I thrust into her in one stroke, and she screams.
Not pain. I know her sounds by now, know the difference between hurt and overwhelmed.
“Fuck,” she sobs, her voice breaking. “Roman, fuck, I can’t—”
“You can.” I pull back and thrust again, and every movement shifts the plug inside her. “You’re going to take everything I give you.”
“It’s too much—”
“It’s not enough.” I fuck her harder, one hand on her hip, the other wrapped around her throat, feeling her pulse race under my palm. “Not after what you did. Not after you made me lie there wondering if you loved me enough to let me live.”
“I love you.” The words tear out of her between sobs. “I fucking love you, you stupid bastard, that’s why I came back, that’s why I—”
“Don’t talk.” I squeeze her throat just enough to feel her swallow. “Just feel this. Feel me inside you. Remember this the next time you think about testing me.”
“I wasn’t testing you.” She’s crying and coming at the same time now, her cunt clenching around me in waves while tears stream down her face. “I needed to know what you’d choose—”
“And now you know.” I slam into her one last time and hold, buried as deep as I can get, feeling her convulse around me while my own orgasm tears through me with enough force to white out my vision. “Now you fucking know.”
I come inside her with my teeth against her shoulder, until the only thing left is heat and snow and the woman I love sobbing against the birch tree while I mark her from the inside.
For one perfect moment, there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing and the crackle of the fire and her body still shaking around me.
I pull out slowly and reach up to slice through the belt binding her wrists. She collapses against me, and I catch her, hold her up, wrap my coat around her shoulders. I’m not letting her freeze after everything we just did.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur against her hair. “I’ve got you, solnyshko.”
Then I hear it.
Footsteps. Crunching snow. Too many of them, coming from the treeline.
I go still.
Anya feels the change immediately. Her body tenses in my arms, and when I set her on her feet, she doesn’t make a sound, just turns her head and scans the darkness the way I taught her, eyes sharp despite the tears still wet on her cheeks.
“Tactical bag. Woodpile. Get the Glock.”
“Yes.”
I step away and reach for the Makarov I left propped against the birch trunk, close enough that I can grab it without having to cross open ground with my trousers still undone.
The first shot cracks the air.
A warning shot or someone with shit aim, and I drop into a crouch with my weapon up, scanning the muzzle flashes blooming in the trees in three different positions, north and east, and south.
Anya is already moving.
She’s already behind me, the rustle of my coat still draped over her shoulders, the click of the magazine seating in the Glock, the crunch of snow under those too-big boots as she takes position at my left with her back to mine.
My coat is hanging past her knees, and underneath that, just my shirt is hiked up around her hips from what we just did. The plug is still inside her, and every step must be a sharp reminder of what I put there.
“Behind you,” she says, and her voice is calm and cold in a way that makes my cock twitch even now.
Her gun cracks twice in quick succession, and somewhere in the dark, a man drops with a wet thud that sounds final.
She drops the gun.
“ROMAN VIKTOROVICH!” A voice cuts through the gunfire. “CEASE FIRE!”
