Chapter 15 #2
She jerks upright, eyes wide and red-rimmed, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry," she gasps. "I'm sorry, I'll be quiet, I just—"
"Stop." I sit on the edge of the bed, and she scrambles backward, putting distance between us. "I'm not here to punish you for crying."
"Then why are you here?" She sniffles, wiping at her cheek with the back of her hand.
Good question. I don't have a good answer.
"I heard you," I say finally. "I wanted to make sure you were all right."
She laughs brokenly. "All right? I'm not all right. I'm never going to be all right again."
I frown at her. "What happened?"
"What happened?" She stares at me like I've lost my mind. "Everything happened. Men died because of me. Because I suggested that meeting. Because I convinced you to let me try to negotiate. Because I thought I could fix this."
"That wasn't your fault."
"Yes it was!" Her voice rises, tears still streaming down her face. "It was my fault. Just like all of this is my fault. If your men hadn't grabbed me, if my father had just paid the ransom, if I hadn't—" She breaks off, sobbing again.
I don't think. I just reach for her, pulling her against my chest. She fights me for a moment, pushing against my shoulders, but I hold on. And then she collapses into me, crying so hard her whole body shakes.
I hold her. That's all I do. I don't try to kiss her or try to turn this into something sexual. I just hold her while she falls apart, one hand stroking her hair, the other wrapped around her back.
"I can't do this anymore," she whispers against my chest. "I can't be here. I can't be part of this. Please, Andrei. Please just let me go home."
The words cut deeper than any knife could. "It's past that," I say quietly. "It's been past that for a long time."
"Why?" She pulls back enough to look at me, her face blotchy and wet. "Why can't you just let me go? Why does it have to be like this?"
"Because your father chose war. He's arming my enemies. Letting you go now would be seen as weakness, and weakness gets you killed in this world."
"I don't care about your world!" More tears spill down her cheeks. "I don't care about your war or your enemies or your reputation. I just want to go home. I want my life back. I want—" She stops, swallowing hard. "I want to stop feeling like this."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm complicit. Like I'm part of this. Like I'm—" She looks away.
I should use this—leverage it, turn it into something I can control. That's what I would have done a month ago. A week ago. But I can't. Not now, with her looking at me like that, broken so fucking vulnerable it makes my chest ache.
"This isn't your fault," I say again. "None of this is your fault, Liesl. You were walking down a street, living your life, and I took that from you. You didn't ask for this. You didn't choose this."
"Neither did you," she whispers. "You didn't choose to have your men grab the wrong woman. You didn't choose to have my father refuse to pay. You didn't choose—" She stops, looking at me. "Did you?"
"Choose what?"
"This. Us. Whatever this is."
I don't have an answer for that. My jaw tightens as I try to find the right words.
"Your father was selfish," I say finally. "He could have paid the ransom and brought you home safely. He chose not to. He chose to arm my enemies instead, to turn this into a war. That's on him, not you."
"You were selfish too." She sniffles again. "You could have just given me back. You could have released me without demanding anything. But you didn't."
"No," I agree. "I didn't."
She looks up at me, her eyes bright and teary in the dim light. "Why not?"
I look at her for a long moment before answering. "Because if I had released you without demanding payment, my men would have seen it as weakness. They would have questioned my authority. Some of them would have turned on me."
Her eyes widen slightly. "They would have killed you."
I nod. "They would have tried. And maybe succeeded." I reach up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "This world isn't as safe for me as you think it is, ptitsa. I'm not untouchable. I'm not invincible. I'm just a man trying to survive in a world that eats the weak."
She stares at me, and I see understanding dawn in her eyes. Not forgiveness—I don't deserve that, and I don't think she's offering it. But understanding—recognition that I'm trapped too, in my own way.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"For what?"
"For thinking you were invincible. For not seeing—" She pauses, biting her lip. Her eyes meet mine.
"You have nothing to apologize for."
Silence falls. I just look at her, at this woman who should hate me, who has every reason to hate me, but who's looking at me like I'm worth something more than the violence I've built my life on.
She leans in slowly, giving me time to pull away, her eyes still fixed on mine.
I don't.
Her lips touch mine, soft and tentative. It's not demanding or seductive. Despite everything we've already done, it's almost… innocent.
I kiss her back, and it's different from every other time we've kissed. There's no desperation, no anger, no need to dominate or control. It's just—gentle.
She makes a small sound against my mouth, and I pull her closer, deepening the kiss. She comes willingly, her hands sliding up to cup my face.
We kiss like that for a long time, slow and tender, like we have all the time in the world, like there's no war, no captivity, no impossible situation trapping us both.
I don't know if I've ever kissed a woman like this before, so slowly and gently.
I'll have memorized the shape of her mouth by the end of it—the bow at the top of her lip, the way the bottom one pushes out just a little.
How delicate her tongue feels against mine.
The moment she slides them together, her hand resting on my knee as I taste salt and the sweetness of her mouth, my cock goes from hardening to so stiff it fucking hurts.
When I finally pull back, we're both breathing hard. "Andrei," she whispers.
I can't say anything. I can't fucking think.
I kiss her again, burying my hands in her hair, dragging my mouth over hers so I can hear her little gasps and whimpers as I kiss her more thoroughly than I've ever kissed any woman.
