Chapter 23 Sera
SERA
Alik collapses on top of me and I hold him close. I can feel him everywhere, his weight pressing me to the ground, his cock still throbbing inside of me, his heart pounding right up against mine.
With a groan he starts to push away, but I grip tighter. “No, stay. Just like this.”
“I’m crushing you.”
“You’re not.” I mean, he is, but I like it.
Really, really like it. I can’t stand the idea of any other man touching me, but being blanketed by Alik is one of the best sensations I’ve ever experienced.
I’m in no hurry for him to pull away and for the real world to come rushing back, filling the void.
We stay sandwiched together for another few minutes before Alik rolls us to our sides, his clothes rubbing against my sensitized skin.
He adjusts our position until my head is cradled on his bicep and my top leg is hitched over his hip.
He’s still buried deep inside me, softer but making me feel so full.
He brushes hair off my forehead, gives me a serious look. “Are you okay?”
“Mmm-hmm. Very.”
Alik nudges his hips slightly and the friction teeters between pleasure and pain. We’re so close together I can’t hide my wince.
“You’re sore.” He bundles me closer, cursing softly in Russian. “I’m sorry, moya voitelnitsa. Some pain is unavoidable, but I’m sorry to have caused it.”
“I made you do it.”
His eyebrows skyrocket to his hairline. “Made me, huh? You’re underestimating your powers of seduction. I would’ve happily gotten down on my hands and knees and begged.”
“Begged? To have sex with me?” I sound as shocked as I am. “That’s not the impression you’ve been giving off. Not even close.”
Alik draws a finger across my cheek, my nose, my lips. “Self-deception can be a great survival tactic.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he says with a deep sigh. “I’ve been doing everything possible to keep my hands off you.
To stop myself from wanting you. Trying to convince myself that I could stay away from you if I tried hard enough.
But…” He drifts off, capturing my mouth in a lazy kiss.
We’re both breathing heavier when he pulls away.
“As we can see, I was wrong. You’ve become the one thing I can’t resist.”
Warmth infuses me, unfurling in my chest and seeping out to my fingers and toes. “I knew you didn’t hate me.”
Alik’s laugh is self-deprecating. “But I think you might still hate me. Just a little.”
He’s wrong. I don’t hate him. I think it’s worse than that. I think I might like him. Really like him.
The realization is sudden, overwhelming.
Unnerving. We’ve been orbiting each other since the night he brought me to his apartment, caught in our own gravitational pull, circling and circling but never colliding.
Until tonight. The arrival of the woman in gold, the attack at the club, my instinct to get to Alik and the safe haven I knew he’d provide—it threw me onto a collision course I couldn’t avoid.
One strewn with feelings and complications and uncertainties that are too messy and, given the general theme of my life, probably too painful to contemplate.
So, I shove those gooey feelings down into a dark, hidden space, just like the room where my uncle kept me captive. Some things really are best kept locked away.
Alik’s voice pulls me out of my head. “And the silence confirms it—you definitely still hate me. Maybe more than a little.” He’s frowning and I swear I see real disappointment flash deep in his eyes.
I smooth the line notched between his brows. “I only hate you when you tell me what I can and can’t do. My family has been giving me orders my whole life. I’m officially done with people controlling me.”
“As you should be. And, in the hopes that you’ll hate me a little less, how about we amend our agreement? From now on, any orders I give will be specific to your safety. And from now on, you’ll follow them, da?”
When I don’t answer fast enough, Alik digs his hand into my naked hip.
“You have to agree, Sera. For your safety, for my sanity. I won’t survive a repeat of tonight.
When I saw you on the dance floor, the crowd rushing you, that fucker touching you, trying to strip you…
” A tremor shakes Alik’s entire body, like he’s reliving it and the fear is too much to contain.
“I’ve never been so angry or so terrified in my life. ”
His words are honest, his expression vulnerable, and I don’t have to think before agreeing. “When it comes to my safety, I’ll follow your orders.”
“Thank fuck.” Alik punctuates the curse with a kiss. I let him have me, twining my arms and legs around his heavy body until his cock starts to thicken inside of me. “Blyad!” he growls, jerking his hips as my body softens in welcome. “Not again, it’s too soon. You’re too sore.”
