9. Vera
VERA
“Iwant to go home.”
The restaurant is still too quiet. Conversation resumes around us, but I can feel the weight of stares on my back. The staff are pretending nothing happened, but their eyes keep darting to our table.
Roman straightens and pulls out his wallet. He drops several bills on the table, more than enough to cover the meal we barely touched, then helps me up from my chair. His hand is warm against my arm and I hate that I notice.
“Then we can go ho—” He looks away. “Artyom will take us to the penthouse.”
I stop walking. My heels skid slightly on the polished floor. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve had your things moved to my home. I did say you would be moving in on Friday. Today is Friday, isn’t it?”
The words take a moment to register. When they do, something hot and sharp lances through my chest. “You took me out to dinner so you could go behind my back and pack my things?”
Roman’s jaw tightens. A muscle jumps beneath his skin, and I can see him fighting for control. “I took you out to dinner because we needed to be seen together. The move was practical.”
“Efficient.” I yank my arm free from his grip. My voice comes out louder than I intend, and a nearby couple glances over. “You could have asked.”
“Would you have agreed?”
I open my mouth to say no, of course not, but the truth is more complicated than that. I might have agreed. I might have seen the logic in it, but he didn’t give me the chance.
I want to scream, but what good would it do? Instead I follow him out of the restaurant, to where Artyom is waiting with the car.
The drive is silent. I sit next to Roman in the back seat and stare out the window so I don’t have to look at him. My hands are shaking and I can’t tell if it’s anger or fear or something else entirely.
Anton wants to marry me. Konstantin has already approved it. In ninety days, I’ll be handed over to another man. Why does this keep happening? The thought makes my stomach turn.
We pull up to a high-rise building in River North. Artyom opens my door and I step out onto the sidewalk, looking up at the glass tower. The lobby behind us glows with warm light, but the building itself looks cold and impersonal.
“This is it?” I ask.
“This is it.”
Roman leads me through the lobby, past a concierge who nods respectfully without making eye contact. We reach a private elevator that requires a keycard and a code.
The ride up is smooth and silent. I watch the floor numbers climb on the display panel, my reflection ghostly in the brushed steel doors.
The penthouse takes up the entire top floor.
When the elevator doors open, I step into a space that’s all sharp angles and hard surfaces. The living room is massive, with floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a view of the city skyline glittering in the darkness. A grand piano sits in one corner, though it looks too spotless to ever be played.
The kitchen is visible from the living room, separated by a long marble island. It looks like a showroom, not a place where anyone actually cooks.
He flicks a switch and the lighting shifts from harsh overhead to softer ambient. It doesn’t help. The place still feels cold.
“Your room is this way,” he says.
I follow him down a hallway lined with abstract art. The pieces are expensive and impersonal. Everything is shades of black and gray.
My room turns out to be a guest suite with its own bathroom and a king-size bed dressed in gray linens. My suitcase sits on a luggage rack in the corner, and I can see my clothes hanging in the open closet. Someone has unpacked for me.
Roman sighs. “What’s wrong now?”
“Don’t.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “Just... don’t.”
I hear him take a breath. When he speaks again, his voice is colder. “We need to talk about what Konstantin said.”
“I heard what he said.” I turn to face him. He’s standing in the doorway, his shoulders filling the frame. “Anton wants to marry me. What else is there to discuss?”
“That’s not what’s going to happen.”
“Isn’t it?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You heard him.”
Roman steps into the room. “I didn’t know this was Anton’s angle,” he says. “I suspected he had plans, but I didn’t know my father had already approved the match.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better? That you didn’t know?” I shake my head. “You should have seen it coming.”
He runs a hand through his hair, and for the first time since I’ve met him, he looks genuinely frustrated.
“You won’t belong to Anton,” he says. “I won’t allow it.”
Roman takes another step toward me. We’re standing less than a foot apart now, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. “There’s something Konstantin didn’t count on.”
“What?”
“Me.” His hand comes up to cup my jaw. His thumb presses into my bottom lip, and I shudder despite myself. “I was exiled for ten years, Vera. Sent to run operations in Siberia while Dmitri took everything that should have been mine.”
“Siberia,” I repeat.
His thumb brushes across my lower lip. My breath catches.
“Konstantin thinks I’m a pushover,” Roman continues. “That I’ll fall in line and accept his decisions. He doesn’t realize that Siberia changed me. It made me into something he can’t control.”
“What happens when he decides you’re too dangerous to keep around?” I ask. My voice is barely above a whisper.
“Then I’ll deal with it.” Roman’s other hand finds my waist, pulling me closer until my body is pressed against his. “I didn’t come back from exile to lose everything again. I sure as hell didn’t find you just to hand you over to a man like Anton.”
“Find me,” I echo. “Right.”
