Page 27 of Bratva Sacrifice

She is already close again to her climax, her little toes curling. Closer still, as I climb over her at last. She embraces me with her arms, her legs—trusting me to guide her through this storm that envelopes us both. Her gasps fill my ears as I fill her body, and I bite down on her throat. Just a pinch of pain in that spot I’ve already left marks.

And she comes with a sharp cry, her hips lifting into the last brutal thrust of mine. I flood her with my come, with a release that is almost painful in its intensity. My heart thunders in my chest, pounding against my ribs. She steals my breath with the softening of her body beneath mine. With her delicate little fingers stroking my hair.

Now I know. I will never let her go.

Chapter Fourteen

Catalina

Don’t turn off the light,” I murmur. “Please.”

Alyosha pauses, one hand extended toward the lamp that sits upon the nightstand. His head turns toward me over his shoulder, expression inquisitive.

“I don’t like the dark,” I say sheepishly, curling up beneath the blankets he’s tossed over me. They’re soft and heavy; they wrap around me like a hug. Like Alyosha’s arms.

“You are afraid of this?” he asks as he retracts his hand, letting it fall onto his thigh.

“I guess.” I don’t like to think of it like that, like I’m the victim of a silly, irrational fear that ought to afflict a child. “I got trapped in a closet once, when I was a kid.” It was my mistake. It was just a small coat closet in one of the earlier apartments I shared with my mom without a light of its own. I didn’t know the door handle had a habit of sticking. I didn’t know I’d bumped the broom resting against the wall before I’d dived inside to hunt for my coat to go out and play in the snow. I didn’t know the broom would fall just perfectly, with just enough force to slam the door shut and trap me inside.

“I was terrified,” I tell him, as he clasps my knee through the blankets in that steadying, comforting way I’ve so quickly grown accustomed to. “My mom didn’t know I was trapped. She was visiting a friend a few doors down, because I was supposed to be playing outside with some neighborhood children. She found me a couple hours later, but I’d screamed my throat raw by then.”

And the closet had been so dark. It felt like I’d been buried alive, smothering on my own breaths.

“At home,” I confess awkwardly, “I sleep with a nightlight.” Just the one is enough. I just need enough light to stave off the instinctive panic that follows the dark.

His palm squeezes my knee, and he rises to his feet at last. But he leaves the bedside lamp on. He’s utterly, beautifully naked, and he doesn’t care if I’m watching. His skin still glistens with sweat, and the tattoos inked on his arms and his chest look brighter now, more vivid.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Shower.” He pitches that wolfish grin at me as he pads around the bed, toward the direction of the ensuite bathroom. “You want to come?”

I shake my head. “I’m so tired.” My stomach growls—loudly. And hungry, I guess. Finally. But it’s beyond late, now. We’ve been in bed a while.

He’s not offended by my refusal. “Then sleep, koshechka,” he says as he goes. “I will wake you for dinner. And for vodka.”

Right. I did promise that. I hear the twisting of the taps, the steady rush of water in the bathroom. Carefully I roll onto my back. Maybe I should have gone for a shower after all—I’m so sore between my thighs.

Because Alyosha is insatiable, and I can’t find it in me to say no to him. Or maybe I just don’t want to.

Every muscle feels strained, like I’m an overstretched rubber band losing its elastic. My mouth is dry. I could use some water. Alyosha will be in the shower for at least a few minutes. I could sneak down to the kitchen.

My face flushes as I remember that all my clothing—except for my panties—is downstairs. But Alyosha’s discarded shirt is just there, inside out on the floor. Probably he won’t mind if I wear it for just a few minutes.

It smells like him. It smells warm and spicy even though he took it off hours ago. And at least it’s big enough that it hits me mid-thigh, and I don’t feel so terribly awkward as I creep down the stairs. The house is quiet, the lights still on. I still have this vague sense of unease, as if anyone could be watching through the open windows.

I find a glass in one of the cabinets and fill it with cold water from the dispenser in the fridge, gulping down half of it in one swallow. I hadn’t realized just how thirsty I was.

My purse is on the kitchen counter, beside the chair where Alyosha left his jacket hanging. I wonder if maybe I should text Darren. At the very least, I know he’ll be happy for me.

As I sip the remainder of my water, I unzip my purse and pull out my phone. There’s no new texts waiting for me, but there almost never are. Darren’s not the sort to interrupt my time off unless it’s absolutely critical, and nobody but Alyosha texts me otherwise.

Out of habit, I scroll through my texts and pull up the string of them I’ve sent to Nicky. My fingers tap out a message in the same blunt, confessional tone to which I’ve become accustomed and which I would never have used if he’d still been alive for fear that he might tattle to Papa. And for fear that he might slap me down again as he’s done so many times before.

I’m never coming home, I type. The message zips off into space, flying away to a man who will never receive it. To the only person it’s safe to make such confessions to.

Somewhere nearby, there’s a faint beep. I feel my brows scrunch together. Alyosha’s phone? Probably he left it in his coat pocket. But the timing is…weird. Coincidental.

I shouldn’t snoop. Alyosha left me unattended to sleep until dinner, not to go pawing through his things. But his jacket is just there, hung on the back of the chair. On impulse I slip my hand into a pocket. There’s the cold, smooth brick of his phone beside the leather of a wallet.