“I’m not.” I slip my hands under his clothes to grip the wide planes of his back. “I want you. Again, now.”
I watch as Alik wages an internal war, his need versus his instinct to protect me. I want his need to win out. In this moment, when we’ve fallen out of orbit, our universe whittled down to this pocket of pre-dawn sky, I want him to want me more than anything else.
“Please,” I murmur. “Don’t stop. I’ll be your good girl, just please don’t stop.”
Your good girl. Three words and Alik’s control snaps.
Mine too. I don’t know how to label what we’re doing on this floor, but it’s something beyond just fucking.
It’s powerful and messy and primal, but so quiet, so focused that we barely even move.
Hands in each other’s hair, we gasp against open mouths, drown in each other’s eyes, as we teach our bodies a new rhythm.
Alik flicks his hips, I rock mine down. We meet with an intensity that makes it impossible to breathe.
I’m still so wet from our first time. With every thrust of our hips, Alik’s cum from before slips out, making the slip and slide of our bodies even more explicit.
I tighten my leg around Alik’s hip, press my heel into his ass.
His fingers are digging into my skin so deep he’s going to leave marks.
I don’t care. I just want him again. And again.
And again, as many times as I can before whatever alternate reality we’re in falls spectacularly apart.
On his next thrust, Alik strokes something inside me. It’s raw, hypersensitive. I gasp in surprise. Curl my toes in pleasure. “Oh, God. There, yes. I-I’m going to come.”
Alik’s lips curl into a snarl and it’s impossible to ignore the control he’s wielding over his body.
He could annihilate me in a heartbeat, break me without thought.
But instead, he uses his strength, his power to help me climb higher than before.
He’s so solid, so thick inside of me, filling me past my limits, and every atom in my body loves it. Loves it.
He thrusts; my fingers go numb.
Another thrust and my muscles pull taut.
One more and every nerve ending short-circuits. I come on a silent scream, my pussy clenching so hard I swear Alik groans in pain.
“Fuck, Sera,” he grits out. “Baby. Fuck, yes, just like that. Such a good girl. Soaking my cock.” I can barely make sense of what he’s saying as Alik loses himself in me, more liquid heat bathing me from the inside out.
We’re sticky and sweaty and exhausted when we both come down from our high. I giggle into Alik’s neck. Slowly, he withdraws from my body. I feel the evidence of our orgasms escape and trail down my thighs. I wince at the sudden loss of him. And, yeah, the pain.
I watch Alik sit up, scrub his face with his hands.
“Christ. I can’t believe we just did it on the floor.
Again.” His expression turns horrified when he sees my carpet-rubbed and blood-flecked skin.
He grabs a blanket from a nearby sofa, wraps me up, and, ignoring my protests, collects me from the ground, arms behind my back and under my knees.
“No arguing, moya voitelnitsa. Let’s get you cleaned up. ”
I’ve never been in Alik’s office before.
It’s the only room in this enormous house that’s ever locked.
Alik carries me the whole way, only setting me down to unlock the door.
Once inside, I barely have time to take in my surroundings before he whisks me to a small but very beautiful ensuite bathroom, complete with rain head shower.
Alik deposits me on the closed toilet seat then strips off his suit jacket and rolls up his shirt sleeves before fiddling with the shower knobs.
I watch him work, fascinated by the play of muscles beneath the fine fabric of his shirt and the way the tattoo on the back of his neck shifts with his movements.
I can see shadows of the intricate ink that stretches across his back, under his white dress shirt, and it’s entirely possible I’m drooling when he turns and says, “Take as much time as you want. Now that the water is hot it’ll stay that way for ages.
I’ll go get some clothes from your room, leave them on the counter for when you’re ready. ”
It’s slowly dawning on me that, despite how late it is, Alik has plans for us that don’t involve sleeping or being naked.
He vanishes before I have a chance to ask him what comes next.
Once I’m alone there’s nothing to distract me from how used my body feels.
It’s not a bad feeling, not at all, but I’m suddenly exhausted and sore and a hot shower sounds perfect.
