Chapter 18
Tatyana
“Do you positively need to terrify my staff when you speak to me?” Tatyana rolled her shoulders as she shut the double doors of Oleg’s library behind her, enjoying Oleg’s familiar scent of smoke and cedar that lingered near the entrance of the room.
Before she could turn, her husband was on her, pressing his hand over her mouth to cover her gasp as he swung her around and captured her lips in a violent kiss.
“Shhh,” he murmured against her skin. He pointed to the doors where her Hazar waited on the other side.
She nodded, desire for him rocketing through her body.
She’d been annoyed by his seeming indifference to seeing her in that wildly beautiful dress, but clearly he was not as indifferent as she’d thought.
Tatyana could barely think as Oleg lifted her up to sit along the edge of a cabinet and pushed her back against wire-fronted bookshelves.
The room smelled of vanilla, almond, and smoke. She could feel the currents of amnis running between them, and her heart thudded slowly as Oleg thoroughly devastated her with his kiss.
He sucked her tongue into his mouth and bit down with his fangs, piercing her and letting her blood flood their mouths. He drank her in silence as his amnis overwhelmed her senses.
She skimmed her hands up his arms and over his shoulders, running her hands up the back of his neck until she could slide her fingers into the heavy waves of his hair.
He made a low growling sound in the back of his throat, which she loved.
Oleg liked it when she played with his hair, especially the hair on his nape. It was her way of playing with fire as the neck was the most sensitive part of a vampire’s body.
She teased her fingers over the skin there as Oleg shoved her legs apart and stepped between them. He gripped her hips, deepening the kiss as he pressed his erection against the growing heat between her legs.
“Wait.” He lifted her and walked across the room.
Tatyana wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re telling me to wait?”
“I told you I would show you your crown.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “I don’t really care about jewelry right now.” She squeezed her legs tighter and dug her fingers into his skin. “I have other things on my mind.”
“Indulge me,” Oleg said in a rough voice.
He kept one hand on her bottom, holding her as he reached out, and then the light from the library disappeared and she was swallowed in shadows.
Oleg snapped his fingers and tossed a ball of fire into the center of the room where the flame grew, twisting in a spiral as it slowly lit the darkness they had entered.
Tatyana blinked, her mind taking a few moments to register what she was seeing.
They had entered a chamber of mirrors, a long, low-ceilinged room with niches and jeweled cabinets built into the walls.
She slowly pushed away from Oleg. “Let me down.”
“I see I have distracted you.”
The heat of the moment hadn’t left her, but she banked the fire in her belly, turning in a circle as she took it all in. “What is this?”
“The treasury.” Oleg leaned against one mirrored pillar, a smile dancing at the corner of his mouth. “Do you like it?”
“You know…” She blinked, trying to take it all in. “My god.”
There was not a word for wealth like this.
Though the ceilings were lower, the room was almost half the size of the library on the other side of the wall, with much of it still enveloped in shadows.
Glass cases were set into niches in the gold-trimmed walls, and marble pillars held up what must have been a massively heavy mirrored ceiling that reflected the marble mosaic on the floor.
The flame Oleg had lit moved around the room, lighting one sconce and then another and another until they were surrounded by flickering lights covered in faceted glass that illuminated the inside of Oleg Sokolov’s personal treasure chest.
She could see wooden chests stacked against one wall. And each niche held an elaborate crown or a matched set of jewels. Sometimes both. There were dark wooden cabinets with thin drawers, probably holding more jewelry and gold.
“There are many crowns and tiaras.” Oleg walked across to a particularly large niche where a massive crown of finely wrought gold was perched on a white silk pillow. “But this is your wedding crown.”
It was a golden kokoshnik headdress, the swirling filigree designs rising from an orange-gold stone in the center of the forehead to reach up and outward so that when placed on the wearer’s head, it would give the impression of a rising sun, haloed around the face.
“I’m going to wear that for our wedding?” Tatyana could barely take it in.
“It’s not heavy,” Oleg said. “In fact, it’s quite light.”
It was the most beautiful crown she had ever seen.
It was traditional for Orthodox brides and grooms to wear crowns, but Tatyana had never seen anything as exquisite as this work of art. Not even in a museum.
