10. Wren
WREN
Viktor covered me on the couch, pushing me into the cushions that I’d been calling my bed.
His mouth stayed pressed to mine, sucking my lips, his tongue swiping alongside mine, his chest heaving against mine with every sink down rubbing against my nipples. They were hard, peaked and so tender that I wished he’d rip my shirt off and pull them between his lips too.
But it was his hand, so big and rough as he kept it between my legs. His finger was soaked from thrusting it into my pussy, driving me insane with this raw need to explode.
Under him like this, I felt trapped in a new version of captivity. One of lust and desire, prompting me to cease thinking at all.
If I could, I would’ve remembered that he was the kind of man I shouldn’t want.
If common sense were still a thing, I would’ve told him to stop.
But all I could do was feel and accept this charged rush to come.
He ripped his mouth from mine, staring at me as he added another finger.
“Oh, fuck.” It slipped out of me as a wretched whisper of surprise. If he could make me feel this full with two fingers, I could only imagine his dick stretching me. “Fuck.” I grabbed his head and pulled him back down for a kiss, needing a hit of his possessive mouth.
Breaking for air, he watched me wince with the need to come. “Go on, Red.” His breath was choppy around the rasp of his words. “Ask me. A kiss for a question.”
If that was true, I’d earned about fifty kisses. But his game was over. I would hate him for it, this damn test of seeing how easily I could surrender to him. I was. I would. Any second now, I would splinter apart from his fingers stroking me and his thumb now rubbing circles around my clit.
“Can you…” I swallowed hard, frowning with the urgency to come. I gave up, humping his hand and letting my legs fall apart wider. “Can you…”
“Fuck.” He kissed me again. “Anything. Anything, Wren. Ask me.”
“My—” I moaned under another frantic kiss. “My shirt. Can you get it off and—”
He lowered his mouth to mine and answered me. I couldn’t even finish the question, but he understood anyway. Gripping the collar of my shirt, he wrenched down and sent the buttons flying. My bra was in the way, but he tugged at it hard, revealing my breasts.
Still fingering me, he didn’t lose his tempo as he dipped his face down. Kissing one then the other, he tormented me more. Licking at my flesh. Sucking to the point of pain on my nipple. Nipping at the lower curve of my breast. Then repeating it all over with my other breast.
“Viktor. Oh, fuck. Viktor. I need to come. I need to… to…”
He tugged on my nipple harder, pulling it into his mouth.
That was all it took. My orgasm crashed into me, smacking me with an exquisite burst of endorphins.
I cried out, shocked by the intensity of how good and bad it was. How hard and sensual he felt.
Licking at me and slowing his fingers back and forth, he let me ride the waves of pleasure until I ceased trembling. Until I started to catch my breath.
But as soon as I felt the shame and horror shrouding me at the fact that I’d let him touch me or kiss me at all, I was jarred out of the drugging, dizzying effects of my orgasm.
He pulled his fingers out and sat up. With his smoldering gaze on me, he licked his fingers clean. Then without a word, he got up and strode to the bathroom, his huge erection tenting his pants.
What the fuck was that?
What happened to not letting my emotions rule me?
Assess, ascertain, and act?
I covered my face with my hand and winced under it.
Just like that, I caved. I surrendered to him and completely gave in. It wasn’t the emotions as much as it was my body betraying me, my traitorous body coming to life and snapping into action for him.
I had so badly wanted to refuse to play that game with him. A kiss for a question, but I hadn’t lasted at all. The first touches of his mouth on mine unraveled my control. The first strokes of his fingers on my pussy destroyed my patience and common sense.
One time.
That’s it.
Now that the edge was taken off—for me—I could know that it wasn’t enough to make me repeat this mistake. No more “kiss for a question” antics. No more deluding myself into thinking that he’d ever be rational about keeping me here.
I slipped.
That was all this was. A lapse in judgment. One I wouldn’t make again.
I fell asleep to that idea, sleepier since the rush of coming so hard. Even though I knew he was in his shower, no doubt jerking off, I drifted into a deep slumber that stayed with me until morning.