I have no idea how long I spend under the soothing spray, only that my fingertips are completely wrinkled and every inch of me thoroughly washed when I re-emerge.
As lovely as the bathroom is, there’s no comb or hairbrush anywhere, so I towel dry my hair and wrap it into a giant knot on my head before slipping into the leggings and zip-up hoodie that Alik delivered under the cover of steam.
The fuzzy slippers are the final touch and, as I step out into Alik’s domain, I try to shuffle with as much confidence as a sleepy former virgin with newly discovered (and newly achy) muscles can.
Alik looks up from his desk. He’s showered too.
His hair is darker, still wet, his shoulders looking impossibly broad in the navy sweater he’s changed into.
It might do a better job concealing his muscles than his dress shirt, but the way it enhances the blue of his eyes makes my stomach do ridiculously silly things.
“You’ve got to be hungry.” He points me toward a large leather sofa and sleek wooden coffee table, the second of which is covered with various foods, some sweet, some savory, plus a steaming pot of tea.
“Chef is asleep and I didn’t have time to cook anything, but there should be things here you like. Eat up.”
There are cheeses and sliced meats, crackers and olives, fruits and cookies and pastries and little pots of yogurt.
Plus a giant bowl of potato chips, which is what I go for first. Alik chuckles before grabbing a handful of grapes and sitting down next to me.
He lets me eat my first dozen chips in peace before saying, “We need to talk.”
“About?”
“What happened tonight.”
I sputter on a particularly salty slice of potato. “Again? Look, I’m sorry I ran out of the car and left Dimitri behind and was reckless and shit, but I’ve already said I’ll follow your orders—”
“It’s not about that. At least, not entirely.” Alik gives me a measured look, like he’s trying to figure out how honest I’ll be with him. “What did you see that made you run into the club?”
“How do you know I wasn’t just curious? Or bored?”
“Or jealous?” Alik laughs as I slap his chest but resumes somber interrogation mode a breath later. “Dimitri told me. He said you were chasing a man who went in after I did. I need to know who you saw. Who you wanted to follow so badly you were willing to run in there blind.”
The catch in his voice is back, same as when he told me about watching me get attacked on the dance floor. I hate how tormented he sounds. I owe him for that. “Fine, yes, I saw someone. Someone I recognize but haven’t seen in a long time. That’s why I went in.”
“The person’s name?”
“Renzo di Salvo.” I practically spit it out of my mouth.
Alik braces his elbows on his thighs, attention fixed on me. “How do you know di Salvo?”
I dump what’s left of my potato chips onto an empty plate. Talking about that man kills my appetite. “Longstanding family connection.” Something about the way Alik said the name catches my attention. “You know him, don’t you?”
“Enough to want to castrate him and choke him with his own balls, da.”
Unease twists through my gut, but I smother it. I always feel queasy whenever Renzo’s name comes up. No reason for it to be any different now. “I followed him into the club. Saw him inside, too, just after you killed that guy.”
Alik mutters a vague acknowledgement then gets up and heads to his desk.
The room is large, with a second cluster of furniture at the other end in front of an oversized fireplace, and plenty of space left over for the spacious desk and collection of wingback leather chairs that dominate the center of the office.
It’s not the size of the room that makes Alik suddenly seem far away.
It’s the lost look he gets when he studies a picture frame that holds pride of place in one corner of his desk, right next to an enormous vase of lilacs.
Their perfume is heady, maybe even more so for being out of season.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I realize they’re the reason Alik aways smells vaguely of flowers—and that, despite the summery scent, their placement is somber.
Like fresh blooms laid on a grave. I refocus on the framed photo.
I don’t know whose picture it is, and I want to. Very much.
Alik is so lost in his own world he doesn’t realize I’m standing next to him until I bump our shoulders together. His gaze stays locked on the face in the frame, his grip angled so I can’t get a good view. “Who is that?”
When he speaks, his voice is so quiet, so cold, I have to lean closer to hear him. “This is the reason I’m in Chicago. The reason I’m going to kill Rocco Pagano, Renzo di Salvo, Burim Shkodra. The reason I’m going to kill them all.”