…Exposing his tattoos.
“First time for everything,” Misha mumbled and led me ahead.
Vitali noticed me a moment after I saw him, and suddenly there was no one in the room except him and me. He slowly took in the sight of me, from my salon-styled curls down the hip-high slit of my dress to the tips of the stiletto heels he had picked out. His lips parted in a silent, appreciative exhale, followed by a rare, bright smile softening his features.
He excused himself and met us halfway, immediately leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.
“Stunning, Kotik, just stunning,” he whispered, lingering long enough to send shivers down my spine. He took my hand and raised it above my head, encouraging me into a slow spin. “Let me see you.”
“Vitali,” I said, unable to help the wide smile pulling at my still-healing wound, “you look incredible. You…” I motioned at my throat, and his grin grew.
“The only person whose opinion matters doesn’t mind, so why should I?” he said, and placed his hand on my lower back, leading me to the tables.
The cocktails turned into dinner. The crowd was mixed between my friends and his, and to my surprise, it was the perfect combination for laughter and loud stories being toasted with thick crystal glasses full of expensive vodka. I had been unfair to the men whom I thought of as thugs, because seeing them in this environment made them… men. Even good men. Nothing like the ones who caused my bruises.
I hid a smile when I saw Misha in a low conversation with Larissa, a friend of mine from university. She blushed, and I didn’t hear him swear once. Essentially marriage.
The thought stuck in my throat in the form of toast and caviar I’d already bitten down on.A special night. The suit. My friends. His men.
God save me. It was happening. The proposal was happening.
Vitali’s leg stiffened against mine, and his hand slid to rub my leg, just above the knee, under the tablecloth. His conversation with Ivan went uninterrupted. Playing games. Ones I so desperately wanted to play, but he hadn’t allowed, because of the bruising. In fact, he was careful not to look at the wounds on my body. Not that I tried to strip in front of him (I did), but telling me the purple-blue on my face was beautiful and then refusing to touch me seemed like mixed signals.
I let out a brief, purposeful moan. His gaze snapped toward me, and I grinned, dropping my eyes. The fingers on my leg tightened.
“Mind yourself, you still have your birthday present coming,” he said.
“What’s my present?” I asked as innocently as I could, with my hand creeping onto his thigh. He groaned and slightly lifted up my dress.
“How did this end the last time you tried?” he asked quietly, looking off across the table. His thumb dug into my inner thigh, sending sparks to my nerve endings.
Pavel’s roaring laughter momentarily drew my attention, but I didn’t move my hand. Someone past Vitali began ranting about privatized railways and emphasizing their point with a prodding finger raised above their head.
“You gave me an apartment and an orgasm,” I whispered, pleasantly smiling at the waiter refilling Misha’s drink. Vitali’s jaw flexed.
The music grew louder, nearly drowning out the drunken chatter around us. It had been four hours since we arrived.
“What’s your excuse this time?” I goaded him on. “I don’t see your bosses…”
“We have things to do tonight, Katya,” he said evenly, his thumb putting light pressure on the exact spot to shut me up. My fork clattered against the table, raising a set of brows, but I kept my composure, despite my other hand clasping the embroidered tablecloth as if it could keep me steady.
“It’s my birthday,” I purred despite the odds, and brushed across the hard ridge of his restrained cock. “Today, I’m the boss.”
“Oh, I don’tfuckingthink so,” he growled, so close to my ear it disturbed the finely tucked hairs in my expensive hairdo, but his leg muscle trembled.
I exhaled sharply through my nose. If I shifted, I couldtouch elbows with the person beside me, and Vitali’s hand was between my thighs, teasing weeks of watching him walk around the apartment with no shirt on. And I wasn’t going to stop him. I fully planned to make it worse.
I stroked his length with the tips of my fingers, imagining that damned piano bench and him hard in my hands. In my mouth, letting out those low, involuntary groans. Completely surrendered to me.
The pulse between my legs backfired on my intentions, because I couldn’t hear anything above the thoughts.
His face was completely still, even casually bored, when he twisted his wrist and pressed hard against my sex. My panties were drenched, and worse, I was soaking the nylons. He massaged the seam, meanwhile Pavel asked him some question. I wasn’t quite sure what, but the words‘Lithuanian mastiffs’ stuck in my mind. It wasn’t right; that’s not what was said, but Vitali’s fingers worked me as he held a perfectly calm conversation, and I didn’t care about anything else in the world.
SomehowI made no sound.
My knuckles went numb where I gripped the hem of my dress.
And then it was gone. He pulled his hand back, raising it above the table. I watched in a daze as he nonchalantly brought the two glistening fingers to his lips, and tasted them.
