“There’s nothing left to say, Caterina,” Viktor repeats. “We don’t need to speak to each other more than necessary. You’ll let me know when there’s a possibility that my presence in your bed could bear fruit, and any messages you might have for me can pass through Levin. You wanted distance. This is that.”
I swallow hard, my hands trembling. A dozen things hover on the tip of my tongue, but I know better than to say any of them. I can’t say how desperately I want him to turn around so that I can see the look on his face, so that I can know if it’s angry or pained or some mixture of both. I can’t say how much I want to reach for him, how it’s taking everything in me not to tell him I’m sorry, to beg him to let me take it all back, to tell him that I’m aching for him already—for his touch, his kiss, his body.
I can’t tell him that he awakened a need in me that I never knew I had and that I feel as if he tore out a piece of my soul last night when he threw me in that room and walked away.
I can’t tell him how desperately I want to say the word stinging my lips, a word that I should never say to a man like him.
I can’t love him. I can’t. Not a man who does the things that he does.
My heart is as traitorous as my body, but I can never tell him that. Never, never, never.
“Are we done here?” Viktor doesn’t move, and my chest clenches, my skin buzzing with the need to not let him walk away from me.
But I don’t say anything. He lets out a breath at the silence, his shoulders relaxing a fraction, and then he heads for the stairs without so much as a backward glance.
---
My second night alone in the guest bedroom isn’t much better than the first. I change into silk shorts and a thin tank top, slipping under the warm sheets and turning out the light. The absence of anyone in the bed beside me feels like a gulf, a reminder of how lonely I am that makes me feel as if I’m drowning. I roll onto my back, smoothing my hand over the cold space next to me, and I close my eyes.
I shouldn’t want Viktor here. But I imagine it anyway, his large, solid body taking up the space, radiating heat. His bare skin brushing against me, the hard muscle of his chest and the ridges of his abdomen occasionally bumping up against my arm or my fingers, sending thrills through me that I tell myself I don’t feel and don’t want.
Nearly every time we’ve been together that I can think of, with the exception of the cabin and the garden, has been calculated by one of us, set up to inflict punishment or force desire. I imagine what it might be like to simply slip into bed next to him like one half of a normal married couple, to feel his breath on my shoulder and the heat of his body and for him to reach for me naturally, my body softening into his with awakened desire.
No punishments, no taunting, no fighting it. No resistance. Just easy, soft lovemaking, the kind that other people do. Married people who aren’t at war with one another, drawing blood with words instead of knives, killing each other slowly with threats instead of bullets.
A flush of heat washes over me at the thought of Viktor’s hand on my breasts, teasing my nipples through the thin silk of my tank top, his mouth at my ear, his warm breath sending shivers over my skin. Without thinking, my hand slides to my stomach, slipping down to the waistband of my shorts, and I suck in a breath, imagining that it’s Viktor’s fingers instead.
Viktor, touching me gently, his fingers slipping in between my folds, the groan he would make when he finds me wet for him already. I know that sound, deep and anticipatory, eager for what comes next. I imagine his lips on my throat, his tongue on the sensitive flesh of my neck, nipping and sucking, intensifying as he leaves a mark on my flesh while his fingers speed up, rubbing over my clit as I gasp and arch upwards, my thighs spreading easily for him.
I shouldn’t fantasize about this. I shouldn’t touch myself, imagining my brutal husband being gentle and loving with me, imagining a future that we can’t have. It’s just a different kind of torture, a new way of tormenting myself with something I desperately want that can never be a reality. But I also can’t bring myself to stop, and I let out a sigh as my fingers circle the hard, slick nub of my clit, feeling it pulse as I lose myself in the fantasy.
“Malishka—” I hear Viktor whisper as he moves closer to me, his hand reaching up to turn my face to his so that he can kiss me, his lips grazing over mine. His other hand is still inside of my shorts, his fingers teasing my clit, and I slide my hand beneath his arm, reaching for the hard length that I can feel pressing against my hip. He groans when my hand slips inside of the pajama pants he’s wearing, skimming over his bare abdomen to wrap around his cock. I feel it throb in my palm as his tongue slides into my mouth, tangling with mine as I stroke him slowly, matching the pace of his fingers circling my clit.
