That does it.
I laugh and thrust harder.
Her whole body locks, then shudders. She comes with a broken sound I feel in my spine, cunt pulsing around me so hard it drags my own release right up behind it.
I slam up deep and spill inside her with a curse, hands bruising, teeth clenched, still staring at her like I could carve the sight of this into bone.
For a second neither of us moves.
Then she folds over me, breath hot and ragged against my throat.
I feel her mouth there before I understand what she’s doing.
Tongue against the cut. A slow lick, open mouth kisses.
The sensation hits me like another blow, cock jerking back half-hard inside her.
Goddamn.
My hand fists in her hair.
She lifts her head just enough to look at me, eyes heavy, wicked, satisfied in a way that makes something dark in me grin back. Thrill coils tight in my gut.
My blood streaks her lips, red and faint and fucking filthy.
“Now I own you,” she smirks.
I pull her in by the hair and lick the blood from her mouth, tongue dragging over her bottom lip until the copper taste hits my tongue.
“Ty opasna, Beda,” I murmur against her mouth. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Chapter 36
Ayla
The cemetery is quieter than the city.
Somewhere beyond the iron gates, traffic still hums low and distant, tires hissing over wet streets, the muted pulse of Saint Petersburg carrying on without us. But here, the sound feels muffled under the gray sky and the bare branches and the rows of stone rising out of the ground like teeth.
My boots sink slightly into damp ground as I follow Maksim between the graves.
He hasn’t said much since we got out of the car.
That’s becoming normal here.
Like he’s devoid of color in this city.
He pointed things out once or twice on the drive here. A bridge. A church dome in the distance. A building his father used to use for meetings years ago. Little scraps. Not enough to call conversation. Just enough to make me feel like he was giving me pieces of something he usually keeps behind his teeth.
Then he turned into the cemetery without warning.
Now he walks a half step ahead of me, dark shirt stretched across his shoulders, hands in his pockets, moving with that same hard stillness he always gets when something matters more than he wants it to.
I look around.
The graves are older here. Some polished and expensive, some weathered, names worn soft by time. Angel statues with black streaks down their faces. Crosses. Granite. Marble. Rusted iron fencing around family plots. Dead flowers left drying in vases
It feels old in a way America doesn’t.