“With your hair braided and your gold sarafan, you will be the… rising sun of the Kievan Rus.” Oleg walked over and lifted it. “It was created for a grand duchess in the eighteenth century, but now it belongs to me.” He turned, the crown in his hands. “I have been saving it. For you.”
“Oleg—”
“I would very much like to see you wearing it for the first time in private,” he murmured.
She felt the heat begin again. “Let me guess, you want me to wear just the crown, don’t you?”
“Don’t be silly.” He smiled. “There are other jewels in the set.”
“Mm-hmm.”
His smile grew. “But they would look best against your skin.”
“Of course.” She started to unbutton her neat silk blouse, not even trying to hold back her own smile.
She was as hungry as he was.
Tatyana dropped her blouse to the floor as Oleg watched her with greedy eyes.
“So these jewels…” She unzipped her trousers and let the fine wool slide to the floor. “Are they also for the wedding?”
“They are for me.” His eyes were fixed on the silk at the joining of her thighs. “The crown is for the rest of them, but everything else is for me.”
Tatyana freed her breasts from the lace bra she’d worn under her blouse, leaving her in nothing but a tiny triangle of white silk.
If she had been human, she would have felt the cold, but the goose bumps on her skin were purely provoked by Oleg’s energy, which was wrapping around her body and teasing the fine hairs on her skin, a wash of sensation that had her closing her eyes in pleasure.
Oleg was still at ease, leaning against a mirrored pillar in the treasury and holding the crown. “The rosewood cabinet behind you.”
She turned and felt a spike of satisfaction when she heard the low groan as Oleg took in her barely clad bottom. “This one?”
“It’s in the bottom drawer.”
She bent down slowly, shifting her hips and sliding her panties down her legs to provoke him more.
“This one?” She kicked the last of her undergarments to the side and opened the drawer to find an array of jeweled daggers.
She looked to the side. “Unless there is a new kink we need to discuss, this is not the correct drawer.”
“No, but I greatly appreciate that you made the effort.”
Tatyana stood and saw the rise in Oleg’s trousers.
She shook her head and laughed a little bit. “Which drawer?”
“The top.” He pursed his lips, trying to hide his smile. “Top drawer. On the right.”
She slid the drawer open and saw a beautiful piece of jewelry made of gold chain with glittering yellow stones that winked in the lamplight.
If it hadn’t had been laid out, she wouldn’t have understood what she was looking at, but the moment she saw it, she understood why Oleg wanted to see it on her.
Alone.
She lifted the gold chains, turned to her lover, and fixed the first one around her neck. “Like this?”
Oleg nodded.
“What next?”
He set the crown down and walked over to her. “Are you asking for my help?”
“I do not want to tangle the chains.” She was teasing him, but the gold links were as fine as thread in some places, so there was an element of truth.
He walked over, unfastening his trousers and sliding his zipper down. He ran his hand up the length of his erection, making Tatyana’s mouth water.
“Do you want it?” He whispered softly as he bent to her ear. His fingers danced along her back, teasing her skin as he delicately toyed with the draped chains brushing along the top of her buttocks. “Hmm? Are you as hungry as I am, little wolf?”
Oleg bent down and kissed the peak of one breast, sucking the nipple into his mouth and scraping his teeth over the tip. “Shall I give you a taste?”
“It only seems fair…” Her breath caught. “…since you’ve had a taste of me.” She rolled her eyes as he teased the other nipple and affixed two chains that draped under her breasts to the center medallion that hung at her breast bone.
Oleg stepped back and nudged her to bend at the waist, running one hand down her spine as he freed his erection with his other hand, holding it as he nudged her mouth open. “Taste then.”
She opened her mouth wide and slid him inside, carefully shielding the skin of his cock from the tip of her fangs as Oleg slowly unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the marble floor.
Her tongue toyed with the hard flesh, teasing the head of his erection just enough to make him hiss and grip his fingers into her shoulder.
Tatyana could have had him there, enjoying the reflection of her lover sliding into her mouth in the gilt mirrors that surrounded them. She reached down, eager to touch the heat of her own sex, but Oleg caught her hands and held them behind her back as he thrust gently into her mouth.
“Mmm.” The bastard sounded too satisfied with himself. “You know I could fuck your mouth all day, but that’s not what I imagined when I commissioned this jewelry, volchitsa.”
She groaned in frustration, and that only made his cock harder.
He eased her away, sliding his erection carefully between her lengthened fangs.