He stripped the shreds from my body and pushed me down on the bed, flipping me to my stomach. I heard his pants hit the floor and then his hard, warm body was on mine, pressing me down into the mattress. His hand pushed between my thighs, parting them. His arm slid beneath my lower belly to lift my hips.
He penetrated me with a single thrust, filling me with his heavy length. A cry burst from my lips and he covered my mouth, his fingers blocking the sounds as he drew back and slammed back into me. This wasn’t about pleasure, this was fulfilling some primal need within him. I whimpered against his hand as he pounded into my swollen pussy, his breath coming in short, hoarse pants.
He pulled his hand away from my face, wrapping my ponytail around his fist, and dragged my head back.
“Who do you belong to?” he asked through gritted teeth.
He slammed back into me and I cried out.
“Answer me.”
“You,” I breathed.
“Whose pussy is this, Olivia?”
“It’s yours.”
His free hand pushed beneath me and found my clit, stroking my arousal over the sensitive nerves. I had been wet all night from his touch, from the icy drag of his eyes over my body, and especially from having his cock in my mouth. He swirled his fingers over my clit once, then twice, and I came with a sharp cry. My inner walls contracted hard, drawing him deeper into my body, and he swore under his breath.
“Come for me.” His voice was low and urgent. “Oh, fuck, come on my cock, baby, just like that.”
My orgasm hit its crescendo and he slammed into me one final time. Warmth blossomed deep inside as he came in my pussy for the first time since our wedding night. He groaned, pressing me down, holding me steady as he rode out the aftershocks of his orgasm. I bit down on the bed covers and a tremor of arousal went through my body. There was a heavy moment of silence and then he released a shuddering breath and pulled from me.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I got to my hands and knees, my legs feeling like water. He lay on his back beside me, his cock still halfway erect. There was still a trace of vulnerability in his gaze, a touch of warmth to drive away the endless cold. He held out his arm and I went to him, curling into the heat of his body.
“Open your legs,” he said huskily.
He always looked at my pussy after sex, even when he used a condom. Now that it had been a while since I’d started birth control, he was free to finish inside me again. The sight of his cum spilling onto the inside of my thigh made his mouth part and his eyes glitter. He inspected me with a satisfied expression on his face and then he slid his fingertip through my folds.
“Did you like the opera?” he said.
I nodded. Every pass of his finger sent a jolt of electricity through my hips.
“You need finished again,” he observed.
I bit my mouth, a little ashamed by my arousal. He gathered my wetness and his cum and began stroking it over my clit, curling his tongue around my nipple. I was already on the edge, so aroused by how he’d held me down while he came, pinning me like an animal. My orgasm burst to the surface and I gasped, keeping our gazes locked. For a moment, I spun into nothing, into cold, into desolation.
It would never change. I would see flashes of life and light in him as I had tonight. But he would always be a man made of ice and steel and it had nothing to do with the color of his eyes. Perhaps that was the story he told himself, but I knew better. He’d been broken by cruelty, entrapped in world that had stolen his innocence long before its time, and I would never be able to change that. I could only love him through it.
My God, I loved him.
The realization sent a shock through me that squeezed my lungs until I let out a sharp gasp. I rolled over and pressed my face against his side. He gathered me in his arms and we lay in silence for a long time before I fell asleep, wrapped in his heat and drenched in longing.
The next two weeks passed quickly. Lucien was absent most of the time, but he came to me at night and we fucked until the early morning. He enjoyed oral and wanted to go down on me every time we had sex, but I still struggled to orgasm from it. I did, however, find that when I was riding his cock, I could come more than once with my finger on my clit. We spent hours testing the limits of the antique bed, hoping that the creaking of the springs couldn’t be heard downstairs.
But I still didn’t have the courage to tell my husband how I felt.
Occasionally, Lucien wouldn’t come to bed and I knew he was up late working on his plan to kill Romano. He was always in the study with Viktor and his right hand man, Leonid. He was a large, blond man with a smooth face and bright blue eyes. He spoke a little English and no Italian, but he always behaved respectfully toward me, even though we couldn’t actually converse.
They spent long hours meeting in the study and studying blueprints and maps. It was grisly, this whole process of planning an assassination, when I stood back and thought about it, but on the surface, they made it seem so ordinary. As though they were planning a work event. They were all so analytical, breaking everything down to the smallest steps and the tiniest details. Despite how much I hated Romano, it bothered me a little.
That was why they were the men in charge, I supposed. But I didn’t like that part of Lucien, the power hungry, calculating man I knew he was inside, so I stayed away and let them work.
We left Russia four days before the end of the year. The week leading up to our planned departure felt slow and sad. I trailed around the house, anxiety growing in my chest. During dinner, I found myself falling back into old habits. I worried my food, cutting it to shreds, pushing it around my plate. I was hungry, but the prospect of returning to the States and facing everything we had left behind weighed on my chest like a ton of bricks and I had no appetite.
We left Viktor’s mansion during the night in a car with blacked out windows. I slept through most of the ride, although this time I wasn’t drugged, and woke as we pulled up to the private plane. Lucien guided me aboard and he held me on his lap for a long time, his hard arm circled around my body, and his cheek rested against the top of my head. Neither of us spoke.