* * *
I didn’t make it outside to see the procession of flight-limos, army of chain-breakers, and flurry of activity. Throw in a barking dog that dashed out the door the second the seals were unlocked, a tech-med on the verge of fainting, and my own security who wouldn’t let me go anywhere unattended except the bathroom, and you had pure chaos.
I stood on the raised step that separated the large foyer from the rest of the main floor. The ceramic tile floor was cold beneath my bare feet and I debated abandoning my post for a pair of socks. Then Alexei was through the front door, headed toward me with a single-mindedness that made me forget basic things like cold feet.
He wore one of his many suits, black with a dark gray shirt and fitted to accentuate the lines of his perfect body—gods I loved seeing him in his suits, and suspected he knew that. The shirt was open enough that some of his tattoos were visible. He was perfectly groomed with his hair slicked back to brush his shoulders and no hint of stubble on his jaw. Flawless, he looked like some dark, sinful fantasy come to life just for me to indulge in.
He stopped inches away, on the foyer a step below me. The step gave me just the right amount of height that I could meet his eyes without having to tip my head back too far.
“Hi,” I said. Since my arms were itching to wind around his neck, I didn’t see a reason to deny myself. I slid my hands over his wide, muscular shoulders and enjoyed the hard feel of him against me. Rising a little on my toes, I pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, then another. I decided I could spend a lot of time kissing these corners. “You’re back. I missed you.”
He made a sound more animal than human before his arms surrounded me, one at my waist, the other hard around my shoulders and fisting in my hair. He pressed his face against my neck, lifting me enough that my feet momentarily left the floor before he set me down. I clung to him, basking in the solidness of his presence, his strength, and his intensity. I was safe. He loved me. He was here.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, my hands stroking whatever part of him I could reach. “I got away yesterday thanks to you, and I’m safe. Stop worrying. It’s all okay.”
“I never imagined anyone would dare make a move to take you like that. I thought I could protect you from everything,” he said, his face pressed into my hair. “I failed. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“No, I won’t, because none of this is your fault, and you did protect me. I’m here and I’m fine. I swear I’m fine.”
“If I’d lost you when our last words to each other were so angry and bitter, I would never forgive myself.”
With his arms around me, I felt how broken he was. What I’d seen coming through the door had been a façade and now it had cracked. He’d been so calm when he had talked me through to safety and gotten me into the air-hack. I never would have imagined he’d felt this level of fear. In protecting me, I saw now he protected himself too. Losing me would have destroyed him. I hadn’t realized that before—not really. Finally, I did.
I loosened my arms and pulled back enough to see his face. I saw the wildness in his eyes, and a look that said he had no idea what to do with the feelings he had now. He wanted to destroy something, but there was no enemy to fight. No suspects. No leads. No one he could strike out at for what had happened yesterday. There was nothing to fix. Nowhere to go. Nothing but the two of us fighting to hold it together. Right then, all he had, all he could see, was me.
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my mouth to his ear. I let my teeth graze his skin, biting his earlobe gently, then with more insistence. “I’m alive because of you. I’m yours. Completely. Every single inch of me belongs to you. And now that you’re home, all I want is the leader of the Tsarist Consortium and one of the most dangerous and powerful men in the tri-system to take me upstairs and fuck my brains out.”
His breath caught and his body went motionless—the perfect stillness of a predator scenting its prey. I had just centered him and given him a place to focus all that restlessness.
When he moved again, the fist in my hair tightened and he pulled my head back far enough, my neck arched. The arm around my waist went lower, the hand sliding to cup my ass. That big hand lifted me to my toes and flush to his body. I felt all that hard, daunting muscle pressed against me and shivered.
“If that’s what you want,” he said, his voice a dangerous purr.
Oh gods, did I ever. “Yes, that’s what I want. Please, Alexei.”
