Chapter 23 #3
My inner walls clenched around him and he finally let go, driving into me one last, brutal time before burying himself deep inside me, his entire body tensing as he came with a long, low groan.
I felt the hot, hard pulse of his release, and it triggered another, much bigger orgasm in me, a final, shuddering endless wave of pleasure that left me feeling completely boneless and spent.
He collapsed on top of me, careful to keep most of his weight on his elbows. We stayed like that for a long moment, both of us panting, our bodies slick with sweat, the room smelling of sex and us. He carefully withdrew and rolled me over, pulling me into his arms and tucking the blanket around us.
I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart. I felt safe. Protected. Cared for.
Seven years of grief and anger and loneliness had come to this.
To this. A dangerous, brilliant, infuriating man who had spanked me, fucked me, and held me together while I fell apart.
A man who had invaded my life, my home, my very thoughts, and in doing so had somehow managed to make me feel more myself than I had in years.
“Is that what you needed, little girl?” His voice was a low rumble against my ear.
“Yes, Daddy,” I whispered, my face heating just a little.
He tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer. “You’re safe with me, solnyshko. Always and forever.”
I knew he meant it. I also knew that safe was a relative term when you were dealing with a man like Ivan Morozov, a family like the Morozovs, and a war with a man like Mikhail Orlov.
But for tonight, in this bed, with this man, I was safe.
And for the first time in seven years, that was enough.
* * *
The next morning, I woke up before he did.
I slipped out of bed, my body aching in the most delicious ways, pulled on one of his comfy-looking button-up shirts, and padded into the kitchen.
I put on a pot of coffee, the scent filling the apartment with a comforting familiarity.
I was standing at the window, looking out at the city, when I felt him behind me.
He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back against him, his chin resting on my shoulder. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” I said, leaning my head back against him.
We stood in comfortable silence for a while, watching the city come to life.
The coffeepot gurgled, its rhythmic sound a steady, soothing counterpoint to the quiet hum of the computers in the other room.
After a while longer, he moved away and poured two cups of coffee, handing one to me.
We drank in silence, the coffee warming me from the inside out.
When I was done, he took my cup and set it on the counter, then turned back to me, his pale eyes searching mine.
He reached out, his fingers gently tracing the line of my jaw, his thumb brushing over my lips.
“You are so beautiful, little girl,” he said.
“What does it mean?” I asked. My eyes went to the window. “The Daddy thing. What does it actually mean to you?”
He was quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet of a man who already knew and was taking the time to say it correctly.
“It means there’s always someone to take care of you,” he said.
I looked at my coffee mug.
“To make sure you’re safe. That you sleep when you need to sleep and eat actual food and don’t run yourself into the ground because stopping feels like losing.
” His hand moved to my jaw, tilting my face up.
“It means someone notices when you’re tired before you do. Someone who makes sure you come home.”
I looked at him.
“That’s very comprehensive,” I said.
“Yes.” His mouth curved. “It is.”
“And when I don’t cooperate with the eating or the sleeping or the coming home part?”
“Then I will punish you.”
“The spanking kind of punishment, then.”
“Among other things.”
I made a face that I was categorically not going to describe as a pout. It was a considered expression of mild objection delivered by a rational adult. “Spankings hurt, you know.”
His expression didn’t change. “Yes.”
“That’s the whole response? Just yes?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“Something more sympathetic.”
“I’m very sympathetic,” he said. “While it’s happening.”
I looked at him for a long moment. “You are absolutely not.”
The corner of his mouth moved. “I am thorough,” he allowed.
I opened my mouth to reply to that, and he said quietly:
“Even good girls get spankings sometimes, solnyshko, but you know that already, don’t you?”
I looked down.
My fingers found the hem of his shirt, and I ran my thumb along the bottom button without thinking about it, which was unlike me. I thought about everything. I thought compulsively and in sequence and with detailed annotation.
I was not thinking right now.
Or rather: I was thinking one thing, small and clear, in the part of myself I had been not-naming since last night.
Oh.
So this is what this is.
I had spent a very long time managing myself.
Getting enough sleep to function. Eating when the cognitive decline became noticeable.
Coming home because there were files at home.
Making decisions about risk because risk assessment was a skill I had developed out of necessity and applied rigorously, because the alternative was Daniel’s outcome.
I had done all of that alone for years. I had been, it turned out, quite competent at it. I had also been, it turned out—and I was going to need additional time before I said this out loud—quite tired of taking care of myself.
His hand came to the back of my head.
“Kit,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said to the hem of the shirt.
“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t have to be.”
He said it like it was true regardless of what I said next. Like my fine-ness was not contingent on my own assessment of it. Like he had already taken the inventory, reached his own conclusion, and was simply waiting for me to arrive at the same one.
I looked up.
He was watching me with that patience. The specific patience I had spent some time resenting because it had no edges to push against. It simply waited.
“This is a lot,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t do this well.”
“You’re doing it now.”
“Badly.”
“No,” he said. “Just for the first time.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then I turned back toward the window. His shirt was soft against my skin, the city coming up gold in the morning light. He stepped behind me again and his arms came around my waist, just holding me. The warmth of him seeped into my back and I relaxed by a degree I did not know I had left.
His chin rested on my shoulder. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
I was silent for a long moment.
“Yes, Daddy. I do.”