“What if Konstantin says no?”
“I don’t think he will say no, but if he does then I will cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“How did this happen to us?”
“It’s my fault, Mom. I was careless, but I promise I am going to make it alright. I am going to save Maddy, and I’m not going to let those people destroy Konstantin.”
“How are you going to save Maddy if you’re giving back all the money or giving it to charity?”
“Konstantin promised to pay for all Maddy’s treatment. Not only that he wants us to do it here, at the best hospital, with the best doctors at whatever the cost.”
My mother gasps. “He promised?”
“He promised.”
“You believe him?”
“I believe him,” I say softly, very firmly.
My mother grabs me into a big bear hug and begins to sob into my shoulder.
“It’s okay, Mom. Everything is going to be okay. You’ll see. I’ll make it okay.”
Raine
Konstantin is as good as his word. While I am at work I receive a text from my mother that his secretary called to say she will be making arrangements for Maddy’s treatment. I put my phone down wearing a huge smile and get back to my boring, mindless job of making sure two columns of numbers marry up.
An hour later my phone pings with a text.
Him: Want to have dinner with me tonight?
Me: Would totally love to. Where are we going?
Him: My place
Me: Great. What time?
Him: Car will come for you at 8.00pm
I feel sad as I type out the next words. I’m going to betray him. I am the Judas, biting the hand that is saving my sister’s life.
Me: I can’t wait. Xx
Him: Wear that sexy thing you bought in London.
Me: Aye, Aye, Captain.
There is no reply to that, and I stare at the wall in front of me despondently. I don’t know how I am going to persuade him to let me redecorate his office, but I must.
“Have you finished that last batch?” my supervisor asks.
“Uh... nearly.
“Upstairs needs it urgently.”
“Right. On it.” I get back to work and put my troubles away until 8.00 pm tonight.
Konstantin’s place is on West End Avenue in the Beaux Arts landmark condominium. The lobby is accessed from a quiet, tree and brownstone-lined block just around the corner from Riverside Park. I have never been to this area of the city, and it is rather beautiful, but I can’t appreciate any of it.
My stomach is tied up in knots and I feel as nervous and restless as a cat on a hot tin roof.
A smiling, middle-aged woman lets me into his home, a spectacular combination of two penthouses, a solarium penthouse and a terrace penthouse and set on two floors. My phone is put away into a similar contraption as the one he had in Berkshire.
Then I am led into the room that the floorplan I was given by Catherine called the great big room relates. Calling it a great big room was no exaggeration. It has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with a magnificent skylight that must be at least twenty-two-foot tall. There are full arched glass walls and French doors that lead to a terrace. It must look amazing during the day with sunlight pouring into it.
“This way please. Mr. Tsarnov is waiting outside for you,” she says, walking towards the French doors.
Stunned by the beauty of his home, I follow wordlessly. The amount of outdoor space he has is shocking by this city’s standards.
“Hello,” Konstantin says softly. He is leaning against the railing.
“Hello,” I say standing awkwardly on the gold-marble floors. I hear the woman withdrawing quietly back into the house.
“Come and have a drink,” he invites.
I walk over to a low table where a bottle of champagne is sitting in an ice bucket. He pours us a glass each.
“Is everything alright?” he asks, a slight frown on his forehead.
I clutch my purse and try to sound normal. “Yes. Yes, everything is fine. I didn’t know we wouldn’t be alone.”
He looks at me quizzically. “My housekeeper is leaving. She only stayed to cook our meal.”
I sigh internally with relief. There is no way I can slip into his office if she is in the kitchen as I would have to pass the kitchen to get to his office. I put my purse on the low table.
“Oh, I see,” I murmur.
As if on cue his housekeeper appears at the edge of the terrace. “If you don’t need anything else, I’ll be going now, Mr. T.”
“Yes, you can go now. Goodnight, Mary.”
I take a gulp of champagne and wander over to the railing. The river views are breathtaking. I turn back and find him watching me. A light breeze ruffles his hair. I stare at him. My heart feels heavy. I don’t want to betray him, not even for a day, but I have no choice. I cannot risk those criminals hurting my sister or my mother.
What else can I do? I’ll make the exchange today, then I’ll keep him occupied all night and tomorrow I will arrange for the painting to be moved, before any damage can be done. Even so, I feel horribly guilty.
“What’s the matter, Raine?” His voice is soft, but insistent.
“I’m just a little nervous, I guess. Everything we did before felt like a dream. This feels real.”
He walks to me and pulls me towards him, molding my body to his. “No, it still feels like a dream,” he whispers.
I nearly cry. I feel terrible. I’m going to betray him. “Oh, Konstantin,” I gasp.
Then he kisses me. God, he tastes so good. The glass of champagne in my hand falls to the ground and shatters, but I don’t hear it. Neither of us stops. I kiss him back with a desperation that is shocking. Almost as if I want to be sucked into him and disappear. Become part of him so I don’t need to betray him. He moves his mouth away and begins to kiss my neck. I moan softly.
