Chapter 18
Ryder
The heat in my face burns, but the embarrassment at being caught stings more.
“I don’t need any help,” I scoff, all too aware of my pulsing pussy as Liev slowly walks toward me.
He licks his lips and drags his eyes up and down the length of my body. The sight of him towering over me next to the bed with his dress shirt stretched across his chest and his pants tight with an obvious erection makes my breath catch.
I shouldn’t want him, but I do.
The corner of his lip twitches upward at my words.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you could take care of it yourself, kotyonok. I think we both know that it feels so much better when it’s my hands and my fingers buried inside you, doesn’t it?”
I hate how wet his words make me, and my thighs clamp together, seeking friction. I need some kind of relief.
I’ve been tense for weeks now; ever since I was run off the road. Although I am relieved to know that it wasn’t Liev that was after me. But someone is trying to kill me and Liev, and they’re still out there.
All I wanted was to take the edge off.
I wasn’t expecting him to come home. Yet.
Liev doesn’t seem to need an answer. He unbuttons his shirt, shucks it off, and kneels on the bed with one knee. The position strains the very obvious erection pressing against his zipper, and my mouth waters at the sight.
“Remember what I told you when I proposed to you?” he murmurs, reaching out to brush his fingertips against my hair. The touch is so unexpected and sweet, I can’t help a shiver.
“Wh—you call that a proposal?” I breathe, already out of breath at his proximity.
“Would you have preferred me…on my knees?”
He brings his other knee up and places both of his hands on the mattress on either side of my body. His weight makes the bed dip hard, and my heart jerks. Adrenaline rockets through my body as he boxes me in, and my tongue darts out to wet my lips.
“I promised you,” he whispers with his accent thickening by the second, “that I’d take care of you. That you’d know pleasure.”
That very promise beats in my veins. It’s suddenly too much for the sheet to be between us, and I fling it off, throwing it away from me. Under my t-shirt, my breasts are crushed against his chest, and he steadies me with a hand under my back.
Liev’s thick eyebrows rise in surprise, but there’s a deep satisfaction in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. I feel shy, annoyed, and wanting all at once, lying under him in…
“No panties?” he murmurs, licking his lips again.
Please, I beg mentally, please, please don’t let him see how bad I want this. It feels like my knees are shaking already.
Placing a hand on his chest, I ignore the satisfied smirk on his face and press upward, flipping us both over in one move. I’ve used this technique almost exclusively to end fights.
Not start…something else.
Liev laughs, a rumbling sound that catches me by surprise. Have I heard him laugh before? No—not once, not since the moment we met. Not at our wedding, not when we moved here, not once in the weeks we’ve lived together.
It’s a sad realization. But I can’t concentrate on it with his hands on my hips, pulling up the shirt until it teases the underside of my tits.
“Mmm,” he murmurs, thumbs circling my hip bones. “You’re already so wet. You did all that yourself?”
My chin tips up in defiance of the blush. “Yes,” I hiss, fighting the urge to drop down and grind on the erection I can feel throbbing against my inner thigh. “It turns out, husband, that I can take care of most things myself.”
“I don’t doubt that.” His tone is serious, his eyes darkening to an almost navy-blue. Is it just the low light of the bedroom? Or something more? “I want you to be happy, Ryder. You know that, don’t you? I want you to get everything you want.”
The words create a confused knot in my stomach. I try to ignore them as his hands skirt under my shirt, thumbs exploring just beneath my breasts.
“Use me.”
There is not one moment of my life where I could have imagined a Bratva king between my thighs, commanding me to use him.
And there’s no question now—no matter how hard I’ve fought this—that I’m going to obey.
Liev grips my ass with one hand, pulling me down hard and firm against his cock. I let out a huff, a whine, grinding and letting my head fall back, clit throbbing with the need to be touched.
“You make a lot of promises,” I tease, still feeling like I somehow don’t have the upper hand. “You sure you can keep them all?”
Liev reaches up, his hand gripping my throat just below my jaw. My breath catches.
It’s dangerous letting this man touch me like this. I’ve watched him kill others, bloody his knuckles alongside his men. But I give in, sink into it, and stare into his eyes.
“I will keep every single promise I make to you, Ryder Demsky, as long as I’m breathing. And then I’ll come back from the dead. For you.”
Another promise. One that sounds like a confession.