My heart is beating hard, and I can't let myself think about this too long, or I'll fucking panic.
This isn't just desire. Isn't just attraction or lust or the forbidden thrill of wanting something I shouldn't have. This is something else.
Her hands slide up under my shirt, and I shrug it off, breaking the kiss for only a second as I sit there on the bed next to her.
I want to take her clothes off, but the moment I do, I don't know how long I'll be able to go on kissing her like this.
For the first time in my life, I want it to go on and on, and I don't want it to end.
Her hand comes down to fumble with my belt, and I let her.
Before I fully realize what she's doing, her hand is in my pants, fingers sliding into my boxer briefs to tug me free.
She slips my cock out, her hand wrapping around it, and I let out a sharp hiss of pleasure as I feel the soft skin of her palm rub against the underside of the tip.
"You're so hard," she whispers. "It's all wet."
My hand clutches in her hair, pulling her closer, her forehead against mine as I brush my nose against hers. "That's what you do to me, ptitsa," I whisper hoarsely. "You get me so fucking hard. Feel me fucking leaking for you? Christ, I come more for you than I ever have for anyone."
She lets out a soft mewl of pleasure, arching toward me as her hand strokes down my shaft. "Show me," she breathes, and I groan.
"I want to be inside of you."
Her eyes meet mine, and there's a flicker of mischief in them. "You can't come more than once?"
"Fuck." I groan as her hand starts working me in earnest, long, slow strokes to the base and back up to my leaking tip that make me feel like I'm going to come already.
Her palm rubs over the piercings, shifting them beneath the skin, and God, it feels so fucking good.
"I'll come as many times as you want me to, ptitsa. "
She lets out a soft moan, her mouth capturing mine again in another of those gentle kisses as her hand works my cock.
I sit there, helpless, wondering how the fuck this feels so good.
I haven't been so close to coming from a woman's hand on my cock since I was a teenager, but Christ, her fingers feel so good.
She uses my pre-cum to slick the shaft, her hand twisting up and down, palm cupping over the tip as my hips roll forward and try to thrust into her fist. She plays with the piercings as her fingrs slide back down, teasing them back and forth, and my vision blurs from the pleasure, the intensity of it almost too much.
I grab her pajama top in one hand, fisting the material and dragging it over her head, and God, her tits are so fucking perfect. Just a handful, topped with perky pink nipples, already hardening in the cool air of the room.
I can't stop myself. I lean down as she works my cock with her hand, dragging one nipple into my mouth. Liesl moans as my tongue rolls around it, and my hips thrust up, fucking her hand as I suck on her breast. Her back arches, her hand curling around the back of my neck, and that's all I can take.
My cock jerks, stiffens, and spurts. I pull back from her breast just in time to watch myself spurt hot cum all over her belly and tits, painting her skin with it as she gasps and keeps stroking.
I groan, wrapping my hand in her hair again as I watch my cock erupt. It goes on for longer than it fucking should, considering this was just a handjob, and when the last of it finally spills from the tip, I urge her backward onto the bed, grabbing the edge of her shorts and pulling them off.
I'm still almost entirely hard, but I want to fucking taste her. I want to make her come, and I want to feel her gripping my cock when I push into her.
"Lay back, ptitsa," I murmur, my gaze dragging hotly over her naked body, my cum pooling and gleaming against her skin. "I'm going to make you come as hard as you just did for me."
Liesl lets out a soft gasp, her back arching as I skim my hands down her hips, taking her panties with me. When I spread her thighs, I can see her glistening already even in the low light, her pussy puffy and swollen already with arousal.
She moans when I use my thumbs to spread her apart, exposing the pink, swollen clit that's waiting for my tongue.
I'm already hard as fuck again by the time I bend down and press my lips to her pussy. She smells and tastes so sweet, and I drag my tongue along her slit, lapping up as much of her arousal as I can on my way up to where she needs it the most.
Liesl lets out a small, whimpering cry as my tongue circles her clit the first time.
I go slow, fighting every ravenous instinct in my body, memorizing the taste and softness of her pussy the way I did with her mouth.
I relish the way her hips arch up into me with every stroke of my tongue, the arch of her back, the way her hands claw at the sheets and then at my hair and my shoulders as I push her higher.
I grip her thighs, keeping her spread apart for me, fully open, picking up the pace with my tongue as I feel her get closer and closer to going over the edge.
She sounds like she's on the verge of tears now for a different reason entirely.
Her hand grips my hair, and I flatten my tongue against her clit, giving her pressure while I suck around it, my fingers digging into the firm muscle of her thighs.
She's about to break, so close… and I want it. I want it all.
And then, she goes over the edge.
I feel the rush of her arousal against my tongue, taste, it, feel her break apart as she cries out and bucks against me, her entire body shuddering with the force of her orgasm.
My cock throbs painfully, stiff against my belly, more pre-cum slicking my abs as I devour her pussy while she comes.
I don't want to stop. I roll my tongue against her, push two fingers into her to feel her ripple and clench around them, and Liesl lets out another cry, more spasms wracking her body as I send her into another series of orgasmic shudders.
When she finally slumps against the bed, my face is soaked and my cock is throbbing. All I want is to be inside of her. And I can't wait any longer.