I’d slept in, actually, and groaned at the irritation in my eyes.
“You forgot to take your contacts out.”
I blinked at him standing next to the couch.
Fully dressed. Holding out a cup of coffee.
“I was preoccupied,” I muttered dryly as I sat up.
“Me too.” He set the cup on the table and straightened. “Go handle your contacts and come downstairs.”
Without waiting for me to say anything after his orders—which were more curt and direct than he usually was—he strode out of the room.
I frowned at the steaming cup of coffee.
So… that’s how it is now?
Still stuck here.
Still a prisoner with no clarification about why.
And pretending what happened last night didn’t happen?
I shook my head, so exhausted from being confused about what he wanted from me.
I sipped the coffee then got up to take out my contacts and shower. Under the strong pressure of the hot water spraying down on me, I sighed and willed my body to wake up. Willed my mind to snap into focus.
How is this my life? What is this supposed to even be anymore?
While I was captive in the sense that I couldn’t leave the house and guards surrounded me and I had no access to call for help, it was harder to feel like a prisoner.
I was fed, clothed, and had a place to sleep. Viktor suggested that he wanted me in his bed and I was surprised he’d “let” me avoid him and stay on the couch.
Maybe it was his idea of meeting me in the middle.
I smirked, washing up.
He captured me and held me against my will, yet he still seemed to be flexible about it.
I felt more like a roommate than anything else. And that was what tripped me up even more.
The longer I stayed here and observed how the Volkovs worked as a family and organization, the more I noticed subtle signs of the internal discipline that ruled them all.
Their behavior wasn’t consistent with what any of the files Smithson or any other agent had ever made about them. Predisposed to see them as the enemy, as the criminals who did bad things, I couldn’t shift into thinking they were suddenly “okay”.
Yet, I saw the differences.
They weren’t lawless brutes with whores and hookers and strung-out junkies around them. They had house staff and professional guards who acted like a small army.
They didn’t lash out and shoot people upon sight for the hell of it like they were uncontrollable, uncivilized monsters. They argued rationally and respected each other’s opinions.
Of course, they didn’t discuss anything confidential or related to business around me—clearly still thinking I would be a spy and keep this intel to use against them should I ever be out of their grasp.
All I could summarize in my mind was that the narrative Smithson and the agency had for me was distorted through a lens of lies.
The Volkovs were powerful, wealthy, and resourceful. But at the heart of it all, they were just another family.
Don’t go weak.
I shook my head as I rinsed off.
Just because he made me come, he couldn’t trick me into thinking they weren’t bad people. I knew that they were.
At the same time, though, I was able to consider opening my eyes a little more.
Each day, I recognized Viktor’s intelligence and restraint.
Sure, he was sarcastic—always sarcastic—but he wasn’t a monster like what everyone made him out to be.
According to the reports I’d skimmed on my way to Vegas, I should’ve been expecting a week of living with a murderous, volatile, beast-like asshole who couldn’t control his impulses to destroy the world around him.
But he’s not.
Like what he said last night, he only wanted to do what he could to keep his family safe. A commitment to care for those he loved unsettled me. It complicated my ready-made moral compass.
I wouldn’t judge someone for wanting to protect their family… yet they needed the protection because their legacy and name were founded in such violence.
I couldn’t be self-righteous in that regard either, because I couldn’t ever say the same about my “family” at my workplace. Not the new one here in Vegas or my former office coworkers at the financial department back in Oregon.
Further back than that, I couldn’t claim an inherent sense of family and being protected like when I was in training, or further back, when I was in college.
Being the product of a single mom who was a cop and an absent father who was a detective, I’d gotten it into my head that my family would always be a work family. A group of law enforcement professionals.
When did that ever happen, though?
I’d never felt connected with another, never had an actual partner.
Hating the possibility that I could’ve duped myself all these years with my hope to fit in on a team, I hung my head as I got out of the shower to dry off and get dressed.
With a hurting heart and a crestfallen mood, I succumbed to the fact that I’d never had anyone in my corner. No support team. No one I could trust.
Because despite how Viktor made me feel last night, I still couldn’t convince myself to ever trust him.