Chapter 19 - Iosif
I want you to make me feel good, she had asked of me. All that desperation in her eyes. Fear, too, as if I could ever deny her this. As if any part of me fucking wanted to.
“Look at me,” I order between flicks of my tongue. I press a praising hum into her swollen clit, sucking at her sensitive flesh. “Don’t look away from me. You should watch how good it can feel to belong to me.”
I take my time working her up, drawing her to a peak over and over—and not letting her fall. I need her shaking. Need her mindless and dripping.
‘Good’ is such a lazy word for the things I want to make this woman feel.
When she comes, her orgasm hits her like a lightning strike.
I drink in every second of it. The way her thighs clamp around my head and her pelvis fights my hold on it, her cunt pulsing beneath my mouth. Coming apart on my tongue.
Shit, the fucking sounds she makes after. All of them are attempts at my name, broken and breathless, while I work her through every wave and aftershock.
“Too much,” she rasps when she’s trembling after, and I give her another hard, flat lick.
I’ve only just gotten started.
I rise to my feet, cupping my rock-hard dick through my pants. The sight of her sprawled out on my desk, her tits heaving and bared where I ripped the cups down, has me straining painfully against my zipper.
Her glazed-over gaze hungrily follows the movement. “Too much?” I taunt.
With all that color in her cheeks, she manages to look so fucking bashful when she shakes her head. “Can I?” she asks, licking her lips.
I pinch her jaw in my grasp, pulling her in for a quick, hard kiss. “You don’t have to ask. You fucking own me, too.”
To me, those words are simply the truth. They undo something inside Janella. I see it all over her face when we shove down the double bands at my waist. My cock springs out, hard and ready, precum already glistening at the head.
Her eyes widen, just like they did the first time. And the second.
That’s where the similarities will stop.
This time, I tell her, “I need you,” because I do. I pull her leg up to her waist, and I ask her, “Do you want this?” because I refuse to wonder.
“Yes,” she keens, blessing me with her whimpers.
I grip my shaft and slowly slide into her.
This is how I begin to pound into her. And I can’t look away from the way our bodies meet, rocking into her with a rhythm we forge together. She’s so fucking tight, the sensations never die down.
I’m high on her every reaction, the way her body reacts to me.
She tries to cover her face with her hands when she needs to scream, inundated by the pleasure stirring within her. I rip those hands away, refusing to lose sight of her.
“We don’t hide from each other,” I groan, my forehead pressing to hers, sealing that vow with a kiss.
I drive into her without relenting. The pace skyrockets, and I can’t choose between her soaked, swollen slit swallowing my cock and that precious mouth, crying out for me.
She grasps for my arm, her toes curling against my back as her eyes roll back into her head. She keeps forcing them open, watching the way my cock disappears between her legs.
I milk every moment.
Her hips rock upward every time I thrust into her, meeting me. The depth blinds me with adrenaline.
I can’t slow down, even if I wanted to.
She clenches around me, and I have to force myself to keep breathing—to keep going. I push harder until I’m coming with her, nothing left of my vision but white light.
Nothing left of my universe but Janella, and her sweet little noises spilling past my lips.
***
“Better?” I ask her after, smoothing golden tendrils away from her flushed face.
She just nods, still trying to catch her breath.
I don’t need words. I believe her. The anger that had been radiating from her pores earlier has dissipated.
It’s when I set her on the couch and grab my phone on the way to the vodka that reality sets in.
“What are you doing?” she asks warily.
I don’t bother lying to her. “Calling Ivan. There will be men watching the café. The next time your father comes after you will be the last.”
In all her glory, she crosses the room and steps in my way. “No,” she says with finality.
My brows raise. “No?”
“That’s what I said. You’re not sending men after my dad. You’re not tracking him down. You’re not doing anything. You did the only thing I needed you to do here. You can do that again, but you’re going to leave him alone.”
Disbelief fills me. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“And yet,” Janella stubbornly lifts her chin, “I’m completely fucking serious.”
“He threatened you,” I remind her. Surely, I didn’t literally fuck her brains out. “He threatened our family.”
“And I handled it. You either trust me or you don’t. You have to choose, Iosif.”
I step back from her, feeling my frustration notch up. “I don’t do well with ultimatums, Janella.”
“It’s not an ultimatum,” she insists. “I am telling you I handled this. I want to move on. I’ve built this whole new life for myself. I’m not going to spend any part of it looking over my shoulder, like I’m a criminal on the lam. I’m asking you, as a person you care about, to respect my wishes.”
I purse my lips, striving to rein in my temper.
“You want me to do nothing,” I summarize.
“I don’t want my father's death to be one more thing that happens to me.”
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to refuse her. To accept that her face will contort with hurt and sadness. To make her face the fact that this is what has to happen. Cillian Driscoll needs to be put down. This is what I do. I’m fucking good at it.
I exhale heavily and unlock my phone again. I keep it in her line of sight when I text Ivan. I let her see me text him for an update.
His response comes quickly: No movement.
“Fine then,” I huff and toss my phone back on the desk. “I won’t kill him. For now.”
Relief shines in her eyes.
“But,” I add grimly, “if he comes near you again, that’s done. I will not spare him. And you can’t ask me to. You also won’t work at the café alone. Stop sending both your puppies off for lunch breaks while you man the place alone. I need you safe.”
This, she considers. “Okay.”
In lieu of the post-coital bliss an entanglement like ours earned, there is dark, suffocating tension in this room. I can’t fucking stand it.
An impulse fills me—I need to get out of here. I need to get her out of here. Away from this world of mine, even if just for a little bit.
“Let’s pack a bag,” I suggest.
Janella stares at me like I’m growing a second head. “Excuse me?”
“Pack a bag. Let’s go somewhere. Just you and me. Just for a couple of days?”
“Where?” she asks, incredulous.
I think about it. It has to be somewhere close, obviously. Safe and private. A place where she and I can just… be.
I grin at her when it comes to me. “It’s a surprise.”
***
The resort I chose is only thirty minutes outside of Boston.
It may as well be another world.
The dozen or so private villas scattered across manicured lawns and a heated pool that glows a jewel-like turquoise beneath the winter sun are perfect.
I can tell Janella loves it, too.
It’s only when we step into our villa, and she looks around to find no guards, guns, or cameras, that she gets it. Now, she repeats, “Just us.”
“Exactly,” I agree proudly, setting our bags down.
For the next three days, we exist in our bubble.
Now that we’ve unleashed the beast, we fuck feverishly, learning our ways around one another’s bodies.
We touch freely and sleep in late, waking up with our limbs tangled and our sheets sweet with sweat and vanilla perfume. We eat every meal together. We swim in the pool, and I make her squeal when I dunk her, then gallantly let her clamber onto my shoulders to dunk me back.
On the third evening, we watch the sun set on another day, and Janella sighs, blissed out, “Heaven has nothing on this, I think.” Her head is on my chest, but I can feel her smiling. She’s been smiling for days, weightless and unburdened.
“Feels normal, doesn’t it?” I ask, lips pressing to the crown of her head.
When she’s quiet, and I can practically hear her thinking, I squeeze her.
She giggles and squirms against me, but admits, “I just didn’t think normal is what a man like you could ever want.”
“It’s probably not what I should want,” I admit.
The truth isn’t like pulling teeth, not here at least. In our bubble, there are no repercussions.
Everything is fair game. Especially fantasies.
“Sometimes, when I’m with you, I forget the would’ves, could’ves, should’ves. It’s just you and me in the moment.”
Pressed so close together, there’s no way to miss the way her breath hitches. Softly, she confesses, “Sometimes, I forget, too.”