Page 33 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

“You cannot fight back. Cannot push me from you.” He thrusts deep and holds, watching my face for my answer. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t hesitate, pounding me into the bed with a vigor I didn’t know he had. I shatter the second time, screaming his name, coming around him, my pussy squeezing against that girth over and over again. He squeezes my throat, and I see stars as another orgasm takes hold. Bliss floods every limb, and I’m not a person anymore.

Iammy orgasm.

The next thing I register is his roar as he follows my orgasm with his own. After, he carries me to the attached bathroom for cleanup. He takes his time with a soft sponge, vanilla soap, and a warm bath, gently humming a tune I don’t know. Sounds like a lullaby. He pats me dry with a fresh towel, wraps me in a black robe, and carries me back to the room.

Next to the bed is a small side table refrigerator I hadn’t noticed before, and he pulls out bottles of water and fresh strawberries. “Open, pet.”

So, I do, either drinking the water down or eating a strawberry at his command. “Those berries are so good.”

He smiles and inspects each wrist, thumbs pressed to my pulse points, before he kisses me there. “How are you feeling?”

I assess quickly. “Wrung out in some ways. Better than ever in others. Does that make sense?”

“Completely.”

I sit folded into his side on the bed, boneless, smug, lit up down to the soles of my feet, and somewhere in the warm dark I think, “So this is what it’s for, all that control of his. Not power over a room. This. A place to put it where it makes someone bloom.” I almost articulate it, but my mouth isn’t working great just yet.

“The question,” he says, into my hair. “About the wicks. No one has ever made me laugh inside a scene.”

“Has anyone ever made you laugh? Scene or not?”

“It’s happened on occasion.” His chest moves under my cheek, and the sound of his heartbeat is more grounding than anything ever.

It draws a yawn from me. “Is it… we should go, right? I don’t want to hog this room, and I’m about to fall asleep.” I begin to sit up.

But he pulls me back down. “The room is ours for the night, babydoll. If you wish to sleep, we sleep.”

“I don’t really want to… it’s just…” I yawn again. “I’m not sure I have a choice.”

He strokes my hair and kisses the top of my head. “Dream for me.”

“You’re not going to fall asleep?”

“Too wired. You sleep.”

I don’t know why, but a twinge of panic grabs at my chest. “You won’t leave me here, right?”

“Never.”

“You’ll stay. The whole time I sleep.”

“Da.”

I take one last full breath. “Okay.” And then, all I know is black.

12

IVAN

Boris Malsagov does not takemeetings. He takes lunches, and the distinction, properly understood, is the entire man and half his biography.

A meeting can be rescheduled or delegated. A lunch requires your body in a chair across from his for two hours, eating what he orders, because he will order for the table without consulting the menu or you, and what you do with those two hours tells him everything the contracts won’t.

Boris is seventy-one. He has outlived two indictments, several wars, and multiple assassination attempts, so aside from his age, we have a lot in common.