Chapter 22 - Alexei
The gala was exactly as insufferable as I remembered.
Same suffocating crowd of people who thought their money made them important. Same endless speeches about legacy and excellence. I had already endured three hours of it, smiling when expected, nodding when required, and pretending I gave a single fuck about any of it.
Dimitri, as predicted, didn’t come. He was probably buried between Rei’s legs somewhere in the mansion by now. That left me to play the responsible one. The spare heir who showed up when the actual heir couldn’t be bothered.
Boring.
After another hour of listening to some old bastard drone on about “the future of our great institution,” I slipped away. I moved through the crowd until I reached the side door that led to the narrow stairwell. The same one I had used last year.
The rooftop was different this time.
Someone had clearly prepared it. Thick blankets were spread across the stone in careful layers, layered with an absurd number of pillows. Several telescopes stood on tripods near the edge, their lenses pointed toward the sky.
I walked to the center of the roof and stopped, tilting my head back to stare at the stars.
Last year, this same rooftop had changed everything.
I had killed a man here. Matt Langford. Strangled the life out of him while the stars watched. And then Marco had appeared in that doorway and turned my world upside down.
The door behind me creaked open.
I turned.
Marco stood in the doorway.
He was wearing a cream-colored top that looked soft against his skin, tucked into dark, loose pants that moved when he walked.
A thin silver chain served as a belt, tied at the front with a very small black ribbon.
The outfit was simple but elegant in a way that suited him far better than the stiff formal wear most people had on downstairs.
His curls were slightly tousled from the wind, and the city lights below caught on the delicate chain at his waist.
God, he was beautiful.
Isn’t this déjà vu?
“I didn’t know you were coming to this, I would have picked you up,” I said.
He hesitated in the doorway, one hand still resting on the frame like he wasn’t sure if he should stay or turn around and run.
“I’m expected to attend,” his voice was soft.
“Previous scholarship students have to be here. It’s part of the agreement.
The academy wants us visible during big events, proof that their program works.
We’re supposed to represent them. If we skip something like this, it looks bad on the whole scholarship initiative.
They can make things difficult for us after. ”
“I won’t be lonely then.”
Marco blinked, clearly surprised by the answer. His cheeks colored faintly as he stepped fully onto the roof and let the door close behind him.
His eyes flicked around the rooftop before finally settling on me.
When he was close enough that I could see the way the city lights reflected in his hazel eyes, I spoke. “Are you scared?”
He swallowed.
The motion was small but telling. His throat bobbed, and for a second his gaze dropped to the stone where Matt Langford’s body had once lain last year. When he looked back up at me, his voice was quiet.
“Is there a dead boy here?”
I chuckled. “No. Not this time.”
Marco took a deep breath, then stepped forward until he was standing beside me at the edge of the roof. He didn’t look at me again right away. Instead, he tilted his head back and stared up at the stars, the same way I had been doing before he arrived.
“…Can I ask something?”
I glanced at him.
“Why did you kill that person?”
“He annoyed me.”
Marco turned his head then, looking directly at me. I couldn’t quite read his expression. There was something thoughtful in it. Something searching.
I knew what he was thinking.
That I was dangerous. That I was capable of ending a life over something as small as irritation. That I was exactly the kind of person his mother had probably warned him about when he was growing up.
He was right.
But instead of pulling away, he stayed where he was. His fingers curled lightly around the small black ribbon at his waist as he asked the next question.
“…If I annoy you… will you kill me?”
I turned to face him fully then.
The city lights painted half of his face in gold while the other half stayed in shadow. His curls moved softly in the wind.
“For one,” I said, voice low, “you could never annoy me. And two…” I took a single step closer, closing the small distance between us. “Even if you did… I’d never do that.”
Marco stared up at me. “Why not?” he asked, barely breathing.
I reached out and caught his chin between my fingers, tilting his face up so he had no choice but to keep looking at me. My thumb brushed slowly across his lower lip as I spoke.
“Because you’re mine, little star.”
I stepped in even closer, until our bodies were nearly touching. The wind whipped around us, but I barely felt it. All I could focus on was the way his pulse jumped beneath my fingers where I still held his chin.
“You belong to me,” I continued, voice possessive. “You’re carved into me.”
My thumb pressed a little firmer against his lip.
“I don’t kill what’s mine. I keep it. I protect it. I ruin it. And you…” I leaned in until my mouth was barely an inch from his, my breath brushing against his skin. “You’ve been mine since the moment I first saw you.”
I let my hand slide from his chin down to his throat, fingers resting lightly over his racing pulse.
“So no, Marco. I’ll never kill you. Not when you annoy me.
Not when you fight me. Not even when you look at me with those wide, terrified eyes like you’re still waiting for the monster to show its teeth.
Because the truth is…” My voice dropped even lower, heated.
“I like your fear. I like the way it mixes with the way your body reacts when I touch you. But I hate the part of it that makes you think I would ever end you. That part makes me want to burn the world down until you understand one simple truth.”
I brushed my lips against his, barely a kiss, more a promise.
“You’re not something I’ll ever let go of. You’re not something I’ll ever grow bored of. I’ll keep you until the stars themselves burn out. Do you understand me?”
I pulled back just enough to look into his eyes, my hand still resting possessively at his throat.
“So stop asking if I’m going to end you. The only thing I’m going to do is have you.”
Marco’s breathing had turned heavier, those quick little gasps slipping past his parted lips as he stared up at me.
