Page 69 of Bratva Daddy
She counted aloud, voice slightly strained, body vibrating with the need to move, to seek. But she held the position, and when she reached five, I returned.
This time, my hands skimmed her sides through the shirt, barely there, just enough to make her nerve endings fire. She shivered but held position, and I hummed approval.
"Good," I said, the single word making her whole body relax into the posture. "So good for me."
I continued the sweet torture—touches that promised but didn't deliver, breath against her neck that made her shake, the crop trailing along her inner thigh so lightly she might haveimagined it. Each time her body tried to chase the sensation, I withdrew, made her breathe, made her wait.
Twenty minutes of this, and she was trembling constantly, skin flushed, pupils blown wide. In the mirror, she looked wrecked—lips parted, chest heaving, arousal obvious even through my shirt. But she held position, determined, trusting me to take her where she needed to go.
"You're doing so well," I praised, finally—finally—letting my hand cup her through damp cotton. She cried out but didn't move, didn't chase, just held herself in perfect presentation while I stroked her slowly.
"Watch yourself," I commanded, moving behind her, one hand still between her legs while the other tilted her chin toward the mirror. "Watch yourself fall apart for me."
My fingers found the rhythm that destroyed her—not fast but relentless, exactly the pressure and speed I'd learned she needed. In the mirror, I watched her face contort with pleasure, watched her fight to hold position even as orgasm built.
"You can come," I said against her ear, voice dropping to that register that owned her. "Come for Daddy while watching yourself. See how beautiful you are when you let go."
She came with a scream that the reinforced walls swallowed, body bowing but somehow still maintaining the basic position, hands behind her back even as she shook apart. I held her through it, watched her watch herself, saw the moment she understood what she looked like in true submission—glorious, powerful, mine.
When the tremors stopped, I guided her down into Nest position, covering her with the blanket I'd set aside earlier. She curled into the safety of it immediately, hands under her cheek, that soft unfocused look that meant she'd dropped into subspace clean and deep.
"Rest, little one," I murmured, setting the crop carefully on the nightstand. "Just rest."
The room went quiet except for our breathing, and I settled beside her to stand guard while she floated in that space between consciousness and dreams, held by position and praise and the absolute safety of surrender.
Chapter 14
Clara
Thesafehousekitchenhad all the wrong shadows. Three days in this Queens bunker, and I still reached for light switches that weren't there, still expected the coffee maker to be on the left instead of the right. Alexei had left two hours ago to handle what he called "internal discipline"—one of his construction crews had gotten creative with the books, and now they needed reminding why that was inadvisable.
He'd kissed my forehead before leaving, told me to rest, to be good. But rest was impossible when the 24th loomed like a storm system on the radar. One week. One week until my father's empire collapsed. One week until everything Viktor Petrov had built on bribes and threats came crashing down.
The kettle whistled, sharp enough to make me flinch. Everything in this place was louder than the penthouse—the floors that creaked under my weight, the pipes that groaned when I ran water, the refrigerator that hummed like it was plotting something. But Alexei had already made it mine insmall ways. My favorite English Breakfast sat in the cabinet exactly where I'd have put it. The honey I preferred over sugar. My favorite brand of oat milk.
I watched the tea darken in slow, spreading clouds and tried to name what I felt. Anticipation, yes. Satisfaction at the thought of Viktor's shock when the FBI showed up. But underneath that, something messier. Something that tasted like guilt.
"He's still my father," I said to the empty kitchen, hating how weak it sounded. The man who'd never loved me, never saw me, who'd called me crazy on live television. But also the man who'd taught me to tie my shoes when I was five, who'd carried me on his shoulders at the Central Park Zoo, who'd held my hand at my mother's funeral even while he calculated her life insurance payout.
I wanted him to pay. God, I wanted him to suffer for every year of invisibility, for every dinner where I'd been furniture, for using my mother's memory as a weapon. But I didn't want him dead. The thought of Dmitry putting a bullet in Viktor's head, of identifying his body at some morgue, made my stomach turn.
"Prison," I reminded myself, carrying my tea to the living room. "Disgrace. Poverty. Not death."
Alexei had promised, and Alexei kept his promises. Even the dark ones. Especially those.
The living room was sparse—functional furniture, heavy curtains, a bookshelf half-filled with volumes in Russian and English. Everything chosen for utility rather than beauty, the opposite of the penthouse's carefully curated elegance. But there were touches of care here too. A cashmere throw draped over the couch. Fresh roses on the coffee table, pink and beautiful.
I needed distraction from the circular thoughts, from the image of my father in handcuffs that kept playing behind my eyelids. Alexei had given me permission to explore, to "makeyourself at home," though we both knew this would never be home.
His office door stood partially open, and I pushed through without hesitation. If he hadn't wanted me here, it would have been locked. Alexei was too careful for accidental access.
The room smelled like him immediately—that cologne that meant safety now, leather from the chair, smoke. Darker than his penthouse office, more confined, but organized with the same obsessive precision. Books lined one wall, spines in alternating Russian and English, arranged by some system I couldn't decode. His desk was clear except for a laptop, closed and probably encrypted six ways from Sunday.
Ivan had been working in here earlier, leaving behind the ghost of cigarette smoke and a legal pad covered in numbers that might as well have been hieroglyphics. Forensic accounting, probably. Following dirty money through shell companies and offshore accounts until it led back to my father's door.
I ran my fingers along book spines, recognizing some titles from the penthouse. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, of course, but also contemporary crime novels, books on psychology, a surprising amount of poetry. A complete collection of Pablo Neruda in translation, pages worn soft from reading.
The boxes caught my eye—stacked in the corner, still sealed with packing tape from the penthouse move. Alexei's personal files, most likely. Things too sensitive to trust to movers, too important to leave behind. I shouldn't look. The thought formed clear and definitive, which meant I was absolutely going to look.