“Fuck, you’re like a drug,” he mutters. Then he scoops me into his arms and carries me to his bedroom.
It is a relief. It is a relief to stop thinking. To stop feeling like I sold out the only man who’s shown me nothing but kindness for thirty pieces of silver.
Raine
I sit on a stool in his shirt and watch as he stirs the pot of Bolognese sauce Mary prepared earlier in a kitchen that is equipped for serious cooking. It has a Sub-Zero fridge, a vented Wolf 48-inch dual fuel stove, two dishwashers, warming drawers, a pot filler and a butler’s pantry.
“I never thought of you as a Bolognese person,” I tease.
“What are you talking about? It may not be Russian cuisine but nonetheless I love Bolognese. Don’t forget I was poor longer than I’ve been rich. I used to live in a tiny room and all I had was an electric hot plate. Spaghetti Bolognese was a treat. Every Saturday was Bolognese night.”
“I can’t imagine you as a nerd or poor.”
He sticks some spaghetti into the boiling water. “You don’t have to imagine it. I have pictures.”
“Let’s have a look then.”
“I have to dig them out from the spare room upstairs.”
“Oh please. Can I see them now?”
His eyebrows rise. “Now?”
“Yes, I’d absolutely love to see them. The spaghetti needs at least ten minutes. Come on.”
“All right,” he says, as he moves away from the stove.
As soon as I hear him reach the top of the stairs I fly in my bare feet to the terrace and grab my purse. My heart is racing so hard in my chest I can hear my blood rushing in my ears. I run to his office. Please, please, don’t let the door be locked, I pray silently.
The door isn’t.
I see the painting instantly. My hands are shaking, but switching it over is easy. As quickly as I came in, I leave and run back out to the terrace. I put my purse back on the table and run back to the kitchen where I take my place at the kitchen island once more. I flick my hair and adjust my shirt and try to control my quick breathing.
&nbs
p; I’m almost in a state of disbelief.
The switch is done!
I can hardly believe that I’ve actually done it.
I hear a sound and I turn. Konstantin comes in carrying an iPad. He puts it in front of me and goes to the stove. I look down at the screen and for a moment I don’t see anything. Everything just looks like pixels. I blink a few times and my vision clears. I stare down at the young man in the pictures.
“Believe me now?” he asks.
I look up at him. My god, I’ve just betrayed him, but I’m falling in love with him. I force a smile and keep my voice light. “You obviously have no idea what a nerd looks like. Think Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg or that Jeff Bezos before he got all pumped out on steroids.”
He grins. “I was thinking of them.”
“Then you’re blind,” I shoot back.
“He drains the pasta, pulls the plates from the warmer, and expertly coils the spaghetti onto the plates. Then he spoons the sauce on top, and brings the steaming plates over to me. The food is good, but I find it hard to swallow anything. When the meal is over he asks if I want some tiramisu, but I tell him I am too full to eat another thing. I make up a story about how I overate during lunch.
“Hey, how about giving me a tour of the place?”
“Sure.”
His penthouse is absolutely beautiful, there is no other way to describe it. I start to doubt my plan of wanting to redecorate his apartment. When we get to his office door, he pushes it open and says, “And this is my office where I spend a huge amount of time.”
I stand at the entrance and I actually feel goosebumps to know that those people are probably hearing everything we are saying.
“What’s next?” I croak.
He closes the door and we move on to the room where he sits to code. There is nothing in that room, just white walls, a plain black table and a leather swivel chair.
I turn to him. “That’s it?”
He nods. “That’s it. When I am coding, I want no distractions at all. This room is sound proofed too. Even the smallest distraction could mean days or hours of work being undone. Here is where I sit in complete silence and travel backwards in my mind over the hundreds of complicated sequences of codes I’ve written and try to weed out and correct any tiny mistakes I might have made.”
When we finish the tour we end up in the great big room. I curl up on the couch.
“Want some coffee?” he asks staring at my legs
I pull my legs onto the sofa. “Um… no. Come sit with me for a while.”
He sits on the sofa next to me and slides his hand up my thigh. “Jesus, I can never get enough of you. Open your legs.”
I spread my thighs and show him my pussy.
As his head moves to get between my thighs, I catch his face between my palms. “Konstantin?”
“Yeah.”
“Konstantin?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there anything in your office that you couldn’t bear to be apart from?’
He looks at me as if I’m talking a foreign language. “My office?”
“Yes. Is there some furniture, some files, some paintings that are important to you?”
He doesn’t have to think about it. “No.”
“Then would you mind if I redecorated it?”
He stares at me, but his eyes are still hazy with lust. “You want to redecorate my office?”
“Yeah. I know this must sound like the craziest thing you’ve ever heard, but it’s always been my dream to redecorate an office. I promise, I won’t change it too much. Maybe I’ll move the paintings around and maybe give the walls a lick of paint. Maybe cream instead of that stark white. I might even buy a plant or two.’’
