20. Roman
Chapter twenty
Roman
Jesus, I didn’t know my heart could do this anymore.
It used to race and thunder like a herd of horses with adrenaline every time we were in a shootout or being chased by a car.
Over the years, those have gotten fewer and farther between as Dmitri’s operations matured and we recruited more foot soldiers.
But watching these two, who have been circling each other, teasing each other, neither one willing to cross that line, finally, finally giving in to themselves, has my heart racing.
Satisfaction settles in my gut, knowing these two were meant for each other.
I don’t believe in soul mates, but if I did, I’d know these two were cut from the same soul fabric.
He pants against her, hands roaming everywhere eagerly; she tugs at his hair, hungrily swallowing down the moans from his mouth.
It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
I look at Lev, feeling like we should leave or go somewhere else to give them more privacy, but he’s simply staring at the floor between his feet.
In an instant, I feel for the man. I’ve known for a while he’s wanted her, but like me, he can’t have her.
I want to give him a pep talk, remind him of our role in her life, and that Mik’s a good man who will take good care of her.
He looks like someone kicked his puppy. For all of his brash bravado, he’s a deeply feeling man, and I’m sure seeing Mik get everything he wants, while Lev can’t, isn’t something he’ll be able to get over anytime soon.
I wonder if he’ll ask to be reassigned. I’m not sure how I’m going to stomach watching them together, but I know that I’ll have to figure it out. I wouldn’t trust her safety to anyone else.
The entire reason Lev and I were assigned to her was because of lingering looks another guard, Yegor, gave her when she started developing breasts.
With my heart breaking inside my chest, at the same time it heals, knowing Tati and Mik will finally get their happily ever-after, assuming Irina and Dmitri will allow it.
But then Tati separates them, resting her forehead on Mik’s, both of their chests heaving with labored breaths.
It’s when she looks over at me that my throat squeezes shut.
She climbs off Mik’s lap. Mik lets his hand drag down the curve of her back, over an ass cheek, until she’s far enough away it’s forced to drop. Like, now that he’s had her, he can’t imagine not touching her.
"Tanya..." I say in warning, holding my hands out in front of me like I can hold her off.
Like the little brat she is, she bats them aside and climbs onto my thighs.
“Tati... we can’t...” I stammer, already losing the battle with myself at the scent of her shampoo.
She drops her head, her lips grazing my neck, and I groan, my hands falling to her hips, and my head tilting backwards to give her more access.
I am a weak, weak man.
“Here’s what I think...” she says, as her lips work their way up my neck, through the scruff on my jaw, and to the corner of my lips. Focus. She’s talking. Pay attention.
Paying attention is suddenly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, with all of my blood flowing south at the moment.
“We’re trapped in this cabin for what? The next week? Two? Maybe a month?”
“Mhm,” I agree, barely holding on when she resettles on my lap, dragging her warm center over my hard cock.
“What if, in this cabin, it’s fair game....”
She grinds on me, and there’s just thin fabric between the head of my cock and her pussy, and fuck, I’m so turned on I start to shake. The urge to rip her leggings and plunge into her warmth is too much.
“What is fair game?” Lev’s voice comes from somewhere in the dark, and fuck. I’d forgotten he was even here.
“Me. This. Us,” she says, between kisses.
My fingers dig into her flesh, but I don’t know if I want to drag her against me harder, or hold her still so I can concentrate and think clearly.
I know we shouldn’t be doing this. I know I shouldn’t be touching her the way that I am.
I know I shouldn’t be hard for my friend’s daughter.
But all of the reasons why I shouldn’t seem flimsy at this moment, and she’s making more and more sense as she talks.
One of her hands snakes its way up my shirt, and she drags her fingers over the ridges of my stomach, careful to stay away from the bandage, and up my chest. I’m drugged by her touch.
“I’m not na?ve enough to think this is my future, but for a few days or weeks?
” She sounds sad now, and it weakens my lust enough to open my eyes and really take her in and what she’s saying.
Of course, she’s right. She’s not going to go to her parents and say that she wants to be with the three of us.
If anyone found out that I’d touched her even this much, I’d be dead.
They had already tried to send Mik away once.
If they knew he’d crossed that line, his head would roll. Same for Lev.
There’s no future here.
It makes me sad to think that she’s already given up on this, but she’s right - she’s not na?ve or dumb.
She’s already done the mental gymnastics of what a few days of finally giving in mean for us.
And at the end of the day, it means jack shit.
Whenever this threat is gone, and she returns back to her real life, everything has to go back to the way it was - wanting her without being able to have her.
Can I survive that? Having her, if only for a few days, to go back to wanting her from afar?
Watching her go out on more dates? Fall in love? Get married?
Fuck. It makes me sick to my stomach. But in the next breath, I know my answer. But she’s not done.
“If I’m going to lose my virginity, I’d rather lose it to you three than a stranger.”
“Fuck,” Lev curses quietly from behind her.
“You’re a virgin?” I ask in a hushed whisper.
She pinches her lower lip between her teeth and nods. That changes things. My earlier need to slam home inside of her disappears. If we’re going to be her firsts, we need to set the standard for men going forward. She needs to know how it feels to be properly worshiped.
She must intuitively know I need a breather, because she slides off my lap and saunters over to Lev. She may be a virgin, but she knows how to move her body. Lev doesn’t look up at her.
She grips his chin and yanks it upwards, so he’s forced to look at her. He closes his eyes, stubbornly, his hands wrapping around her wrists.
She shakes his chin, demanding his attention.
“I can’t be what you need, knyazhna. I’m not good enough for you.
” His whispered confession cracks something beneath my breastbone.
He truly believes that. And yeah, maybe he hasn’t shown her the best sides of him, but he’s a good man - loyal, smart, protective.
I know I can trust her with him - body and soul - and that means more than the teasing and pulling her hair like a teenager.
Her shoulders droop an inch.
“I’m not asking for a ring, Lev. I’m asking you to teach me how to give a blow job.”
A choked laugh escapes his throat, and he finally lets his hands wrap around the back of her thighs, the same way I held her yesterday.
Her words are brash, but the way her fingers thread through his short hair is tender.
She knows he needs levity to hide behind.
I don’t know how she knows him so instinctively, but she does.
He’s quiet for a long moment, likely weighing his options, but I already know what he’s going to choose.
He thinks he’s got a short lifetime anyway, dying at the hands of Nikolai because he touched his best friend’s little sister?
Worth it. Mind made up, he finally leans back in his chair and spreads his legs, inviting her into him.
“Wait a second. We need to think about this...” I start.
Tati tosses her hands in the air in frustration. “Talk about what? We just did! Until this is over, everything is fair game - I’m fair game.”
A smile tugs at my lips.
“I want to talk about how we can make this good for you,” I start, and the fight bleeds from her shoulders.
“Oh.”
“How much experience, exactly, do you have?”
She turns toward me slightly so she can watch my face, but Lev hasn’t given up his grip on her thighs.
“I’ve watched plenty,” she says with a shrug. “And I’m sure my hymen is long gone...” It takes my lust-drunk brain a second to catch up to what she’s implying, and the second it does it gifts me with a mental image of Tati, naked, legs spread, thrusting a vibrator in and out of herself.
I curse this time, and I’m pretty sure Lev growls. Mik, the saint of our little trio, simply adjusts himself on the couch.
“I just want to make sure we don’t do too much, too fast. You’re in charge here, because it’s your comfort and consent that matter the most...” Except, maybe that’s not entirely true.
“Mik...” Christ, how do I ask this?
He swallows, though, and shakes his head once.
Okay.
So, we’re working with two virgins.