25. Sloane
SLOANE
Vadim’s mouth closes around my breast just as I sink down over him again, and whatever thought I’d been trying to hold on to disappears beneath the pull of his lips and the deep, overwhelming stretch of his cock inside me.
I grip his shoulders and move slowly at first, my knees braced on either side of his hips while the early morning light filters through the curtains behind me and turns the room pale gold.
He’s sitting against the headboard with one hand spread across my lower back and the other cupping my breast, thumb rubbing over my nipple whenever his mouth leaves it long enough to breathe.
There’s something almost obscene about how calm he looks while I’m losing every sensible thought I possess.
“You’re staring,” I whisper.
“I’m watching.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No.”
His mouth finds the other breast, and I inhale sharply. He sucks slowly, deliberately, taking his time as though we have nowhere to be and no questions waiting downstairs and no unresolved investigation sitting between us like a loaded weapon.
My fingers slide into his silver hair.
I roll my hips again.
His cock moves deeper.
Vadim’s hand tightens against my back.
“That,” he murmurs against my skin.
“What?”
“Do that again.”
I do. His head tips back for a second, and the sight of his control slipping gives me a ridiculous little rush of satisfaction.
I have learned things about him over the last few days that I’m not supposed to know.
The exact way his jaw tightens when he’s close.
The sound he makes when I drag my nails down his shoulders.
The fact that his hands get more possessive the quieter he becomes.
The way he looks at my breasts as though he has never seen any before, which is absurd considering the kind of women I imagine he has spent his life with.
And, apparently, I have also learned how quickly I can forget that this man still does not trust me.
I rise and sink again.
Vadim curses under his breath. His hands move to my hips, guiding me faster. I brace one palm against his chest and keep riding him, my thighs already beginning to ache but not enough for me to stop, because every time I lower myself the pressure builds again, low and hot and impossible to ignore.
He reaches between us, his thumb finding my clit.
I gasp. “That’s cheating.”
“There are rules?”
“There should be.”
“There are not.”
He rubs slowly, matching the pressure to the rhythm of my hips until I have to stop teasing him because I can barely keep moving properly.
My breath breaks. “Vadim.”
He watches my face. “Come.”
My body tightens around him. He keeps his thumb moving, and the orgasm builds so quickly that I barely have time to brace myself before it rolls through me, my thighs clamping around his hips while my nails dig into his shoulders.
I bury my face against his neck, and he keeps holding me through it. Then, before I have fully recovered, he shifts. One arm goes around my waist.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Turning you around.”
“I can see that.”
He ignores me.
A second later, I’m on my hands and knees with my face near the pillows and Vadim behind me. I look over my shoulder. “You really have no concept of moderation.”
“No.”
He grips my hips. Then he pushes back inside.
My arms nearly give out.
“Fuck.”
His palm slides slowly up my spine. He bends over me and kisses the back of my shoulder, which would feel almost tender if he were not driving into me hard enough a second later to make the mattress shift beneath us.
I clutch the sheets. The angle is deeper like this. Much deeper.
He knows it too. His hand comes around my waist and holds me steady while he fucks me, each thrust strong enough to make my breath leave me in broken little sounds that I know he can hear.
“You like this,” he murmurs.
I laugh breathlessly.
Then he drives into me harder, and the laugh disappears. His hand slides up my body and closes around one breast, squeezing while his mouth brushes the side of my neck.
My head falls back against his shoulder. “Jesus.”
He kisses beneath my ear. “No.”
I manage to turn my face toward him. “Did you just correct me?”
“Yes.”
“That is incredibly arrogant.”
Instead of an answer, his fingers move between my thighs again and find my clit.
My entire body tightens. “Vadim.”
He keeps fucking me while rubbing slowly, his chest pressed against my back, one hand holding my breast and the other working me until I’m barely aware of anything except him.
The second orgasm takes longer. Maybe because my body is already oversensitive.
Maybe because he refuses to rush me. When it finally hits, I collapse forward with my face against the pillow and his name muffled against the fabric.
He follows not long after, holding my hips so tightly that I know there will probably be fingerprints there later.
For a while, the room is completely still.
Then he kisses the back of my shoulder.
I close my eyes.
This part is becoming dangerous.
