Chapter 67
“Zeno.”
If I was a stronger man, I’d ignore her and continue my way out of the club, her city, country, and return to Rome to tell my lawyers to go ahead and facilitate the divorce.
Too bad, I’m fucking weak.
Three steps down the stairs. Three steps back up to the balcony. I remain by the staircase, waiting for her next command.
She nods to the space in front of her. “Come here.”
Like the Bratva queen she is, and the mere subject I am, I obey. She’s a leader in her kingdom. The couch is her throne, a place she’s comfortable commanding from. I cross the space, stopping where she gestures to.
She tips her head back to look me in the face, and even though she’s seated while I loom above her, she could very well be the one on her feet, considering how easily I crumble with her next whispered instruction.
“Kneel.”
I kneel in front of her, our faces aligned as she slides to the edge of the couch, one leg on either side of my body. I fight like hell to maintain eye contact, even as she cups my cheek and studies me. After a moment, her brows dip, as though she finds what she was searching for but isn’t pleased by it.
“Help me figure out why I can’t let you to go. Not yet.”
I know what she’s saying, and it’s not what I long for. This is only a temporary bandage. A goodbye for us both while she continues to run from everyone, even herself.
It’s all she’s offering, so it’s everything I’ll take. If I was a stronger man, I’d walk away now before I’m consumed by her. If I was a better man, I’d turn her down.
Except I’m none of those things, so I accept the drug she’s dealing. Treatment will come once I’m on my plane later, with only the memory of tonight and all the other days before today to cling to. Treatment will come the moment I sign the dotted line and end the marriage.
“It’s fitting, don’t you think? To end where we began.” I rest my hands on either side of her hips and straighten until my face is close enough, my nose brushes hers.
To think, the day I stalked her in this club I was so certain it’d be over. That years of hatred and planning would come to an end. It was such a simple, straightforward plan that took a deep dive off the bridge, drowning me alongside it.
When I saw her on this balcony from across the room, I knew she’d be dangerous. Now, as I kneel in front of her, offering all I am and accepting the bit of herself she’ll grant me, she’s so much more than dangerous. She’s deadly. She’s everything wrong. Everything I need to stay clear of.
Because she’s everything I want.
Vanessa’s dark eyes flick to the balcony railing far behind us, her pupils expanding with what I hope to be excitement. “Sounds like no sweeter ending.”
“I want you, Miss Volkov.” I slide my nose down the line of her jaw, inhaling the sweet scent of peril. Of a fire about to burn me alive. “Any way you’ll let me have you.” My hands slide from the couch toward her arms, cuffing around her wrists but pausing for her reaction.
She licks her bottom lip, and while I want to take that as permission, I know Vanessa’s desire for control. “ Signora , how can I serve you?”
She picks up on the parallel immediately. Like that night in her bedroom, when I had her against her door and myself on her knees, I’m a soldier awaiting his next command.
Before she answers, I release her wrists to trail my fingers over her knee and to the edge of her dress. I pause at the material, searching her expression. Her parted lips and stillness as she waits for my next move. Two hunters, both prey.
“I want you to relinquish control, mia regina .”
A strange look comes over her expression and when I assume I’ve fucked up, when the reminder of her past hits me like a brick, she says, “The last man to try to dominate me, I kicked across my room. I couldn’t handle it. When you had me pinned on your lawn, I didn’t mind. It felt—” She cuts off, pressing her mouth together, unwilling to gift me the complete truth.
I imagine the numerous possible endings.
It felt right.
It felt good.
It felt comfortable.
She cups my face again, unveiling my very soul with her intense gaze. “For tonight, I’m yours to command, Zeno.”
It’s no small thing for Vanessa to give up her domination. What she may not realize is she’s still in control. With a single look from her, a muttered command, she’d own me all over.
“Lean back,” I whisper against her mouth, and after a few-second hesitation she obeys. Her legs naturally fall to the side, and with a gentle prod, I have them spread wider, situating myself between them.
With barely-there touches, I trail my hands up her thighs, nudging her dress up to her waist as I go. Her legs are tense, but with a quick pass, she shudders, her sigh unwinding her body.
Between her legs is a small scrap of pink, and the feminine colour strikes me, while it also suits her. Her legs spread wider, inviting me in as my fingers lightly dance over the pink, feeling heat beneath. Her breath hikes and while I long to look at her face, I’m not sure I’m ready to utterly lose myself quite yet.
“I’ve been dreaming of doing this again since the first time I tasted you.”
Then I place my head between her thighs, brushing my mouth on the skin above her knee. She twitches, but my hands stabilize her while I nip up her thigh until reaching her core. I skip over the silk to do the same to her other leg, teasing her senses before completing another lap, this time pressing open-mouthed kisses, nips, and licks until reaching the slim expanse of skin at the top of her thighs.
“Z-Zeno.”
“Shh,” I murmur into her skin. “Let me.”
Shockingly, she obeys so I reward her with an open-mouthed kiss over the pink silk. She jerks beneath my mouth, her hands fisting on the couch as a soft sound comes from her. I push my tongue against the silk, tasting and smelling her sweet desire through the thin material, and my cock jumps to attention, eager for what’s to come.
