Chapter 27
NATALIA
The communication devices are spread across the main headquarters where Leks and Yuri work.
I feel sick as I pick them up. As I realize what I’ve done.
I flash nervous, false smiles at the workers who notice me wandering around with a giant rucksack.
Their lives could have been in danger because of me.
My father knew everything that’s going on in this place, thanks to me.
Thanks to the listening devices I planted.
He’s been trying to kill Leks for months. Not because of our marriage, but because Leks knows what he did to my brothers. And I’ve been helping him.
I stopped putting the devices out after the assassination attempt at Leks's fight club…but I did nothing about the ones I’d already planted. I didn’t want to have to explain things to my father when he noticed they’d been taken away.
I take a deep breath and focus on the work instead of the awful guilt in my chest. I planted them methodically, one at a time while I worked in the offices, according to a map my father gave me.
It takes all afternoon to collect them. I meet Leks at the edge of the dock with the bag full of listening devices. He’s going to send them on a fishing boat to Alaska, where they’ll be tossed overboard.
My father will know that something’s wrong as soon as they give him only the noise of a fishing boat instead of Bratva business… But I no longer care about disappointing him. His anger means nothing to me in comparison to the hurt I saw on Leks's face this morning.
Leks takes the bag from me, weighing it in his hand. There were so many of them. I can feel his judgment as he looks through the bag. Right under his nose, every day that I went to work with Yuri, I was betraying both of them.
“You’re sure this is all of them?”
I nod, trying to hold back another wave of tears. I don’t want to look like I’m trying to get his sympathy.
I give Leks the map, which he looks over carefully. God, he must hate me so much right now.
“These were all the placements. I’m sure I got all of them.”
My stomach churns with nerves as I wonder for a second whether he’ll believe me.
Leks gives me one hard look. “We will double-check all of them. If we find even one device still there…”
My pulse quickens. Leks doesn’t finish his sentence, but I know that he’s serious.
“You won’t. I promise. This is every single one.”
He gives a final nod, handing the bag to the ship’s captain, who gives him a salute.
Then his eyes soften again and he presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Don’t breathe a word to Yuri about this,” he cautions me. “He’ll think I’m being too soft on you.”
Relief floods my veins. It’s over. I smooth a hand over the shoulder of Leks’s shirt. “And are you being too soft on me?”
Leks brings his mouth down to mine, the rub of his rough lips on mine and the glide of his tongue making my knees weak.
“You’re lucky that you’re so fucking irresistible,” he murmurs into the hollow of my neck.
“Thank you,” I tell him, my heartbeat slowing as I realize what a close call this was. How careless I’ve been.
If Leks was a cruel man… If anything was different… I would be the one on the fishing boat to Alaska in hundreds of tiny pieces.
He wraps an arm around my waist as he steers me back to the loft. “I hope you don’t think this means you get away without punishment, zolotse.”
A rush of anticipation and awareness runs down my spine.
The second we step into the loft, Leks pins me against the door with a hungry look in his eyes. He doesn’t kiss me.
His hands get to work ripping off every item of clothing I’m wearing and tossing them to the floor. Then he heads towards his bedroom.
I move to follow him, but he catches me with an arm wrapping around my waist, pushing my back against the door with a thud.
“Did I say you could follow me?” His voice is commanding and teasing all at once.
“No,” I reply breathlessly, arching my naked body against him as he holds me in place.
One hand tangles through my hair and I give a shiver of pleasure.
“Tie your hair up and wait here,” he instructs me, his voice gruff. He heads upstairs.
My nipples harden in the cool air as I wait for him to return.
When Leks comes back, he’s holding a dark piece of fabric. He wraps the blindfold over my eyes and murmurs approvingly.
Then he yanks my head back with his fist wrapped in my ponytail.
“This sunshine fucking hair of yours drives me crazy, zolotse.”
Leks gives a tug, then another tug, and leads me across the room.
When we stop I reach for him, finding the fabric of his shirt.
Hot awareness runs through my body when I remember that he’s still fully clothed.
Leks just walked me like a dog through his kitchen, with me absolutely naked and him fully dressed.
“Bend over.”
He pushes my head forward with his hand. My palms flatten against the marble of the kitchen bench.
“Have you ever been spanked before?
“I never broke any rules—”
I let out a shocked sob as his palm makes contact with my ass.
“Shhh. It’s okay, Natalia.” He rubs his palm over my hot flesh in a soothing stroke. Then he brings another blow down on the other cheek. “If you stay quiet through your punishment, there will be a reward at the end of it.”
I keep my mouth closed but staying quiet is hard. Almost impossible.
