Page 79 of Kings of Cruelty

I pull Sierra closer, shaking my head. “I enjoy a hot shower! And I had to get my beard properly clean.”

There had been bits of flesh between the hairs, but I don’t mention that.

Sierra wraps her arms around me, pulling me down onto the bed next to her. I let her, and she climbs up so she can straddle my waist. She peers down at me, her expression solemn as she takes me in. “What am I to you?” she asks me.

What a question.

She should be nothing but a woman. She carries a child that might be mine, but there are plenty of women who could do that—ones I don’t need to share, ones where I can be sure that it’s my DNA flowing through the baby.

Yet I do not want other women.

I have never wanted other women the way I want Sierra. When she’d rebelled against me, I’d felt the fear closing in on me: that knowledge that I might lose Sierra before I properly had her in my grasp.

“You are—” I stop myself and think. “My heart,” I finish in Russian.

It’s so cheesy, yet I can’t think of any other way to word it.

Neither Yuri nor Nikolai mock me for it.

“I don’t know what that word means,” she says, her voice patient, quiet. “But as long as you’re not going to lock me away and treat me like shit, I guess I’ll take it. You…” She lets out a shuddering breath. “You scared me, Kotya.”

“I am sorry,” I say earnestly. My eyes flutter closed. “It was… there is no excuse. But I felt myself scared. My father, Petrov, Andronov… they have been breathing down my neck. And you said things I maybe thought too.”

“I’m not going to blindly follow you,” she says, but she leans down, placing delicate kisses on each of my eyelids. “Neither are they,” she adds, reminding me that Yura and Nikolai are both not only in the room, but in the same bed. “But usually, you’re a pretty solid man toobey.”

Nikolai snorts. “Usually.”

“You know I stand by you, Kotya,” Yura says quietly. “I owe you everything. But I can usually trust you to do right by me, by us.”

I let out a small laugh. “You followed me into this lifestyle, Yura.”

He shrugs. “I don’t care about stealing some cars or cash or whatever. But I’d rather not make somebody’s life hell in that way.”

Sierra brushes at some of my wet hair before her lips find mine in a deep, urgent kiss. “So it’s over?” she asks. “You promise?”

“I will tell Andronov not to contact me again,” I say before resuming the kiss. Her body is so warm against mine, and I want to touch every inch of it.

Some might say I’m a fool for letting a woman influence me like this, but in this moment, I couldn’t care less what they think. I want to feel her beneath me, writhing and locked in pleasure.

“Are you going to share?” Nikolai asks, interrupting the moment. “Or should Yura and me leave you two to your little love fest?”

I glance over at them, and I think about how good they’d looked with Sierra… how good they always look, especially when Sierra had directed them to kiss.

I’m working through ideas when Sierra says, “Maybe you should start your own love fest.”

Nikolai sputters, and his cheeks flush red. “We aren’t doing that again,” he says quickly.

My eyebrows shoot up. “Again?” I ask.

Sierra smirks at me. “Yep. Nikolai fucked Yuri.” The smirk turns into a smile. “Wish you’d been there to see it. Maybe they’ll do an encore.”

“Nope,” Nikolai says. “But I know Yuri would probably like being split open by Kotya’s big dick while I fuck you, Sierra.”

Yuri’s face gets red, but he shakes his head. “No, I… I mean, if we’re going to do adventurous shit, Sierra should be in the middle. And anyway, Nikolai was fucking me while I was fucking Sierra.”

“Well, it’s not like Nikolai’s going to fuck Kotya,” Sierra says, deadpan.

I haven’t ever thought about fucking a man, not like that. I’m intrigued by the image of Nikolai with his cock in Yura’s ass, though. “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind seeing something like that.”

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