I vow not to be inside her until I kiss every inch of her body because if this is the final time I’ll get to have her, then I’ll imprint myself on every part of her. The next time she fucks a man, it’s me she’ll smell like. Me she’ll think about even as another’s tongue is on her, another cock inside her.
Possessiveness and jealousy surge through my veins and my hands grip her hips tighter as I scrape my teeth over the most sensitive part of her, punishing her for the fact that there will be others after me.
“Zeno,” she sighs, and immediately, my body calms. For now, I’m her entire world. For now, I’ll have to accept that.
“God, you taste good.”
“I’d taste better if you removed the panties.” Amusement chimes in her breathy suggestion.
“I enjoy denying myself.” My mouth waters as I kiss down her leg again and begin tugging the material down. She shifts to help me remove them. When she’s bare, her clit is way too fucking tempting to continue denying myself.
So I don’t.
She cries out as I place my mouth on her, my tongue burying inside her heat. Thighs clench my head, but I force them apart, keeping her wide open, her knees pinned to the side for my feasting.
And fucking feast, I do. Burying my tongue as deep as I can, using my teeth to tease her clit. In and out, licking her from the inside before flicking my tongue against her clit, hearing her cries bounce around the club in the same manner music later will. My hands massage her thighs, feeling raw strength when she tries to push against me.
“Zeno…”
God, I love my name on her lips. More than what’s rational. What’s right. Then again, I’ve long lost all rationale when it comes to this woman.
I make a rumbling sound as I spear her again, moving so my thumbs part her pussy lips. Once she’s spread, I devour. Destroy. Demand.
“Give it to me, signora. Let yourself go.”
“Z-Zeno!” Her body tenses, her stomach clenching with her intense quivers.
I love this. Love how I can make her fall apart with a mere flick of my tongue. I focus solely on her clit, flicking, licking, and nipping as her cries grow louder. So loud, they’ll be imprinted in my mind the same way her taste will. A lasting tattoo on my mental state.
Just when she’s on the brink, when her breath catches, I clamp my lips over her clit and feel her ride the wave as she moans through her orgasm, her hips both rocking against my mouth and stilling, like she’s physically unable to keep up with her body’s demands. Liquid floods from her, so I shift my mouth lower, catching it. Drinking it as much as I can as she makes a mess all over the leather couch.
“Holy…fuck,” she says through breathy pants as she comes down. “I-I?—”
I lift my head, feeling her desire coating my mouth and dripping onto my chin as I meet her sparkling gaze. “Yeah. You did.”
“I’ve never—” She clamps her lips shut, but the admittance is too far gone for me to un-hear it.
“Then let’s see if you can do it again.” With two fingers, I coat them in her desire and sink them inside her, curling until she gasps.
This won’t take long. Not with how sensitive she is, and how she sounds seconds from falling all over again. Her pussy clenches around my fingers as I fuck her with them and lower my mouth back to her clit.
Within a moment, she’s tensing, her pussy impossibly snug around my fingers, and I can’t wait to feel her around my cock. She comes again with my mouth on her core, my fingers buried inside her, and my promise to always remember her this way.
As she comes down, I relinquish control of her thighs back to her. I could very well spend the rest of tonight, or as long as she allows me, eating her cunt, but if she’s only granting me this evening to enjoy her, then I plan on enjoying every part of her.
I kneel up, practically climbing onto the couch to take her mouth. To show her exactly how she feels about me, even when she denies it herself. She moans into the kiss, her hand fisting the back of my hair as she takes us deeper, harder, and longer. Two leaders fighting for domination, except she soon concedes, submitting with another sigh.
I kiss from her mouth down to her shoulder and toward her collarbone, imprinting silent praises as I go. At the swell of her breasts, I murmur the final one aloud. “Dea.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Goddess.”
A goddess with an altar to worship at.
A queen with a throne to bow to.
A sin incarnation to be wicked with.
I’ll do it all.
First, I pull back, examining the state I’ve put her in. She’s completely undone and nothing like the straightlaced Pakhan she parades around as during the day. Her hair is rumpled, her skin dewy, her thighs a mess. But she’s my mess.
At least, for now.
She’s watching me with hunger, need. It almost undoes me right here. Una dea, una regina ; she’s everything, and I’ll be nothing, so long as I get to taste her again.
“Going to keep staring or planning on doing something about it?”
Oh, I’ll be doing something. As soon as my head can function again.
Vanessa takes my silence as something else and sits forward, reaching behind her to the zipper on the back of her dress. Lips curling up in the corner, she smirks. “If you’ve given up, suppose I’ll have to finish myself.”
Her words shoot liquid desire straight to my cock. A sudden longing to see her fingers fucking her own pussy overcomes me, but it’s quelled by the one thing I crave more: to be the one touching her.
She tugs the top of her dress to her waist, baring her breasts with budded nipples I long to lick through her next orgasm. She stands to drop her dress the rest of the way down, and given my proximity to her, it places her pussy right in front of my face. She lowers back to the couch before I move, and she’s naked all except those ungodly heels—exactly as I want her to be.
There’s a million and one things I plan on doing to her. A million and one things I can say.
For now, I simply kiss her again. One packed with longing and a plea for more, and the realization that within hours, I likely won’t see her ever again.