Arabella leaned in. "No need to expand Corporation reach from what we do best. And once your idiot brother and Number Three are out of the picture, that new push is out of the way. But we're sure there's room for negotiation." She smiled up at Martinsson fondly, and for a startled moment, Lauren saw her friend look at the terrifying Scandinavian in the same way she looked at Thomas.
I guess anyone's Prince Charming after Kingston,she thought, choking down the semi-hysterical bubble of laughter. The verbal sparring between Thomas and Arabella's bizarre new beau continued until Lauren realized with a certain amount of shock that they actually seemed to be making progress? Seriously? Whatever was left of Kingston barely cold in his, uh, cello case and her husband was negotiating the future of Jaguar Holdings with the murderous and extra creepy Martinsson? She leaned against the solid frame of Thomas, closing her eyes for a moment. The repeated bursts of adrenalin had worn off and Lauren was grateful just to feel his warmth and strength. Just for a moment.
Her eyes fluttered open when she heard her name. "...and Lauren is exhausted. I suggest we all take a moment before we see what new surprises Mogilevich has for us tonight." There was a murmur of agreement and Thomas helped her to her feet.
Surrounded by Chuck and several of her husband's men, they walked down the opulent hallway to their suite, and she caught a glimpse of her face in one of the gilt mirrors. She looked like someone else. Someone who would kill a human being and not care.
Much.
Back in the Tchaikovsky Suite, Thomas sent her to the bedroom while he spoke to the bodyguards in low tones. Lauren took off her high heels and just stood there for a moment. She couldn't seem to make her brain work and her thoughts darted back and forth like a hummingbird, unable to really land on anything long enough to examine it.Isthis shock, maybe?she thought, but even that seemed like too much to examine. The door opened and as Lauren turned, she was already in Thomas's arms and he was kissing her. Desperately, violently while yanking at her pretty green dress.
"I thought you were dead," he groaned, "I stood there and watched them murder you and all I could think was that I'd failed. Failed to protect you, failed to tell you that I..." he hesitated, pulling away from her lips and staring at his wife a little wildly. His hands went back to pulling away her dress and then he suddenly squeezed her tightly, his dark head buried in her neck. "I should have told you that I loved you. Before you honored me with your statement. I should have. I have known for so long and you could have died today-" His beautiful, resonant voice choked off and Thomas simply stood there, still clutching Lauren and swaying slightly.
"I love you," Lauren said back, arms tight around his neck and on tiptoe to reach his face, "I love you. I do. I-" she would have said more, but Thomas had her face between his hands and he was kissing her with a rather delirious level of desperation, which led to a mutual rendering and tearing of clothes. And when they fell back on to the bed, he was already inside her, making Lauren give a breathy little shriek. But her arms and legs were still wound around him and Thomas hitched her up, arms looped under her knees and spreading her wide. She could feel the hollows on the side of his ass tighten as he pulled out once, then thrust back in. All the way to where he pressed painfully against her cervix and held. Lauren's legs began to tremble with the need to push against him, to urge her husband tomove,damnit! But Thomas did not, instead rotating his hips and keeping tight inside her, making little sparks of red pain and blue pleasure cycle along her slick channel and behind her closed eyelids and she moaned. Her dark husband cupped her breasts, stroking one while sucking the other, then switching sides when Lauren felt wound so tight that she nearly came.
The size of him inside her was pervasive, with no glide in and out to ease the girth of his cock, Thomas's slowly rotating hips making sure he brushed against every sensitive bit of her. "I'm in you to the hilt, little one, and I only wish I could stay buried inside you forever." His precise, cultured tone was slurred with lust. He chuckled, and it made small reverberations inside her and Lauren's back arch, trying to make him move, make him let her come! But he felt it and whispered into her ear, "No darling, you may not come yet, not until your Sir allows it." His long fingers slid down and spread her nether lips open, leaving her tender clitoris bare against the wiry curls at the base of his cock, adding to her stimulation but it still wasn't enough to let her come! Thomas rested on his elbows, cradling his wife's face and smiling down at her, enjoying her irritable little groans as she tried to adjust to the intense pressure and weight of him inside her. She was writhing, feeling like she was so close but he wouldn't let her come- Thomas was keeping her in a perpetual state of arousal and desperation for that last bit of something from him that would let her finish.
Pride finally forgotten, Lauren pleaded, "Please Sir. Please, my dear husband please let me come! Please! I'm so close and you won't help me-" she choked as he somehow found another inch to slide inside her.
"Not yet, lovely," he murmured soothingly, "not just yet. I cannot leave you. If you are pinned beneath me, if I am buried inside you, you can't disappear. You must stay safe under me." Another rotation of his hips. More whispers of love and bits of Shakespeare, Thomas knowing he was driving his beloved wife insane. He surrounded her in every possible way, caging her in and holding his wife- his stubborn, unreasonable, wayward wife who threw herself into the path of danger under him, inside her. "So sweet and slick, darling, aren't you? I feel you clutch me from inside, I know your tender cunt wants to keep me right where I am."
