Kira
I sleep heavily. When I wake, I’m bound to Maykl’s bed. The covers have been tucked around my naked body, so I’m not cold. I appear to be alone.
I listen for a moment but hear nothing. A laptop is open on the dresser with a tiny green light shining at the top.
A camera.
He’s monitoring me, possibly from his desk downstairs.
Gospodi, how long have I been asleep? I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.
I lift my head and try to appear pathetic as I focus on the tiny dot on the laptop screen. “Maykl? I’m thirsty.” I don’t exaggerate my desperation. I actually trust that he will come. “I need water.”
Just a few minutes later, I hear him enter the apartment. I hear the clink of a glass, then a faucet runs. When he comes in, he stands over me with a glass of water in his hand.
He wears a wicked smirk, and instead of bringing the water glass to my lips, he twitches the blanket down to reveal my naked form. “Valkiriya. I like having you chained to my bed.” He cups the back of my head to help lift it as he brings the glass to my lips.
Water dribbles out both sides of my mouth when he spills it too quickly. He dries it with his thumb. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”
I nod, and he pulls out the key to the handcuffs and fits it in the lock.
I consider fighting. I could take him by surprise the moment he unlocks my wrists. I have my strength back completely. I’m no longer softened by the drug and the sex and the vulnerability he wrenched from me yesterday.
Our gazes lock, and I know he knows exactly what I’m thinking. His movements still. He’s ready for any attack. I probably wouldn’t win against him although he’s reluctant to hurt me, which I could use to my advantage.
But then, I might be reluctant to hurt him, too, now.
“I’ll be good,” I murmur, realizing that it’s true.
For the moment, anyway.
He says he knows where Mika is. I think I believe him. And, also, I’m…not hating my captivity. If I bide my time, there may be an easier way to get free.
That’s what I tell myself. It’s not that I want to remain Maykl’s prisoner indefinitely. Not at all.
He releases the cuffs from the bed and tips his head toward the bathroom. I use the toilet and wash my face. When I emerge, he’s not in the bedroom.
I do a quick sweep of the room, looking for a weapon. There aren’t many. The bedside lamp, perhaps. But once more, I choose against fighting. Just note it for use in the future, if necessary.
And for some reason, I’m feeling more and more that it won’t be necessary.
I find Maykl in the kitchen. He’s poured Life cereal into a bowl for me. He adds milk and offers a spoon. I sit in the same place as yesterday and eat with my manacled hands. It’s not easy, but not impossible, either.
I decide not to complain. I’m being good for him. Seeing where that gets me.
Every moment that goes by, I sense the impending sense of disaster. Soon, the FBI and Stepanov will arrive, and the bratva will be waiting for them. Considering the FBI will think I’m a double agent, I can’t count on either side protecting me when it goes down, and that’s a problem. Even more of a problem? I’m starting to align myself with the bad guys. I’m becoming that double agent.
When I finish eating, Maykl takes me back to the bedroom, where he chains me, spread eagle in the center of his bed. A feverish heat blooms, just at the position.
Knowing he put me in this position for his pleasure.
He traces the curves of my body with a heavy-lidded gaze. “Did you like telling me all your deepest fantasies yesterday, Kira?”
“I didn’t tell all of them.” I say it like a dare. Like I want him to find out the rest of them.
He takes my bait. “Then I will have to pry the rest of them from you.”
My pulse skitters. Belly flip-flops with excitement. “How?”
“I’m going to make you beg and plead and scream, little warrior.” He tweaks one nipple between the knuckles of two fingers. “But I think that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Nyet,” I lie.
“We’ll see.” He’s smug. Very sure of himself. The secrets he stole from me gave him confidence.
A sliver of warning rings through me. I believe this man is sane. Not sociopathic. But I may have given him more credit than he deserves. After all, he is a killer, and he works for the bratva. He may have a very skewed sense of right and wrong.
Also, just because he doesn’t want to hurt me doesn’t mean he’ll ever let me go.
He pulls the covers completely off me and crawls between my legs. His breath feathers hot across my lady bits.
He presses a chaste kiss to the apex of my nether lips, and a shudder of desire rolls through me.