The hand beneath me raised me higher. Then both his hands gripped my thighs, lifting me until he’d placed my legs around his waist. My ankles crossed behind his back and I squirmed closer. His mouth descended on mine, lips open, tongue delving deep in a kiss as hot as it was savage. I let him in, holding back nothing, meeting the thrust of his tongue with my own. He explored my mouth as if he’d never kissed me before, as if this was new and uncharted and he needed to have all of me, now, immediately. The kiss made me wild and I flailed against him. My hands tangled in his hair, my mouth open to the ravaging of his, my body his to take and use in any way he wanted.
I was so lost in his mouth on mine, his kiss obliterating my world so profoundly, I had no sense of anything but him until I heard a door slam closed behind us. We were upstairs, in our bedroom. How? When had we even moved?
I was dropped to my feet and pressed against the door by a body so much harder and larger than mine. The door creaked behind me at the push of his body into mine, making me ache with a building pressure that felt too good to beg him to slow down. His lips were on mine, demanding, opening my mouth to let him in, forcing my body to bend to his. I went weak with that force, limp with a helpless desire that begged for him to take me like I was the spoils of war. His hands went to my breasts, molding them through the fabric of my cami. His grip was just shy of painful, but my body responded, my nipples tightening and contracting to agonizing points of want under the rough caresses.
It wasn’t enough. More. Gods, I needed more. Needed to feel his mouth and hands on my bare skin, to know we were both alive. The clothing between us felt like cruel torture. I thrust my breasts into his hands, wordlessly letting him know what I wanted, certain I’d go insane if I didn’t get it. He made a frustrated noise in return. Before I could stop him, he tore the cami apart and threw the offending thing to the floor. My shorts and panties followed. I felt the material dig into my skin as he pulled it taut, then heard it tear as he shredded the clothing in his rush to get at my skin.
“I need to touch you,” he said, his voice a growl. “I need you in my hands. Feel your skin. Be inside you.”
In just a few seconds, he had me naked while he remained fully dressed. His suit material scratched my skin, yet the feel of it was unbearably erotic. The image we created turned me on more than I could admit—me, naked and helpless. Him, dressed and commanding. It was some deep-seated master/slave fantasy brought to life, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to cling to him and let his hands and mouth control me, touching where he wanted, doing anything he wanted. If the grip was bruising, it felt too good to ask him to stop. Even suggesting we use the bed behind us seemed impossible. Not when all I could do was exist under the welcome onslaught of his hands, his mouth, his body.
I tugged at his shirt, managing to pull it out of his pants. I tried to undo the shirt fastenings so I could feel his skin, but my fingers couldn’t navigate the smart fabric closures that were supposed to open with ease. Instead, I ripped at the fabric like an animal until I exposed his chest. I ran my hands over the hard slabs of punishing muscle, feeling the heat coming off him in waves. Wild and utterly crazed, I dropped my hands lower, fighting with his pants, so frenzied I couldn’t think. He pushed my fumbling hands away with a grunt, savage in its command. Then, one-handed, he pinned me against the door. With the other hand, he unfastened his pants and dropped them low enough on his hips that his penis slipped out. Although I’d had no doubts, he was fully erect and glistening with pre-cum.
I reached out to take him in
my hands, but he stopped me. Me touching him wasn’t what he wanted. I only had a moment to register what he planned before I was lifted again, opened, and pushed into with one powerful thrust. I was so wet, there was no hesitation. He thrust and filled me in one graceless shove. No finesse. No skill. No doubt. Only want and need. I screamed, arching into him and clinging with all my strength. He groaned and uttered a curse in Russian, his breathing ragged and harsh.
With bruising strength, he worked me over him. Each crash of his hips into mine brought a scream from me, a groan from him. The way he rocked me on his hips had me bracing myself against the door. I had to keep my hands and forearms pressed flat against it to get the leverage I needed to grind my hips into him, while my heels pressed into the back of his thighs. Pressure built within me until I thought I might explode. And the way his eyes were fixed on my breasts, watching them bounce as he fucked me, gave me a heady thrill. He was transfixed, unable to take his eyes off them—off me. The savagery of this, his mastery over my body, drew me in, turning awe into a sharp ache of lust that was suddenly too much.
