14. Katerina
KATERINA
As soon as the words leave my mouth, Aleksandr kisses me hard.
There is no hesitation, no moment of asking permission. There never is with him—he simply takes what he wants without question. His mouth crashes into mine with enough force that steals the air from my lungs and sends heat pooling immediately between my legs.
A soft, involuntary sound escapes me before I can swallow it back.
My thighs tighten instinctively around his waist, locking myself in place even though the arm banded around my lower back already keeps me pinned flush against his chest. The heat of him seeps through my thin shirt, tempting me to sink my nails into the meat of his shoulders and mark him the way he’s marked me so many times before without even touching me.
I rock against him without thinking.
A small, desperate grind to seek the friction I so badly want. I feel the hard, thick line of him press against my inner thigh. The awareness of it sends another pulse of heat rolling through me so intense my breath stutters against his lips.
My hands slide from his shoulders into his hair, fingers threading through the dark strands to anchor myself as the world narrows to the way his tongue strokes deep and claiming inside my mouth like he’s trying to devour every sound I make.
He tastes like expensive whiskey and something uniquely him. The hand at my waist tightens. Fingers splay wide across the small of my back, pressing me harder against him almost as though he’s afraid I might leave if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
A ridiculous fear if it were true, honestly… if anything, I lean further in.
We’ve been at this crossroads for days pretending the only thing binding us together is our shared desire to dismantle my father.
Sifting through hundreds of intelligence reports, compiling every data point we’ve been able to get our hands on until the lines blurred and the hours bled into each other.
It’s been an easy distraction. But beneath it there’s always been something else—a suffocating tension that has never quite dissipated since the morning we first crossed this invisible barrier. Since then, we’ve refused to acknowledge its existence.
Until now.
His gaze tracing the lines of my body when he thinks I’m not looking.
Moments where we’ve sat too close together on the couch, our knees almost touching, while he scrolls through his tablet as more information arrives through backdoor channels.
The way his voice drops lower when I get too close, the way his fingers flex around a pen like he’s imagining them around something else.
The restraint has been exhausting trying to ignore all of it.
I’ve had to cling to it white-knuckled just to keep the fragile balance between us from completely crumbling. Because I knew deep in the marrow of my bones that once either one of us gave in, there would be no returning to strategy and civility.
There would be only this.
He shifts under me briefly and pushes away from the back of the couch. In one smooth motion he turns, laying me down across the cushions without ever breaking the kiss. His tongue sweeps deep along my tongue again until I’m arching beneath him, chasing the pressure of his body against mine.
One of his hands leaves my waist to brace beside my head. The other slides up my side, pushing the silk shirt higher until his palm is flat over my bare stomach. He moves it up, his thumb brushes the underside of my breast, then higher, circling the already tight nipple with maddening lightness.
I whimper into his mouth.
He growls in response and tears his lips from mine only long enough to drag them down the column of my throat.
Teeth graze the spot where my pulse hammers.
Then he bites, hard enough to sting but not enough to break skin.
He sucks the tender flesh into his mouth until I know there will be a mark tomorrow.
Another one. Another claim.
Only this time it will be visible to everyone, not just me.
My hands are frantic now, tugging at his shirt with clumsy, desperate pulls.
The fabric bunches under my fingers, straining against the force of my impatience and I growl in frustration.
Aleksandr lets out a low laugh against my throat, darkly amused.
He finally takes pity on me and shifts his weight off me just enough to shrug out of the shirt.
His muscles flex from the motion, the hard lines of them rolling under the dark ink that covers his chest and left arm.
The moment his skin is bare I rake my nails down his chest hard enough to leave angry red trails over the dark whorls of tattoos that stretch from his left collarbone to his right arm.
He hisses sharply but he doesn’t pull away.
If anything he presses closer, letting me mark him, letting me claim him the same way he already has.
“Fuck,” he breathes out, his dark blue irises quickly swallowed up by his blown out pupils. “Is this what you wanted, Milaya? To show everyone who I belong to?”
The words fan the fire already raging inside me. “Yes.”
He shifts his hips in response and grinds that hard, thick length of him against my core through the thin cotton of my shorts.
