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I do. Every drop.

He watches me do it, his eyes black, his thumb still pressed to my lower lip like he’s making sure. Like this is the most important thing that has ever occurred in this kitchen.

“Khoroshaya devochka,” he breathes. “Good girl. Mine.”

Before I’ve quite registered that it’s over, his hands are under me, lifting my body from the floor, one arm beneath my knees, one behind my back. I’m against his chest again, my face tucked into the warmth of his throat.

He carries me out of the kitchen.

His lips find my throat as he walks, pressing slow kisses along my pulse point, my jaw, by my ear. Unhurried. Like we have nowhere to be and nothing else matters but each other.

The living room is dark with rainy-day shadows coming through the tall windows. He doesn’t turn on a lamp. He lowers himself onto the sofa with me still in his arms, settling me across his lap, and reaches over the back of it for a blanket that he shakes out one-handed and wraps around me, tucking it in at my shoulders with a thoroughness that makes my chest ache.

I’m cocooned. Warm and held and entirely still.

His hand moves slowly through my hair, working out the tangles his fist made, gentle now when he was so rough before.

“Are you all right?” he whispers into my hair.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He presses his lips to my temple.

“That was…” He breathes out slowly. “You’re extraordinary. Do you know that?”

I don’t know what to do with that. I smile and press my face further into his throat.

“I mean it.” His arms tighten around me. “You were perfect, Cora. You were absolutely perfect.”

“I liked it, too,” I say into his skin. It comes out defensive, like I’m expecting to be contradicted.

“I know you did,” he murmurs. “I could tell.”

I exhale slowly. My whole body feels wrung out and heavy, tension leaving me that’s been wound tight inside for a very long time.

He murmurs to me in Russian while I sink into his warm chest. I don’t understand the words, but I don’t need to. The cadence of it is low and unhurried, and I let it wash over me like the sound of the rain. His hand moves through my hair. The city glitters beyond the glass.

I think I might be falling asleep.

Then, distantly, from the kitchen, his phone rings.

His hand pauses in my hair, but then keeps going, letting it ring out.

It rings again.

He mutters under his breath but stays where he is.

I sink back into the warmth of him, my eyes heavy.

A third ring.

He exhales slowly through his nose, and I feel the reluctant shift of a man who knows he has to get up.

“I’ll be one minute,” he says into my hair.

He settles me carefully against the cushions, tucking the blanket around me with the same thoroughness as before, and heads for the kitchen. I appreciate the view of his muscular ass. I hear him moving around in there—the rustle of fabric as he finds his pants, presumably—and then the ringing stops.

From the kitchen, I hear his voice. Low and clipped. Not the voice he uses with me.