and my thighs clenching. The orgasm I just had doesn’t seem to have finished. It rises to the surface, probing and holding on to the belief that there will be something else. Something more intense. Something that will keep me in that suspended halo longer.
A halo where I don’t have to think about anything. A halo where I can only feel.
Adrian’s penetrating gray eyes never leave mine as I slowly lick his fingers, curling my tongue around them. They’re a work of art and are as masculine and lean as they look.
“Do you feel your abandon, Lenochka? Do you now see why you can’t lie to me?”
I continue licking and sucking because, even though it started as an order, a part of me is perversely enjoying this act. And that part wants more of it.
And him.
Adrian pulls his fingers out and I release them with a pop, a line of saliva sticking to them. He then proceeds to use them to part my lips.
The gesture is more possessive than anything he’s just done. More than the orgasm or the nipple play. More than his orders and his non-negotiable demands.
“Answer me.”
“Y-yes…”
He glides his thumb across my bottom lip before mashing it against my teeth. A strange look passes over his features. It’s fleeting but manages to send a shudder through my bones.
I expect him to thrust his fingers back inside my mouth or climb atop me and fuck me. But he releases my nipple and mouth at the same time, then slides the duvet up to cover me.
I watch with utter bewilderment as he heads to the chair, grabs his coat, and walks out.
I remain there, motionless, my body and heart on high alert until I hear the soft click of the front door.
Did he…leave?
I stay still for a few minutes, thinking that it must be a distasteful joke. That he will come back and either finish what he started or tell me what the hell he’s planning.
He doesn’t return.
I should be feeling relieved, and I am—I finally got rid of the asshole.
And yet, the marionette strings tighten at my nape and an empty sound echoes in my chest.
9
Adrian
Fuck.
Make that double fuck.
Kolya and Yan are standing in front of my car. The younger guard is running his hand through his long hair as he smokes a cigarette. He offers it to Kolya, but he shakes his head and scolds him in Russian, “Smoking is bad for your health.”
“What are you, my father?”
“I would’ve beaten that habit out of you if I were.”
Yan scoffs since he has absolutely no respect for those older than him. He’s nineteen, reckless to a fault, and Kolya has to clean up after him so that he doesn’t get himself killed by the other senior guards. Especially those my father left behind.
Upon seeing me, Kolya moves to open the door, but I beat him to it. I slide into the back seat and undo the top buttons of my shirt.
Kolya and Yan are inside before I can blink.
“Where to?” my second-in-command asks.
“The Pakhan’s house.”
He nods and kicks the car into gear without asking questions.
While I don’t make it a habit to attend breakfasts at Sergei’s. I need a distraction from the woman I just left upstairs.
A part of me wants to stop the car, open the door, and go back. That part wants to finish what I started, to hear her erotic voice as she comes undone all over my dick.
That part also wants to erase the memory of any fucker who touched her in the past so that her body only remembers me.
But that part isn’t keeping its sights on the reason why I’m doing this in the first place. I’m not getting under Lia’s skin to fuck her. I’m getting under her skin for information.
In my dictionary, information is deadlier than any gun. It’s a weapon of mass destruction, and if there’s anything I learned from my psycho mother, it’s that I need to grab the bull by the horns.
People think whoever has the largest and better equipped battalion wins. What they fail to understand is that if a battalion doesn’t gather enough information about the enemy, they will never get far. They might win a battle or two. They might kill a thousand or a few, but the one with more intel is the winner of the war.
Being raised to never accept any losses has turned me into a master of acquiring information. I’m even better than both my monster parents combined.
I internally scoff