The friction is devastating. I cry out, hips jerking up to meet him instinctively, seeking more pressure, more relief, of that electric ache that’s been building since the second we started this.
He groans low in his throat and presses harder, rolling his hips in a slow, torturous grind that drags the ridge of him right over my clit through the damp fabric. My vision whites out for a second.
My nails dig deeper into his pecs.
“You drive me insane, Katya,” he mutters, dropping his head to press his mouth against my ear. “Every fucking time I look at you I want to ruin you until the only word you remember is my name.”
“Please,” I gasp.
I don’t even know what I’m begging for anymore. All I know is that the ache between my legs is relentless and the only thing that will soothe it is him inside me, owning me until there’s nothing left but the two of us and the wildfire we keep setting.
He senses it without having to look at my face.
His hand leaves my hip and slides up under the hem of my shirt.
A rough palm skims over bare skin, tracing the curve of my waist, along the dip of my ribs, until he reaches the underside of my breast. He cups me fully, thumb brushing over the already tight nipple. Then he pinches it between two fingers.
Hard.
The sharp sting of pain collides with the pleasure already flooding my veins and I squirm beneath him, a broken whimper tearing from my throat.
My thighs clamp tighter around his hips but he doesn’t let up.
He twists it just enough to keep the edge of pain alive while his mouth finds my throat again, sucking another fresh mark into the skin right above the last one.
“You like that,” he growls against my neck. Not a question. A statement. “You like it when I remind you who’s in control.”
I can’t answer with words, only with another desperate roll of my hips, grinding myself against the cock hiding in his pants until we’re both breathing in harsh, uneven pants.
He releases my nipple only to shove the shirt up and over my head in one swift motion.
Cool air hits my bare skin, making me shiver.
Soon, his mouth is on me again. Wet and greedy, he traps the neglected nipple between his teeth this time, sucking and biting in rhythm with the slow grind of his hips until I’m writhing beneath him, incoherent sounds spilling from my lips.
His free hand slides down my stomach, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of my shorts. His fingers part my folds and plunge two fingers deep inside me.
I jolt with a sharp cry. “Oh!”
My walls flutter around the sudden intrusion. He curls both fingers immediately, stroking that spot inside me that makes stars burst behind my eyelids. His thumb finds my clit and circles it while his fingers pump in a rhythm designed to shatter me.
“Look at me,” he orders, lifting his head up from my breast.
His eyes are black fire, locked on my face as he memorizes every twitch and gasp he pulls from me. “Who do you belong to?”
My lashes flutter again. “Oh…”
He growls. “Look at me, Katerina. Who do you belong to?”
“You!” I gasp.
He rewards me by adding another finger, thumb pressing down on my clit with merciless pressure until I’m trembling on the edge. When I come it’s sudden and violent. My body locking down around his fingers, a broken sob tearing from my throat as wave after brutal wave rips through me.
He doesn’t stop.
He tortures me, drawing it out until I’m a whimpering, oversensitive mess.
Only when tears leak from my eyes does he pull his fingers free. He brings them to his mouth and licks them clean while holding my gaze. When he leans down and kisses me deep, I taste myself on his tongue.
I’ll never get enough of him.
I can’t.
Despite everything—the monster I know he’s capable of being, the man behind the shadows influencing parts of this world I couldn’t even begin to fathom—I still want him with a need that is so desperate it borders on hysterical.
“Turn over,” he says, parting from me.
I obey without hesitation, rolling onto my stomach and pushing up onto my knees when he nudges my thighs apart.
My hands grip the arm of the couch in front of me, using it to keep me upright.
He tugs my shorts down in one rough motion, leaving them tangled around my knees.
I feel the heat of him behind me, the blunt head of his cock notches at my entrance.
When he pushes himself inside me, he does it in one brutal stroke that buries him until his hips meet my ass.
I cry out, nails biting down on the leather armrest. My back arches as he fills me completely, my walls clenching hard enough around his length to feel the veins running along the sides pulsing. He fucks me hard, each thrust slamming home, his hips snapping against my ass with bruising a force.