Avros
I shut the barn down methodically.
Doors first. Lights next. Locks checked twice, even though I know they’re secure and security around the estate is top of the line. Habit keeps my hands busy while my body burns with things I am not allowing myself to touch.
The tension sits high in my shoulders, coiled and restless.
I roll my neck slowly, feeling the tight pull of muscle protesting restraint.
My jaw aches from clenching it too long.
Control always has a cost. Tonight, it demands more than usual because she is under the roof I built with her in mind.
Exactly where I wanted her. That’s progress even if it’s enough to drive me to madness.
Eighteen months of restraint, of not allowing myself to feel pleasure, has trained me in other ways, too. But with her here, in my bed…
I take my phone from my pocket and send a single message to the family thread in a bid to distract myself.
She’s here. Emma is moving in. She’s under my protection.
No explanation. No justification.
Responses come quickly.
Yury’s acknowledgment is curt. Vitali’s carries amusement and approval. Zakhar asks if this is permanent and whether it means I’ll finally be removing the stick from up my ass.
I ignore him.
Yes, I type back. She’s mine and aware of the Pakhan’s orders.
That ends it.
I slide the phone away and stand still for a moment, breathing through the heat in my blood. I’ve waited eighteen months. One more night of restraint won’t kill me. It just feels like it might.
I climb the stairs and slow to a stop deliberately outside the bedroom door. I can hear her breathing. Controlled, but not asleep. I knew she wouldn’t be. Women like Emma don’t collapse into rest when their world tilts. They lie still and take inventory.
I open the door quietly and step inside, shrugging out of my jacket and unbuttoning the top few buttons of my shirt.
The room is dim, lit only by the soft glow from the lamp near the armchair.
She’s lying on her side, facing away from me, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other resting against her stomach like she’s holding herself together.
Her breathing changes the moment I enter.
Just a fraction. Enough to tell me she’s aware of me.
I don’t speak.
I move to the chair in the corner and sit, the springs creaking softly beneath my weight. I switch off the lamp and settle in without taking my eyes off her.
This is how it’s always been.
Watching.
Wanting.
Choosing not to touch despite my body begging for release.
I’m acutely aware of every detail. The rise and fall of her back. The faint shift of her legs when she adjusts for comfort. The tension she’s holding beneath stillness, like she’s waiting for something to happen.
My hands rest loosely on my thighs. My breathing stays even. I let the heat burn itself out slowly, painfully, the way I always have. I imagine the line I refuse cross and hold on to it with the same discipline she used to dance through her pain.
She turns her head slightly, just enough that I know she’s staring at the wall instead of sleeping. Her voice comes soft and uncertain.
“You were watching me in my apartment too, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She exhales, the sound shaky. “It feels the same. Steady and certain. I really think it should feel disconcerting to know that you must have planted cameras in there. Been in there without me knowing… but I can’t make myself be angry or scared about it.”
“I never intended for you to feel scared. Not of me,” I say in a bid to reassure her. I know she is looking at me, even if she can’t see me clearly in the dark. I can feel the way her gaze reaches me across the room.
Minutes stretch. The tension in the room thickens, quietly charged.
“Do we need to be married first? Is that a Bratva thing?” she asks, her boldness breaking through the dark.
“It would be better that way, so there can be no mistaking legitimacy of the child.” I want to go to her. I want to know what it feels like to lie beside her and have her warm body curled against mine.
“You know I might not be able to conceive though, right?” she asks, her voice breaking a little.
I frown, grateful that she can’t see me clearly.
“What do you mean?” Heat prickles the back of my neck, but the decision is crystal clear in my mind before I even have chance to consider it. If we can’t have children, so be it. I want Emma beside me for the rest of my life, whatever that looks like.
My uncle’s orders will just have to go unfulfilled. I’ll take whatever consequences come my way.
“Ballet conditions my body in such a way that I don’t have enough body fat to menstruate… have a period,” she adds when I don’t say anything. “I’ve never had a proper period.”
“I’m not worried,” I finally say. “I fell in love with you, Emma. The Pakhan’s orders may have sped things up, but ultimately, I chose you and will continue to choose you for the rest of time.”
She shifts again, rolling onto her back, eyes open and reflective in the low light.
I meet her gaze in the darkness and hold it.
“The first time hurts, right?” she asks, voice low and trembling.
“Sometimes,” I say as gently as I can while tamping down the arousal that keeps trying to flare beneath my ribs. “It depends on a few factors.”
“You said you love me,” she whispers. “But you won’t come anywhere near me.”
My eyebrows flicker in surprise. “Emma, you’ve been through a lot today, you deserve rest. All I ask is that I can look at you.”
“But what if I want more?” she asks. “You told me to take control, you told me you brought me here to claim me… I just want to get out of my head, please.”
My cock is throbbing, but I ignore it. I cross the room quietly and pull the sheets away from her. She is wearing a dark T-shirt and a pair of white panties that are clearly visible in the dark room. More so now my eyes are adjusting.
“What do you want, Emma?” I ask, unbuttoning my shirt pulling it from my shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she says, a tremor in her voice that wasn’t there before.
I slide off her panties slowly, waiting for her to tell me to stop, but she doesn’t.
She is bare beneath them. I already knew, have seen her naked a hundred times, only somehow this is different.
“Bend your knees and make sure you are comfortable.” I barely recognize my voice.
She does as I ask, not covering herself as I expected she might. Perhaps not feeling like she has to in the darkness. I climb onto the bed and settle with my shoulders between her thighs.
When my mouth closes over her center, she lets out a sound of surprised shock. Her hands slap against her thighs and her hips buck. I keep still, wait for her to catch up with what’s happening, then I swipe my tongue over her slit.
I suck and lick at her until she is writhing over the sheets. The sounds turn from surprise into something more guttural, more primal, as I work her pussy with my mouth. My cock aches to be freed from the confines of my trousers, my balls begging for a release they’ve been chasing for far too long.
I wouldn’t let myself come. Not for eighteen months. And I won’t give in now.
She shatters when I press my tongue against her clit. She presses down against my face, grinding through her orgasm as I feel her pussy clench against my mouth.
A small, quick gush of her arousal fills my mouth and I swallow it down, relishing the taste of her.