Page 43 of Bratva Sacrifice

Oh, right. The pool.

I’ve eaten more than enough, now. And probably I’ve had too much to drink, I realize as I rise to my feet. My head spins with the motion. My limbs are loose. I feel—soft. Pleasantly hazy. Like there’s a film draped across my vision, making everything feel…muted. Subdued.

Alexei’s strong fingers wrap around my wrist. “Not so fast, Katya.”

My pulse flutters. “I’m going swimming,” I tell him.

He huffs. “Probably you will drown yourself,” he says. “I will take you swimming, Katya. After.”

After what?

He snickers, and I know he’s felt the jump of my pulse under his fingers. With a swipe of one arm he shoves the plates littering the table away. China clinks together, silverware clatters to the ground. And Alexei shoves his chair back and tugs my wrist, pulling me close enough to catch me about the waist and lift me straight off of my feet and onto edge of the table.

My hands land on either side of my hips in a desperate bid to steady myself. My legs dangle, my feet hang at least a foot above the floor. Alexei seizes one, bending my knee to brace my foot against his shoulder. His fingers wrap around my ankle, tracing my skin upward toward my knee.

There’s an odd catch in my breath. “What are you doing?”

“Checking,” he says absently, “in case you need to be spanked.” His fingers find a patch of reddened skin near my knee that’s just a little tender to the touch. “What happened here?” he asks, and his thumb strokes the inside of my thigh.

My fingers curl, nails biting into the wood of the table. “Sugar scrub,” I say. “I rubbed too hard.” It doesn’t really hurt. I didn’t even notice until I washed it off, and the hot water stung. My toes curl as his hands slide up my thighs.

“You shave here, too, Katya?” The words are soft, teasing. His fingers slip beneath the thin fabric of my bikini bottoms. “Maybe I see for myself.”

Oh, God. My breath tears itself out of my lungs as his fingers touch me, and I feel the slow burn of arousal deep in my belly. It blends with the warmth of the vodka, and I sway, shaken. Somehow I gather together the strength to shove at his shoulder with my foot. “I’m drunk,” I tell him reproachfully.

A dismissive snort sears the skin of my thigh. “Is cute you think I care about this, koshechka.” His thumb rakes the material of my bikini bottoms aside. He splays his hands against my inner thighs, shoving them apart.

The flick of his tongue across my clit makes my back bow and my head fall back. Of course he doesn’t care. Taking advantage of my drunkenness is probably the least of his crimes, something akin to jaywalking in the vast scheme of his criminal empire.

Another hungry swipe of his tongue makes a moan rise in my throat. I shouldn’t want this. It’s wrong. I’m still angry. I’m not going to not be angry just because he’s good at eating me out. A shudder slides down my spine as he works two fingers inside me.

Okay. Really, really good. He growls like he’s starving, and the vibration of it makes my toes curl even tighter. My breath comes in sharp little pants. I breathe, “Alexei.”

And then I give a startled yelp as he pinches my ass. Hard. “Alyosha,” he corrects as he lifts his head, and his green eyes lock with mine. “You call me this, or I don’t let you come.”

That’s just fucking mean. “Alexei—”

Another sharp pinch. “You want to be spanked anyway, Katya?” His cheek scrapes against the inside of my thigh, and I shiver at the abrasive sensation of it. His fingers plunge again in a punishing thrust, and I clench around them. It’s simultaneously too much and not nearly enough, as if he’s pushing me inexorably toward that precipice, only to snatch me back from it at the last possible moment.

A frustrated sound ekes from my throat. Alexei’s chuckle whisks across my skin as he rubs his cheek against my thigh. “Da, like that,” he says, and I realize I’ve lifted one of my hands to pet his hair. “Be sweet for me tonight, koshechka.” The next stroke of his tongue is soothing, almost apologetic. “Say it, and you can come.”

Always manipulating me, twisting me around to suit his ends. But I want to come, and I’m almost there. My fingers fist in his hair. I whisper, “Alyosha.”

An approving sound, low and velvety. “Good girl,” he says, and his fingers thrust and hold. His tongue laves my clit. The orgasm that tears through me is violent, ruinous. It steals all my strength, wrenches a cry from my lungs. My muscles seize, shudder—relax. I wilt backward, unable to remain upright any longer, and I hear the distinctive clatter of china again. In my peripheral vision, I see a tiny bowl of crumbled egg whites go flying, scattering its contents across the table as it falls to the floor and out of sight.

There’s the scrape of chair legs across the floor as Alexei shoves his chair back again. He hisses a curse as he rises, yanking at the button of his jeans and wrenching down his zipper. He doesn’t even take them off; he just shoves them down as if they’re nothing more than an annoyance, an obstacle to be conquered.

And then he’s wedging his hips between my splayed thighs. He braces one hand on the table as he leans over me, and with the other…he feeds his cock inside me. So slowly, and the burning stretch makes me whimper. He watches himself take me, his chest heaving like a bellows.

Somehow I manage to lever myself up onto my elbows. “Wait! A condom…” He’s got like a million of them in the drawer in his nightstand.

“Nyet.” He delivers the refusal with a punch of his hips, forcing himself deeper. “I want to feel you, to come inside you.” The fingers of his free hand hook around the string of the bikini between my breasts and yank it up. His palm covers my right breast, the callused skin abrading my nipple.

Thank God for birth control. At least the plentiful assortment of condoms stored so close to the bed suggests he doesn’t generally engage in unprotected sex.

Still, though. “Alex—ah!” Another brutal stab of his hips forces a cry from my lungs. My arms tremble beneath me. His rough hand squeezes my breast and glides up my throat. His fingers are gentler than I expect as they slide into my hair, fisting there.

This is something more than sex. This is domination. Possession.