Lucien didn’t say anything when I came out of the bathroom, but I felt his eyes on me. He wore a dark suit that fit his slender, broad body beautifully. As he moved to strap his watch around his wrist, I noticed that he wore a thigh holster on his right leg. It struck me as odd because he usually hid his weapons out of sight.
“Why do you have that?” I asked, pointing.
“When in Rome,” he said. “Viktor’s men don’t conceal their guns and neither does he. I wouldn’t want them to think I was trying to be secretive. I think they consider it good manners to have them out in the open.”
He took my hand and we stepped from the room and out into the hall. I was quiet as he led me through the house, dumbfounded by the sheer size and beauty of everything. It felt like we’d fallen through a rabbit hole and landed in a dark, wintry fairy tale, like something from the Russian ballet.
We turned a corner and found ourselves in a smaller room with a long table and an enormous fireplace crackling loudly and bathing the room in a warm glow. Viktor sat at the far side of the table in a tweed suit, a pair of glasses resting on his nose as he read a book. When he noticed us enter the room, he looked up and removed the glasses and laid aside the book.
“Good morning,” he said. “How are you finding the house, Olivia?”
Lucien pulled out a chair for me and I sat down. “Everything is very nice. I didn’t expect it to be so big.”
Beside me, the corner of Lucien’s mouth twitched, but he kept quiet as he poured our coffee.
“The house belonged to my great-grandfather,” Viktor said. “He was a prominent man in Russia, a fascinating character.”
“Did he build the house?” Lucien asked.
“He did. All except for the heated pool room attached to the back of the house. You’re welcome to go for a swim, any part of the house is open to you.”
“Thank you,” Lucien said.
We ate an unfamiliar breakfast of thick, cheesy pancakes lathered in berry syrup, hearty porridge, and sandwiches of thin sliced meat on a dark, rye bread. Everything was good and I was starving from not having eaten the day before so I focused on eating. The niggling voice in the back of my head was quiet again this morning and I was able to eat without feeling a rush of anxiety.
Lucien and Viktor talked as we ate, switching to French when they clearly didn’t want me to understand what they were saying. I was going to have to learn French at some point if my husband was going to use it this often. It struck me as rude and I was beginning to get annoyed when Viktor finally pushed back his chair and stood.
“I have a box at the opera in the city,” he said. “Lucien, you aught to take your wife this weekend.”
“Would you like to go, Olivia?”
I turned and found Lucien’s passive gaze fixed on me. I’d never been to a play, much less an opera, and the concept was daunting. My mother had seen fit to make sure I had some skills, like dance and piano, but she hadn’t bothered to give me any further experience with music or art. Was I the sort of person who went to the opera? Would I fit in among the people in their best clothes sitting at their balconies, surrounded by red, velvet drapes?
“Yes, I think so,” I said.
“The opera is an experience,” Viktor said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my driver will be here soon and business waits for me at the office.”
He left us with a polite nod and Lucien leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his face. He looked a little tired after yesterday. I’d slept hard despite having spent the day unconscious, but he hadn’t gone to bed until sometime after midnight. When he’d finished thrusting lazily into me, I was already half-asleep.
“Would you like to go for a swim after breakfast?” he asked.
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d need one.”
“I’d rather have you naked.” His gaze bored into me, dragging down to the swell of my breasts beneath my sweater. My breath quickened and a curl of warmth rose between my thighs.
We finished eating breakfast and Lucien took my hand and we took a tour of the house. I lost track of the endless rooms, all lavishly decorated and spacious. When we got to the pool room, Lucien closed the door and turned to me, his hands skimming up beneath my sweater. The front of his pants was tight already, the hard outline of his cock visible.
The pool room was painted dark blue and the walls were made almost entirely out of large windows that looked out into the back garden. It was lucky, I thought as my husband stripped my clothes from me, that the snowy fields were deserted because we were completely exposed.
Lucien turned me around and pressed my body against his chest, his hands skimming up my naked stomach to my breasts. His fingertips were rough and his palms hard, but the way he touched me was impossibly gentle. Heat pulsed in my pussy and when I shifted my thighs I felt wetness between them.
“Get in,” he said hoarsely.
I slid into the steaming water and turned to find him stripping naked. His body was beautiful in the morning light. He’d never seemed like the type to have tattoos, but now that I could see him more clearly, the ink on his torso made sense. Beneath the tattoos, I could just make out the faint lines of scars. He’d gotten inked to cover up the marks Romano had left on his body.
He sank into the water and took me by the waist and backed me against the wall. A gasp tore from my mouth as he lifted me in his arms. The hard length of his cock nudged between my thighs and he closed his eyes and released a low moan. His hips worked his hot length over my pussy and his hand teased my breast and nipple, pinching it between his fingers. Shivers of pleasure moved through me and, to my surprise, the faintest hint of an orgasm began between my thighs.
“Do that,” I breathed.