Chapter 16 OKSANA
We hit the room with the day still on our skin, salt, dust, and the market’s noise trailing us like a stray dog. I lock the door. He checks the window—habit and ritual. We don’t speak until the latch clicks and the world is officially outside.
"El Arquitecto lost two men," I say, toeing off my shoes. "He’ll be looking for them."
"I've sent for a cleanup team, but yeah, sooner or later, they'll figure out they're missing," Stephano answers, rolling his sleeves up, calm as a prayer. "Let's hope they’ll blame it on the locals to buy us more time."
I consider his words, glad for his foresight, and mull over his logic. "That would be a plus."
He smiles, the dangerous kind that sits low in the body. The air heats without moving. I feel him like a magnet feels true north, an invisible pull that’s more math than choice. I hate that I love that.
He sits on the edge of the bed, legs spread, hands loose on his thighs, looking like temptation and sin. "I’m going to kiss you now," he says, like he’s calling a play. No asking. A line drawn.
My insides turn to something soft and treasonous. "Command suits you," I tell him. "Don’t get used to it."
He crooks a finger. "Come here."
I go because I want to, not because he told me to. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I climb into his space and swing a leg over, straddling him. The mattress sighs under the weight of bad ideas.
"Like this?" I ask, pretending it’s a joke.
"Just like that," he breathes, and the sound he makes is not polite. His hands find my hair, fist gently at the roots, and he draws me down, mouth to mine, no warning, no softness first. The kiss lands hot—hungry—like he’s been saving it for a day that kept not coming.
He kisses me like it might ransom him from hellfire, like he intends to live through this because of it.
I answer because I’m not a liar, not about this. I tilt my jaw and catch his lower lip, tasting coffee, citrus, and the kind of man who won’t back down even when he should. He pulls; I go, and heat skates down my spine in a clean line.
"Steph," I say against his mouth, not a warning, not a plea, just his name turned into something reckless.
His hand anchors at my nape, the other braces my hip. He doesn’t rush it. He deepens and then eases, like he’s learning the terrain by heart. My fingers slide to his collar, hook there, and for a second the room narrows to breath and pressure and the drum in my chest that refuses to be civilized.
He breaks just enough to look at me. His eyes are darker than they were in the market, fixed and honest. "Tell me to stop," he says, rough, "and I stop."
I don’t. I kiss him again, slower now, savoring. I’m aware of every point we touch, of the quiet drag of fabric, of the way it feels to be held without being handled. He tastes like the city, salt and sun, and something sweet.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing like we ran a flight of stairs. I press my forehead to his, let the world blur and come back.
He holds my face like it’s a recently stolen artifact, his thumbs trace either side of my jaw, and I realize: he’s being careful with me. The mafia boss's hands, built for breaking, are terrified of leaving a mark.
The irony would kill me if it didn’t turn me on so much.
"Don’t," I say, catching his wrist. "I'm not breakable."
A huff of laughter, and the ache in him is almost musical. He shakes his head, presses his lips to my brow, either a benediction or a warning. "You’re sewn shut in two places."
"Only two," I tell him, and undo a button on his shirt, slow, so he can watch. Then another. I want to see his scars and his tats again.
He catches on fast. There’s a knife-edge hunger in him, but he keeps his hands at my sides, waiting for me to finish undressing him.
I drag his shirt off his shoulder with less care than some would call wise, but he gives nothing, not even a wince.
The scar at his collarbone is old and silvery; the one bisecting his left bicep is wide and doesn't look like it healed right. I trace both.
He lets me. "You next," he says.
I strip off my shirt and the sports bra underneath.
Left shoulder’s still healing, an ugly web of stitches bracketed by black-and-blue, but his eyes go lower: the one by my flank.
For a second, he doesn’t breathe. I see the flicker: the damage catalogued and run through some database.
He looks at me like I’m a gun he’s dying to test-fire, already half in love with the recoil.
My hands shift to his belt. "Yes or no?"
He cups my face; the swelling is down, thankfully, but I'm still sporting some slowly fading blue bruises. His thumb gently traces over one of them, then he bends his head lower and kisses me by the hollow of my throat. A single word against my skin, "Yes."
I work the belt, then the pants, and he helps with the zero finesse of a man minutes from losing control.
By the time we’re both nearly bare, I gasp when fabric scrapes my fresh stitches.
Not pain, just the shock of being so alive.
He notices. His hands hover, then land feather-light along my side, above and below the wound. "If you need to—"
I laugh into his mouth, open and rude. "A little pain has never killed anybody, " I wink, "and if I need to, I’ll tell you. Otherwise, keep going."
"Bossy," he mutters, amused.
"You love it."
He pushes me down onto the mattress. For a moment, he just kneels over me, a hand on either side of my head, and the part of me that grew up feral and caged relishes the way he takes up space without crowding me out. There’s no hurry, just this hot, patient gravity between us.
He grips my hips, then moves slowly, turning us so I'm now straddling him once again, aligning himself so he won’t hurt me, and I realize: he’s mapped this out in his mind step by step, as if every part of me is a tripwire he’s got to cross without setting off a bomb.
"You're so fucking wet already."
"Just for you, Marito."
I feel him entering me; he's long, thick, and hard.
My inner walls spread deliciously, and I hiss in pleasure as he lowers me onto him.
I cup the back of his head, pull him so our mouths align, and then I ride the drag of him against me, shifting until it hurts so good I want to bite my own fist. Thinking better of it, I latch on to the top of his shoulder.
He chuckles. My inner voice is a thousand miles away, and nothing exists except the hum of his skin on mine, the rhythm he sets, the way every inch of pressure is measured and ferociously controlled.
