“Good?”
“I want more of that… unrestrained.” His eyes deepened, twin pools of fire held my gaze. Jared dipped his head, his teeth capturing the shell of my ear. My dress suddenly gone, leaving me in nothing but a G-string slick with my excitement, and abarely-there lace push-up bra. He stepped back and gazed up and down my body appreciatively.
He sucked in my lobe and then released it. “If that is your wish, Hecate.” He tore off his coat and flung it in the direction of a chair. He toed off his shoes and those followed along with his socks, the undone tie and finally the shirt. It was my turn to gaze appreciatively up and down. The man didn’t have an ounce of body fat and the way his hips dipped into that delicious V before disappearing into his boxer briefs…
His cock jutted out within the confines, and I dropped to my knees. It was my turn to draw a reaction from him. I tugged his shorts down, his cock sprung free, bobbing at the perfect level. I wrapped both hands around his length and opened my mouth.
I held the tip on my tongue and ran it seductively around the crown. Jared’s eyes rolled back in his head, but his hand shot out and gripped my hair. He tugged my head closer, forcing me to drop my hands. So maybe I wasn’t in charge after all. The need racing through me was strong enough that I didn’t particularly care.
“Open for me, Polina,” Jared said as he coaxed his swollen head in further. I softened my throat on his command and swallowed his thick shaft.
“So good,” He said through gritted teeth. He thrust his hips, and I focused on not choking as he battered the back of my throat. I loved it, being on my knees in front of a powerful man who drove me crazy with desire.
Jared tugged my head back off his cock. “Bed now,” he quietly ordered.
I climbed to my feet and got on the bed. Before I could get comfortable, he had me flipped over and dragged to the edge of the bed. “Chest down.” His tone was a little ragged, maybe he was as desperate as me.
I was open to him now, there was no hiding his effect on me, or my need for him.
“Please.” I uttered one word, and that’s all it took.
Jared filled me with a single savage thrust. I buried my face in the blanket to keep from screaming and alerting my guards. His hands gripped my hips painfully, his fingertips leaving impressions that would last for days.
I was so close to tipping off the edge. Reaching between my legs, I tickled his balls. His response was to thrust harder and I loved it. The harder the better as I chased an orgasm. But before I could release, he’d turned me around and placed my knees on his shoulders.
“I want to watch you fall apart,” he said in way of explanation. “Come for me, Polina.”
The simple command pushed me off that edge and into oblivion. I convulsed around his shaft and moments later, Jared smothered a shout as he filled me with his release.
When he finally pulled out of me, I collapsed forward on the bed. He dropped down beside me, his ragged breath loud in my ear. It was hard to keep my eyes open, but knowing he wouldn’t be here when I woke up, had me pushing back the exhaustion.
Feeling him behind me, here, in my bedroom, was unexpected. A gift you could say, and one I wanted to keep opening. For the first time in a very long time, the future felt like something I might choose for myself.
That was my last thought before drifting off.
Chapter 12
Jared
The house was different at four in the morning.
Not quieter exactly. It had been quiet for hours. But the quality of the silence had changed, deepened into something more absolute, the specific stillness of a building where every conscious mind had finally surrendered to sleep. I had waited for it. Felt it settle through the walls and floors the way you felt a tide change, not a sound, just a shift in pressure.
I moved through the east corridor without a light.
I knew the layout. I had memorized the floor plan from the property records three days before the gala, which was standard operational practice and had nothing to do with the fact thatI had since spent several hours in the east wing learning it from the inside. The study was on the ground floor, west side, opposite end of the house from where Polina was sleeping. Two closed doors between here and Dimitri’s patrol route. Vlad’s room was dark and silent as I passed it—no light under the door, no sound, the deep quiet of a man who slept the way soldiers slept, which was to say lightly and with one ear always listening.
I paused outside the study door.
Listened.
Nothing.
The door opened without sound. I had checked the hinges on my way upstairs hours ago out of habit, automatic, the kind of reconnaissance that happened below the level of conscious thought. Inside, the room smelled of leather and bergamot and something cold underneath, the scent of a space that was used for work rather than living. Bookshelves. A meeting table. Filing cabinets with locks that were good but not exceptional. And on the desk, exactly where the building schematic suggested it would be, the computer.
I crossed the room and sat down in front of it.
The USB drive was in my left jacket pocket. I had put it there before the gala, before the Barnes, before the dance and the balcony and a broken door on the east side of the third floor. Before a woman had sat on the edge of her bed and said I’d call the Barnes with the specific fierce certainty of someone who had been waiting years for permission and had finally decided not to need it.