“You are,” his mouth hovers over mine, “something precious. Something worth fighting for.”
Without thinking, I grab the front of his shirt and pull him to me. Consequences be damned.
The kiss is angry and desperate. Our lips crash together and I moan into his open mouth. My teeth catch his lower lip and he groans too, his hands tightening on my waist. I can feel his heart pounding against my chest. Or maybe that’s mine; I can’t tell anymore.
He walks me backward until my shoulders hit the wall. His mouth moves from mine to my neck, and I arch into him with a sound I don’t recognize.
His hands find the hem of my dress and push it up. I wrap my leg around his hip and he lifts me, pinning me against the wall with his body.
He lifts me higher, my back scraping against the wall as he adjusts his grip. I can feel how hard he is through his pants, and I want to forget everything except his hands on me.
“Look at me,” he says.
I open my eyes. His face is inches from mine, his pupils blown wide with desire.
“You’re not thinking about Anton right now,” he says. “Are you?”
I shake my head. My hair falls loose around my shoulders and he reaches up to pull the clip free, letting it cascade down my back.
“Good.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “I don’t want you thinking about anyone but me.”
He sets me down just long enough to reach under my dress and pull my underwear off. The fabric tears in his haste but I don’t care.
Then he unbuckles his pants, pulling me flush against him as he pushes into me.
I gasp at the stretch of it, the fullness. God, he feels so good I think I might lose my mind.
“Roman—”
He moves slowly at first, each thrust hitting that perfect angle that makes my pussy clench. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, his nails digging into tender skin.
“You feel that?” he asks, and his voice is husky with need.
I look at him. His eyes are dark, his jaw clenched with the effort of holding back.
“Fuck,” I say between clenched teeth.
He rewards me with a harder thrust that makes me cry out. My head falls back against the wall and he takes advantage, his mouth finding my neck again.
“I’ve been thinking about this since the cemetery,” he says against my skin. “You make such pretty sounds when you come.”
“Don’t—”
“Don’t what? Don’t tell you how much I want you?” He thrusts again, and I see stars. “Don’t tell you that I’ve been hard for days just thinking about being inside you?”
I dig my nails into his shoulders. He hisses but doesn’t stop.
He shifts his angle and suddenly I can feel it building, that tight coil of pleasure that starts low in my belly and spreads outward.
“That’s it,” he says, his voice rough against my ear. “I can feel you getting close, little bird.”
He slides out of me, and the sensation leaves me hollow. I want to scream with frustration. He’s holding me on the edge, keeping me suspended between pleasure and release but he won’t let me fall.
“Fuck me,” I say. “Please. I need?—”
“You need what?” He pushes back in, just an inch, and I clench around him desperately. “Tell me.”
“Give me your cock.”
He rewards me with another inch. His cock stretches me open further, and he grins. “Better, but I want more.”
I dig my nails into his shoulders. “Make me come. I want you to make me come.”
“Good girl.”
He thrusts deep, filling me completely, and I cry out at the sudden fullness. I can feel myself stretching around him, my body opening to take everything he’s giving.
“You’re so tight,” he says against my throat. “So wet for me. I love the pretty sounds you make, little bird.”
His words send a jolt of heat straight to my core. I shouldn’t like this, but I do. I want him to talk to me, to tell me everything he’s thinking.
“Roman!”
“I thought about you in my bed. Thought about spreading your legs and tasting you.” His thumb finds my clit and circles it with just enough pressure to make me crazy. “Thought about making you scream my name so loud the whole city knows who you belong to.”
“I don’t belong to you.”
“You do belong to me.” He thrusts hard, punctuating each word. “Not Anton. Say it.”
“I belong to you.” The words leave my lips before I can stop them, an admission I can’t take back.
He rewards me with a twist of his hips that sends me closer to the edge. My thighs are shaking now.
“I’m going to make you come,” he says. “When you do, I want you to say my name. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He picks up the pace, driving into me with a rhythm that steals my breath. “Come for me, Vera. Come on my cock.”
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave. I clench around him and scream his name just like he demanded. The pleasure is so intense I see stars, my whole body shaking with the force of it.
He doesn’t stop. He keeps moving, drawing out my pleasure until I’m whimpering and oversensitive.
He follows me over the edge a moment later, his hips stuttering as he finds his own release. His forehead drops to my shoulder and he lets out a breathless, self-satisfied huff.
We stay like that for a long moment, both of us trying to catch our breath. Then he pulls back and looks at me.
His eyes are soft in a way I’ve never seen before. His hand comes up to cup my cheek.
“I’ll get us water.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He helps me stand, steadying me when my legs threaten to give out. Then he takes my hand and leads me to the bed.
“Stay here,” he instructs. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He adjusts himself back into his pants, and vanishes before I can argue.