Chapter 21 VICTORIA
VICTORIA
Early light filters through the windows, pale and golden, and I wake in Maksim's arms knowing everything has changed.
Last night was monumental. Not just the realization that I was still a virgin, that the violation I'd carried for years wasn't as complete as I'd believed.
But the way Maksim held me after. The way he washed me clean.
The way he listened to my darkest secret and didn't flinch, didn't pull away, didn't look at me like I was damaged goods.
I'm sore. Pleasantly so. A reminder of what we did on the piano, of how my body opened for him, of how he moved inside me with reverence that made me forget to be afraid.
The sheet pools around his waist, leaving his upper body exposed to the morning light.
I take my time looking at him. The sculpted muscle.
The tattoos marking his skin like a map of a life I'm only beginning to understand.
The scars scattered across his torso. Some faded white, others still pink and raised.
There's hair dusting his lower belly, a trail that leads down to a V cut so defined it makes my mouth water. And beneath the thin sheet, an impressive erection tents the fabric.
He's still sleeping. His breathing is slow and even, his face relaxed in a way I've never seen when he's awake.
I can't help myself.
My fingers move on their own, reaching out to trace the line of his hip. The sheet shifts. I pull it lower, exposing him completely.
He's beautiful. Long and thick and hard.
I touch him lightly, just my fingertips against the silky skin. His cock jolts in response, and I freeze, looking up at his face.
He moans in his sleep. Low and rough and absolutely devastating.
Heat coils low in my spine. The sound of him, pleasure escaping without permission, makes me bold.
I grow braver. Let my hand wrap around him, marveling at the contradiction of soft skin over iron hardness. The tip glistens with moisture, and I have this unbearable need to taste it.
Slowly, carefully, I position myself between his legs. Lower my head until I can feel the heat of him against my lips.
I let my tongue touch the tip. Just barely. A whisper of contact.
Another moan. His hips twitch.
Encouraged, I take him into my mouth. Just the head at first, lips wrapped around the crown, tongue exploring the texture.
"What are you doing, moya zhena?"
His voice is rough with sleep and desire. I lift my head, heat flooding my cheeks, and find him watching me with eyes gone heavy-lidded and intense.
My wife. He called me wife. The word in Russian sounds like a claiming, and it sends arousal spiraling through me.
"I've never done this before," I admit. The vulnerability costs me, but the reward is worth it when I see how his expression shifts to hungrier. "Tell me what to do."
I feel him get bigger in my hand. Harder. The response to my inexperience is visceral and undeniable.
"There isn't much you can do wrong," he says, voice dropping lower. "But I'll guide you."
His hand comes up to cup my jaw. Tilts my face so I'm looking directly at him.
"Start slow," he says. "Take as much as feels comfortable. Use your tongue. Pay attention to how I respond."
I lower my head again. Take him back into my mouth, deeper this time. His exhale comes sharp.
"Good." The word is strained. "Now move. Up and down."
I do as he says. Up and down, my lips tight around him, my tongue exploring the ridges and veins I can feel against sensitive flesh.
His hips flex. His hand slides into my hair, not guiding, just resting there. Present.
"Breathe through your nose," he murmurs. "Take your time."
I pull back, catch my breath, look up at him through my lashes.
"How does it feel?"
"Like heaven." His thumb traces my lower lip, swollen from friction. "Like you were made for this."
I take him again. Deeper. His hand tightens in my hair.
"Use your hand too," he instructs, voice rougher now. "What you can't fit in your mouth, stroke with your fingers. Keep the pressure consistent."
I wrap my hand around the base. Coordinate the movement with my mouth. Up and down. Steady rhythm. Watching his face for reactions.
His jaw clenches. His breathing grows ragged. I can feel him fighting for control, and power surges through me at the knowledge that I'm doing this to him. That I'm making the most controlled man I've ever known come apart.
"Faster," he says, and it's almost a plea. "Just like that. Don't stop."
I don't stop. I increase the pace, sucking harder, stroking faster. His hips start to move, shallow thrusts that match my rhythm.
"I'm close," he warns. "Victoria, I'm—"
He tries to pull back. I don't let him. I take him deeper, want to feel him lose control, want to know how he tastes.
He comes with a groan that I feel in my bones. Hot and pulsing against my tongue, and I swallow everything he gives me, working him through the aftershocks until he's gasping.
"Good girl," he murmurs, voice breaking on the words. "You listen perfectly."
He pulls me up his body, captures my mouth in a desperate kiss that tastes of sex and devotion. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't flinch from where my mouth has just been.
When we break apart, he's looking at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"It makes me a caveman," he says quietly. "Being the first to give you pleasure—"
"Maksim." I cut him off, guilt rising in my chest. "I need to tell you the truth."
He goes still. Watchful.
"My first orgasm with a man..." I swallow. Force myself to hold his gaze. "t was with Zakhar."
Silence. Heavy and terrible.
I continue, the words tumbling out now. "Yesterday. In the security room. He was angry that I'd left the house. He kissed me, and then he... we didn't have sex, but he made me come. Twice."
Maksim's expression is unreadable.