Lauren was nearly insensible with desperation. Each slow cycle of his hips pressed that giant cock against something that flared red- pain blazing in the soft tissue until the next brush, a smooth slide of blue and the pleasure canceled out the pain again. The rotation of red and blue behind her closed eyelids started swirling faster and faster until she was shivering uncontrollably. Then, drawing his knees up against the mattress, Thomas went back on his heels and gripped the soft globes of her ass in each hand, squeezing tightly, lifting her up until the tip of him rested inside her and then dropped Lauren down on his shaft. He watched every perfect moment, his Lauren made so beautiful. Her back snapped into an arch and she let out perhaps half a scream before her orgasm roared over her and into his, sweeping through him and tightening every muscle as if he'd been electrocuted. His release inside her was almost painful and the terrifying Number Two managed to gasp "I- god, I love you. Forever." It was as he was gently putting her back against the pillows that Thomas realized his wife was blissfully unconscious, a tiny, dreamy smile on her lips.
It was some time later when Chuck began politely knocking on the door, reminding them of their next meeting with the Bratva leadership. Carrying his wife into the shower, Thomas washed the dreamy, limp girl until she was able to come back to herself a bit.
"How do we handle tonight?" Lauren asked, watching him in the mirror as he brushed her hair.
"Martinsson and that surprisingly cunning Arabella now have a stake in getting this mess resolved with the Russians," Thomas said dryly. "But there are other resources on the way."
"Politics isn't the only thing that makes strange bedfellows," she shook her head, accidentally pulling on the hair her husband was brushing. "Wait- that reminds me- you said you knew Clara wasn't with MI:6 because you've been feeding them information for the last six weeks!" Lauren's eyes were wide, staring at her unperturbed spouse. "You? British Intelligence? Seriously? How could this possibly happen?"
Thomas sighed, fighting again with his resistance to tell this sweet girl anything that could harm her. "I've known for some time now that Kingston and Fassell wanted to return to the flesh trade and drugs. I've been sending information and data transfers between them and the three groups responsible for most of the activity through Europe, the US, and the Middle East." Lauren looked like she wanted to be sick, but she nodded for him to continue. "There are always ways to single out data that does not impact The Corporation as a whole but gives a clear look at where this activity is happening."
Frowning, Lauren watched him give the last few strokes to her hair. "But your half-brother was a surprise- do you think Number One was trying to replace you?"
He gave a thoroughly upper-crust sneer. "That was the most foolish and desperate thing he's ever done, but I had intended on retiring him within the next year."
Pulling on a black sheath dress that made the girl look rather sophisticated, she asked, "How, uh... how does one retire senior management in Jaguar Holdings?"
Tilting her head up with a finger under her chin, Thomas smiled. A dark and terrible smile that made her grateful it wasn't really directed at her. "Not quite in the spectacular fashion you managed, my savage little bride. But just as permanent."
Chapter 39 – About 50% of St. Petersburg Seems to Want Us Dead
In which we throw up our hands and ask: really? Is there anyone in St. Petersburg who doesn’t want to screw over Thomas and Lauren?
Thomas pulled a giggling Lauren into the bathroom with persuasive kisses, intending to debauch his wife one more time before facing down the unfriendly faces of Bratva, but the insistent buzz of his cellphone broke the mood. Growling under his breath, he walked into the living room to answer the call while Lauren tried to restore her hair into some appropriate shape. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she shook her head. If anyone had told her a year ago where she'd be right now, she would have laughed politely and then asked if they'd forgotten to take their meds. But here she was. In love with her crime lord husband and apparently, about 50% of St. Petersburg wanting them dead. No one was who she thought they were. "Including me," she mused. Hearing a rustle behind her and embarrassed that Thomas caught her talking to herself, Lauren turned. "Sorry, I'm almost rea- MMMMMPH!"
It was not Thomas.
It was, in fact, his disgusting half-brother who had a Glock jammed hard against her cheekbone. "Shut your whore mouth!" MacGowen hissed, shoving the gun harder as if he could split her skin with it. "Come with me quietly and I won't have Fassell kill your husband."
Lauren's mind was racing as she was dragged toward the balcony- the same one she'd slipped over in her bid to escape Chuck.Oh, Jesus, she thought wildly, Chuck will never forgive himself if I go and get killed! And Number 3 had disappeared, he actually could be pointing a gun at Thomas- ow!MacGowen had a fistful of her hair and one hand on her arm, yanking it up painfully behind her back as he half-shoved her over the railing to an angry-looking man she recognized vaguely as belonging to the Bratva contingent. Lauren desperately kicked off a shoe, hoping MacGowen wouldn't notice. Given his eagerness to pull a syringe out of his jacket, her lost shoe was the only thing she had going for her. And then the needle plunged painfully into her neck and the world went dark.
"You have to help me, this is insane!" Listening to Number 3 whine, Thomas bit back a growl. It was infuriating enough that the idiot had conveniently disappeared for the last what, 36 hours? - while he'd been dealing with Kingston getting shot up, Martinsson and Arabella suddenly dropping in as serious contenders and his Lauren in danger. And Fassell was whining that he needed protection? Thomas was beginning to question how Number 3 had risen as far in The Corporation as he had.
"Shut the hell up," Thomas said crisply, "take a stiff drink and show up for the meeting tonight. Keep your goddamn mouth shut until we find out who the players are, here. Do you understand, Michael?"
There was a silence on the other end as if Fassell was covering the mouthpiece and talking to someone. When he returned, the whine was gone and his standard smug tone was back. "Oh, Number Two. We have something we must take care of, first. Namely, your wife."