"Fuck," he groans, low and beautifully honest. "You feel like trouble."
"Built for it," I answer, and rake my nails down his spine. He shivers.
He focuses on my face while pushing inside, watchful and nearly reverent. It takes everything in me not to smirk. Instead, I clutch his hair, make him look at me, and say, "Harder."
He glances at the stitches, then at me, and in three seconds flat, I see him decide that if my brother kills him, it'll be worth it.
"Okay. But when you cry, I’m telling everyone."
I lock my wrists around his neck and brace for impact.
He slams into me, and the jolt short-circuits all higher brain functions. It’s raw and perfect, a fucking chemical reaction. The pain is there, but it’s the kind that makes me alive instead of reminding me how close I got to death.
The first thrust is like a dare, the second like a debt, and every one after is a negotiation neither of us wants to win.
We move together like we’re both breaking curfew.
No words, just noise and breath— discovering new language in every eye-contact, every pressure point.
He palms my tits with rough hands, thumbs skimming the bruised sides, not flinching from the damage.
He holds them like they're something holy. "So fucking beautiful."
He squeezes harder, and I arch up, pressing my breasts right into him, the ache a live wire from nipple straight to spine.
He rolls one between finger and thumb, twists it, gentle at first, probing, trying, and when I hiss in pleasure, he leans in and bites the hurt out and replaces it with something like worship.
"You like pain," he says, smug as a cat.
I want to tell him to fuck off, but I want his mouth more. "You’re welcome to test that hypothesis," I pant, grinding down.
"Oh, I'm testing," he rasps, tilting his hips up until his cock hits the sweet spot high up inside me. He grins into my skin, dark and wild, then takes the whole nipple into his mouth, pulls hard enough for me to see stars. The sound I make isn’t English or Russian, just raw.
The world blurs wet and hot; I rut against him, frantic, every nerve ending rioting.
"Fuck, Oksana. Look at you. You love it.
" He circles his tongue, then bites again, pushing the limits of what I can take.
Everything inside me turns molten, burning through the stitched-up hurt, through everything.
The wet heat of his mouth against me is a twin to the building pressure below, a dizzy overlap that threatens to break me in half.
My hips stutter, desperate for friction. He lets go, moves his hand around my throat, a grounding force that nearly leaves me comatose with pleasure. How does he know so well what I need?
"Come on," he murmurs, and thrusts up. I ride him, the drag perfect, the angle even better. He plants his feet, setting a rhythm that turns my bones to powder.
"You’re so fucking wet," he growls, biting my earlobe. "You want to come undone on me? Show me, Tempesta di Sangue. I want to see you lose it."
Every word floats over my skin like a knife. I obey, because I can’t not. I rock faster, clenching him tight, and his hand squeezes my throat until the world shrinks to just the two of us, just this—
I detonate. It’s messy and mean, a thing that nearly blanks me out. He holds me through it, one palm pressed over my heart to keep it from escaping my chest. I shudder and go limp, sated and stunned.
He slows, but not to stop, just to keep from falling apart. I feel the tremor in his arms. He pulls up, yanks my face to his so we’re forehead to forehead, breath and sweat, together on this beautiful edge.
"Oksana," he rasps, "tell me where."
For a half-second, his eyes flick down, and I know instantly: he means it; he’s asking where I want his cum.
The warning is a kindness, a negotiation, and not an order.
I wrap my hand tight around the back of his neck.
"I’m good," I grit, voice dirty and raw. "Don’t fucking stop. Let me feel it." And yeah, my cunt throbs at the thought, the risk, the rush, the possibility. I’m reckless, or I’m just very, very alive.
He shudders. "Jesus Christ—"
I snap my hips down, hard, my hand moves and finds his balls, I squeeze, and he loses the war.
He drives up into me, a vicious, beautiful rhythm, and the tension in him breaks with mine.
He comes with a low, ragged groan, forehead pressed to mine, the sound shaking down my spine.
It’s not like getting ruined, it’s more like being rebuilt, the way all the pieces slam back together—new, bright, humming.
For a minute, we just breathe, sweat cooling, skin fused at a million points of contact. I realize—absurdly, horrifyingly—that I want him to stay like this, inside me, for a full calendar year. My bones go jelly; my skin sings.
He plants a shaky kiss on my collarbone. "You’re out of your fucking mind, Tempesta di Sangue," he murmurs, chest heaving.
"Not news," I reply, and try to slow my pulse to human speed.
We slide apart and collapse side by side, both ruined. I let my thigh slide over his, let him keep one lazy hand on me like he’s worried I’ll evaporate.
"Did you mean it?" he asks softly. "About being good?"
I point at my arm, not the one where I was shot, "Works like a charm."
From the look on his face, I can tell he has no idea what I'm talking about, and I'm not in the mood to explain the little bar in my arm that will stop his little soldiers from producing a jackpot.
He grins, surprisingly boyish for a man built mostly of murder and cheekbones. "Woulda pulled out," he says, contrite and not.
"Next time," I answer, and roll onto him, just so he knows there will be one.
He runs his hand down my back, long and slow. "It’ll hurt more tomorrow," he warns, eyes flicking to the stitched gash at my side.
"Worth it." I suck at his jaw, just to see if I can mark him. "Also, stitches are temporary."
He laughs, full and unguarded, the first real one I’ve heard from him. It cracks something in me, and I want to hear it again.
"I need a shower," I announce, but I don’t move.
"You need way more than that." There’s affection in the insult, which makes it worse.
He gets up and pulls me easily to my feet. We stand naked in the stale light, mapping each other in the aftermath.