As he buries himself, he reaches down for my clit with one hand, and braces himself with the other on my throat. Not choking, but claiming. His dark eyes bore a hole into my soul as he fucks me. Heat rises through my core, and I’m twitching against him, so fucking close.
He grunts, “Is this what you wanted, Beauty? To get fucked hard by a man who knows how?”
“Yes,” I growl out.
“Come on my cock!”
From his mouth to my body, it rips through me, equal parts devastation and ecstasy. Shock wave after shock wave take over, and I’m helpless in his hands. He pounds me into the throne, a man possessed.
Until suddenly, he flips me over again, onto my hands and knees. Then he plows into me from behind. Inches of his length graze my G-spot. He smacks my ass, and the vibration triggers another orgasm, this one taking my hands out from under me. I’m face down, ass up, and all I can do is lie there and take it. Too weak to do anything else.
“You take my cock like such a good girl.” His words pour like honey. “That dress of yours will be ruined if I come on it. So I will come in you instead, da?”
“Mm, yes, come in me!”
He unleashes himself until he finally comes deep inside of me with a howl. His body jerks like he can’t help it, but eventually, things slow to a stop. There is only heat and breath and the grounded anchor of his hands on my hips. He strokes my skin reverently until he spreads himself over my back and kisses my neck. “That was foolish of us.”
It makes me grin. “It was. And I don’t care.”
“Right now, neither do I.” He pulls out, making an absolute mess between us. But he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he turns me around and kisses me until I can’t see straight. “Usually, I know a girl’s name before I fuck her.”
I laugh. “Mystery is good for the soul.”
He gives me a full smile at that. “I suppose it can be. There is a bathroom behind the curtain.”
I pull him down for one last kiss. “Thanks.” He doesn’t need to know I’m not coming back after I clean up, and I’m not one for goodbyes. The bathroom is private—it links to the strange space of his temporary throne room and nowhere else.
But it has a window that leads to the alley out back, and from there, I get back to the main road and the rest of my life. Vitaly hears all the gossip at Rope, which means he will hear about the scarred girl his father hooked up with.
I wish I could see his face when he hears it.
2
ROMAN
One Year Later
Fyodor rides across from me,my sovetnik and the closest thing I have to a second father, hat in his lap, back straight like he’s in a pew and not the back of my SUV. Marcus drives, silent and sure. We took the two-lane through the trees to avoid cameras and the late commuter mess. I want a short night, a short conversation, and a shipment of guns that should have been in my warehouse two days ago.
“Belfour says the port is the problem,” Fyodor reports. “Random inspections. New inspector. Crate pulled, then pushed back to the stack.”
“If a crate is mine, it does not sit in a stack. I pay good money to make sure that doesn’t happen.” The glass shows me my face in a pale strip—the kind of reflection that makes a man look like memory. “What else does he say?”
“That he did what he could. That he wants to explain it to you in person.”
William Belfour has been on my payroll five years. He started as a pair of hands who could keep a schedule and keep his mouth shut. Now he signs receiving slips and talks to foremen. Useful, but not irreplaceable. No one is.
I look out at the tree trunks rushing past, straight and close, like bars. Belfour asked for a face-to-face. He will get one. He will bring a reason. I will decide if it is a lie. This is the way of things in my business.
Fyodor inclines his head, the respectful nod of a man who taught you how to stand and still lets you stand on your own. “You do not like him.”
“I don’t have to like him to employ him.”
He smiles a little. He was there for all the years when that answer was different. He changes the subject. “Other matter. The Korsakov boys tried to sniff around the river. We turned them away.”
“Good. They can sniff a different river.”
We roll past a bridge that no one has bothered to light. The water under it takes the moon and makes it a mirror.