"And Alexei," I add, because if I'm confessing, I might as well confess everything. "We kissed."
I brace myself for anger. For rejection. For the coldness I've seen him turn on enemies and threats.
He's very still. Very quiet. But he's still holding me.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," I whisper. "But I want all three of you. The same way. It doesn't make sense, and I know it's not normal, but I can't seem to stop it."
The silence stretches so long I start to wonder if I've destroyed everything.
Then Maksim speaks.
"I won't stand in your way," he says slowly. "If you want to explore this with my brothers, I won't stop it."
I just stare at him.
"They're not just my brothers by choice. They're part of me." His hand strokes down my back, soothing. "If you want them, and they want you, I won't be the one to prevent that."
Relief floods through me so powerfully I feel tears prick my eyes.
"I only ask one thing," he continues, and his voice hardens slightly. "Don't betray us. Don't lie to us. Don't play us against each other."
The warning lands with weight I can't ignore.
I realize I'm walking a tightrope. These three men have been through hell together. Their bond predates me by decades. If I make them choose between brotherhood and me, I know which side will win.
I need to be careful. Can't let my heart get too involved.
Even as I think it, I know it's already too late.
"How did you meet them?" I ask, because I genuinely want to know. "The twins. Have you always been like brothers?"
Maksim shifts, pulling me closer against his chest. I rest my head over his heart and listen to the steady rhythm while he speaks.
"I met them when I was fifteen," he says. "They were twelve. Already living on the streets for a while by then."
"Why were you on the streets?"
His hand stills on my back.
"My parents were murdered," he says. "In front of me. By a rival family."
I hold him tighter. Press my lips to his chest. "I'm so sorry."
"I was born into wealth and power," he continues, voice distant. Like he's reading facts from a history that belongs to someone else. "In Russia, that comes with enemies. One night, they came to our home. They killed my parents while I watched."
"Oh my God! And you escaped?"
"They wanted me to suffer." His laugh is hollow. "I was considered something of a prodigy. Piano. Everyone expected great things from my future."
A chill runs down my spine. I remember the music from last night. The passion and pain in every note.
"After they killed my parents, they dragged me to the piano room." His voice is flat now. Emotionless. "Threw me on the floor and stomped on my hands. Over and over. Until every bone was broken. They wanted to make sure I'd never play again."
Silent tears stream down my face. I lift his hand to my lips, press kisses to the scarred knuckles, the misshapen joints that speak of damage that never fully healed.
"I knew my family's power died with my parents," he continues. "I couldn't stay in the house. Couldn't use my name. I had no real family left. So I disappeared into the streets of Moscow."
"Where you met the twins."
"Where I met the twins." I can hear the warmth that enters his voice when he speaks of them. "Zakhar and Alexei. Already surviving on their own, looking after each other. We became inseparable almost immediately."
"How did you go from street kids to... this?"
"I was, what you can call the brains," he says simply. "Found clever ways to make money. The twins were the muscle. We protected each other. Built from nothing. And now we have everything."
I'm speechless. The scope of what he's telling me, the trauma and resilience and determination it must have taken to transform from orphaned street children into the powerful men they are today.
"I'm not an expert," I finally say. "But the music you played last night... it was beautiful. It drew me to you."
He's quiet for a moment. "That was the first time I've played since I was fifteen."
I lift my head to look at him. "What?"
"That piano has been in that room for ten years. I've walked past it hundreds of times. Never once felt the urge to touch it." His eyes find mine. "Until last night."
"Why last night?"
"I don't know." He catches a tear sliding down my cheek, brushes it away with his thumb. "Don't cry, moya koroleva."
"Is it the same piano? The one from when you were a child?"
"Yes." He says it simply, like it's not extraordinary. "I tracked it down years ago. Bought it back. Kept it waiting for... I don't know what. A day I thought would never come."
Pressure builds in my chest. The image of this man, so powerful and controlled, keeping a piano from his childhood like a shrine to the boy he used to be. The boy who loved music before violence stole everything from him.
He rises from the bed, and I see him fully in the morning light. The tattoos covering his skin. The scars. The muscles built from years of fighting to survive.
He's magnificent.
He points to the tattoos on his knees. Stars, intricate and bold against his skin.
"Do you know what these mean?"
I shake my head.
"They mean I kneel for no one." His eyes find mine, blue and intense and burning. "Not anymore. Never again."
He moves toward me. Grabs my thighs and pulls me to the edge of the mattress.
"But for you," he says, dropping to his knees between my legs, "I'll kneel."
Then his mouth is on me, and I stop thinking entirely.
His tongue finds my clit with devastating precision. Circles it slowly, then faster, building pressure with each stroke. His hands hold my thighs apart, keeping me open for him, and the vulnerability makes everything more intense.
He doesn't rush. Doesn't treat this like a race to finish. He worships me with his mouth, with his tongue, with the occasional scrape of teeth that makes me cry out and arch off the bed.
I come apart on his lips, pleasure crashing through me in waves, his name on my lips.
When he lifts his head, his eyes are triumphant. Possessive. Full of adoration that looks terrifyingly like love.