23. Viviana

When Mikhail finishes putting Dante to bed and walks into the kitchen thirty minutes later, I promptly throw myself at him.

Never one to be caught off-guard, Mikhail scoops me out of the air like he expected it all along and presses me against the fridge. There's a refrigerator magnet digging into my spine, but I barely feel it. I'm too busy hooking my legs around his waist and crushing my mouth to his.

"You obey directions well," Mikhail observes against my mouth between kisses. "It feels like I never left."

I arch away from him and grab the hem of my shirt. I yank it over my head in one fluid movement and toss it. It lands in the sink, but I don't care. It could be shredding in the garbage disposal and I wouldn't let go of Mikhail to save it.

"An hour ago, I would have told you the kitchen was the least erotic room in the house. But that was before I spent the last thirty minutes cleaning it."

Mikhail kisses down my chest. He flicks the front clasp of my bra open and groans when my breasts spill free. "Does the smell of bleach get you going?"

I roll my hips against his erection, giving us both the friction we want. "No, but imagining you fucking me on every single one of the flat surfaces in here did the trick."

He slides me to the floor so he can unbutton my pants. He slips his hand inside the waistband and cups my already-damp panties. "Fuck, Viviana. I had plans tonight. I was going to take my time with you."

He caresses his fingers against my slit. I fist the front of his shirt in my hands, clinging onto him before my legs give out.

"You had plans? Tell me about them."

Instead of answering, Mikhail picks me up and carries me through the French doors to the screened-in porch. The night is cold, but there's a fire going in the wood-burning stove. Twinkle lights zigzag across the ceiling and there's a pile of fleece blankets spread out on the hardwood floor.

"You did this for me?" I ask in surprise.

He bites my earlobe. "After the day you had, I thought you could use the release."

For a brief second, I remember my father standing in our bedroom. The fear. The anger.

But I don't want to think about any of that tonight. Not when Mikhail is in front of me offering to help me forget.

I gladly and wholeheartedly accept.

I press my hands to his chest. His heart thunders against my palm as I slowly drop to my knees in front of him.

"Viviana…" His voice breaks on my name and I love knowing I have that kind of power. I love knowing that Mikhail Novikov is the strongest man I know, but I can make his heart race and his voice shake like no one else in this world can.

I unzip his pants and free his erection. He shudders when I lean forward and press a kiss to the very tip of him.

Then I take his velvet length into my mouth.

Mikhail tangles his fingers in my hair, holding loosely to the back of my head as I swallow him down again and again. I pause frequently to lick the underside of his cock from base to tip. I swirl my tongue around him, loving the pleading noises that come from the back of his throat as I let him touch the back of mine.

"God, that mouth," he growls, thrusting gently against my face. "It's so perfect."

I could finish him like this and be perfectly content. Making Mikhail whimper is a surefire way to get me out of my own head.

But as I pick up the pace to push him closer and closer to that edge, Mikhail slides his hips away from me. He grips my chin and brushes his thumb over my lower lip. "Another time, I'm going to fuck this perfect mouth until I come all over you. But not tonight."

His promise is still shivering down my spine when he presses me back into the cushion of fleece blankets and settles between my thighs. He flattens his hand on my stomach and slides it down until he's just above where I want him. My pussy quivers in anticipation.

"I should be gentle with you," he rumbles, regret staining his voice.

"Why?" He's barely touched me and I'm already breathless.

He shifts his hand higher to curl it around my stomach. The lost ground is devastating. My hips arch towards him as I grab his wrist and push him back down. He resists going all the way, but it's not for lack of trying on my part.

"The baby is safe in there," I argue. "Unless you plan to kill me with your cock tonight, there's nothing you could do that would hurt the baby."

Death by Mikhail's cock doesn't sound like the worst way to go, actually.

His jaw flexes. "I'm big, Viviana. And you haven't been seen by a doctor yet. I don't want to?—"

"Someone is confident," I interrupt in a teasing lilt.

But Mikhail is right: he is big. Which is why I'm desperate to get every inch of him inside of me right now. So desperate I'm willing to stoop to reverse psychology.

"I've taken you plenty of times before, Mikhail. It's always been fine." I place special emphasis on that final word. Fine. The idea alone is laughable. Mikhail Novikov is a million different things, none of which are fine.

He's glorious. Intoxicating. All-consuming.

With the way his icy blue eyes are freezing me to the bone right now, he knows it.

Suddenly, both my arms are pinned to the blankets above my head and Mikhail is hovering over me. He refuses to touch me except for where his hands are around my wrists and the tip of his dick is whispering against my opening.

