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She rolls her hips forward.

Not the furious ride from one of our previous times where she was chasing her own release with heat and fury. That was a different night. This is slower, her hips rolling forward and grinding back, her clit dragging against the base of my cock on every stroke. Her hands are spread on my chest, and she’s looking at me the whole time. I hold it because I’m not flinching from something she’s giving me on purpose.

She’s soaking wet around my cock, loud with it on every stroke. I get my thumb on her clit, and she gasps, her hips stuttering, her nails going in hard. I work slow circles, and she finds the pace again, faster now, grinding down onto me, chasing my thumb and the fullness of me at the same time. Her thighs start shaking against mine. Her forehead drops to mine, our breath mixing in the space between us, and she drives herself down onto me harder.

She comes with her face buried in my neck, her pussy clenching around my cock in long rolling waves, her whole body shuddering, her nails carved into my shoulders. I hold her through every second of it, my hands locked at her hips, feeling every pulse from the inside, and I hold myself back by stubbornness alone because I’m not done with her.

When the last tremor moves through her I lift her off me and stand. She makes a sound of protest and I turn her to face the desk, her hands going flat on the surface, her feet parting when I nudge them with mine. I push back inside her from behind, one hand on her hip, one hand flat on the desk beside hers, my chest against her back. She drops her head forward, her hair falling, and takes the first thrust with a sharp cry that bounces off the bookshelves.

Every other time from behind we’ve been standing against a wall or flat on the bed. The desk is different, the angle deeper, and she feels it on the first stroke, her fingers scrabbling for grip on the smooth surface, her whole body lurching forward and then slamming back. I set a rhythm, long drives, my hips meeting hers on every stroke, the desk taking the impact. Her breath comes in sharp punches, one per thrust, and she stops trying to keep the volume down around the third one.

I gather her hair in my fist, not brutal, just enough to tip her head back, and she moans and grinds back harder against me. I reach around with my free hand and get two fingers on her clit, and she bucks so hard the desk shifts an inch, a broken sound tearing out of her. She comes the third time clenching around me so tight it’s a genuine fight to keep moving. I fuck her through all of it, every shuddering pulse, until she’s limp against the desk and her arms are barely holding her up.

I pull out, turn her around, and she grabs my face with both hands and kisses me before I’ve finished turning her. Hard and open and graceless, her teeth catching my bottom lip, her fingers twisting in my hair. I get her up onto the edge of the desk, papers sliding everywhere, and push back inside her and she wraps her legs around me and pulls me in with her heels.

Short strokes now, both of us close, her pussy still fluttering around me. I keep my eyes on her face and she keeps hers on mine and I drive forward and she arches up to meet me and neither of us looks away. She doesn’t hide in here. She gives me everything in her face and I take it and give it back and that’s all this is, two people with nothing left to prove to each other.

I come hard, buried deep, both hands locked on her hips, filling her in long pulses. She holds my face through all of it, her thumbs at my cheekbones, her eyes on mine, her breath falling apart around me. I stay fully seated, her body working around me until there’s nothing left.

Neither of us moves.

Her thumbs drag slowly across my cheekbones. Back and forth.

“We’re going to solve this,” she says.

I say nothing.

“Together.” Her thumbs don’t stop moving. “I believe that.” Her eyes stay on mine. “I believe in you.”

28

Evelina

“Get up,” Volkov says, and I’m already sitting up before he’s finished saying it.

The alarm splits the dark, low and pulsing through the walls, and his arm disappears from around my waist before I’ve placed the sound. He’s out of bed in one movement, pulling his pants on in the dark, his hands finding his weapon on the nightstand without his eyes ever leaving the door. Outside, something crashes. Then shouting, two voices overlapping, and then a shot, close enough that the window glass shivers in its frame.

“Bathroom,” he says. “Now.”

I pull the sheet with me, my feet finding the cold floor. “How many?”

“Don’t know yet.” He checks the weapon, chambers a round, moves to the door. “Bathroom, Zayka. Lock it. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

“How will I know it’s you?”

He glances back. “You’ll know.”

Another shot, further away, then two more in quick succession. My pulse is in my throat, my bare feet on the floorboards, the sheet doing nothing useful against the cold or against the fear sitting hard in my chest. I get to the bathroom doorway and stop.

“Volkov.”

He’s got his hand on the bedroom door, his back to me, every muscle across his shoulders pulled tight enough to see from here.

“How many men do we have on the perimeter tonight?” I ask because I need a number, and because asking for something practical is the only thing keeping me from panicking.

“Eight outside, two on the stairs.” He doesn’t turn around. “Bathroom, Zayka. I mean it.”

“I know you mean it,” I say. “I’m not moving until you look at me.”