He takes a second to stare at me, and the look is so hot I moan. “You’re beautiful, Corrie. I want to devour you.”
Then his mouth is everywhere. My throat. My collarbone. My jaw. My earlobe. Left nipple. Right nipple. And when I’m about to melt and the temperature in the bathroom has climbed to sun status, he spins me so my back is against his chest, his mouth is on my shoulder, and his hands skim down to my waistband, slip inside.
I wind my arm around his neck and hang on as he grazes my clit with his finger. I want to be undressed and in the shower, but my head is thrown back, and my breath is shallow and short, not enough to speak. Steam curls around us, and he uses the hand not teasing me to shove my pants down so I can step out of them.
A second later, he withdraws his hand, and I whimper because I want it back. But he turns me into him, pushes off his own pants, then guides me to the shower while our lips are fused together.
He lifts me and presses my back into the tile wall. I wrap my legs around his waist, the tip of his cock toying with my pussy as he uses it to tease me until I’m writhing and clawing, moaning and begging.
“Please, Tommy.”
“Please what?” He slides his tongue along the vein in my throat. “Tell me what you want.”
I want everything. But right now, I want his dick inside me. “Please fuck me.”
“As you wish,” he repeats. Smart-ass.
But I don’t have time to snap back, because before I can say a word, he’s inside me in one smooth thrust, swollen and hard, thrusting and withdrawing with such authority I can only ride along. It’s glorious. I can feel the muscles in his back expanding and contracting as I hang onto him. The sounds he makes are like music, but better, more erotic, more sensual and exciting.
My legs squeeze around him and the tension in my body coils. I’m panting and begging. I need to come, but I don’t want this feeling to end, this delicious, body-against-slick-body friction. I buck my hips one final time in rhythm with his.
The world shatters. I thrash against him while he holds me in place and throws his head back on a thrust and a shudder.
“You want to move to bed now?” He leans his forehead against mine as water sluices over both of us.
No other words have ever been so magical.
14
Tomas
Climbing out of bed this morning—not to mention the last three mornings—wasn’t easy, but today is my weekly meeting with my father and Bogan Dubrovsky doesn’t take hot sex as an excuse to skip it. Well, maybe he would if he thought I was fucking Katerina. I don’t know. I don’t care, either.
Right now, he’s too busy yelling for me to get a word in, so I lean back in the chair and fold my hands over my abs. I can wait for his tantrum to wear itself thin before I explain why this situation with the hackers hasn’t been handled.
He tosses a folder across his desk. “Sixty-one thousand dollars. Yesterday. And you’ve done nothing!” His accent is strong today. It always thickens when he’s angry.
“I am doing something. I’ve got someone working on it.” Should I mention Corrie or not? I choose not. “The program they’re using is a special virus. Every time we block it out, a new doorway opens up and attacks somewhere else.”
My father yanks his file back to the blotter in front of him and stares down at the pages inside, muttering under his breath in Russian.
“It’s like the seasonal flu.” I’m straining to remember the analogy Corrie used while she was sitting on my lap and grinding that perfect ass against my dick. “Each time we come up with a vaccination, it develops another strain.”
“Flu, virus, doorways—I don’t fucking care about none of that. We’re losing money. A lot of goddamn money. I want this fixed.” My father glares at me. “Or do I need to find someone else?”
I snarl, “I’ll fix it. Like I said I would.”
He nods, then waves me out. But before I can make my escape, he calls my name. “Tomas.”
So close. I almost made it.
I turn to face him. “What?”
“You haven’t called Katerina in a while.”
I can’t lie to him. Bogan knows everything. And any excuse I make will further incite the issue. I grit my teeth and nod slowly.
“Call her today,” he says in a low voice.
I nod. He’s right. I agreed to the wedding. Having Corrie at home can’t change anything.
“Better yet: I’ll arrange a dinner tonight. You will come.” It’s not a question. He looks down at his desk. His final dismissal.
Thank God, because I have a thousand more important things to do than sit in his office and listen to him bitch and moan about all the things he thinks I haven’t done.
When I walk out, Aleksey is still sulking. He’s been in a mood for three days. “Hey.” I nod as I walk out of my father’s office.
Aleksey looks up and nods then goes back to scrolling through his phone. But the sigh is why I stop walking.
“You look like shit,” I tell him. That’s man code for ‘is everything alright?’
“I’m fine.” That’s code for ‘shut the fuck up and mind your own business.’
“Let’s go.” As we walk out to the car, I watch him. Shoulders slumped. Face drawn. Head down. I didn’t think he was taking his wife’s departure quite so hard. Either way, we don’t have time to hash it out. “If you don’t tell me soon, I’m probably going to stop asking.”
He nods. “Good.”
Fine. I have enough problems of my own. Alek can handle his own business.
Through the rest of the day, we don’t speak about more than left- and right-hand turns. I don’t know what his deal is but he’s making the day drag and every mile seems like ten.
We’re picking up a shipment of “supplies” from a “distributor” in Newark. The company truck I’m driving says we’re a paper supply company so our “delivery” passes easily in and out of New Jersey. But today, I almost wish for a traffic stop, just for the excitement of it.
By the time we get back, I don’t have a spare minute to go home and change, but I send Corinne a text message as the car drives me to my father’s house where my dinner is about to begin.
Working late. Demetri will be parked outside.
When the car rounds the circle drive and stops at the steps, I climb out. I might as well be heading to the gallows. No way am I coming out of this dinner alive.
Because this afternoon, while I was riding in silence with Alek, I decided I can’t marry Katerina.
I know what that choice means for the Bratva. I know what it’ll do to my father. And I know what it will do to my position in the business.
It means I’m out.
So fucking be it.
My father and Leonid are power-drinking whiskey in the sitting room while Katerina sits with her ankles crossed and her hands in her lap on a small sofa with a glass of white wine on the table next to her.
She stands when I walk in. But her smile is absent, and her gaze doesn’t meet mine. It lands just south of my chin. Something’s changed. But we have our fathers and their expectations to survive tonight, so she’s on her own.