Chapter 16
Artem
The noise inside my mind is silenced by her playing.
Like a siren, she carries me into another world, one warmer and quieter, far deeper than the moment when I dig the tip of my knife into some bastard’s flesh.
If my mother had known this was a far better remedy than the one my father found, perhaps my life would have unfolded differently.
Still, I am glad it did not happen that way, because I enjoy what I do just as much as I enjoy listening to Ekaterina play.
She is gorgeous, but when she plays, she seems like some magical creature from another world.
Her hair falls over her shoulders in waves, and her white silk blouse moves like a pale shadow whenever her slender body sways slowly to the rhythm of the soft melody.
Her eyes are closed, living in her own world, one I would like to lose myself in too.
“What do you think about when you play?” I ask quietly, and she slowly opens her eyes and smiles at me with that inviting warmth I am becoming addicted to.
This woman manages to tame my voices, but most of all, my heart, and she has no idea what effect she has on me.
“Colors,” she answers with a shy smile. “The notes are colors that weave around me, through the furniture, toward the walls, like delicate smoke with a beautiful perfume.”
“And it’s just you and the music?”
“Yes,” she says, continuing to press the keys with her long, delicate fingers. “But now, among those colors, you’re there too.”
“What an honor for me,” I say with a trace of sarcasm.
She suddenly strikes a low note hard and pretends to frown at me.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Never, dusha.”
I lean toward her and take her hand from the keys, stopping the melodic playing so I can kiss her magical fingers.
“You just did.”
“I was teasing you,” I say, pressing my lips to the center of her palm.
“Wow! Voron makes jokes. I lived to see that.”
Honestly, so did I. But this woman turns me into something I never thought I would become: a man who wants to make the woman beside him happy.
To make her smile.
I never believed I was capable of feelings like that.
“If you tell anyone, I’ll have to keep you captive for the rest of your life.”
I lift her chin and slowly press my lips to hers. “In my bed, to be precise.”
“Torture,” she whispers theatrically, with an exaggerated expression.
I straighten and position myself behind her.
“Allow me to show you what kind.” My voice is tempting, placing my palms on her shoulders, covered by the silky shirt.
I can say her outfit today is inspiring my actions at this moment.
Since the second I saw that shirt, I wanted to undo the buttons and touch her breasts.
And the skirt is bell-shaped, ideal for being lifted.
As for those slender legs, they could not have been paired with anything but pointed heels that make me think of a very pleasant kind of pain.
I am not a masochist.
Quite the opposite. Sadism is my great pleasure, especially when it culminates in someone’s blood and death. But right now, I think whatever this woman subjected me to, I would find pleasure in it.
“Keep playing, Ekaterina,” I ask with a gentleness that barely covers my desire to tear her apart.
Literally.
“You stop only if I tell you to.”
“Why?”
I slowly wrap one hand around her throat as a warning. “You always have something to say.”
“I don’t get along very well with commands,” she says, relaxed, even though my fingers slowly press against her trachea.
She is not afraid of anything, damn it. And this only turns me on more.
“I noticed. Now can you play?”
“I’m impressed by how nicely you’re asking…” she throws back sarcastically, making me say those words for the first time in my life, even if I do it without a trace of emotion in my voice.
“Please.”
My answer is followed by a beautiful giggle and a new melody born from her magical fingers. So I make my way with my hands, from her shoulders to her chest, where I open each button, one by one.
“What are you doing?” she asks immediately, but when she tries to stop, I intervene.
“Hands on the piano, Ekaterina. We all play what we can.”
“Well, I can’t play under these conditions.”
“Try.”
At first, it seems it isn’t that hard for her to keep the melodic line, until my palm cups her breast through the thin bra and slowly massages it. Then I push the cup aside and begin playing with her bare breast, with the nipple that hardens instantly beneath my possessive touch.
My cock is already pulsing in my trousers, but my attention is fixed only on her breasts. Soft, but firm. Not too large, not too small, perfect enough for each one to fit in my palm so I can enjoy them like a man obsessed.
I am starved for this woman, and my hunger is sharpened by the voices wanting to rise to the surface. Not to guide me toward hurting her, but toward devouring her in the most erotic way.
Slowly, my hand moves down over her stomach until I reach the place between her closed thighs. Of course, I force her to part them, only to lift the fine material of her skirt afterward, just enough to slip my fingers between her legs.
She jolts when I touch her underwear and moans when I push it aside.
I touch her soft folds and get drunk on the sigh that slips between her parted lips. I begin by spreading her wetness with the tips of my fingers before sliding them inside her. First one, then two.
She loses the rhythm and misses the notes, but I can feel how hard she is trying to focus on playing while I touch her like this.
Fuck...
I can barely hear the piano anymore, because her breathless sounds become the only music reaching me.
I move my fingers inside her, while with my other hand I continue torturing her breasts, now almost completely exposed. My lips find her throat, and I kiss the vein where her blood pulses quickly, while my queen’s sighs grow louder the faster and deeper my fingers move inside that warm core.
Ecstasy strikes her quickly, proving to me once again how responsive she is to my touch.
“Oh, God,” she cries out loudly, almost screaming through the orgasm that contracts her around my fingers.
