Page 73 of Pageant

“What look?” I ask, reaching down between us to drag my middle finger up through my pussy. Elyah watches, fascinated, as my finger swirls slowly on my clit. This is what I used to do late at night, imagining I was in his arms. In his bed. Wishing that he were my husband and that I belonged to him.

He makes a delicious noise in the back of his throat as he watches me. “That you might die if you do not get what you need.”

“I will. I’ll die. Please, you have to—”

Elyah pushes his cock down and surges forward with one determined thrust. I breathe in sharply and clutch him tighter as his thick cock thrusts deep inside me. As he pulls back and drives into me again, I feel like I could shatter already.

The room dims around me. I feel like no time has passed. I’m back in his bedroom, and the man who I’ve obsessively dreamed about for months is making me his.

Elyah sets a slow, thorough pace, the muscles of his chest and stomach bunching and flexing. His lips brush over mine. His fingertips skim my breasts. My throat. His touch is gentle even as his thrusts grow more demanding. I scratch my nails in needy lines across the backs of his shoulders. My neck aches from the burn of the rope. Just a few minutes ago he was choking the life out of me, and now he’s pounding into me like I’m his queen and he’s just returned from a war. Elyah fucks me like he’s got something to prove.

“Solnyshko, I need more,” he growls into my throat.

I roll my head to the side and glance around the room. “The chair.”

Konstantin’s chair. Loathing for the man spills through me as I remember how he humiliated me yesterday, but it’s swiftly replaced by exhilaration as Elyah scoops me up in his arms and carries me over to it.

I kneel on the chair and spread my knees, gazing over my shoulder at Elyah. His fine blond hair is falling into his eyes and his chest is glowing with perspiration. My nails have left red crescents and scratches in his shoulders.

He’s never looked more magnificent.

The reflective mirror shows me he has his cock in his hand as he plants the other on the small of my back. I arch my spine and thrust my ass toward him in an invitation more blatant than I’ve ever made before, begging him to claim me. The swift invasion of his cock has me grabbing for the chair’s leather back and crying out.

He slides one large hand around my throat and bends my head back until he can kiss me. “I am always going to fuck you like this, like it is the first time and the last.”

The ache inside me builds and builds. I can see the two-way mirror out of the corner of my eyes.Are you watching this, Konstantin? I’m taking your man from you.

But then, he was never yours. Elyah was always mine.

“Lilia. My Lilia.” Elyah is groaning my name with every thrust of his cock. His hands are burning hot as he grips me desperately. “Come for me,solnyshko. I want to feel you squeezing me.”

The ache inside reaches a crescendo, and I grasp his hand on my waist as I come, twining my fingers through his. Elyah’s thrusts grow haphazard and urgent and then he snatches me up in his arms with a shout, clutching me against his muscled body and forcing me down on his cock. The violent waves of his climax pulse through both of us.

We both breathe hard in the stillness and silence that follows. Elyah groans and buries his face in my neck. Half laughing, half moaning in pleasure, he pulls me off the chair and rolls us beneath the desk. I’m tight against his side, my hand on his chest, and it feels like the two of us are in a safe little cocoon.

“Two years,” he says, kissing me woozily. “I have waited two years to make you mine. Never torture me like that again.”

Neither of us can predict what’s going to happen next, but Elyah is determined that I shall be by his side. He plants soft kisses on the burn around my throat.

“We should try and make our love more boring. I do not think I can take any more heartache.”

I laugh. “You’re probably right about that. If our love becomes any more interesting, it’s going to have a body count.”

Elyah sits up a little and turns to me, his fist pressing against his temple. “The day Ivan died, where did you run? How did you know?”

I trace the tattoos on his chest. That was a terrible day. Not the worst day of my life, but up there. My lips press together at the bitter memory. “My father came and got me. He wouldn’t explain anything or answer my questions. He forced me into his car while his men packed up my things and followed behind us as we drove away. I didn’t know what happened to Ivan until I switched on the news that night in my father’s house.”

I don’t know what happened to Ivan’s children. I presume his sister or mother picked them up from school and broke the terrible news to them about their father. Alexei and Inessa never warmed to me, or I to them, but my heart went out to them the day their father was killed.

“But how did your father know that Ivan was going to be arrested?”

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. He said he’d been concerned since Ivan was arrested a few weeks earlier. Maybe he had a cop in his pocket who tipped him off. What about you? You were with Ivan when he was shot. How did you get away?”

Elyah puffs out his cheeks and widens his eyes. “I do not fucking know. I was on autopilot and my only thought was to get to you. I went to the house and you were not there, and…”

He trails off with a wince. He thought the worst. He thought I had betrayed him.

“I tried to find you,” I whisper, stroking the tattoo on the side of his neck. “When I escaped my father’s house a few days later, I went to your apartment, but you were gone. I went to my house looking for answers. The master bedroom had been destroyed.”

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