Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kirill
What am I doing? Who am I turning into?
I stare quietly down at the woman beside me. The woman I orgasmed into unconsciousness with soft strokes of my tongue and fingers over the course of the last several hours. Soft. I’m not soft. Not like this. Not before her.
I told myself over and over again that as much as I wanted to touch her, to fuck her, that I wasn’t going to.
That she was not feeling well and needed care, not sex.
And yet the moment her head was in my lap my cock was hard as steel and her obvious need was too fucking hot not to give into in some fashion.
It was hard as hell not giving in to her request to suck my cock, but I knew it was right.
She’d had a hard evening and I hadn’t wanted to risk her feeling sick.
But my alternative to her request did nothing but amplify my desire to sink myself into her, and now my balls are as blue as her beautiful fucking eyes.
I’m so wired, I couldn’t sleep if my life depended on it, so I watch Annika do so. I try to keep my hands off her, try to prove to myself that I can be this close and not have to touch her, but I fail miserably. I stroke her hair, her cheek, her back, loving the feel of her against my palm.
Are all arranged marriages like this? I wonder if my father ever felt this way about my mother? Definitely not toward the end, that's for fucking sure. But in the beginning? Was it like this for them? This need, this addiction to be a part of one another?
My thoughts finally, blessedly, drift away from my aching cock and turn to my parents.
No, I don’t think it’s possible that they shared anything like this.
My father might have loved my mother at one time, but my mother?
I don’t think she ever did. She did though, I know, love Pyotr and me. Before she lost her mind at least.
I let out a small growl of discontent as my heart pulses with sadness. I miss her. I don’t want to. I want to be mad at her. For what she did to us, especially Pyotr. Whatever happened in that house when those two were alone all those years, it messed him up bad.
“Kirill?”
Annika’s voice is soft and full of sleep, and it pulls me from my thoughts.
“Go back to sleep, devochka,” I command, and again, that gentleness I don’t recognize coats my deep voice, taking away its sting.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, turning on her side to face me. She reaches her hand out to my thigh, and even though I know the touch is innocent, it burns through the fabric of my sweatpants and into my skin, causing my cock to throb with need.
“It’s nothing,” I reply, massaging my fingers against her scalp.
She shakes her head, her blue eyes hazy with sleep as she looks up at me.
“It’s not nothing,” she whispers, hugging herself closer to my leg. “I can tell.”
I raise a brow as I look down at her.
“Oh?”
She nods.
“Do tell.”
She reaches toward my face, drawing the nail of her pointer finger gently across my left brow.
“When you’re upset with what you’re thinking, you get a little vein right here,” she explains. Her finger then trails down to my mouth and so very gently traces the line of my top lip.
“And when something is really bothering you, you push your top lip just a little between your teeth. As if you’re trying to stop yourself from saying what you’re thinking out loud.”
I look down at her in awe. Only Edik has ever known me well enough to decipher my minute expressions. As the Pakhan of our organization, I learned long ago to keep my facial expressions guarded. To always look emotionless and impassable so that my thoughts can’t be used against me.
“How do you know this?” I ask.
Aside from sex and a few fleeting moments here and there, we’ve barely spent time around one another. Her schedule is busy and so is mine.
Her lips twitch into a soft smile that has my heart racing.
“I like your face. It’s hard not to look at whenever I get the opportunity.”
Her answer has me smiling like a fucking school boy receiving his first love letter.
“You do, huh?” I ask, stroking her hair.
“Mhm,” she murmurs with a nod. “So tell me. What’s on your mind? I have a feeling it’s not your usual work stress.”
Again, her perceptiveness marvels me and I actually find myself wanting to tell her the truth.
“I was thinking about my mother,” I confess.
Annika’s brows furrow and she sits up, placing her legs over mine in an almost protective gesture.
“Your mother? You’ve never talked about her before.”
I shrug.
“What’s there to tell? I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. She went crazy.”
Annika was silent a moment, then she nodded.
“I’ve heard the stories,” she admits, “But those are usually a little far from the truth.”
