She tries to escape the pressure, the pleasure, but I won’t let her.
My fingers dig into her hips, anchoring her, dragging her closer so she can’t escape the rhythm I set. I bury myself in her, relentless, devouring the way she writhes against my mouth.
“Let go,” I rasp against her heat. “Just feel me.”
She moans and squirms beneath me, and when I slide a finger inside, she cries out, raw and beautiful.
“Do you like it?” I growl, curling deeper inside her. “Remember your safe word.”
“I like it. I like it.” It’s a chant on her lips.
“What is your safe word, Ana?” I press.
“Blue,” she gasps. “Blue. But I’m not using it.”
A dark chuckle rumbles out of me, “Good girl.”
I push another finger inside, then a third, stretching her until she’s trembling, open for me, only for me. My tongue and teeth work her clit mercilessly, drawing broken cries from her throat.
“Yes. More. Please. Oh God.” She arches off the chaise.
Her hips buck against my face as I ravish her, punishing her with my tongue and teeth.
Her cries get louder and louder, and then she explodes. Her pussy clenches around my fingers, hot cum trickling onto my tongue. I lap it up. I take every bit of her, the salt, the sweetness, the musk. I lick and suck and finger-fuck her until she’s whimpering, aftershocks rocking her body.
And I want desperately to take this mask off. To see how her skin glistens with perspiration after I’ve made her come. I want to see how boneless she is.
But this is better. Better that she doesn’t know who I am, so she wouldn’t be intimidated by it.
Here, I’m just Nik. Not Nikolai Ivanov. Not the head of the Barkov family’s American operations. Not an orphan of Russian mafia violence. Not a man who beat another man nearly to death just this morning.
“I’m Nik,” I say. “I never told you.”
“Nik,” she says, still catching her breath. My fingers are still inside her. My head is on her lower belly. Then, as if she’s read my mind, “Does the mask bother you?”
“We all wear masks. This one is no different.”
I slip away from her as the chime announces the end of our time together. I hear her sigh, then the sound of her rising from the chaise.
She says, “Thank you,” as she always does, and then she leaves.
I am left thinking about her injury, this mysterious bruising on her back. Something in my marrow tells me it was more than a simple fall, and I wonder if I should go after her and ask her for more information.
The thing is, I think I might kill someone if I knew they’d hurt her.
13
LEANNA
My father’soffice is exactly what you’d expect from a man who runs one of the most powerful mafia families in the city.
Two opposing walls are lined with towering bookshelves—polished dark wood, filled with business tomes, art pieces, and a few framed family photos that look more curated than sentimental. One shelf, if you know the trick, swings open to reveal a weapons cache. The other hides a panic room behind a biometric lock.
The desk is huge and heavy, dark, covered in papers, with a laptop, a pair of reading glasses, and an empty glass of scotch. It, too, has hidden compartments and chambers.
A long brown leather couch stretches against the back wall, facing a glass-topped coffee table with a half-finished chess game. Two leather chairs sit opposite the desk, stationed atop a Persian rug so fine it practically screams power.
Every inch of the room is designed to impress, intimidate, and hide a dozen secrets.
