my tongue, and it’s all too much. She’s giving herself to me, fully.
As her back arches against the chair, I have to keep her anchored and steady with my hands, feeling the muscles of her hips straining and flexing as the pleasure courses through her.
I’m not even touching myself and I’m close to the edge just from the feel of her, the taste of her. I grind my hips against the leg of the chair, needing something, anything, to ease the ache in my cock.
“Fuck, Art.” Nina breathes my name, softly, as she comes apart and that’s it.
I’m done. I let out a grunt as she sends me over the edge just with her taste.
The second time this woman has made me finish in my pants.
I lift my face from her soaked cunt to make eye contact with her, and she meets my gaze, her eyes half-lidded and satisfied. She runs a hand through my hair, looking at me with silent awe. “That was really good.”
“Only really good?” I quirk an eyebrow.
She reaches for my hair, ruffling a hand through it.
“I mussed up your hair, I’m sorry,” she giggles. Then her hand slides lower, over my chest, down to my belt.
“My turn,” she says softly, getting on her knees. I’ve just cum, but my cock starts to harden again.
“What’s wrong?” she looks at me with confusion.
“I already finished.” I rake a hand through my hair. “Just from the taste of you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Nina keeps unbuckling my pants anyway, gasping when she feels my hardening shaft, already slick with cum. “You did. And you know what I’m gonna do?” Her voice is husky and low as she slides down my torso. “I’m gonna clean up your cock and find out if the taste of you is enough for me, too.”
Then Nina, just as slowly as I tasted her, licks my cock clean of cum. Her soft tongue combs over every ridge and vein until I’m throbbing.
Only then, after a minute of torturing my cock, does she softly bob her head and take my cockhead inside her.
“Fuck,” I groan gently at the feeling of her warm, wet lips tightening around me. She begins gently, kissing the tip of my cock until I’m about to burst, then slowly taking me deeper until her soft mouth is wrapped around my shaft.
I can’t take it anymore.
I fist my hand in her hair and Nenoka looks up at me, brown eyes wide, as I take control.
“Open up,” I hum and she does, spreading those plush lips around me. I push deeper into her mouth, sliding over her tongue, and she swallows my cock down, just like I taught her. “Good fucking girl.”
She lets out a moan that vibrates right to my core. That’s when I notice her shoulder moving. She’s touching herself, bringing herself to the edge right when I’m at my most dominant. I’d forgotten how much Nina likes it when I use her. I’d forgotten how perfect she is for me.
I watch her pretty brown eyes become lost with lust again, and that’s what does it.
My cock jerks with the force of my release, my hips thrusting wildly, but Nina takes it all. I pour down her hot throat, as she lets out another moan that’s muffled by my cock.
Nina holds my cock in her mouth until I’m done, spent and panting, then she cleans every last drop, just as slowly and reverently as I tasted her.
I help her to her feet and kiss her, loving that her mouth tastes like me. For one, perfect moment, it feels like she is completely mine again.
She pulls away abruptly. She’s always the one to end our kisses. I would go on exploring her mouth forever.
“Hey,” she tilts her head to the side and steps just out of my reach. “You never told me what the emergency is.”
“I’ve handled it.”
I don’t have it in me to summon a better lie than that, not when she’s giving me bedroom eyes and she’s just choked on my cock.
Nina puts her hands on her hips.
“What do you mean, you’ve handled it? Was the emergency eating me out, or having me suck your cock?”
I meet her eyes and open my mouth to explain, but she stops me.
“You know what? I don’t want to hear whatever lie you’re about to tell me.”
Those amber eyes lose their spark. “There never was an emergency, was there? God, I’m such an idiot.”
“Nina, I—”
“Get out, Art.” She shoves a bundle of clothing at me and pushes me out the door in my underwear.