I came with a cry I couldn’t hold back. The orgasm rolled through me with punishing force. I ground my hips into his, straining for every last drop of pleasure, owning it because it just felt too good to let it end. Still thrusting, he pushed me into a second orgasm with little effort; I’d been too primed for him not to crest over that edge more than once. He came with a harsh groan less than a dozen strokes later, his entire body convulsing with the strength of it. His release overflowed me. I could feel it run down the inside of my thighs before it dribbled almost indecently to the floor.
We collapsed in a heap. Our limbs were tangled together, him still semi-erect inside me. He pressed his face to my throat, and we both fought to catch our breath, his gusting through my hair. As sanity began its slow trickle back, I felt my cheeks flame.
“I’m actually embarrassed. You sprinted me up here and everyone in the house heard us.”
“No one should be surprised. I’m irrational when it comes to you.”
I gave a breathless laugh, barely able to move my arms. I’d thought I was in shape, but apparently not. All the fitness in the world didn’t prepare a woman for Alexei Petriv screwing her senseless up against a door.
“We haven’t done that in a while.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t think about having you like this at least once a sol. Sometimes more.”
That was an image I would enjoy thinking about later. “Over with quick though. I thought you had more stamina.”
He shifted me on his lap, resettling me. “I’m not done yet.”
The dark promise in those words made me shiver, and I swore I felt him harden inside me. His hands tightened on my thighs and he pulled me closer, laying a kiss on the side of my throat.
“You are everything to me,” he whispered against my skin. “What we have matters more than anything I could build with the Consortium. I want you to stay with me for the rest of our lives, but I know I can’t give you what you want. So…” He took a shuddering breath, then eased back so he could meet my eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was rough and unsteady. “If you need to leave this behind and find what you’re searching for with another man, I won’t stop you. If Brody can give you the life you want and the luck gene tells you he’s who you should be with, I accept that.”
I looked up at him, my heart aching with an intensity of feeling I couldn’t describe. All other thoughts fell out of my head. My Tarot reading. My gut. The Empress. None of it was important. Only him, looking at me with so much love and selflessness. I had so thoughtlessly hunted phantoms while he did his best to love me as I demanded more. And now because he couldn’t be what I thought I wanted, he gave me the only thing he had left. He was letting me go.
“No,” I whispered. I cupped his face in my hands. I thought of Karol’s glass vial of nanos, of how I could change myself and jump through more hoops while hoping for a miracle. A baby. Maybe getting rid of the damned luck gene. Would I find happiness at the end of my selfish quest, or would I lose everything that really mattered? “I want this. I want what we have. There’s no one else but you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t give you a child. I accept it isn’t going to happen for us. I won’t stand in your way, or let you give up on what you’ve always wanted. I would never get in the way of your dream.”
I met his gaze, needing him to know how serious, how certain I was. “Then if that’s how the universe is going to play out, so be it. If there’s no baby for us, I need to learn to accept that. But what I can’t accept is losing you. I won’t. I’m tired of chasing things that might never happen. I love you, Alexei, and I want us more than I want anything in the world.”
He held my gaze for a long moment, his eyes so blue and intense. Then he nodded and kissed me. It was full of such love, so soft and sweet, my heart melted. He lifted me and moved us to the bed, laying me on it before removing his clothes and covering me with his body. Then he made love to me with a gentle surety that took my breath away. His hands molded and caressed as every inch of me was worshipped and kissed. My ache for him felt like a physical pain as his body slipped inside mine and we rocked together in a careful, measured rhythm. We belonged to each other, connecting in a way so powerful, it shook me to my soul. It threw everything in me off its foundation, rebuilding me into something new.
In the end, he was poised over me, thrusting into me with slow and deliberate strokes that made me squirm. He’d raised himself up on his elbows, his eyes locked with mine.
“Will this be enough for you?” he whispered.