One that rips something open inside me.
Leaning down, I crash my mouth to his, feeling rough stubble and teeth. It’s a messy kiss where Liev laves his tongue over my lips and reaches between us to undo his pants. He hefts his cock out, stroking himself once, twice, as I whine in protest and push my tits against his chest.
“Blyat’, stop,” he breathes, positioning himself at my entrance. “You’re going to end this too soon, Ryder, before you get what you want.”
Despite how wet I am, the stretch is still delicious and aching as I sink down onto him. It almost burns, the feeling of being so full exactly where I need.
“Fuck you,” I choke out, rocking my hips back once, testing the fit.
“Fuck me,” he agrees, smirking up at me and smacking my ass.
It makes me jump. The friction of inching up on him, goading me into movement, is exactly what he wanted. When I realize that, I am barely able to hold back an eye roll as I start to ride him in earnest.
Liev Demsky isn’t a passive lover. I pick up the pace, lifting myself high until the ridged head of his cock catches on my entrance, sinking down over and over.
Ryder Demsky.
It’s my legal name, but we’ve never acknowledged it. I’m his. I’m his, I’m his, I’m his, I realize as we fuck. Liev sits up and braces his abdomen as my clit grinds against the eight-pack he’s been hiding under those pristine clothes.
God damn. I hate how much I want this man.
“You like this, don’t you?” he hisses through clenched teeth, squeezing my ass with both hands now and rocking into me. “You like being the one to fuck me. You like being the one in control.”
I can only make a sound of agreement, though deep down I know it isn’t really that.
I feel out of control with Liev.
I feel like I can lose myself in this—in him.
And that’s what gets me so close.
“So much better,” I mumble, borderline incoherent and not caring what I confess, not with his cock buried deep in my pussy, his thumb rubbing slow circles over my clit. “So much better than…”
“Then what?” he asks harshly, stilling my hips and fucking up into me. “What were you doing before I came home, Ryder? Did I catch you with your fingers in your pussy?”
He slams into me again, the sensation of almost being split in half making me cry out. I’ve never liked feeling less powerful than a man, smaller, but that isn’t exactly what this is.
Liev would probably let me choke him to death right now if I wanted to.
But the way he holds me, his massive hands on my hips, on my waist, makes me feel like something worth protecting.
“Yes,” I finally admit when he repeats the question. “Yes, I—I thought I could make myself come before you got home—”
“But you needed me. Didn’t you?” He bounces me on his hips shallowly, the wet slurping sound almost embarrassing as it fills the room.
“You need this.”
My thighs tense as he holds me still again, fingers digging into my hips. Slow, measured, Liev drags himself in and out of my pussy.
Snaps his hips up hard.
I come with him holding me together; guiding me through as the orgasm crashes over me. It almost erases my senses until every sensation is narrowed down to my core and the electric pulse Liev pushes to the limit.
“Blyat’,” he curses as I start to come down from the high, like putty in his hands. He grips my thighs and rolls me over, pulling out before coming on my stomach, panting.
“We should be careful,” he murmurs as he catches his breath.
Careful.
The word echoes in my head, a warning with so much meaning behind it. Careful.
Careful not to fall too deep into this.
Careful not to lose myself in a man who came here for power and territory.
We lay side by side, both of us out of breath and a little in shock. But no longer pretending we aren’t here together.
* * *
Mason is much heavier than he looks.
I sit stiffly on the couch in Alyona’s hotel suite, holding the tiny bundle against my chest like someone handed me a fragile explosive.
His head rests in the crook of my elbow while his small fingers curl around the fabric of my shirt with surprising strength.
He looks so delicate that it’s amazing he even exists.
“I think he likes you,” Alyona says.
She stands across from me at the changing table, carefully fastening a clean diaper around Madison.
“I don’t think he has a choice,” I reply. “I’m holding him hostage.” The truth is, I’m terrified I’ll drop him or hurt him somehow.
It’s not as if I’ve had a lot of experience with infants as a cartel data analyst.
Alyona glances over her shoulder. Our eyes meet.
For a second, we both try to keep straight faces.
Then we burst out laughing.
The tension that had been hanging awkwardly in the room dissolves instantly.
“I promise they’re sturdier than they look,” she says once the laughter fades. “Kazimir thought they would break the first time he held them.”
“That sounds about right.”