21. Stefi
21
STEFI
J oao is looking at me with murder in his eyes, and I need to act now before he blows my cover. I pull free of the handsy Borys Kawka. “I’ll be right back.”
“Again? What the—?” He frowns in displeasure and draws up to his full height. “I’ll be telling Ivana about this,” he huffs as I leave his side.
Whatever. I move toward the doors leading to the washroom again, but before I get there, Joao intercepts me and drags me to a hidden alcove. “Hello, little fox,” he says grimly. “I thought I’d see you here.”
His eyes study me, moving slowly from head to toe, taking in the red of my wig and the green of my eyes. No colored contacts today. I look, as much as still possible, like the girl who loved the man in front of her with all the fervor of a youthful heart.
“Joao. How did you?—”
“Stop talking.” He pushes me against the wall. “I don’t want to hear it. I fly halfway across the continent because you’re marching into a suicide mission, and when I get here, what do I find? You dressed in this —” His eyes rake over me in burning fury, taking in the red of my lips and the swell of my breasts. “Letting some random man paw you.”
I wet my lips with my tongue and drink him in. He’s wearing a tuxedo, but he hasn’t bothered to shave for the occasion. His cheeks and jaw are covered in stubble, his hair is tousled, as if he’s dragged his hands through them, and the blue of his eyes is an ocean I could drown in. “He’s a way in, nothing more. I’m here for Varek?—”
“I don’t care.” He steps closer, close enough to sense the desire burning through my body, and strokes my lower lip with his thumb.
I inhale sharply at his touch, breathing in the scent of him, the sandalwood of his soap layered with something that’s purely Joao. He’s so familiar to me—the faint lines around his eyes, the dark sooty sweep of his eyelashes, the tempting fullness of his lips—so familiar, yet somehow new and tantalizing.
It’s intoxicating, this pull between us, heavy and undeniable. It feels like the ground at my feet has shifted to draw me closer to him. My heart pounds, my breath catches, and for a moment, the world narrows to the space between us.
I want Joao. I ache for him. I want to beg him to kiss me. I need him to mark my skin, to hurt me, to yank my hair until a million cruel pinpricks assault my scalp. I’m making no effort to hide the emotions I’m feeling, and I see the precise moment he realizes the depth of my need because his grip tightens over me, and he yanks me against his body.
“You’re my wife, Stefi,” he growls into my ear. “It appears that you need a reminder of that.”
And then his lips crash down on mine.
Have I wandered through the desert for eight years, thirsting for the feel of his possessive touch on my body? Yes. Have I ached for this heat that burns through my core, all those lonely nights? Yes, I have.
But I didn’t realize how much I missed Joao’s touch until his mouth moves over mine, demanding, devouring, all-consuming. I hadn’t realized how much of a void he left until his fingers thread through my hair, tugging just hard enough to straddle the knife edge of pleasure and pain.
He cups my cheek in his callused hand, the shock of his touch jolting through me. His tongue slides along the seam of my mouth, coaxing it open, and then he kisses me as if he owns me, and I’m being punished for forgetting it.
I can’t pull away. I’m trapped, not by him, but by my own memories, my own longing. I lean into his touch, desire surging through my body like a tidal wave, and I kiss him back, laying myself bare for him.
My body has been waiting eight years for this moment. Eight long, lonely years. My nipples tighten. I’m not wearing a bra, and if he looks down, I know he’ll see them through the thin silk of my dress. Anyone could round the corner and see us, but I cling to him, uncaring, discretion abandoned, all thoughts of Varek Zaworski fleeing my mind.
This is the only thing that matters.
His hand moves to my hair. “Red again,” he says, running his fingers through the loose spiral curls. I want his grip to hurt, punishment and penance rolled into one. “I like it.” He pushes his knee between my thighs and stares into my eyes. “Yes?”
Yes. Yes, to him. Yes, always. Yes, forever.
I don’t say that out loud, though. I have to remember that this Joao is a different person than the boy I knew, loved, and married. And it’s not just the lost years that have created a chasm between us—it’s also the secrets I keep.
Instead, I nod wordlessly.
It’s as if he’s been holding back his need with iron control, but my consent breaks the floodgates. His tongue pushes inside, and he explores me—not with urgency, but slowly and thoroughly—as if I’m a gift laid out for his pleasure. He cups the back of my neck with a firm grip and pulls my hair to tilt my head up, biting my lower lip hard enough to make me gasp.
And when he hears that sound, I feel his feral smile of satisfaction against my skin.
He squeezes my breast through my dress. “Still yes?” His tone is almost mocking. He’s daring me to run away, to disappear again without a word, and there’s a warning there that I should heed if I’m being smart.
But I was never smart about Joao.
“I don’t remember saying no,” I taunt. “Maybe you’re hesitating because it’s you who wants to stop.”
“Is that the way we’re playing it?” His hand closes over my throat, his grip punishingly firm. “You want me to pull away, you know what to do.”