The pain of each blow fades quickly. What’s hardest to resist is the pleasure that blooms behind it.
The sharp slaps send throbbing need straight to my clit. With the blindfold over my eyes, I let the sensation wash over me until it’s unbearable.
A trickle of moisture makes its way down my thigh.
This spanking has turned me on so much that I’m dripping.
I let out a moan as his palm brushes against me and my face flames.
“Enjoying yourself?”
His husky voice is dark pleasure rumbling straight to my center. I want to know if he’s enjoyed this too, if spanking me turned him on, but the blindfold makes that impossible.
His palms glide over the glowing skin of my ass to my waist. Without warning, he flips me around.
The counter-top stings against my red-hot flesh and I let out a whimper.
“Sore, zolotse?”
I nod my head and his hand wraps in my hair again. I feel his lips brush against my neck.
“But still so turned on that you’re leaving a puddle on the counter-top.”
His hand slides down over my hip. With one rough finger, he traces over my slick opening.
I whimper, buck my hips, try to get closer to his hand, but he pulls it away.
“What do you want, Natalia?”
I let out a whine as his thumb traces over my clit with infuriatingly light pressure.
Another desperate noise escapes from my chest as he tastes one nipple, then the other, with a hot glide of his tongue. His lips come to the full flesh of my breast and suck, hard.
“Use your words.”
His lips trace back up over my chest, sucking at the skin over my collarbone, my earlobe, my shoulder. The hot, wet friction of his mouth on my skin confuses my thoughts. I’m so distracted, my hands tangling in his hair as he kisses me all over, that I almost forget what it is I’m asking for.
“Your cock, Leks,” I gasp, finally. “Please, please.”
I try to kiss him, to pull him closer, but he flips me over instead, so that I’m bent forward.
The hand wrapped in my ponytail tugs my head back so he can murmur in my ear.
“You love missionary, don’t you? Well, tonight is about teaching you a lesson.”
Then Leks leads me away from the kitchen counter. I can feel his bulge rub against me with every single step. I need him.
He releases my hair. His belt clunks open.
Then his bulge presses against me and I realize that I’m so wet that my thighs are already damp.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “I think you liked your punishment.”
His thickness presses at my entrance with sudden force. I need support.
My hands find cool, hard glass in front of me.
The window.
We’re right in front of the window from the loft to the rest of the port.
My breasts flatten against the glass with his first thrust into me from behind.
I’m so full that my breathing gets shallow. His hands tighten on my shoulders so that I take every inch.
God, I needed this.
My nipples scrape against the cool glass as he pushes inside me again. A mixture of panic and arousal rushes into my bloodstream as I process what’s happening.
“Can’t people see us?”
He growls and nips my ear. “Who cares if they can? All they’ll see is me taking what’s mine.”
I let out a whimper at that, arching my back to take him deeper. His other hand squeezes my ass hard, the skin still glowing with pain.
He thrusts harder, pressing me against the glass of the window. His lips brush their way up my spine with ravenous kisses, like he wants to devour me.
“Maybe I want them to see us,” I admit, my cheeks burning.
He growls in satisfaction at that.
“Show them how you take my cock like a good girl. Like it was made for you.”
His hand slides between my thighs, teasing me with the lightest circles. My legs threaten to buckle.
“Who does this belong to?”
“You,” I gasp, every cell on my body burning as I wait for him to bring me over the edge.
“That’s fucking right.”
The slightest friction is all it takes.
I come so hard that Leks’s hands on my hips are the only reason I stay upright. My head gets light. I’m moaning so hard that I’m practically screaming.
“If you want to wake the entire port district up, you’re doing fine.”
He’s not done with me yet, taking me through my orgasm and out the other side, only to make me collapse into a puddle again when he teases my clit with light taps.
It’s torture of the most addictive kind.
When every muscle in my body is loose with pleasure, he pulls the blindfold off.
Those midnight blue eyes sweep over my body with primal satisfaction. Looking down, I see why. Hickeys cover my breasts, my neck, my thighs. My ass is still glowing red and aching. His seed is dripping out of me.
I am utterly ruined.
And Leks is buttoning his shirt, looking like he’s had a normal day.
He takes my chin in his hand and pulls a husky moan from my lips with the sweetest kiss.
“None of those rich heirs you were supposed to marry would have been able to handle you, zolotse.”
“And you can?”
A smile quirks at the edges of his mouth. One hand slides down to my stinging ass and dips down to trace over my lips. As if it hasn’t had enough attention, my clit gives a flutter.
“You’re not going to be able to walk tomorrow. I think we can agree you’ve learned your lesson.”