I cradle his head against my chest and ride him until my thighs burn and my breathing fractures. He drags both hands up my ribcage, thumbs tracing the underside of my breasts. He lifts his head and takes one nipple into his mouth, and my body jolts.
“Don’t stop.” I weave my fingers through his hair and hold him there. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He drags his mouth to the other breast and reaches between us. He presses his thumb against my clit and circles it with the same patient, devastating focus he gave to every strike.
The orgasm builds like a wave—slow, then sudden, then everywhere at once. I come with my face buried in his neck, choking on sounds I didn’t know I could make. He holds me through every second, still circling his thumb, his other arm banded around my waist like he’s the only thing keeping me from shaking apart.
“That’s my girl,” he praises between pants. “Give me everything.”
I’m still trembling when he rolls his hips up into me, and the overstimulation nearly breaks me. I gasp and grip his shoulders, nails biting into his skin, and he picks up his rhythm—harder now, faster, with both hands locked on my hips while he drives into me from below.
“Tell me yes,” he grits out.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He buries his face in my neck and comes with a groan that vibrates through me. His arms crush me against his chest, and we stay tangled together, breathing hard, our foreheads pressed together and our heartbeats hammering.
Neither of us moves or speaks. We just breathe.
Eventually, he lifts me off him and lays me down on the pillows, where I close my eyes. I hear the faucet run in the bathroom before he returns with a glass of water and holds it to my lips until I drink. Then he pulls his shirt—the black T-shirt that smells like him—over my head and eases my arms through the sleeves.
He doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He checks.
One by one, he traces my wrists with his fingers. Both fine. He turns me onto my stomach, pushes the shirt up, and runs his palms over the spots he struck, inspecting each one before he presses gentle kisses onto the heated skin until I sigh against the pillow.
“Nothing broken?” I giggle.
“Nothing broken.” He tugs the shirt back down and pulls the blanket over me. “Stay.”
Then he leaves the bedroom. Through the wall, I hear the front door lock turn. The deadbolt. The chain. His footsteps move to the kitchen, where he checks the window latch. Then the bathroom. Then the hallway. The same circuit he walks every night. The same ritual that used to unsettle me and now feels like a lullaby.
He returns and slides under the covers beside me before he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling my back against his chest, and tucks his chin against the crown of my head.
For the first time in years, Bogdan doesn’t follow me into sleep.
No threats or a cold voice on a blocked number. No dreams of running with Kira in the dark. Just the weight of Pyotr’s arm around me and the steady, even rhythm of his breathing.
When I open my eyes, the room is still dark. Pyotr is standing at the dresser with his back to me, loading magazines into his Makarov. The duffel Boris brought sits open on the floor beside him. He’s already dressed in boots and a tactical vest, and there’s a holster strapped across his shoulders.
He catches me watching and pauses with a magazine halfway home.
“Go back to sleep,” he urges. “We don’t move for another couple of hours.”
I pull his shirt tighter around me and close my eyes.
Just a couple more hours before we end this.
31
Pyotr
Boris checks his watch at 4:47 a.m. and holds up two fingers.
Two minutes.
I crouch behind the cargo container fifty meters from the warehouse’s east entrance and wedge my earpiece deeper into my ear canal. Six men are stacked behind me in pairs. Another four hold the south side under Eduard’s command. Marat’s team has the loading dock on the north. We’ve got more on our team than I expected, which I take as a good omen.
On Bogdan’s end, there are sixteen men, three entry points, and one target I intend to drag out by his throat.