Not the sex. The quiet afterward. The small touches. The way he pulls the sheet over me when the room cools. The way I know he will get up first if we fall asleep again and probably stand there staring at me like I’m another problem he has not solved.
I roll onto my side. Vadim lies beside me, eyes closed, one arm across his stomach.
“You’re awake,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You look asleep.”
“I’m resting.”
“That sounds suspiciously like sleeping.”
One pale eye opens. “Go back to sleep.”
“I have things to do.”
“So do I.”
Neither of us moves.
That’s how this has become lately. Nothing about us could reasonably be called normal. But a routine, perhaps. He finds me at night, or I find him, and somehow one of us ends up in the other’s room.
Sometimes we talk first. Sometimes we argue.
Sometimes we barely make it through the door.
Then morning arrives and reality returns.
I still don’t know whether he believes me. I still can’t leave this estate without somebody knowing exactly where I’m going.
And yet I keep sleeping with him.
I have no idea what that says about me.
Probably nothing flattering.
I slip out of bed while he’s still lying there and start gathering my clothes.
“You’re leaving?”
I look back. “You say that like I live here.”
His expression changes slightly.
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.
Not because they are untrue. Because I’m starting to sound as though the idea bothers me.
I pull on my sweater. “I need air.”
Vadim says nothing.
I don’t know whether he understands that I also need distance.
By the time I step into the corridor, the house is barely awake. The air outside is cold enough that I immediately regret not grabbing a jacket, but I keep walking anyway, crossing the rear terrace toward the gardens as the sky brightens over the trees.
My phone is in my pocket. I check it automatically.
No new message from Ethan. That should be reassuring.
Instead, the absence makes me nervous.
His health has been stable this week, or as stable as anything ever is with him, and we have talked almost every day. He keeps insisting I should stop worrying and enjoy Europe, which would be funny if I had actually come here voluntarily.
I haven’t told him the entire truth. That would just make him worry about me.
He doesn’t know about Vadim.
I definitely shouldn’t tell him about Vadim. Ethan would probably try to board a plane on principle, lymphoma or no lymphoma.
The thought makes my chest tighten.
I have to go home. Whatever is happening here, whatever is happening between me and Vadim, my brother is waiting for me, and his health doesn’t give me the luxury of pretending time is unlimited.
For the first few days, I told myself this was useful.
Vadim wants me close, and closeness gives me leverage.
If I can make him trust me enough, care enough, want me enough, then eventually I might be able to talk him into opening those gates without an escort or convincing him that keeping me here is doing more harm than good.
It’s not a plan I’m particularly proud of, but neither is being held in a foreign country while my brother waits for me at home.
The problem is that lately the sex has stopped feeling like part of the plan.
There are moments when I still think about what I can get from him, what softened expression or well-timed touch might make him loosen his grip on me, but those thoughts usually vanish the second he kisses me.
Then I’m not manipulating anyone. I’m climbing into his bed because I want to be there, staying afterward because I like the weight of his arm around me, and waking up irritated by how much I have started to recognize the man underneath all that control.
That’s considerably harder to justify.
I need Vadim to trust me enough to let me leave. I’m becoming less certain I want the price of that trust to be pretending none of this means anything to me.
I’m halfway across the terrace when I see Nadia.
She’s coming from the opposite direction, dressed already, hair pinned back neatly in a way that makes me feel even more obvious with my tangled hair and the same sweater I was wearing last night.
Her eyes move over me once. Then toward the wing containing Vadim’s room.
Her mouth tightens. There’s no mistaking the disgust on her face.
I almost say something.
Then she simply turns away and walks inside.
“Good morning to you too,” I mutter.
I continue down the steps.
That’s when I notice Camille.
She’s near the far edge of the garden. At first, nothing about that registers as unusual.
Then I realize the sun has barely risen and Camille has spent most mornings sleeping late because she has not been resting properly at night. She’s also not alone. Someone is standing with her near the hedge.
A man. I can’t see his face clearly from here because the foliage blocks most of him, but Camille is leaning closer as he speaks.
My pace slows. What the hell is she doing out here?
The man says something. Camille looks over her shoulder. I instinctively step behind one of the stone columns.
That feels ridiculous. Why am I hiding?
Camille is my friend. Or at least I thought she was.
