Page 62 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

I step between her thighs, but I don't drive inside her. Not yet. I lean my weight forward, my forearms resting on the cool wood on either side of her head, pinning her loose gold hair against the desk. I press the head of my shaft against her slick opening, sliding slowly up and down her wet cleft, painting us both in her fresh release, but denying her the actual entry she’s aching for.

She gasps, her hips tilting upward instinctively, her heels digging into my hips as she tries to force the depth. She glares at me through her blown-out, glassy pupils, her breath coming in hot, rapid hitches against my neck. "Are you going to keep standing there analyzing the logistics of this, Kovalevskii, or are you actually going to do something?"

I brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb tracing her lip. "You think you're in charge because you cleared my accounts?"

"I know I am." Her fingers grip my shirt collar, her grip surprisingly tight as she pulls me down, taking a sliver of the control back. "You're a sadist, Ilya."

"I'm a businessman, Via. I don't make investments without calculating the exact return."

"Then take your dividend."

The defiance in her eyes completely undoes me. I slide inside her—not in a violent, sudden ram, but in a slow, torturous, inch-by-inch descent that fills her completely. The raw drag of skin on skin is so tight, so hot, my jaw clenches as my entire length disappears inside her, my forehead dropping against hers as I hold myself perfectly still to keep from releasing immediately.

She lets out a long, shuddering sob against my mouth, her internal muscles clamping down around me like a hot vise, trying to force a faster rhythm. "Ilya... oh god."

I stay still, letting her stretch around the thick weight of me, letting her feel every single throb of my pulse inside her. "You wanted an equal, little bird. You have to work for it."

I begin to move, but the rhythm is entirely different from before. It is a slow, heavy, grinding rotation of my hips, pressing hard against her swollen clit, using the friction to make her climb the wall again. The heavy mahogany desk creaks beneath our combined weight, the steady slap of the rain against the glass windows behind us matching the wet, dragging slide of our skin.

"Ilya... please." Her hands claw at the dark leather desk blotter behind her head, her voice cracking as she completely loses her grip on her sass. "Harder. I can't... I can't breathe when you do it like that."

"Breathe with me," I rasp, my hands sliding down to hook under her thighs.

I lift her legs, draping her knees over my broad shoulders, completely exposing her to the cold draft from the French doors and the direct, heavy depth of my thrusts. The new angle is incredibly deep, my cock hitting her cervix with every single slow, relentless drive of my pelvis. I keep the pace deliberate, forcing her to feel every ridge of my skin, torturing both of us with the agonizing friction until she is weeping against my collarbone.

She shatters for the second time, her body shaking violently as her climax hits her in a tight, clamping wave that goes straight to my chest. The pleasure is too sharp, too intense. My control snaps. I drive myself deep inside her one last time, my body tensing as I release my hot seed deep inside her womb.

I stay buried inside her, my chest heaving against hers, our shallow, rapid breaths the only sound in the quiet study.

Slowly, I pull back, the soft, wet sound of our release lingering in the air. I sit on the edge of the desk, my hands staying on her waist as she shivers, her pale legs bare against the dark wood.

She looks up at me, her hazel eyes wide, glassy, and completely dark, her chest still heaving. She looks wrecked, beautiful, and entirely mine.

I reach out, my large, rough hand gently brushing a stray golden strand of hair away from her eye, my touch lighter than it has any right to be.

"You're a genius, Via," I whisper, my voice a low, gravelly rasp.

"I know," she pants, a tiny, breathless smile scratching at the corner of her mouth despite her exhaustion. "But you're the one who got to reap the benefits."

"I did," I say, a faint, dry amusement in my voice as I stand up and reach for my trousers. "Now let's go tell Dmitri he’s out of a job."

She lets out a soft, dry laugh, her hand rising to touch the mark on her neck as she sits up on the edge of the desk.

I fucking love this view.

25

VIA

The damp earth smells like rot and cold pine needles, clinging to the knees of my black leggings as I sit on the edge of the stone planter.

Ekaterina is kneeling next to me, her cheeks flushed pink from the crisp breeze, her small trowel scraping rhythmically against the dirt. She has a smudge of dark soil right on the tip of her nose, making her look about ten years younger than she actually is. She’s talking about some charcoal drawing she wants to finish before the weekend, her voice light and musical against the quiet rustle of the surrounding trees.

"The light in the conservatory is perfect around three," she says, wiping her forehead with the back of her dirty sleeve. "But Ilya says I can't go in there without Lev standing by the glass doors. It’s annoying, Via. He looks like a gargoyle. I’m trying to sketch a primrose and there’s a six-foot-four man staring at my back."

I let out a soft laugh, my fingers playing with the edge of my metal trowel. "They’re paid to look like gargoyles, Ekaterina. If they smiled, they’d probably lose their union benefits."

"Still." She tosses a small rock into the grass, her bottom lip turning out in that familiar, stubborn pout she clearly inherited from her brother. "I wish we could just walk to the river. Just the two of us. Without the caravan of black cars following us like a funeral procession."