Page 17 of Twisted Cage

I reach for him. With one brush of my hand, I find him hard and heavy between us.

“No. Not that. Not here.”

“I swear to God, if you don’t?—”

At his deep anguished laugh, the words die in my throat. “You need relief,” he murmurs, raining kisses along my throat.

“Please… I can’t—” He bites the tendon in my neck, plunging me into desire so fast and hard I’m grinding helplessly against him, the sound of my whimpers mixing with our heaving, ragged breaths.

Curling his large, strong hand along the back of my thigh, he opens me, dragging my bent knee over his hip. So freaking close, but not close at all.

But then his thigh is lodged against the heart of me and his hand slides to my ass where he guides me into rocking against him to alleviate the ache.

“That’s it,” he whispers over the shell of my ear, sending a cascade of shivers down my spine and goosebumps over my skin. “Ride me, Pcholka. I can’t give you what you want, but I can let you take what you need.”

I hate his words, because they mean only right now, in this moment cloaked in darkness. I’m only to ride his thigh until I come when what I really need is to control my destiny. To not let something like my innocence be the pawn between superpowers.

And as angry as it makes me, every flex of his thigh grinding along my clit swipes at my ultimate goal. The torture of wanting him for so long is so great, I can’t help but take this—take the little he’s offering me.

My belly jumps as my need coils impossibly tight. In my eagerness to ride him hard, I’m bowed off the bed, but he’s holding me, always keeping me from falling.

Even now, he’s torturing himself, giving me just enough, but keeping us both from tumbling, and the truth of that burns through me as the first waves of my orgasm take hold.

I love and hate him for it.

As I break, as the sharp pleasure slices through me, I’m beating at his chest, thrashing in his arms, loathing how he’s the last lock to my freedom. An immovable force sacrificing himself to keep me caged in a reality I detest with everything I am.

In the aftermath, unable to speak, unable to move, he smooths a hand over my leg and pulls me against him, tucking me right along his heart.

The heart that won’t lie, and with every frantic beat tells the truth of just how much he wants me too.

8

KONSTANTIN

If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind. My sense of time gets lost here, but my watch tells me I’ve been at the mercy of my memories of last night for the better part of today. The dinner hour is rapidly approaching and fuck if I can spend another night like this. I don’t know what I’ll do.

She brought clothes with her alright. More dresses. And now I know what she wears under those dresses. A flimsy scrap of cotton that barely covers anything and reveals everything when she’s soaked and aching.

Come on, Nikolaj.

The crypt is filled with her scent, my mind filled with her cries of pleasure, and my chest and arms ache with the way her nails carved my skin as she lashed out while riding my goddamn thigh.

She succumbed to deep sleep after, never once struggling in the darkness of the single longest night of my life.

But the obscurity I always appreciated at night escaped me entirely. Instead, I replayed every moment in my mind, over and over, resisting the urge to stroke my cock for relief, or worse, bury myself inside her.

Everything we brought into the light between us mocks me, and God help us both; I don’t think I’ll ever manage to put it safely away.

Danger hunts her every day. Do the reasons matter? What if we both left? What if—no. I can’t betray Nikolaj. He’s worked too hard. He’s been building his own empire to join with the one of his father’s. For years he’s nurtured relationships, cemented his place alongside the powerful, and I suspect he’s even joined a secret society here in New York, giving him an admirable foothold globally.

How do I walk away from the promise I made him before he has a chance to change the course of this family?

As long as he’s successful.

I shake away any doubt. He will be. There is no other option.

Now I’m cursed with the taste of her I stole from her fingers. That’s my punishment for taking what was never meant to be mine.

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