2. Natalya

Chapter 2

Natalya

T he atmosphere in my tiny little apartment is charged with electricity as I play for him.

He starts out across the room, watching and listening, his eyes heavy and half-lidded, looking like sex and sin. He’s gorgeous, and I remember all over again why I’ve always tried to keep my distance—Alexander Sorokin is dangerous as hell. Both for me, and for everyone else around him.

But soon he drifts closer. I finish the first song and transition into another, even though he didn’t ask for more than the one. He lingers behind me, near the couch, and I can feel his eyes on me. I can almost taste his unwavering attention. It’s overwhelming and intense, almost erotic in its obsession, and I’m trembling as I begin a third song.

He comes closer. Right behind me now, lurking at my back and staring at my hands as I go through the familiar rhythms. Another song I wrote while in Paris, another little slice of my gray and lonely days. It’s a slow melody, and I like to think it’s the sound of the rain on the roof across the street and distant laughter down streets I’ll never bother exploring.

I should stop. Especially when I start playing the fourth and his hands gently touch my shoulders. Not in a commanding way, but more like he’s letting me know that he’s right at my back, and slowly his fingers move down to my collarbone as I keep playing, my breath coming in rapidly and deep.

Fear and excitement rip into my chest, and I know I should tell him to stop, I should push back and end this madness.

I should do a lot of things.

Why’s he even here? Where did he come from? And why am I playing right now instead of talking about any of that?

His hand cups my breast and gently teases my stiff nipples. I miss a note but keep going, biting my lip to keep a moan in my throat. God, it feels so fucking good to be touched right now. I didn’t even know how badly I needed this.

If this had happened even a few weeks ago. If Alex had shown up out of nowhere two months back. If he’d come at any other time?—

This never would’ve happened.

I would have found some tiny shred of sanity left inside of me and I never would have sat back down on this piano bench.

And I definitely wouldn’t let him touch me.

Instead, he’s here at my lowest, when the bite of my loneliness and the bleak, never ending gray of my depression is close to drowning me.

But he’s here, keeping me afloat, and his hands explore my chest and my shoulders, and I let out a pathetic whimper, a noise I’ve never made in my entire life.

It disrupts my playing enough that I stop. Slowly, I turn to face him.

A thousand words are on my tongue. I want to yell at him, beg him to make me understand why he’s in Paris, force him to see that what we’re doing is bizarre and totally out of character?—

Instead, our eyes meet.

His are filled with a dangerous, possessive desire, and I tilt my chin up toward him.

I’m afraid to talk. I’m afraid it might shatter the moment. This is another world, another life, like we’re living out some magical faerie tale, except a really, really dirty one. The wrong move, the wrong words could destroy the spell and send me spiraling to earth.

He reaches back and tangles a fist into my hair.

My mouth opens as my heart races into my throat.

“I’ve thought about this a thousand times,” he whispers.

And before I can make sense of that?—

He crushes his lips to mine.

I moan into that kiss, completely broken.

My brain erupts into bliss and confusion.

This is Alex . I’ve hated him for years. He treated me like trash, like I was some annoying little beetle always crawling around my own house. He’s been alternately cruel and dismissive, and I despise him for the way I’ve always been an afterthought at best.

But before that, I had the biggest, most ridiculous crush on him.

Back before I knew what he was. Back when all I could see was the reputation: young Alexander, smart and strong and handsome, the perfect up-and-coming member of the my father’s criminal organization.

A young man with untold potential.

Now it’s like I’m that girl again and all the intervening years never happened.

I lean into his kiss. I breathe in his warm, musky scent, so familiar and so strange all at once. He tastes like whisky and spearmint, and his grip in my hair makes me pant with need as his tongue invades my mouth, desperate and dominant. This is a kiss that can outdo any other, a kiss that lives up to the promise of a thousand more. It sends jolts of pleasure into my core and sends my pulse careening as a million dirty ideas flow through my head.

We’re both out of control, but way past the tipping point. I’m careening down a steep hill, and there’s no way I can stop myself, not now that I’ve begun.

He pulls me from the bench and stands me up. Instead of dragging me to the couch, he makes me straddle him as he sits back down in my position, his back to the piano. I gasp as he wrenches my thin t-shirt up and sucks my nipples, teasing them with his tongue, his other hand sliding down the front of my panties. I arch my back and lift my hips, letting him touch me.