“I want your mouth,” Viktor groans. He pushes himself to his knees, the covers sliding back as he pushes his pants down to his hips, his hands leaving me for a moment to hook into his waistband and shove them down, revealing his thick, rigid length to my hungry eyes. I love seeing his cock, hard and ready for me, the tip already pearling with pre-cum as his hips jut forwards, the swollen head seeking out the heat and pleasure of my mouth.
I don’t hesitate, as hungry for him as he is for me. I welcome the push of his throbbing cockhead, sliding past my lips so I can taste the salty tang of him on my tongue, the velvet texture.
Viktor groans as I start to suck, his fingers returning to tease my clit as his other hand tangles in my hair, pulling my mouth down the length of him as he pushes me towards a climax.
I can feel my thigh muscles tensing, my back arching as I rub my clit faster, feeling myself start to edge towards an orgasm. But I don’t want it to end yet; I don’t want to come imagining just that. I want more, more than I can have in reality, and I let the image in my head shift. Viktor suddenly fully naked, his lean, muscular, gorgeous body stretched over mine as he nudges my thighs apart.
“Let me in,malishka. Let me inside of you.” He murmurs the words, thick and accented, his voice rough with desire, and I can’t deny him. I want him, the heat and weight of him atop me, his hard cock inside of me, stretching me, filling me up, giving me everything I could ever need.
My legs go around his hips, my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me, inside of me. His lips meet mine at the same moment that his cock starts to slide inside of me, his hips pushing forwards in a steady, slow movement that fills me inch by inch, drawing out the pleasure as his mouth captures mine. His hands are in my hair, his tongue in my mouth, his cock in my body, thrusting forwards until he’s inside of me as deeply as he can go, and then Viktor rocks against me, his hands tilting my face up so that he’s kissing me harder, deeper, fiercely.
This is love, I think, arching so that I’m pressed against him in every place that my skin can touch his, my breasts against his chest, stomach against his stomach, legs twined around his legs. My forehead presses against his, and I gasp, breathing him in, tasting him, consumed by him.
This is everything I want.
He thrusts harder, faster, groaning against my lips as we both push each other towards the apex of our combined pleasure, wanting to come together, to give each other everything, to hold nothing back. I gasp his name as he gasps mine, and I feel him surge forwards, his body shaking—
“Oh!” I gasp aloud as I feel my thighs starting to tremble. I reach down with my other hand, pushing two fingers into my soaked, clenching entrance as my fingers fly over my clit, pushing me closer and closer to the orgasm that I so desperately need. In my mind, Viktor is thrusting faster, his body shuddering with the force of the pleasure that he’s holding back by a fragile thread, and I’m so close, so very close—
I nearly scream his name when I come, stopping myself only by biting my lip hard, turning my face into the pillow to muffle the moan of pleasure that rises to a pitch that I’m afraid Viktor might hear. The thought of him hearing me pleasuring myself alone makes me feel horribly embarrassed. The flush of humiliation that heats my skin turns me on, too, my pussy tightening around my fingers and drenching my hand in my arousal as I buck upwards, grinding against my hand as I climax. The thought of Viktor straining over me, his cock throbbing inside of me as he fills me with his cum, only intensifies it until my entire body is shaking, my thighs clamped around my hands as I squirm and writhe through the orgasm.
“Fuck, oh god,fuck—” I whimper, pushing my face into the pillow as I roll onto my side, my fingers still pressed against my pulsing clit. The wave of pleasure satisfied me for a moment. Still, it only leaves a cold emptiness in its wake, a reminder that Viktor isn’t here, and he never will be again. I’ll never even experience what he’s done to me in the past, much less what I just imagined.
The only sex we have in the future will be cold and calculated, meant to create a child and nothing more. And when I’ve given Viktor what he needs—