I knew what he meant. Us. Him. Would this life be enough for me, or would I someday want more? I realized what I’d felt when Karol had presented me with the nano supplement had merely been an echo of the choice I had now. This was the moment that mattered. Here was where life could change. If I wanted this with Alexei, I had to embrace it entirely. I couldn’t hold back, wanting him one sol then flitting off to something or someone else the next. I had to accept this future and live without regrets or could-have-beens.
“Yes,” I whispered, arching up to meet him. “This is everything I want.”
And then the moment overcame us, the passion and the heat sweeping us up and making words impossible. But it didn’t matter. We’d said all we needed and made our promises to each other. From this moment on, there was no him and no me. Only us, and this would be enough. We were enough.
18
According to the media outlets, my attempted abduction was a bigger deal than I thought—and it wasn’t even a slow news day.
To discover I was the top news story ahead of all the numerous protests against One Gov was…Well, interesting wasn’t the word I would have picked. Horrifying, maybe. Yes, horrifying was appropriate.
After the stories about the disappearance and deaths of four other Sevigny family members, the fact that someone had tried to kidnap me attracted the media like flies to shit. The story was splashed across all the CN-net news outlets, each detail more salacious and gruesome than the last.
There weren’t a lot of vids or pictures of me available for the media to devour, mostly because I’d lived the majority of my life without t-mods. Any file footage they had came from Mannette’s CN-net series. The vids alternated between me drinking at various clubs, doing Tarot card readings for Mannette, shopping, and more recently, puppy class. Along with that came vids of Alexei, who mostly looked pissed off and glowering. And then to my utter dismay, there was a compromising vid of the two of us all but screwing like minks at a nightclub. Mannette had caught us in the act and promised not to broadcast it, yet there we were for the entire tri-system to consume. It received an unfortunate amount of CN-net time and viewer feedback—most of it oddly positive—until Alexei reached out through Consortium channels and had it pulled.
I was ashamed to admit the image we presented wasn’t flattering. I looked like a flakey party girl who lived solely for a good time. Al
exei came across as a dangerous gangster. Seeing our life splashed out like that, as if that was how we lived every sol…It didn’t leave me feeling very good about myself. Alexei had been right; distancing myself from Mannette was a smart idea. This wasn’t how we lived our lives and not a true version of who we were.
As for the One Gov protests, I stopped paying attention. Not because I didn’t care, but because the whole abduction thing had shaken me more than I realized. Once I’d gotten through the formal interviews with the MPLE, One Gov’s own investigation team, and even Alexei’s and Stanis’s questions on the Consortium’s behalf, it brought home how serious things were, and I had a series of mini panic attacks. When I thought about what could have happened to me or to Lotus, I couldn’t seem to avoid bursting into tears. On one occasion, I even threw up. Knowing there were no suspects, no evidence, and nothing the investigative teams could follow up on made it worse. No one in my family was safe. Maybe we never would be.
One Gov’s protocol required I submit to a mental health assessment. I failed—big surprise—and was declared unfit for work. That meant I was legally obligated to take a week off and ordered to report to therapy with an appointed neuropsychologist for the next seven sols.
So for the next week, I puttered around the house and tried to keep myself from going insane. I did my therapy, checked on Lotus to make sure she was okay since she didn’t have to endure One Gov’s mandated brain massaging sessions, visited Celeste and Etna Jane and her baby while avoiding Azure and her ilk, and lounged around what I’d dubbed the “orgy pool.”
Feodor got puppy trained within an inch of his life until I’d declared him the perfect dog. And Alexei…I kicked out the kitchen staff and took over, and he got a week of elaborate meals made by his wife and enough kinky, athletic sex that it threatened to break the bed. I tried to imagine this as my whole life, every sol, and I shuddered. I’m sure others would have disagreed, but I had no desire to sit at home with nothing else to do but cook and service my husband. At the same time, I think Alexei enjoyed my week of enforced time off and wished it had been longer, despite claims to the contrary.
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