Victoria
I pace back and forth across Leonid’s office like the movement might keep me upright, because standing still would make me feel like I would implode from the weight of it all.
Once I start talking, I can’t seem to stop. Every memory I ever buried claws its way up and out, lining itself neatly in front of him like evidence I didn’t know I’d been collecting my entire life.
I tell him about the diamonds first. Where they came from.
Who Boris took them from. The quiet deals that were supposed to disappear men without noise.
I tell him about shell companies and falsified books, about money moved through charities that never reached the people they were meant to help.
I tell him about names I shouldn’t know and rooms I was never supposed to be in, the way my uncle talked freely in front of me because he thought I was too stupid, too obedient, too small to matter.
Leonid doesn’t interrupt.
He types as I speak, fingers steady, expression unreadable, occasionally asking a precise question to really hammer out what happened.
Hours pass without either of us noticing.
Light shifts in the windows. Coffee is replaced by water.
Lunch appears and disappears untouched. Dinner arrives and goes cold while I keep talking because stopping feels more dangerous than continuing.
By the time I finally run out of words, my throat burns and my legs ache from pacing. Leonid reads the email through once more, slowly, then again, refining it until every accusation is sharp and clean and lethal. When he hits send, the quiet that follows is deafening.
“That’s it,” he says finally.
The tension drains out of me all at once. My knees buckle before I can stop them, exhaustion crashing through me in a delayed response. Leonid catches me easily, pulling me back against his chest and guiding me down into his lap before I even realize what’s happening.
I don’t fight it.
I’m too tired to pretend this isn’t exactly what I need.
His hands settle on my shoulders, firm and warm, kneading gently into muscles I didn’t realize had been too tight for years. The simple, unguarded kindness of it makes my eyes sting. I let my head fall back against him, breath shaking as the tension slowly loosens its grip.
“You did well,” he murmurs, not as praise, but as fact.
No one has ever said that to me.
I close my eyes, absorbing the steadiness of him, the way he’s solid without being heavy, present without demanding anything in return. The room feels different now. Safer. Or maybe that’s just me, finally empty of all my secrets.
“Leonid,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” My voice barely holds together. “About… wanting a future. With me.”
His hands still for just a moment before resuming their slow, grounding motion. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
I swallow. My heart is pounding again, but this time it isn’t fear driving it. “I don’t know if I can survive being wrong about you.”
He exhales softly against my hair. “You stole from your uncle knowing it could get you killed,” he says. “You ran across an ocean with nothing but nerve and diamonds I’m not sure how you got through security. You’re not nearly as risk-averse as you think.”
I turn slightly in his lap, enough to see his face, the calm certainty there making my chest ache. “And if I choose you,” I whisper. “What would that actually mean?”
“It would mean freedom,” he says simply. “You decide how you live. Where you go. What you become. It means I walk beside you, not in front of you. I protect you, support you…”
My breath catches. “And being your wife?”
A pause. Then, softer, “It means you never have to be alone again unless you ask to be.”
Something inside me finally releases.
I don’t overthink it. I don’t give fear time to crawl back in. I turn fully toward him and kiss him, slow at first, then surer, like I’m anchoring myself to this moment before it can slip away. His arms tighten around me, and when he stands, lifting me easily against him, I don’t protest.
I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my forehead against his, breath mingling with his as he carries me out of the office and down the hall, the world narrowing to the steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek.
When he lays me on his bed, it’s with such gentleness that I wonder where it came from. He pulls his clothes off in front of me, revealing every part of his body slowly. The broad expanse of skin, ink, scars, the smattering of dark hair over his chest, that trails down, down, down.
When he kicks off his shoes and trousers, he is already hard and thick, his tip glistening.
Then he undresses me with the same slow movements. My sweater, my T-shirt, my boots and jeans, until we are both naked.
I prop myself up on my elbows and watch as he takes me in.
“I couldn’t see you last night, just an outline… you’re so fucking beautiful Victoria.” His voice has taken on a low, gravelly quality, and his cock bobs when his eyes go to the space between my thighs. “Spread your legs for me, printsessa,” he says, his words taking me back to last night.
I do as he asks and he fists his cock, squeezing until he shudders and his mouth opens.
“I’m going to come all over your pussy,” he says, kneeling between my legs. He is stroking his cock now, slowly tugging the thick length until the head goes purple.