“So fucking wet,” he murmurs and I’m so done I can barely stand it. That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s not the words, but the tone, like he’s losing his mind. Like he’s as wild right now as I am.

I moan as his fingers tease up and down my wet slit. He’s right, I’m absolutely soaked, despite knowing better. This can’t happen. This shouldn’t happen.

But it’s absolutely happening, and it feels so good.

His fingers slide inside of me as he bites on nipple. I moan and pull his hair, and I bend down to punish his mouth with mine. We kiss like we’re starving as he slides his fingers in and out, rolling around my clit, then gliding back in nice and deep. He goes faster, in and out, and I’m trembling in his hands, pent-up from over a year of not being touched by another human being, let alone handled like this, by a man that clearly knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Alex,” I whimper, brainless and dancing on the edge. He doesn’t stop, only groans the most masculine, sexy moan I’ve ever heard in my life.

“Come for me, Nat,” he whispers.

I can’t take it anymore. Fuck, I’m so pent-up. I grab his shoulders as my body shakes with bliss and all my triggers pull.

I explode for him. I’m a mess for him. I tremble and shake for him as the orgasm rips me into gorgeous, featherlike pieces.

He puts me back together against with soft kisses. “Natalya,” he whispers, mouth peppering my neck as he unbuckles his belt. I’m blinking rapidly and staring down at his thick, hard cock. “Get into my lap, Natalya. Don’t make me wait.”

I do as he says. What other choice is there? I straddle him and feel his massive, swollen tip press against my dripping entrance and I’m trembling with effort and anticipation. This happens like in a dream, in soft-lighting, in slow-motion. I haven’t had sex in a long time, and this man is massive, he’s absolutely huge, and he’s Alex . I keep coming back to that: I’m kissing Alex, I’m touching Alex, I’m coming on Alex’s hands, and I’m about to ride Alex’s dick.

I don’t stop as I kneel on the bench and he guides my hips down.

His mouth finds one nipple as he fills me. My back arches with a mix of bliss and pain. I don’t know if he would’ve fit if I hadn’t come once already, leaving me a soaking wreck, but he glides in deep and I have to stay down at the bottom to get used to his size, shaking and kissing him for a few agonizing and incredible seconds.

“Your music fucked me up,” he whispers and moves my hips back up. I’m trembling with bliss as he does it. “I don’t know where you’ve been Natalya, but now that I’m here, I can’t stop.”

“I can’t either,” I admit.

“You feel too fucking good. You taste too fucking good. And that song’s in my head.” He guides me down and up, down and up, his cock filling me, and I’m dripping down his shaft, I’m so damn wet. “Look at you baby, such a god damn mess, and all for me.” His fingers squeeze my ass and grip me tight like he’s holding on in case something comes to take me away.

I ride him like that, arms around his neck. He kisses my throat, bites my shoulder, slides his tongue into my mouth, as the pressure and bliss grows again. The rickety little piano bench wasn’t made to handle two grown adults, one of which is a massive, muscular beast, and I keep waiting for it to break—but instead, it only creaks and rocks with our rhythm.

My brain’s completely off at this point. There’s no more conscious thought. All I want is Alex inside of me as I push down harder, going faster, breathing heavy. Pleasure fills me, sharp and wild, and he spanks my ass hard, getting a better grip.

“My fucking Natalya,” he says, voice hoarse with lust.

His Natalya .

I moan, out of my mind, and I can’t take much more. I go harder, bite his lip, beg him to kiss me. He gives me what I need, and the orgasm builds and builds in my core, crushing and overwhelming, and I’m sweating like crazy in this cramped, hot little space, and I must look like a total mess, but I don’t care.

“Come on me like I’ve always dreamed you would,” he whispers, eyes burning into mine, one hand on my ass and the other holding my hair, and that finally does it.

Like I’ve always dreamed .

I moan low and the orgasm tears me to shreds, but I don’t stop. I go faster, harder, and feel him stiffen as I come, feel him fill me to the brim, feel the warmth between my legs. He moans my name, the most sensual thing I’ve ever heard, and I end up collapsed in his arms, his cock still buried between my legs, both of us breathing hard.

