Page 18 of The Payback

Fuck.

I do it again, searching for the torture of it—the whisper of touch without the friction I desperately need.

Growling, I whip the sheet off me and sit on the edge of my bed. Tension sits heavy on my shoulders, the muscles in my arms bunching and relaxing as I grip the mattress on either side.

The only light streams through the large windows on the north side of my room; New York lights up the room with a glow I’ve experienced nowhere else in the world. Even in Lyon, where Interpol’s HQ is located, I lived just outside the city centre, and it felt like being swallowed by night, comparatively.

But here, the bright lights in the city that never sleeps don’t offer the same reprieve from my sins. The things we’vealldone in the name of love and duty would be enough to petrify even the most experienced therapist. There’s a reason many Bratva members don’t make it to old age.

A sheen of sweat breaks out over my chest as my mind descends into a whirlpool of turmoil.

I rise on tense legs and stride to my bathroom with one thing cutting through the clutter of my mind.Ellie.

Turning the handle on the shower, I wait for steam to fog the room before stepping under the spray. The water is boiling, and it washes away my sins the way it does every time. Baptism by pain. The only way to survive.

I grip my hard cock, squeezing the base and delaying my gratification in atonement.

Bowing my head, I let the water sluice over my shoulders, dripping over my tattoos and fisted hands. My hair washes forward, obscuring my view of the white tile and causing me to close my eyes in the benediction of the baptism.

Flashes of Ellie’s legs around Dimitri’s head come to me, mixing with memories I have of her from that night so long ago. The guilt of betrayal still eats at me, and I’m left feeling only remorse.

I wanted more of her; I wanted everything from her.

I play it out again, drawing on that night the same way I have every time I’ve taken my cock in my hand since, even when I promised myself I wouldn’t. Then again, I’ve never had the best impulse control.

In my mind, we reach the hotel, and I claim her tender lips with mine in a fit of possession. It’s my name on her lips as she gasps, not Dimitri’s like it’d been minutes ago.

The images blend and combine into something new. Something forbidden.

I feast on her—ass up, chest down as I eat her pussy like a man starved. I grip her hips, yanking her onto my face and leaving bruises in my wake. Rough, the way I’d wanted to be that night, but instead, I’d restrained myself.

Then, just as she’s about to come, I leave her quaking around nothing, edging her until she begs for my cock. Dimitri appears on the edge of my vision, his fingers curling, beckoning Ellie to come to him, to use him the way she wants.

Shaking my head, I banish Dimitri from the image, focusing instead on Ellie alone. I slide my hand along my cock, my grip punishing and brutal. Rubbing my thumb against the slit and flicking the new hardware, I shiver, wondering what Ellie would think of my new piercing.

I stroke hard and fast as I imagine sinking into her from behind, gripping her hair at the base of her neck and fucking her into the mattress.

My lips part with a groan, and my fist tightens around my cock.

She’d fight me. She’d struggle against me and whimper at my touch, soaking my cock in her arousal. She would love being my prey as much as I loved being her hunter.

My balls tighten as the vision plays out in my head.

Ellie, who always plays by the rules, who never goes off book, falling apart around my cock in a spectacular display of submission, is what wet dreams are made of.

A tingle starts at the base of my spine, and my hips buck, thrusting into my fist. I brace one hand on the shower wall, and when I imagine Ellie’s pussy squeezing my cock in a brutal grip, I roar my release as I paint the tile with ropes of cum.

I rest my head against my splayed hand on the wall and watch as my seed drips towards the floor, washing down the drain, along with my sins.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Dimitri

Elsa is still sleepingwhen my eyes snap open.

The light streaming through the window says it’s far later than my standard 7:00 a.m. wake-up. I stretch, careful not to disturb the sleeping beauty beside me.

Last night was unexpected. With Nik showing up and resuming his position as my live-in bodyguard, there wasn’t another option. It’s better to keep him close, despite him knowing Elsa. And as my first suspect in my father’s death, I don’t want him weaselling his way out of his comeuppance. And he’s digging himself a bigger hole by not telling me he knows her from Interpol. The evidence is not looking good for Nikita Lenkov.

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