I’m already close to begging, and he hasn’t even begun. The tip of his tongue parts me, and he rolls it over my clit.
“Does it bother you, Kira?”
My inner thighs tremble, straining against the zip ties. “Wh-what?” I warble as he sucks one of my labia into his mouth then releases it with a pop.
“To receive pleasure from someone you hate. A bratva brother?”
For some reason, that statement brings a sharp stab of pain to my chest. A protest to my lips. Because my hatred has already mingled with attraction. With desire. My need to best the bratva is caught up on the hooks of attraction. Of interest in this big, burly man who seems so very interested in me.
Not just in the information I gave him. But in me.
“My hate…” I can’t go on because I feel it jamming up under my ribs, pressing against my lungs to constrict my breath. It’s old. Finely honed. Born of the fear and helplessness of my youth. Of a desire to overcome that feeling once and for all.
It doesn’t help that Maykl has begun to lave me with his tongue, to penetrate me with the tip of it, to screw one finger inside of me.
“You see?” He lifts his head and smirks, his lips glossy with my juices. “You can’t even answer me.”
“You are part of something I hate,” I manage to say. It’s the most I can offer. I can’t say I don’t hate him because he’s in it, he represents it. But no part of me feels hate directly toward him.
He’s too…
“Ugn.” I throw my head back with the shock of pleasure he delivers when he finds my G-spot.
Too…
Another whine leaves my lips. “Pozhaluysta.” I’m begging, just as he predicted.
“Tell me what you need, Valkiriya.”
I tug at my bonds, lust, and helplessness making me aggressive. Angry. “I need you to set me free.”
He shakes his head. “Not going to happen.” He slaps between my legs, delivering several light spanks that make me yank even harder to be free.
Then, to my horror, he backs away, off the bed. “I’ll let you simmer a while. I have to get back to my station.”
“Wait!” I cry in alarm. “I’m hungry! Thirsty! I have to go to the bathroom!”
None of those things are true. I just don’t want to be left alone. Not when I’m hot and needy and have no means of finishing myself off.
He seems to know it’s a bluff because he just offers a shrug. “You’ll have to think very hard about how to please me next time.”
“Wait…what?”
He walks out the door, and I stare in fury, mouth open, frustration slamming through me.
Evil man. Wicked, horrible, marvelous demon of a man.
I suck in a shaky breath and let it out with a moan. Maybe I do hate him after all.
If he keeps this up, I will definitely learn to thoroughly despise him.
Maykl
The trouble with torturing Kira is that I’m torturing myself at the same time. I leave the guards in front of my door to watch the apartment and go back to my station with the biggest set of blue balls in history.
I left Gleb in charge of the front door. “You back already? Go,” he waves me off. “I’m here. You go do whatever it is that has you occupied today. I have nothing else to do.”
I hesitate. Leaving Kira alone was part of my plan although it’s true that I didn’t want to leave her for long. But the funeral home left a message on my phone saying her sister’s ashes were ready to be picked up, so I could run that errand.
“Thank you.” I speak English because that’s Ravil’s rule for us. If he didn’t make it, none of us would perfect our English since we all live here together.
I text Ravil to make sure he won’t nail me to a wall over leaving the building, and he calls me.
“Kira’s phone has proved useful,” he tells me.
“It has? Good.”
“Stepanov set a meet time for her. We will be there to take them down.”
I note that Ravil doesn’t tell me when and where. Like he doesn’t trust me not to betray them. Like I might choose Kira over my brothers.
Would I?
Love can make men do strange things. I’ve watched the behavior of my brothers change radically when they chose a woman.
“How is it going with her?”
I think of my beautiful Valkyrie bound to my bed, and my cock thickens. “I’m making progress.”
“Maxim advised you to win her heart.”
“Yes.”
“Can you?”
I swallow. Can I? The possibility is there. But there’s the issue of her father’s death. That may be an insurmountable issue.
“I want to,” I answer. The only answer I can give.
“Good. Then get the ashes. Take care of your female. We’ll handle the security of the building until things are resolved.”
“Understood. Thank you, Pakhan.”