My heart is beating a wild rhythm in my chest, but I try to keep my voice steady as I ask, "Are you going to fuck me or are you going to leave me unsatisf?—"

I don't even get the question out before Mikhail slams into me.

Our bodies are barely touching, but I'm full of him. I arch against where he has me pinned—with his cock and his hands—and cry out.

"How's that, Viviana?" he whispers over me. "Is that fine?"

I whimper. "S-so… good."

When I open my eyes, Mikhail is smirking. "Are you ready for the rest?"

I frown and glance down to where we're joined. Correction: where we're half-joined. Mikhail isn't even halfway inside of me and I had no idea.

I roll my eyes, both from annoyance and the excruciating way he flexes his hips into me, teasing every bit of pleasure out of where we touch. "You're going to be so smug about this, aren't you? You're never going to let me live this down."

"Wipe the word ‘fine' from your vocabulary and I'll forgive you." He crushes his lips to mine at the same moment he slides home in me.

I should be used to the way Mikhail fills me by now, but it still catches me by surprise. He swallows down my scream, his lips sealed over mine. When he finally breaks away to drag his mouth over my jaw, I press my head back into the floor. "Fuck."

"That's better." He nips at my collarbone and traces his tongue between my breasts. "Nothing about the way you feel around me is ‘fine,' Viviana. It's fucking perfect."

He drags slowly in and out of me, making sure I experience every glorious inch of him. The friction is unbearable. It's only made worse by the way I'm pinned to the floor.

"I want to touch you," I beg.

Mikhail smirks and lets go of one of my wrists. But before I can even move my arm, he gathers both my wrists in one of his hands.

"How about I touch you instead?"

Then he slides a hand between us and presses his thumb to my swollen clit. Whatever argument I was going to make dissolves into a broken moan.

He works my clit as his cock stretches me again and again. I lift my legs, splaying my hips wide to take him deeper.

"Viviana…" he growls, sinking into me.

The glow of self-satisfaction is short-lived when he enters me at a new angle. His head glances over my g-spot, and I'm completely and utterly gone.

My body goes taut, my entire spine lifted off the floor as I arch against him. The pleasure is searing and I cry out, screaming Mikhail's name as he fucks me to the beat of my own pulsing pussy.

When I finally sink back into the blankets, sated and limp, Mikhail lets go of my wrists. He kisses my chin and the thundering pulse in my neck. His soft lips suckle around each of my nipples before trailing down my stomach. He slides out of me and I hate the loss of him.

Gently, Mikhail wraps a large hand around my hip and rolls me onto my stomach.

A weak flutter deep in my core draws a whimper out of me. "I can't take any more."

"You seemed to think death by fucking was impossible," Mikhail remarks as he digs his hands into my ass.

"You know I was lying." I would've said anything to get him inside of me.

I spread my legs and I can feel the cool air against my dripping center. Mikhail must be able to see it, because he swipes his thumb there, soothing away the ache.

"I know," he murmurs. He grabs my hips and props me up on my knees, his hands seated in the curve of my waist. "I was lying, too."

My cheek is pillowed on the blanket as I twist back to look at him. "About what?"

His eyes lock on mine, dark and wild. "About ever being gentle with you."

Mikhail doesn't enter me halfway this time—he drives every inch of himself inside of my still-throbbing center.

My back bows and he presses a palm flat to my lower back. He bends me further, angling me so he can slide into me exactly how he wants.

"This is how I'm going to fuck you when you're swollen with my baby." His hands tighten around my waist and he pulls me harder against him. "This pussy is always going to belong to me."

I spent most of my life straining against the chains my father put on me. I wanted nothing more than to belong to myself—to be free.

But belonging to Mikhail Novikov is the best kind of freedom I can imagine.

"I'm close," I gasp, stretching my arms in front of me and sinking back against him. "I'm going to come again."

His hand slips around my hip and he circles two fingers over my clit as he pumps into me.

"Come with me, Viviana," he commands. "Now."

As if my body was just waiting for him to give the order, as soon as the word is out of his mouth, I grip his cock.

He lets out a string of curse words, his thrusts growing more and more purposeful until he stutters and warmth floods through me. I can feel him twitching inside of me and it prolongs my own orgasm, his pleasure somehow carrying mine.

I collapse on the blankets and Mikhail spoons his warm body around mine. The air smells like citrus and sex. My thighs are sticky with the evidence of what we've done.

But I'm as safe and content as I've ever been. I lean into the steady rhythm of his chest and fall asleep.