He pulls my hands away from his cheeks. “Go ahead, decorate to your heart's content.” Then his warm mouth is on my pussy. I close my eyes. Today I will keep him away from his office. And tomorrow afternoon I will take some time off and start the decorating process.
And then I stop thinking and concentrate on the delicious waves of pleasure coming from between my legs.
Raine
Konstantin tells me he will not be at his home from lunchtime onwards so I can go ahead and redecorate. He seemed surprised that I was in such a hurry, but there was no suspicion in his eyes.
I did not go into his office because I did not want them to hear my voice, but I told the two guys who turned up to stack all the paintings and take them to the spare room. It only takes them three hours to give the place a coat of cream paint. Then they move all the furniture back and all the paintings except the one I switched. That one goes on the wall in the spare room and the painting that was in the spare room is brought into the office.
That evening, I bring Konstantin into the room. “Do you like it?”
He looks around, then turns to me sheepishly. “Sorry, I can’t see any difference.”
I laugh. The first real laugh since I went to meet Catherine at the café. Even thinking of her now makes goosebumps rise on my skin. The first thing I saw when I picked up my phone from the Faraday cage was her two-word text. She must have sent it as soon as I hung the painting up, which confirmed that it had a listening device hidden in it. Good Job
“I’m glad,” I tell Konstantin. “I held back because I wanted to keep the change subtle.”
“You seem happier, and more relaxed today,” he observes.
“I am happier. I was a bit tense yesterday, but today I’m happy. Life is good.”
“Hey, you know what I realized this morning after you had left for work?”
“What?”
“You didn’t wear the sexy sex outfit you got in London last night.”
I look at him from under my eyelashes. “I’m wearing it now… Sir.”
He laughs. “Did you just call me Sir?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Oh, you are in so much trouble.”
“What kind of trouble am I in, Sir? Is it bad enough for me to be punished?”
He doesn’t answer me. He strips off my clothes until I am standing in the little pink baby doll nightie and suspenders and I hear him draw in his breath and make a small growling sound in his throat. It is animalistic and primal.
The jolt, from the sudden sexual pang I feel, is brutal. And just like that, the air between us becomes heavy and urgent. And our connection, charged and complex.
Wordlessly, I put my finger on his chest and push at him. He allows the light pressure to move him backwards until his thighs hit his desk. He rests his butt on the edge. As I get on my knees, his beautiful eyes go molten with lust.
I nudge his thighs apart till his legs are on either side of me. Then I hook my hand in the waistband of his pants and his briefs and pull them down his hips. He lifts his ass to assist me, and I pull the material the rest of the way down. I can’t explain it, but seeing his cock so thoroughly exposed in an office setting arouses me, makes me wet with desire. The pale delicate skin, lined with bulging veins is throbbing with excitement. Like a child reaching for a new toy, I grab his erect cock. It jerks as I make contact, but as I wrap my hand around the thick, heavy shaft, I feel him swell even more.
My own sex pulses as I lower my head and stretch my mouth over the wide crest of his cock.
I hear his sharp intake of breath… and relish the response.
Hollowing my cheeks, I give the head a hard suck. A grunt of unbearable pleasure falls from his lips. I double down on my suction, my grip of him, hard. My hands fist him, moving up and down his hardness, in fluid, rhythmic strokes.
When I release my mouth from around him, a small burst of pre-cum swirls on my tongue and his jaw is clenched with the intense pleasure of my actions. I stick my tongue out and lap him up, but greedily, unashamed of my own hunger for him. The tip of my tongue twists around his head, then licks its way down the entire length of his shaft.
His fingers dig into my hair, and I move even lower to meet his balls, heavy with arousal, and take as much of them as I ca
n in my mouth. My heart is fluttering, and I’m so turned on that molten desire drips from my sex and runs down the inside of my thighs.
“Goddamn it… Raine,” he shudders, closing his eyes in ecstasy.
I fist him even harder, then prepare to take as much of him into my mouth as I can. Heated and wet, I sink down on him from the tip and slide all the way down to the middle of his length. That is as far as I can go without choking. The tip of his shaft is already brushing the back of my throat. I pull away, the slurping sounds, resounding across the room and mixing with the sound of his heavy breathing.
I tighten the muscles of my mouth even more and begin to milk him, my head bobbing up and down at a moderate pace.
He begins to writhe gently over me, his eyes shoot open to watch me. His eyes are wide with wonder, and sweat beads across his forehead. I love his completely unguarded, almost haunted look, enthralled at the fact that I’m beginning to unravel him just as he has done to me so many times.
Soon, my hand joins in the worship, gripping him, I viciously pump the wicked, wicked shaft. My rhythm increases as I feel his hips begin to instinctively thrust from the delicious agony. I see his hand grip the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turn white.
I can tell he is ready to climax, but I don’t want him to come yet. I want to torment him a little longer. I withdraw my mouth. Tilting my head, I begin to place wet hot kisses up and down the shaft.
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