Chapter 19 #2
Tessa thanks him. We put our masks back on, then I offer her my arm and we return to the room together.
Near the dessert table, Kirill brings me the donation tally. The winter-clothing appeal has passed its target, with another page of pledges waiting to be added. I rest the folder on an empty table and read the total.
Tessa leans closer. The top sheet carries a photograph of boxes being unpacked at the shelter, small coats folded beside adult ones.
“All from tonight?” she asks.
“So far.”
I write an additional fifty thousand on the club's contribution form and sign it. Kirill takes the folder back to the collection desk, leaving Tessa beside me with her hand resting on my sleeve.
“That should buy a few coats,” she says.
“I hope so.”
She rises onto her toes and kisses my cheek. Her lipstick leaves a mark just below the edge of my mask. When she reaches to wipe it away, I catch her hand and bring her fingers to my mouth.
She laughs, pleased, and lets me keep it.
The ball continues around us. She samples a little sugared pastry from the dessert table and brushes a crumb from the corner of my mouth after I try one too. Sugar stays on my tongue while she argues that a man with my tailor could have managed a more ambitious costume.
“Next year, I'm choosing,” she says.
I let her have the point. I like the ease with which she gives us another year.
When the musicians finish their last set, she leans against my arm without pretending she only wants to see past me. I look down at her shoes.
“Come with me.”
She smiles and follows.
We take the internal stairs, pass the closed office and continue along the upper landing. Klim's men remain at the stair entrance. The guest suite is farther down, separate from the box and the sitting room where we spent that Sunday afternoon.
Inside, lamps light a wide bed, two upholstered chairs and a low table set with water. The music drops away when I close the door. Tessa takes off her mask and lays it beside her bag.
I put my phone on the table, remove my mask and come to stand in front of her. She lifts a hand to the burgundy collar again, though there's nothing left to straighten.
“I liked being your date,” she says.
I kiss her. When I lift my head, she keeps hold of my coat.
“Stay close,” she says.
“I intend to.”
I kiss her again, slower this time, and feel her smile against my mouth.
“The gown,” she whispers. “Zipper first. Please.”
I turn her toward the lamp. The black velvet yields under my hands.
I free the little hook at the top, draw the zipper down carefully, and ease the dress from her shoulders.
It pools at her feet in a dark circle. She steps free of the velvet and slips off her shoes, and I hang the gown over a chair so it won't crease.
When I look back, she's wearing nothing but my diamonds and the black rose crown.
She reaches up, takes the crown off herself, and sets it on the table beside the masks.
“Your turn.”
I shrug out of the coat. She works my shirt open, palms warm on my chest, then gets my belt and trousers down with impatient fingers. My cock springs free, already hard. She wraps her hand around me and strokes once, firm, watching my face.
“I liked being your date,” she says again, quieter. “I like this more.”
I step out of my shoes and trousers, then slip off the open shirt.
I lift her onto the wide bed. She lands on her back among the pillows, diamonds bright against her skin, and I follow her down.
I squeeze her tits, pinch her aching nipples until she arches, then take one into my mouth while my fingers find her pussy.
She's soaked. I push two fingers into her and work her until she's rocking onto my hand, hair spilled across the pillow.
“Bogdan...”
I move down her body and put my mouth on her.
I eat her pussy slowly at first, then greedily, spreading her open with both thumbs.
When I drag my tongue lower over her ass, she gasps and fists the sheets.
I spank the outside of her thigh once, sharp in the quiet room, and she pushes up into my mouth for more.
I give her more. Tongue. Fingers. Another spank. Hair gathered in my fist so she has to look down her body and watch me ruin her with my mouth. She comes like that, thighs shaking around my head, a broken sound swallowed against her wrist.
I'm not done.
I climb back over her, line my cock against her wet pussy, and drive in deep in one hard thrust. She cries out, half laugh, and locks her legs around my waist. I fuck her into the mattress, steady and relentless, watching her take every stroke.
The diamonds bounce at her throat. Her nails dig into my shoulders.
“Harder,” she breathes.
I give it to her. Hair pulled taut. One hand pinching her nipples. I bite her shoulder and she comes again around my cock, pussy fluttering, dragging me with her. I bury myself and empty into her with a rough groan, hot, thick, deep, holding her hips flush to mine until the last pulse finishes.
We stay locked for a breath. Then I pull out, still half hard, and turn her onto her stomach.
She goes willingly, cheek to the cool pillow, and I pin her with a hand between her shoulder blades.
I sink back into her pussy from behind, slick with my cum, and fuck her prone into the soft bed until she moans my name into the linen.
“Again,” she whispers. “Please...”
I fist her hair. Spank her ass. Bite the top of her shoulder and come a second time buried deep, cock jerking as I fill her again, pinning her flat until it's done.
For a few long seconds the only sound is our breathing. Lamplight reaches the masks on the table. I ease out carefully, gather her against my chest, and kiss the places I marked with my teeth. She laughs softly into my throat, glowing and filthy and mine.
“Stay close,” she murmurs.
“I am.”
I find the guest robe in the wardrobe and wrap her in it, leaving the diamonds where they belong. She settles against the pillows with a glass of water while I pull on my trousers. Her crown stays on the table beside the masks. We're still catching our breath when my phone vibrates.
I cross to the table and retrieve the phone. Klim's name lights the screen.
“What is it?”
“Luka sent me a photograph. The number we used to arrange his escort. I'm forwarding it now.”
I stop beside the bed. Tessa lowers the glass of water she's holding.
The image arrives. It's a cropped photograph of tonight's movement sheet, with our names beside the first dance and the staircase portraits.
I put the call on speaker.
“Tessa's here. Which version is this?”
“The eight-oh-five revision. It went to the event team and the suppliers after the portrait time changed.”
Luka was gone before the doors opened at half past seven. He couldn't have lifted this from my desk during the meeting.
I look at Tessa. She reaches for my wrist, drawing the screen closer so she can read it.
“Those are our times,” she says.
Klim confirms that the version in his records matches. Somebody with the revised sheet has put it in Luka's hands, and the man has waited until the dancing is over to let me see it.
“Keep the message and every copy,” I tell Klim. “Send this to Alison. Find out who received that revision. No new movements go out before you've checked the list.”
“I'll start now.”
I end the call and sit beside Tessa. Her hand stays around my wrist. Beneath the photograph, Luka has sent one sentence.
You should've taken my offer.