Reality reasserts itself.

Softened and muted by the post-orgasm haze, but still.

I’m suddenly very aware of what just happened.

With much less grace than I would like, I get off his lap and back away. He stays there, cock still half-hard, staring at me with a dark look in his eye. He looks like a conguering Viking, rippling with muscle, dick still twitching and shining with my wetness, staring at me like he’s going to fuck me into pieces.

“That was, uh, unexpected,” I finally manage to say, looking around for my underwear. I find them on the floor near the coffee table and yank them on followed by my shorts.

He doesn’t rush to get dressed.

“It’s definitely not what I thought would happen when I came here,” he admits, sounding almost lazy about it.

“What did you think would happen?”

“I figured I’d find Little Nat playing socialite on the Champs-Elysees, wrapped in furs and dripping in diamonds. Not… this.”

If I weren’t already overheated and sweaty, I’d be absolutely pink with fury. “What do you mean this ?”

“This apartment. It’s not really you.”

“And what do you think I am?”

“Five-star hotels and maid service.”

I pick up a book and throw it at him. He easily swats it away, smiling with a half-lidded, sexy stare.

“You don’t know me anymore, Sorokin.”

“I don’t know about that, Little Nat. I think we know each other quite well by now.”

“Fuck you, asshole.” And the spell is on the edge of breaking. Now I remember why I dislike Alex so muc.

The primal way he stormed back into my life again and took me like I’ve always been his to fuck and use is fading.

“Actually, about that.” He stands and tugs his boxer briefs back on. But he doesn’t bother with his suit pants. He lets his jacket fall away and begins to unbutton his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“Undressing. It’s hot as fuck in here.”

“Uh, stop? Keep your clothes on and tell me why you’re even here.”

“I don’t want to get into that yet.”

My mouth falls open when the shirt drops off. His body his tanned and sculpted with muscle. Every inch of him is marked by either a tattoo or a thick knot of scar tissue. There are dozens of scars in all different shapes and sizes: puckers and slashes, tears and strips. And that’s not even mentioning the knives and the skulls, the blood and the strange vista of trees and lakes snaking around his chest.

His body is a canvas of pain and art, and it’s beautiful.

I can’t look away.

“You promised,” I say very weakly as he comes closer.

“And I’ll keep my promise, but the second we start talking about home is the second this—“ He gestures between us. “Will cease to exist. And I’m not done with you yet.”

A thrill runs in between my legs. I start to back away from him. “Who says I want more from you? You broke into my apartment. You watched me playing piano naked. You’re a creep and an asshole.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“So tell me why I shouldn’t run screaming?”

I bump up against the wall behind me. A thrift-store painting of some nice little ducks rattles and nearly falls.

Alex grabs my wrists and pins them above my head.

“Because we just learned something about each other,” he whispers, dipping down to kiss my neck.

I squirm, but don’t try to get away. “What’s that? You finally figured out what a bastard you are?”

“No, Natalya, I learned that we fit together. Maybe you’re a spoiled little Russian Bratva princess and your head’s filled with hot air and music notes, but you feel like fucking heaven. And I want more .”

My mouth hangs open at the devilish look he gives me. It’s half loathing and half lust, and I feel the same tearing around in my guts.

This prick, this arrogant bastard, but he’s right.

I hate it, but I can’t deny it.

We fit.

“If I tell you to fuck off?” I ask him, desperately clinging to my last shreds of pride.

“You won’t. No, you’re going to kiss me now, and then I’m going to drag you into that pathetic little cubby you call a bedroom, and I’m going to fuck you into a senseless puddle of messy bliss. I’m going to take my fill of you, Natalya, before we have to go back to the real world. I’m going to make you ache and moan and come so hard your toes curl. This is your last chance. This is your last escape.”

My last chance. My last escape.

But what he doesn’t know is, this year in Paris hasn’t been so much a vacation as it has been a prison sentence, and I yearn for something more.

Something to make me feel again.

He doesn’t move. His mouth is inches from mine. I’m breathing hard and my breasts rise and fall, my nipples brushing against his hard chest.

Then I twine my fingers through his, hold on tight, and lean forward to swallow the space between us.