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By the time Zevran emerges from the bathroom, I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, my hand folded around my new cast as it rests quietly in my lap.

9

Zevran

Ishut the bathroom door and brace both hands on the vanity, breathing like I’ve just run a mile. I meet my own eyes in the mirror.

Get it the fuck together.

That little game in there of making her come was getting carried away, and I don’t get carried away. Not with marks, not with assets, not with anyone. I deliver people from one place to another and I get paid. I do not dream about what their hands feel like in my hair or spread them out underneath me like a treasure I’m allowed to keep.

Yet all I can see is her. I picture Viktoriya like that anyway, flushed and shaking, the shattered cry she made when she came apart on my tongue. The way her soft thighs trembled around my shoulders. How she said my name like it was torn from her lips against her will.

I drop my head and groan.

My cock is so hard it fucking hurts.

I want to walk right back in there and finish what we started. I know exactly what I’d do if I did. I’d peel that shirt off her, settle myself between her thighs, and bury myself so deep inside her that neither of us would remember that she has a husband. I’d fuck her slow, and then I’d fuck her hard, and I would not stop until she was completely wrecked and dripping with my cum. Until she understood that she belongs to no one but me.

I unfasten my belt, unzip my pants, and take myself in my hand. Pressing my knuckles against the cold edge of the vanity, I don’t bother being slow with myself. I’m too goddamn wound up for slow.

My grip travels aggressively up and down the length of my shaft. I catch sight of myself in the mirror over the sink—tattoos, the white bandage on my hand, my cock flushed dark and leaking, fisted hard in my own fucking hand because she’s not here to do it for me.

I think about Viktoriya’s hands on my chest downstairs, drugged and uninhibited, tracing my tattoos and scars like she was memorizing them. I think about the way she gripped my fingers when Scava was setting her bones, like I was hers to hold on to.

It makes me crave something of hers in return, but she has nothing of her own right now. No trinket I can take, no underwear of hers that I can stuff in my pocket. But I have her orgasm, pulled from her body by my tongue and fingers working in her tight pussy. I have her taste, and I suck on my lower lip for another hit of that sweet slickness as my hand moves faster on my cock.

I imagine her on her knees in front of me. That bratty mouth, finally put to its best use, sealed around my shaft. Those wide green eyes looking up at me while she takes me down her throat. Obedient for once, moaning around my cock like she can’t get enough of me. Because she’s mine, and she’s finally starting to know it.

“Printsessa,” I growl.

I come hard against the sink, and I have to plant a hand against the steamed mirror to stay upright.

I look down at myself, my still-hard cock in my hand, the mess of my release.

What the fuck was that?

I clean myself and the sink up with unsteady hands before splashing cold water on my face. My reflection stares back at me, dark crescents beneath my eyes, water dripping from my stubbled jaw. I don’t even recognize the man in the mirror.

I dry my face and hands, straighten my belt, settle my expression back into something that resembles the cold enforcer I’m supposed to be, and open the door.

Viktoriya is sitting on the edge of the bed.

Dressed and composed, her hand folded neatly around her cast like she’s waiting for a bus, not at all like she just came apart in my mouth ten minutes ago. Her cheeks are still a little pink, and her hair is slightly mussed, but everything else about her is so perfectly assembled that, for a second, I wonder if I imagined the whole thing.

She looks up at me with polite expectancy and says nothing.

What the hell is this woman doing to me?

The car is quiet.

She’s gazing out the window, her cast resting lightly against her stomach, watching the trees blur past like she has nowhere else she’d rather be. There’s an infuriating ease to her. A woman who’s perfectly settled and satisfied.

Meanwhile, I feel like the ground is going to drop out from beneath me at any moment.

I grip the steering wheel with both hands because sitting still right now feels fucking impossible. Silence is usually my best friend, but now it’s turned on me. It prickles under my skin and blares in my ears.

I find myself glancing at Viktoriya sideways for the third time in as many minutes, searching her face for a crack. A flush. A single sign that twenty minutes ago I had her falling apart underneath me.