“My Elena,” he breathed when our lips separated. “Lyubimaya.”
All I could say was, “Kon.”
Our eyes met, green against brown. Stories and love poured into the air between us.
I laced my hands behind his neck, bringing him closer but stopping just before our lips met for a second time.
“I have been waiting for my entire life.” I whispered, letting the words I had tried so hard to run from finally come forth. “Every second, every moment, even if I didn’t know it, I have been yearning for your love. Since I was a gangly teenage misfit and then a hated strange wife, I have been looking to the horizon, trying to see you. I waited for my partner, my opponent, I waited for someone to love me and accept me just as I am. And then I saw you for the first time. Standing in my garden, beautiful and deadly. The creature of nightmares…and dreams.
I tried to stay away at first, tried to hate you. Even when you gave me a lab and took me to the ballet, even when you shared your family and life with me. But then…” Tears were spilling down both our cheeks. “You spoke to me in a tree. You didn’t ask me to come down or put shoes on. You didn’t demand me to change or act civilized. Instead, you spoke to me from the ground with such casualness, like you were content to look up at me for the rest of your life.”
I pressed my nose to his, breathing him in. “I love you, Konstantin. You are my equal and my soul, my opponent and my heart. There has never been another and there never will be.” I met his eyes, revealing every horrible and beautiful part of myself. “I love you.”
Konstantin pressed his lips to mine in act of devotion. “My Elena, lyubimaya. It will be the greatest pleasure of my life…being the one you have chosen to love.”
Our next kiss was harder, hotter. Desire and lust met like gasoline and flame, starting a wildfire beneath my skin. His teeth grazed over my jaw and down to my neck, taking the soft flesh between his lips. A moan escaped my lips as he sucked, marking the unblemished skin.
My fingers twisted in his hair, my head tipping back as his assault on my neck grew more and more overwhelming. I began to slip away but Konstantin pulled me against him, arm banded around my back like steel.
“Bedroom,” I gasped in a moment of clarity.
Konstantin didn’t need to be told twice. We stumbled across the room, the closed door an obstacle. He shoved me up against it, caging me with his body. I felt the hard iron of his erection press against my belly, a threat and a promise. Konstantin was going to have me, claim me, and once he was done with me, my entire body would belong to him.
And he would belong entirely to me.
My sweater disappeared over my head as our craving for each other grew more intense. Kon cupped my breasts, running his thumbs over the hardened nipples.
“You deserve to have statues of yourself made,” he breathed as he flicked them. “This body, these breasts. You are art.”
I groaned as he took the left areola between his lips, sucking and licking until my breasts were heavy with desire.
“Kon!” His name left my mouth as a cry when I felt his teeth scrap over the sensitive tip.
“Yes, my Elena?” He peered up at me, expression stretching into a smile. “Do you feel that, lyubimaya? Those shivers, those flinches?”
I nodded, speechless.
Kon moved onto my right breast, offering it the same addictive treatment as the other.
“These breasts, these hips and thighs and pussy: all belong to me. They’re mine to torture and please, mine to worship and torment.” He bit down lightly on my nipple, causing a deep groan to erupt from my lips. “And those shivers and flinches?” He slipped a hand down my pants, pressing his fingers straight to my clit. My hips bucked at the assault of pleasure. “They’re mine.”
I was lost for words, incapable of speech.
Every part of me had surrendered to Konstantin Tarkhanov, the Gentleman of Russia and Pakhan of the Tarkhanov Bratva. There was nothing left for him to conquer, no treasure left to loot or lands to pillage. All had been won.
I was wholly his.
Kon tugged at my pants. “Now take these off.”
As they came away, revealing my near-naked body, I muttered, “Why are you fully clothed and I’m almost naked?”
His smile reminded me that he was a Pakhan, a man of power and crime. Kon would never be some guy from work or the cute boy next door. He was a king and when he curled his lips into a dark grin, I was abruptly reminded of this fact.
“You need to be quicker, lyubimaya,” he purred as he hands slid down my body. His fingers dragged over the inside my thighs, getting tauntingly close to the growing wetness between them. “Shall I wait for you to catch up?”
I hissed at his tone. “Don’t do me any favors.”
Kon cupped my mound. My head hit the door as I threw it back and let out a reluctant moan.
His laughter circled us. “Doing you favors is what I’m good at, my Elena.”
Desire was a living animal inside of me. Wild and insatiable, untameable and fierce. It wanted to devour Konstantin, it wanted to be devoured.
The next kiss was so hot it triggered my mind into recalling my earlier demand. “Bed,” I gasped.
Konstantin opened the door and we stumbled into the hallway. My legs wrapped around his waist, my hands buried in his hair. Every part of us that could connect, did. Every part that could be kissed or sucked or bitten, was.
He shoved me up against the wall, groan low in his throat. The press of his erection against me sent my brain into a moment of animalistic madness.
“You’re going to destroy me, Elena.” The words were low and guttural, almost impossible to make out.
I tightened my grip on him. “You can bear it.”
His grin stretched over his face, smug and dark. “Indeed, I can.”
We wanted each other too much to make it down the hall to the bedrooms. Instead, Konstantin took me down to the hallway’s floor. He pressed me up against the window as he pushed my thighs apart, every inch of me surrendering to his commands.
I dragged his lips to mine, feeling his body stretch over me, hips between my legs.
Only one word was on my mind. Konstantin, Konstantin, Konstantin.
Strength coiled beneath his skin; power shuddered through his muscles. All this strength, all this physical prowess, and yet his fingers danced over my skin and his teeth cut lightly into my skin.
Goosebumps followed behind Konstantin’s fingertips, and not only because of the cold.
I ground my teeth together as his finger dipped to the apex of my thighs. The wetness waiting for him made it clear just how much I wanted him.
“Look how ready you are for me,” he crooned. “How well I play this body of yours, like my own personal fiddle.”
The room, the temperature, disappeared as he shoved down his pants, his impressive length springing free.
I spread my legs further on my own accord, tightening my grip on him. “Enough talking,” I snapped.
There was nothing human about the smile he gave me. “Agreed.”
Konstantin entered me in one smooth movement.
Time and all her disciples froze as our bodies met.
“Konstantin!” was all I could say, the only word in my mouth.
The world around me was a collection of atoms and minerals. Konstantin was the only solid form, my tether in the abstract. I clung to him against the onslaught of rapture and passion.