Chapter 15
Ivan
The dream dissolved in stages—first the edges blurring, then the narrative collapsing, and finally consciousness seeping in through cracks in sleep.
But what pulled me up wasn't sound or light.
It was sensation. Wet heat around my cock, a careful suction that made my hips lift before my brain could process what was happening.
My body understood before my mind did. Blood rushed south with single-minded purpose while my thoughts struggled through the fog of deep sleep.
The pleasure was too specific to be a dream—the gentle scrape of teeth, the flutter of tongue along the underside, the way my cock throbbed in response to each pull of that perfect mouth.
I opened my eyes to paradise and devastation in equal measure.
Anya knelt between my thighs, naked in the pre-dawn light that filtered through our villa's gauze curtains.
Her dark hair fell forward in a curtain, hiding most of her face, but I could see enough—the hollow of her cheeks as she sucked, the concentrated furrow between her brows, the way her small hands gripped my thighs for leverage.
She'd kicked off the sheets entirely, leaving both of us exposed to the warm Maldivian air that carried salt through our open windows.
The sight alone nearly ended me. My wife—brilliant, anxious, beautiful Anya—had woken before me to worship my cock. This wasn't performance or obligation. This was her choosing to give me pleasure, taking her own satisfaction from my response.
She must have felt me tense because she looked up, my cock still between her lips, and the combination of innocence and intent in those dark eyes scrambled my higher brain functions entirely.
"Good morning, Daddy," she said around my cock, voice muffled but unmistakably playful, and I had to grip the sheets hard enough that my knuckles went white to keep from immediately coming down her throat.
She pulled back slightly, just enough to speak more clearly, though her hand kept stroking with devastating precision. "I've been practicing. Well, researching. There are some very educational websites if you know where to look."
Of course she had. My genius wife approached oral sex with the same scholarly dedication that had earned her dual PhDs by twenty-four. The thought of her studying technique, probably taking notes in that careful handwriting, made my cock throb in her grip.
"Anya," I managed, though my voice came out wrecked already. "Baby, you don't have to—"
"I want to," she interrupted, then demonstrated exactly how much by taking me deep enough that I felt the back of her throat. The sensation shot through me like lightning, and my hips bucked involuntarily.
She pulled back, coughing slightly, but her eyes were bright with determination rather than discomfort. "The forums said that would happen at first. But they also said this—"
Her tongue did something completely unprecedented to the sensitive spot just below the head, a swirling pressure that made my thighs shake. My hand found her hair without conscious thought, not gripping or guiding, just needing that connection while she systematically destroyed my control.
"Fuck," I groaned as she alternated between deep, slow pulls and that devastating tongue technique. "Where did you—how are you—"
"Reddit," she said matter-of-factly, pulling back to catch her breath while her hand maintained steady strokes. "There's a whole community dedicated to advanced techniques. Very supportive. Lots of diagrams."
The idea of my anxious, brilliant wife consulting internet strangers about how to give better blowjobs should have been funny. Instead, it was possibly the most erotic thing I'd ever encountered. She'd researched this for me. Studied and prepared because she wanted to make me feel good.
"You're perfect," I told her, threading my fingers through her hair with trembling hands. "So fucking perfect. Such a good girl for Daddy."
The praise made her hum with pleasure, and the vibration around my cock nearly undid me.
She was learning what I liked in real-time, cataloging responses, adjusting technique based on my reactions.
When her free hand found my balls, rolling them with gentle pressure while her mouth worked my cock, I knew I wouldn't last much longer.
"Anya," I warned, my voice breaking. "I'm close. Baby, I'm so fucking close—"
She responded by taking me deeper, her eyes locked on mine with an intensity that said she wanted this, wanted to taste me, wanted to swallow everything I had to give.
The image of her—my innocent Little who needed stuffed animals to sleep—eagerly sucking my cock with scholarly precision and genuine enthusiasm was going to be burned into my brain forever.
I could feel the orgasm building at the base of my spine, that electric tension that preceded the point of no return.