I looked down at him, eyes dragging over every inch. The way the shirt dipped low enough to show the delicate line of his collarbone. The way his curls fell messily across his forehead. The way his pupils had already started to blow wide.
He looked wrecked already, and I hadn’t even touched him properly yet.
“Now I think you should run, little star.”
Marco’s breath hitched hard. He blinked up at me, confused and flushed.
“W… why?”
“Because I’m really fucking horny right now,” I murmured, “and if you don’t run, I don’t think I’ll stop at just my fingers this time.
I’ve been hard since the second you walked out here in this fucking shirt.
So I’m giving you five seconds. Five seconds to turn around and run back inside like a good boy…
before I rip these pretty clothes off you right here on this rooftop and fuck you. ”
I let the words hang between us, watching the way they sank into him. My cock was so hard it hurt, trapped behind expensive fabric.
“I’ll count to five, Malyshka,” I warned him. “One.”
He didn’t run. He just stood there, breathing too fast, eyes locked on mine like he was trying to decide if I was serious.
I was. Dead serious.
“Two.”
Marco’s throat bobbed. He took one tiny step backward, the heel of his shoe brushing the edge of the nearest blanket. His lips parted like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
“Three.”
The second my foot shifted, Marco spun. He tried to bolt for the door. But his foot caught the thick folded edge of one of the dark blankets someone had so thoughtfully spread out. He stumbled hard, arms flying out, a startled sound ripping from his throat as he went down.
He hit the pile of pillows and layered blankets on his hands and knees with a thud.
The cream top rode all the way up his back, exposing the elegant line of his spine and the upper curve of his ass in those loose dark pants.
For one perfect second he stayed like that - ass up, back arched, completely vulnerable - before he tried to scramble forward again.
“Four.”
I was already there. My hand shot out and closed around his slim ankle like a cuff.
I yanked. Hard. He slid backward across the blankets with a choked gasp, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the fabric and finding none.
I dragged him the last few feet until he was right where I wanted him - sprawled and panting at my feet.
“Five.”
I flipped him onto his back, using my grip on his ankle and the weight of my body to roll him over.
“Too late, Malyshka,” I growled as I crawled over him, planting one knee between his spread thighs and caging his head between my hands. “It’s time for me to show you exactly what being ‘mine’ means.”
His breathing was frantic now. I could see the outline of his nipples, already tight from the wind and the fear-roughened arousal twisting through him. His lips were parted, and when I leaned down to drag my thumb across the lower one he made a tiny sound that went straight to my cock.
Both hands went to the hem of that top. I shoved it upward, exposing the warm plane of his stomach.
My palms slid over it, feeling every shiver.
I pushed higher, bunching the fabric under his arms, and leaned down to mouth at the newly bared skin.
I licked a filthy stripe from just above his navel up to the center of his chest, then closed my teeth around one nipple and sucked hard.
Marco’s whole body jerked. A high sound tore out of him and his hands flew up to my shoulders. I bit down just enough to make him feel it, then soothed the sting with my tongue before moving to the other nipple and giving it the same treatment.
“Alexei—” His voice cracked on my name. “I— I can’t—”
“You can,” I rasped against his skin, licking another circle around the abused nipple.
I yanked the top the rest of the way off and tossed it somewhere into the darkness near the telescopes. Now he was bare from the waist up, skin glowing in the light, nipples dark and wet and peaked.
“These too.” My hands went to the waistband of his pants. I popped the button, dragged the zipper down. I hooked my fingers into both the pants and the simple black underwear beneath and pulled everything down in one motion.
Marco lifted his hips to help, or maybe because his body was moving on instinct now, and his cock sprang free, already leaking. I pulled the pants and underwear all the way off, over his knees, past his ankles. Everything landed in a careless pile beside the blankets.
And then he was naked.
Completely, beautifully, devastatingly naked under the open sky.
I sat back and stared, cock throbbing so hard I had to reach down and squeeze myself through my trousers just to stay in control. Marco’s body was slim and elegant in a way that was just fucking otherworldly.
“Fuck,” I breathed, voice wrecked.
I ran my palms up his inner thighs, spreading him wider. He was trembling, but he didn’t try to close his legs. His hands fisted in the blankets beside his head.
I leaned down and licked a stripe up the underside of his cock from base to tip. When I sucked the head into my mouth, tongue pressing against the slit to lap up the precum, Marco’s back arched hard off the blankets with a moan. His hands flew to my hair.
I pulled off with a wet pop and spit on my fingers, reaching down between his legs without breaking eye contact. I circled his hole with one fingertip, pressing just enough to feel the tight ring flutter and give.
“So fucking tight,” I growled.
I added a second finger right away, scissoring gently, stretching him while I sucked one of his nipples back into my mouth. Marco was panting hard now. His hole clenched rhythmically around my fingers, and every time I brushed his prostate his cock leaked onto his stomach.
I pulled my fingers out to spit on them again, then pushed three back in, slower this time, giving him time to adjust. The stretch made him whine - high and startled and so fucking sweet - but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his thighs fell open wider, offering himself.
“Alexei….it’s too much—” His voice was wrecked, but his hips were rocking down onto my fingers like he needed more.
“It’s not enough,” I corrected. I twisted my wrist, scissoring and curling until he was shaking under me. “Not until you’re open enough to take my cock.”
I leaned up and kissed him while my fingers kept working him open. He kissed back desperately, moaning into my mouth, one hand fisted in my shirt.
When I finally pulled my fingers free, his hole fluttered. I sat back on my heels again and just looked at him.
He was mine. Mine to mark. Mine to fuck. Mine to keep.