Page 18 of Pageant

I take my wet finger from her sex and press it against her lips. “My life is in your hands,solnyshko. If I wake up tomorrow, it is because you allow my heart to go on beating.”

I step away from her, drinking in the sight of her flushed cheeks, her bare breasts, her spread legs. If we had more time, if her husband wasn’t upstairs, I’d lift her up onto my cock and fuck her against these shelves. Her beautiful eyes fill with turmoil and need. That’s the look I want when I’m balls deep inside her.

I go to the coffee maker and pour myself a cup and take my seat at the counter like usual. I’m drinking coffee when Ivan walks into the kitchen. Every time I lift the mug to my lips, I can smell Lilia’s pussy.

“Dobroe utro, Elyah.”

“Morning.” I stare straight ahead. This is an ordinary morning. I’m just the driver.

Ivan looks around in confusion for his wife. She’s always here when he comes downstairs, ready to pass him a cup of coffee. “Lilia? Where are you?”

I hold my breath, my coffee halfway to my lips. The seconds drag by. There’s a gun holstered beneath my arm. If he finds his wife disheveled in the pantry, I’ll have to kill him, and then I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do next. First, take Lilia. Everything else I’ll figure out later.

Lilia steps out of the pantry, hair neat, dress buttoned, large cans of vegetables in each hand and not a trace of anything in her face. “Morning. I thought we had more butter beans.”

Ivan gives a vague shrug. The contents of his pantry hold no interest to him.

I stare at Lilia as she places the cans on the counter, amends the shopping list, and pours her husband a cup of coffee.

I smile behind my mug. She’s cooler than an assassin.

The following morning is Saturday. The weather turns bleak and chilly and rain lashes against my apartment windows. My mood sours. If it were a nice day, I might have driven by the park or down the street with the good cafés and watched people walking by, hoping to see Lilia out running errands or sitting in the sunshine. Instead, I do laundry and play the minutes with Lilia in the pantry over and over again in my mind.

Around three in the afternoon, the doorbell rings. When I open the front door, I’m shocked to see Lilia standing on the other side. Her hair is wet from the rain, a red purse hangs over her shoulder, and she’s clutching something in her hands.

“I forgot I had this. I just found it at home.”

She holds it out to me. My leather jacket that she was wearing when the police searched her house and she collapsed in my arms. I must have left it with her at the hospital. She could have given it back to me at any time. She could have waited until Monday.

“We can’t do anything like that again,” she whispers urgently. Her eyes are huge and scared. “From now on, when you come to collect Ivan, wait in the car.”

Wait in the car.

Never talk to her.

Never touch her again.

I grab her by the wrist and haul her into my apartment, slamming the door behind us. I push her against it and my mouth descends on hers. Lilia whimpers in panic, even as she takes my shoulders and holds me fiercely.

“Elyah, we can’t do this. He’ll kill you.”

“I do not care,” I say huskily, kissing her again. All I care about is her. I’m not going to waste these precious minutes thinking about unimportant things like my life.

“He’ll killme.”

“I will not let him.” I lift her up and carry her to my bedroom and lay her on the bed. I crush her mouth beneath mine and haul her thighs around my hips. Body to body. I reach for the button on her pants and yank them down her legs. I’ve been hard all day. I could thrust into her right now, but I make myself slow down. This is my apartment. My bed. I can take my time with her.

I sit up and pull my T-shirt up over my head. “Put your hands on me.”

Hesitantly, Lilia reaches up and smooths her hands up my chest, drinking in the sight of the tattoos decorating my muscles. She touches a fist wrapped with barbed wire. A snake with fangs bared, ready to strike. A reaper with his cowl. There are words in Russian that she traces with the tips of her fingers.

“What do they all mean?”

She has Russian blood in her veins. Her father is in the Bratva, the Russian mafia, but she may as well have been born and raised on Mars for all she understands about my past. But she knows enough to realize that these tattoos have meaning.

“They mean I fight for what I want, and I never give up.” As she strokes my flesh, I strip out of my jeans, unbutton her blouse, and then unfasten her bra. I’m fixated on her naked body. Her smooth skin. The way her chest lifts and falls as I tweak her nipples and take her hips in my hands.

I pull her underwear down her long, slender legs, and push them open. God, she’s so fucking pretty. How can she be so perfect? The ruffles of her inner lips are pink and shiny, and I dip my head to savor her with my tongue. I groan and lick her again. “You taste so sweet,solnyshko.”

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