My fingers tightened in her hair, not pulling but holding on while she worked me toward completion with devastating efficiency.
Just a few more seconds, just a little more of that perfect pressure, and I'd—
The phone exploded into noise.
Not the normal ringtone I used for business calls or the softer one for family. The emergency tone. Three short, violent bursts that meant crisis, immediate response required, someone's life in active danger.
My body didn't give a fuck about the phone. Every cell screamed to ignore it, to come in Anya's talented mouth, to finish what she'd started with such dedication. But my brain—the part that had kept me alive through twenty years of bratva violence—knew that ringtone meant catastrophe.
"Don't stop," I groaned even as my hand was already reaching for the nightstand. "Please, baby, just a few more seconds—"
But Anya had already pulled back, my cock slipping from her mouth with an obscene sound.
She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, concern replacing arousal in her expression.
The moment shattered like dropped crystal, pleasure evaporating into the tropical air while the phone continued its violent demand for attention.
"You can answer it," she said softly, already reaching for the sheet to cover herself.
I wanted to throw the phone through the window. Wanted to pull her back down, finish what we'd started, make her swallow my cum while the world burned outside our villa. But she was right. That tone meant family in danger. Brothers who might be bleeding. Business that might be collapsing.
I grabbed the phone with a hand that shook—not from fear but from frustrated arousal—and accepted the video call that would destroy our paradise.
Dmitry's face filled the screen, and I knew before he spoke a word that our week in Eden was over.
Dmitry looked like death warmed over and served cold. Blood traced a path from his temple to his jaw, already drying to rust-brown in the dust that covered him head to toe. Behind him, I could see smoke and emergency lights, hear sirens wailing like grief given voice.
"Another bomb," he said without preamble, his voice rough from smoke or screaming or both. "Brooklyn waterfront. Our construction site in Red Hook."
The words hit like ice water on exposed nerves, shocking every system into hypervigilance.
My body was still hard, still aching from Anya's interrupted attention, but my brain shifted immediately into crisis mode.
The husband who'd been about to come in his wife's mouth evaporated, replaced by the strategist who'd kept the Volkov empire profitable through two decades of blood and chaos.
I was already moving, pulling on yesterday's linen pants with one hand while holding the phone with the other.
Behind me, I could hear Anya scrambling for clothes, but I couldn't focus on that now.
Couldn't think about how she'd looked between my thighs, couldn't process what this interruption meant for us.
"Casualties?" I barked, yanking a shirt over my head.
"Six confirmed dead." Dmitry's jaw clenched, that tell he'd never been able to suppress. "Three critical, might not make it through the hour. Could've been worse—bomb went off during shift change instead of peak hours."
Shift change. My brain latched onto that detail, turned it over, examined angles. "Whose crews?"
"That's the fucking problem." He turned the phone, showing me the devastation behind him. Twisted metal, concrete turned to dust, construction equipment scattered like broken toys. "Both. Three of ours, three Morozov. The ones in critical are mixed too—two ours, one theirs."
The implications crashed over me in waves. The marriage treaty was supposed to prevent exactly this. Our crews working the same sites, sharing contracts, proving the alliance was profitable for everyone. And someone had targeted that precise symbol of cooperation.
"Fingerprints?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Nothing definitive yet, but Ivan—" Dmitry's expression darkened further. "The bombs have the same signature as the restaurant bombing."
My tablet was already in my hands, screens multiplying as I pulled up every feed I could access.
News helicopters circling the devastation.
NYPD press conferences. Our own security cameras from adjacent properties.
The data flooded in faster than even my brain could process, but patterns were already emerging.
"Where's Alexei?" I asked, fingers flying across the tablet screen, pulling up financial records, checking our exposure, calculating cleanup costs.
"Here," my oldest brother's voice came through as Dmitry adjusted the phone to include him in frame.
Alexei looked like I'd never seen him—his perfect control cracked just enough to show the fury underneath.
"The Kozlovs. Has to be. They're the only family with enough motivation to destabilize the peace. "