“Bend your knees and hold your legs back, let me see every perfect part of you.” Again, I comply, letting him move my arms to the inside of my thighs.
“Open yourself for me,” he grunts, his eyes becoming hooded and his breathing coming faster.
I place a hand either side of myself, and pull apart gently, completely exposing myself to him.
When he lowers his free hand to my pussy and parts my lips with his fingers, it’s as if it’s too much for him, and he groans as he spurts onto my spread entrance.
Once it subsides, his cum sliding over my slit, he says, “I had to get that out of the way because I never would have lasted inside you.”
“That would have been okay,” I say, unsure what to do with that just happened.
“No, printsessa, it wouldn’t be okay. This way, I can do this you how you deserve for your first time. Not like a horny teenager chasing his own release.”
I don’t respond. I don’t know what to say. He takes the lead and dips his head to my breasts, taking each nipple into his mouth in turn and sucking until I bow of the bed.
“I’m going to be gentle this time, but once you’ve recovered—” he flicks my nipple with his tongue and I groan. “That’s when we really go to work. I’m going to show you over and over how much I need to worship you; how desperate I am to watch you come apart for me.”
I don’t have time to ask him what he means because his fingers are inside me, slippery with his spend and my arousal.
“Slow down, Victoria,” he says when my hips start rocking faster and faster. “We have all night, and you need to be fully ready for me.”
I whimper, but slow my grinding down to match the rhythm of his fingers.
“I love the way your pussy quivers,” he presses his thumb to my clit and I almost jump off the bed. “I love how sensitive you are.”
He brings his mouth to my neck, nipping and sucking at the skin there and I relax into the sensation of being carried to a place only he can take me.
He separates his fingers inside me, stretching me, preparing me.
“It’s never going to be enough,” he mumbles before sliding his fingers from me. “I’m always going to want you. Every part of you, wet and aching and trembling for me.”
He presses himself against my entrance as he kisses me deeply.
“This might hurt, printsessa, but hold on and I’ll get you through it.”
I nod, lifting my hands to his shoulders. Then he pushes inside me in one long thrust and I scream. The sharp pain, the stretch, the burn… it’s all too much.
I can hear him telling me to hold on, to breathe through it, but every part of me is clenched tight.
“I won’t move until you’re ready but if you don’t loosen your grip on me this will all be over before it’s even began,” he finally says through gritted teeth.
I take a few deep breaths, force myself to relax, and when he slides from me the sensation feels amazing. He pulls all the way out slowly, then slowly pushes all the way back in, letting me savour the way he fills me so completely.
“Lift your knees higher,” he says and I pull my legs back to where they were before.
He groans long and hard on the next thrust.
“You’re so perfect for me printsessa. Every bit of you fits to me like we were made for each other.”
He nips at my shoulder, my collar bone, then lifts a hand to one breast and squeezes it. “Fuck me, I feel feral when I’m with you.”
His pace is faster now, almost jagged in its rhythm. The pain has subsided fully, and been replaced with a coiling, building sensation that echoes through me in every direction.
He releases my breast and lowers his hand between us, leaning back a little to make space. When presses against my clit a pulse of something hot and electric zaps though me causing me to gasp.
“That’s it printsessa, focus on how good it feels when I fuck you, when I touch you…” he moves his hand in firm circles and my eyes close as the first waves of pleasure roll through me. “Open your eyes,” he demands as a scream tears from my throat.
I manage to do as he asks, barely, as he locks his gaze onto mine and picks up speed. “Yes, printsessa, milk my cock like you own it!”
Then his face softens, his eyes glaze and he follows me over the edge, throbbing and pulsing inside me. Each thrust is punctuated with a long groan as his release spurts, his back arching, his hand stilling and pressing hard against me as my final shivers subside.
He collapses over me, leaning on both forearms as he lays his head on my chest. He stays there for a few minutes, and then gently pulls out, groaning when he notices the small smear of blood.
“Wait here, Victoria,” he says, getting out of bed and disappearing through a door.
He returns moments later with a wash cloth, which is beautifully warm when he presses it between my thighs.
“I hope that wasn’t too painful for you,” he says, gently cleaning me.
“You might be sore for a couple of days, but it won’t hurt next time. ”
I lie back and take in the moment. It almost doesn’t feel real.
Once the washcloth has cooled and I’m clean, he climbs beside me and pulls me close.