I look again.
The man is already moving away. Camille watches him go. There’s something about her posture that feels wrong, not casual or friendly, but tense, as though she has been waiting for this conversation and didn’t want anyone to see it.
I start toward her.
“Sloane?”
I nearly jump out of my skin.
I turn. Mila is standing several feet behind me. She looks almost as startled as I feel.
“Sorry,” she says immediately.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
Her gaze drops. She’s holding a small basket filled with flowers clipped from the garden.
I’ve seen Mila several times since arriving, but always from a distance, usually at meals where she says almost nothing and disappears before conversation can settle around her.
Up close, she seems younger than I first thought.
Not a child. Just young enough that the quietness around her feels more obvious.
“I was getting these for the kitchen,” she says.
I look back toward the garden.
Camille is gone. Of course she is.
Wonderful.
I turn back to Mila. “They’re pretty.”
“Anya likes them.”
“That makes sense. Anya likes everything colorful.”
Mila smiles faintly. It’s the first time I’ve seen her do that.
“You talk to Anya a lot,” she says.
“She talks to me a lot.”
“That’s different.”
I laugh. “Fair.”
Mila adjusts the basket in her hands. For a second, I think she’s going to leave. Instead, she stays. “You’re from America?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never been.”
“Honestly, at this point I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going back.”
She looks at me, uncertain whether I’m joking.
“Sorry. Bad joke.”
“It’s okay.”
We begin walking slowly toward the house. I notice she keeps slightly to the side, as though she has learned not to take up too much space.
“What are the flowers for?”
“The kitchen table. Nadia likes fresh ones on Sundays.”
“Very specific.”
“She likes routines.”
I can believe that.
Mila pauses. “Sunday is my birthday.”
The statement is so quiet that I almost miss it.
I look at her. “Your birthday?”
She nods.
“How old are you turning?”
“Twenty.”
I stop walking. “You’re nineteen?”
She seems confused by my reaction. “Yes.”
For some reason, I had assumed she was older. Maybe because everyone in this house carries themselves as though they have lived several lives already.
“Are you doing anything special for your birthday?”
Mila shakes her head. “No.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s not important.”
“That’s what people say when they secretly want cake.”
A tiny smile appears. “I like cake.”
“There we go.”
She looks down at the flowers again. “We don’t celebrate birthdays much here.”
“I’m glad we talked,” I tell her.
She looks genuinely surprised. “Me too.”
Then she disappears through the kitchen doors.
I stand there for a moment.
I should be thinking about Camille.
I am.
But Mila’s birthday has lodged itself in my head now too. And, unfortunately, I know exactly who has the power to turn a quiet Sunday into something else.
Vadim finds me later in the breakfast room. I’m pouring coffee when he walks in, already dressed for the day in dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back.
His eyes move over me. There’s no mistaking what he’s remembering.
I look away first.
“You disappeared,” he says.
“I went outside.”
“I noticed.”
“That sounded accusatory.”
“It was observational.”
“Sure.”
He reaches for coffee.
I watch him for a second. “How attached are you to being miserable?”
He looks at me. “That’s a strange way to begin a conversation.”
“Mila’s birthday is Sunday.”
He pauses. “I know.”
“Are you doing anything?”
“No.”
I stare at him. “That’s terrible.”
“She doesn’t like attention.”
“Maybe she doesn’t like attention because no one gives her the right kind.”
Vadim’s expression closes slightly.
There’s that wall again. The one that comes up whenever Mila is mentioned.
“She prefers quiet.”
“She told me she likes cake.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s enough.”
He looks at me over the rim of his cup. “What are you suggesting?”
“A dinner. Cake. Something small. Not a circus.”
“Sloane.”
“Vadim.”
His mouth almost moves. “You barely know her.”
“That doesn’t mean she should spend her birthday pretending it doesn’t matter.”
For several seconds, he says nothing. Then he sets the coffee down. “I will think about it.”
I narrow my eyes. “That sounds like a no.”
“It means I will think about it.”
“I’m interpreting it as permission.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Too late.”
He shakes his head.
I smile.
And for a few seconds, standing in his house planning a birthday for a girl I met properly less than an hour ago, everything feels almost normal.
Which is becoming the most dangerous feeling of all.