I feel myself coming apart under him. He drains my lungs with another deep kiss, swallowing my screams as I shake and buck under his powerful body. His cock twitches deliciously inside of me as a searing slick heat pours inside of me, touching me in a place that no one has ever touched.
Trusting him with information is one thing. But trusting him with my virginity?
Regular Liya wouldn’t have done that.
Regular Liya wouldn’t have thrown caution to the wind with a hot, sexy, and dangerous stranger.
Regular Liya wouldn’t have taken such a fantasy and made it a reality.
But in this moment, regular Liya—the girl who drinks meekly behind the bar—doesn’t exist anymore.
A new, more confident Liya took control, and she granted me the very things I missed out on during the years when I was simply trying to survive.
I knew there was no going back the moment I took Janine’s offer.
The moment I walked through that door.
The moment I locked that door.
But I did it anyway.
Consequences be damned.
Chapter Six
Liya
“Jesus, that tookforever,” I mutter as I step onto the train platform. “Just my luck to have an hour-long delay tonight.”
My muscles scream as I head up the stairs, a satisfying ache mingling with the usual soreness of closing the bar. Early commuters drift past me, mirroring my exhaustion. Their faces say,Yeah, I don’t want to be here either.
I adjust my bag on my shoulder.At least I’m heading home.
At the top of the stairs, morning light spills over the sidewalk and halts me in my tracks.
Fantastic, I think as I turn right to head to Cora’s Café.Can I lie down and die yet?
But I already know the answer to that. It’s a resoundingno.
Light traffic sounds behind me as I pop the door open to the café. An espresso machine whirls under the soft layers of music while I head to the counter to order Jonas’s usual: an egg and cheese burrito with extra hot sauce on the side. My hesitation to order one for myself doesn’t linger when my stomach growls.
Might as well splurge, seeing as how that Russian hotshot tipped more than a month’s pay. I roll my eyes.Until my perverted boss decides to take his cut tomorrow or some bullshit.
Forget about Dirty Dmitri.Just the thought of Pavel sends a rush to my core. Warmth slithers up my spine as I pay for my breakfast, yawning to hide the ruddiness in my cheeks from thinking way too hard and way too long about a dick that’s way too good for private consumption.
There’s nothing human about that man. I step into a haze of city racket and shuffle toward my rundown apartment.He’s a fantasy. The kind that only comes in dreams.
I reach the deli on the corner that sits beneath a tall building of apartments, each one as crummy as the next, but probably not as deplorable as mine.
Balancing my bag of delicious breakfast goodies under my arm, I push through the red door leading into the apartment lobby. If gross was a spread in the latest home design magazine, it would be this place. It’s so uniquely filthy that I almost don’t notice the OUT OF ORDER sign tacked on the elevator.
Christ, if I have to climb any more stairs, I think I might lose it.
But I do climb them. Because I have to. Because I need to get home now.
The fifth-floor landing spits me into a dimly lit hallway with dark carpet. I’m pretty sure the carpet used to be green, but years of shady tenants moving in and out of the slowly dilapidating structure have reduced it to a muddy color that makes me think about mold.
I wrinkle my nose instinctively.