“Did I tell you to stop playing?” I whisper in her ear, caressing her clit as I withdraw my fingers from that warm, sacred place.
“It’s a little hard to concentrate in a moment like this.”
“Fine. I promise I won’t stand behind you anymore.”
I take one step to the side and raise my hands in surrender, only to put the fingers that were inside her into my mouth and suck them while looking deep into her stunned eyes.
“You’re cruel,” she tells me in a sly tone, narrowing her eyes.
“You underestimate me.”
“I’m sure no word has been invented that could describe you in that regard.”
“Yes, it has. Voron.”
I wink at her.
“Voron only means raven.”
This time, I grin wickedly.
“Not when it’s paired with my first name.”
She seems a little impressed by my answer, but I snap her out of it the moment I gesture toward the piano.
“I didn’t say you could stop.”
“You think I still feel like playing?”
“I promise you can stop after this.”
“That’s a lot of promises for today, Voron,” she says playfully.
“You deserve all of them,” I tell her honestly, remembering that I promised to be beside her at the recital.
I realized how much it means to her to have someone in the audience who comes only for her, not merely strangers who want to listen to music.
I want to be there to erase any fear she may still have connected to the people she loves, and because it feels natural for me to be present at such an important moment in her life.
I truly intend to put her first, always, no matter the situation, especially when it comes to moments that matter to her.
Her fingers move across the keys again, and I can already picture what I will do next.
Through a game of imagination, I manage to lower myself to the floor, slipping between the bench I pull farther back and the piano.
Between her thighs.
She can no longer reach the lower pedal, but she still manages to play.
“Artem... What...?”
“Shh,” I tell her shortly, parting her legs and lifting her skirt again.
I feel euphoria begin to take over me from the moment my tongue touches her clit.
With two fingers, I spread her folds, then lick the entire length of her until my lips close around her clit, sucking it slowly.
It is my gentlest gesture, but soon I give in to my instinct and begin tasting her with mad hunger. She is sweet, and I cannot get enough of her unique taste.
A guttural sound rises from my chest.
Her moans are woven into the melody she gets wrong several times, but she does not stop. And neither do I. To heighten her pleasure, I slide one finger inside her again, but my mouth does not leave her clit, sucking it and circling it with my tongue again and again.
I continue like this until I feel her core tightening, and her cry of pleasure ends the melody with that sound tearing from her chest, feeding my voices.
We want her.
Now
Rising from the floor, I catch her narrow waist and lift her from the bench, setting her ass on the piano.
It is rather high, but at six foot three, I manage to position her so our bodies can unite perfectly.
With starving touches, I part her delicate thighs and lift her knees until her heels settle on the keys, which release loud, meaningless noise.
Just like the voices in my head in this moment, when my entire body wants her, my mind seeks her, and my heart feels her.
I kiss her like a man possessed, and she answers me with the same need, her hands tangling in my hair, pulling me as close as she can. I don’t know how I undo my trousers and free my cock, but after I tear this pair of panties too, clearing the path to what I crave now, I thrust hard inside her.
In a single motion, I am buried completely in that warm core, which grips me even tighter because of her orgasm from only moments ago.
“Now I want you to sing to me with screams of pleasure, dusha moya. And I want you to scream my name when you’ll come on my cock.”
I move my hips with force, pushing hard into her, and the sensation is indescribable. My lips drop to her chest, and I suck her breast fiercely, leaving new marks beside the ones from the previous night.
I feel complete here, inside her, pressed to this warm body, touching her skin and living for her touch and her sighs. I feel her soft, hot core tightening around me, and it doesn’t take long before my wish is fulfilled.
“Artem! Yes!”
Her voice is like the light of an angel flashing through my entire body, leaving permanent marks all over my soul.
She is mine.
And I am hers.
I lose myself wildly in her perfect pussy and shudder when my orgasm shakes my entire existence, the way it does every time.
It is a feeling unlike anything else, and I realize that moments like this, when our bodies join so perfectly, are becoming permanent tattoos in my memory.
She’s milking me so good, but after I come, I don’t release her.
Holding her in my arms, her legs wrapped around my waist, I carry her to the bedroom, knowing there is no one in the house who would dare steal a glimpse of her beautiful body.
I lay her on the bed, strip off all my clothes, then undress her too, because I want to enjoy her naked body without any more obstacles in my way.
She kisses the tattoos on my chest.
I turn her onto her stomach and kiss her spine.
She bites into the pillow, and I enter her from behind with force.
“I will never get enough of you.” My voice is firm, my fingers digging deep into her hips, while my movements grow hungry.
Moments full of ecstasy, ones I don’t want to end, yet they demand their own peak. I make her come again, and I am fascinated by the way her body reacts, especially when I intensify the moment with my fingers rubbing her clit frantically.
Inevitably, her orgasm pulls mine into the same vortex, making me come again in powerful waves that drain every last bit of energy from me.
We both collapse onto the mattress, stretching out beside each other, but I immediately pull her into my arms and kiss her with the same hunger as every time.
Until now, I never believed someone could mean this much to me.
I have always had my family beside me, and with them, I share a blood bond no one and nothing will ever destroy.
But with Ekaterina, it’s something more intense.
Something more important.
And I will not allow anyone to take her from me again.
Not even the Bratva.