A surge of heat runs through my body, weakening my knees and leaving me breathless. Eight years ago, Joao’s body was as familiar to me as my own, but this darkness is new. His cock is hard, his erection straining against his trousers, and he’s staring at me with barely concealed menace. Warning klaxons should be blaring in my mind, but instead of scaring me away, the prospect of an angry Joao just adds to the thrill.
Maybe because he’s never rage-fucked me.
And maybe I want—need—to know what that feels like.
“Don’t stop.”
He bites my lower lip in response. “If I want you to talk, I’ll tell you to. The only words I want to hear from your mouth are yes, please, and harder.” He eases his grip on my throat. “Are we clear, little fox?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.” He squeezes my silk-covered breast, and I add, “harder.”
He laughs, a dark, low sound in his throat. “Spread your legs,” he orders. “Show me you want this.”
I part my thighs obediently. He slides his hand up my skin and stops when he finds my knife holster. His lips curve into an amused smile as he pulls the blade free. “I should have guessed the weapons check at the door wouldn’t stop you.”
“You didn’t come in here unarmed either.”
His eyes narrow. “Did I give you permission to speak, little fox?” He holds up the blade, and when he sees the handle, shock shows on his face. It’s there only for a second before his expression turns neutral again.
“You kept it,” he says flatly.
The knife was a wedding present from Joao. It’s a beauty of a blade—eight inches, straight edge, with a thick, ridged handle that feels perfect in my hand. Joao had it custom-made for me in Japan and had the maker carve a fox into the base of the blade.
I never go anywhere without it.
I use one of my three allowed words. “Yes.”
“How very sentimental,” he says harshly. “Open your mouth.”
I part my lips, and he slides his fingers inside, pressing down on my tongue deep enough to make me gag. “Suck.”
I do. I suck on them, exhilarating in the look of dark heat in his eyes. I suck as he pushes my legs open wider, yanks my panties down to my knees, and shoves the handle of the knife hard into my pussy.
As wet as I am, it still feels like a fist punched into me.
I exhale in a shocked hiss around his fingers. His eyes rest on me—serious, darkly aroused, waiting for me to say no. To tell him I don’t want this. To tell him to back off.
‘No’ isn’t what tumbles from my lips.
“Joao,” I whisper.
“That’s not one of your allowed words, little fox.” He pulls the handle out and plunges it back inside. My pussy clamps down, and I throw my head back as hot pleasure twists through me.
This isn’t nice.
This isn’t kind.
This is dark and dangerous and twisted.
And I love it.
I’ve never thought of myself as the masochistic type. But it’s not the idea of being fucked by a knife handle that’s turning me on. It’s the man doing it.
My husband.
His face is closed off, the fingers of his left hand pushed into my mouth to keep me quiet, the fist of the right wrapped around the blade. He’s fucking me with ruthless purpose, all his attention and focus directed on me, and it’s a heady, addictive feeling, one I can’t get enough of.
Forgotten is the mission. Forgotten is the man I used to infiltrate this party, and forgotten is my target, the one I’ve spent years trying to find. All of that is wiped clean as I whimper around Joao’s fingers, my climax rocketing toward me with the deadly speed of a tornado.
He hasn’t even touched my clit.
“Look at that,” he murmurs cruelly. “So needy. So wet. So close to the edge already, aren’t you, wife? Your body remembers who it belongs to.” He pushes the handle so deep that it hits my cervix with a shock. “If you want to come, then beg for it. Beg me to give you permission.”
I keep silent. I’m not being stubborn—any minute now, I’m going to give in and plead. But as greedy as I am for my orgasm, I don’t want this moment to end. I would willingly stay in this dark alcove for the rest of my life, with Joao’s ice-blue eyes drinking in my pleasure.
But his words only serve to push me closer to the edge, and I tip past the point of no return, and there’s no holding back my climax. “I’m going to come,” I mumble around his fingers. “Joao, I can’t stop. . . Please, may I come. . . I need. . .”
“Is that what you call begging? I think you can do better than that.”
“Joao.” It’s a plea and a whimper rolled into one. “Please. . . I want—need —to be undone by you. I can’t hold on, I’m begging you?—”
“That’s an improvement.” He sounds coolly disinterested. He knows I’m only seconds away, and he’s making me wait, all because he can, and somehow, it just makes me hotter. Wetter.
“Very well, little fox,” he rasps into my ear. “Come for me.”
His words push me over the edge. I shudder as I come, my teeth sinking into Joao’s fingers as I force myself not to cry out. My hips thrust forward, and my muscles clench around the knife handle, tight and hard. I’m drowning and floating at the same time, riding wave after wave of sheer bliss.
Joao never takes his eyes off my face.
He doesn’t stop fucking me. He wrings every last bit of pleasure out of my shattered body, then finally, when the word ‘stop’ is quivering on my lips, he pulls his fingers from my mouth and wrenches the handle from my cunt.
The entire interlude couldn’t have taken more than ten minutes.
But I will never be the same again.