With his blessing, I pick up the ashes and then stop for soup and sandwiches from the deli on the corner. I buy lunch for Gleb while I’m there, dropping it at the desk for him when I walk by.
He lifts his chin in a gruff version of thanks.
I take the stairs up and enter the apartment.
I set the lunch down in the kitchen then head into the bedroom. The moment I see Kira, I forget all about eating. About breathing. About doing anything but devouring her.
Her cheeks are flushed. Nipples puckered. The flesh between her legs lifts and flutters in anticipation of being touched. She looks magnificent.
I lean against the dresser to take in the sight. To keep myself from going straight to her and ravishing her in every way possible. Because this is supposed to be punishment.
I’m making her wait for it.
I watch her closely. If I saw any fear in her, I’d probably go some other way. But all I see is irritation and desire.
She wants this. She probably hates that she wants it, but that doesn’t change the way she writhes on the bed, panting. The way she pleads with her eyes.
I saunter over and climb on the bed. “Shall we try again?” I slide my hands under her ass and squeeze it as I lick into her once more. She’s even juicier than she was when I left, as if her desire has only grown each minute I was gone.
I pause when she doesn’t answer, and she quickly barks out a “Da.”
I reward her with several firm strokes of my tongue, ending with a slow roll around her clit.
She rocks her hips up to my mouth. “Is this your fantasy, Maykl?” she pants.
“Yes.”
“Have you done it before?”
Is she jealous? “What? Captured FBI informants and punished them with my tongue? No.”
She shimmies her hips from side to side. “Have you done this with other women?”
She is jealous. Smugness zips through me.
I lift my head and grin. “No. You’re the first woman to inspire this precise treatment. Does that please you, Kira?”
I’m sure that it does because her cheeks turn pink as our gazes tangle.
“I’m tempted to torture you this way all day long,” I say.
“Don’t leave me again!” she cries out in alarm, and I chuckle.
“No? I crawl over her, unbuttoning my pants. “What do you need, little warrior? You want more than my tongue between your legs?”
“Y-yes please,” she warbles. She’s adorable when she’s coming undone like this.
I grab a condom from my nightstand and shuck my clothes before rolling it on.
I consider her. “Do I leave you in this position?” I muse aloud.
But I already know. As pretty as she looks splayed out that way, I want those legs wrapped around me when I sink deep inside her. I want her to be able to respond to me.
I unlock both her ankles and one of her wrists, then I climb over her and pause, looking down. I suppose I’m waiting for consent, even though she just begged me for it. But I want to feel wanted.
“I want on top,” she whispers.
I smile. How like her. My little warrior, demanding what she wants.
I release her wrist from where it’s chained to the bed and attach the other cuff to my wrist. Then I roll to my back, my hands at her waist to help her climb on.
Her eyes roll back in her head as she climbs on. Her internal muscles give me a squeeze, making me shudder with pleasure.
I watch as she takes what she needs from me, starting slow, her body moving in beautiful, graceful undulations. Soon her hips begin to snap as she tries to take me deeper. She picks up her pace, loses her breath. She braces both her hands on my shoulders, and I use my free hand to urge her hips forward.
She starts chanting. Babbling. Things like “now” and “yes” and “please”. She cries out my name twice. Each time sends a surge of lust through me. On the third time, I can’t take it anymore. I flip her onto her back and pound to our glorious finish. We both come at the same timeher muscles milking my dick for every last drop.
I shudder and shake and groan with the release.
And when stillness descends, I lower my lips to her neck and kiss there. “Thank you,” I murmur.
She lets out a small cry, like my thanks wounded her. When I lift my head, there are tears in her eyes. She blinks them rapidly away, turning her face to the side.
I catch her jaw and turn it back. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and I believe her. “It was just…intense. But good, Maykl. So good.” After a moment’s hesitation, she says, “Thank you.” Almost like it costs her to offer the thanks.
Like she’s admitting something to herself when she gives it.
I claim a soft kiss from her lips. The kind without tongue that moves across the surface and squeezes at the end.
She lets out another tiny, pained cry.
My tenderness wounds her again.
I intend to keep wounding her this way. Showing her kindness. Offering my presence. Maybe eventually, she’ll learn to take it without it hurting.