I bow my head, nod as another flash of emotional pain ripples through my chest.
“I miss her,” I whisper. “Or at least who she used to be before she lost her mind. I understand why Pyotr left with her and I sometimes wonder if I had gone with them if maybe…maybe things would have turned out different. Maybe we could have gotten the mother that used to love us back.”
Understanding shined in Annika’s eyes.
“I know what it’s like,” she whispered, “To miss someone before they’re gone. To wonder if you could have done something to make it all different.”
I cock my head as I study her.
“You do?”
She nods.
“For me it’s my mother too. I sometimes find myself wondering what would have happened if I, or Papa, Valya would have noticed something earlier by just a year?
If we could have got her cancer treatment started sooner.
I can’t even begin to imagine what you and Pyotr went through with your mom and I understand that you and I have completely different situations, but towards the end?
With all the meds she was on and the chemo?
My mom was a different person. And people say you only remember the good after someone’s gone, but for me I remember it all.
The good. The bad. The strange mood swings. The lack of recognition.”
Annika was right. Our situations are different but damn if they don’t sound eerily similar. I feel myself being pulled to her. To her empathy and understanding. Her grace.
“Come here,” she whispers, and before I can move she’s straddling my lap and wrapping her arms around me.
I let myself sink into her embrace and inhale her scent deeply; comforted by both, and suddenly I’m exhausted.
“Thank you,” she whispers, placing gentle kisses on my ear, “For telling me.”
“Devochka,” I whisper, feeling my throat grow thick with emotion as her gentle kisses trail from my ear, over my jaw and to my lips.
When she reaches them I place my hand on the back of her scalp, cradling her to me.
Our kiss is deep, sensual, and I feel all those heavy thoughts start to drift away.
Then I feel her hips sensually roll against mine, and I’m reminded that my erection is still aching for attention. I break the kiss, muttering a curse, and press my forehead to hers, struggling to do the right thing and not ravage her.
But she cups my face and raises her lips to my forehead, placing a kiss there so gentle that it makes me shiver.
“It’s okay,” she whispers softly, gently grinding her hips against me again. “It’s okay.”
“You don’t feel well,” I struggle to say, my muscles spasming with growing need. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Shhh,” she coaxes softly, gliding a hand down my chest and to the waistline of my sweats. “You won’t.”
Her hand reaches beneath my sweats and the moment her fingers wrap around my cock, I let out a deep groan.
“You took such good care of me earlier,” she whispers, placing soft kisses along my brow as she frees my cock. “Let me take care of you.”
I should stop her. I know I should, but as she guides the swollen head of my cock to her entrance and I feel her warm petals slick with desire, I give up my fight. She slowly slides herself down on me in one smooth, sensual motion, and stars burst behind my eyes.
“Fuck,” I breathe, overcome with how good she feels. I lean my forehead into her shoulder and she cups the back of my neck, holding me there as my arms twine around her back.
Annika rides me slowly, and for the first time ever, I feel no need to take control.
Instead I simply give in to how her warm, tight, soaking walls clamp so deliciously tight around my cock and let her set the pace.
Long, languid moans pour from both us as we both draw close to release, and I’m in such a haze I can barely gather myself enough to kiss her.
I’m not sure if minutes or hours pass as I’m enraptured by her bliss, but when I cum, it’s the most intense release I’ve ever had.
Annika’s orgasm follows only a second later, and her sex grips me so tightly I start to release again. We stay locked together like this, sweat-slicked and panting, and I feel like my mind go blissfully blank.
“Annika,” I pant, but I don’t say anything else. Words are impossible to fathom. So instead I kiss her, deeply, and hold her as tightly to me as I possibly can.
It’s she who breaks the kiss, only to pepper soft kisses over my forehead as she slowly raises herself off of my spent cock.
“Come here baby,” her husky, sated voice beckons, pulling me down to the pillows with her.
Like a lost boy I follow her lead. Once we’re lying down, I snake my arm around her waist and pull her tight to my chest. She buries her face into my neck as her arm goes around me just as tight as mine is around her, and in seconds, I’m dead to the world.