by Bethany-Kris
This time, it was Karine who spun around to face him. She wrapped an arm around his head, pulling his forehead close enough to touch hers. The tips of their noses grazed—and like that, she ensured that he had nowhere to look and nothing to see, but her.
Karine had decided she liked that—him and her—his eyes on only her.
“I told you not to stop,” she said, her throat tight and voice husky. Could he hear what he had done to her—could he see it in her eyes?
She wanted him to.
Roman flashed a smirk that made her breath catch. “That’s what I want to hear.”
Between them, her hands stroked him overtop his boxer-briefs before slipping under the fabric to find him heavy and thick in her palm. She loved the control she found when she tightened her hand around his base, and felt him jerk against her from the pressure. He watched her while she tugged along his length, finding the right pressure and speed to make him moan for her.
“Would you suck me clean,” he asked, his words rough through chopping breaths, “after I’ve fucked you, Karine? Would you?”
Didn’t he know?
“I’ll do anything for you.”
And she’d like it, too.
The semblance of control he’d maintained seemed to be lost when she stared him in the eyes and said those words without even hesitating. In another dizzy second, she found herself turned back to the door again, and her shorts ripped down her legs. He was an overwhelming presence behind her, the thick head of his cock sweeping through the wet lips of her pussy.
And then he was pushing in.
No warning.
That first thrust came harder than she expected it to, sending her up on her tiptoes from the force. He was right there to hold her in place for his next one though, and every beat of his hips that came after was faster and rougher than the last.
Roman took her hard, and Karine didn’t want anything different. Throwing her head back, pressing her eyes closed as he started to pound deeper, the slap of his hips to her ass only adding to the moans spiraling from her.
His palm found her throat.
Karine was lost again.
To him.
To everything.
He didn’t stop fucking her until he’d spilled every last drop of his cum inside her, and even then, his last thrusts came long and deep, only serving to smear their mingled fluids on the insides of her thighs. She’d still suck him clean.
When he asked.
She would.
His fingers unfurled from around her throat, and Karine let her head fall forward to rest against the door. Trembling, but needing to know, she asked while he was still hard and pulsing inside of her, “Should I leave now?”
Better to rip the Band-Aid right off.
“You’re fine right where you are,” he murmured, the reply ghosting over her skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Karine melted into his arms when he added quieter, “With me.”
• • •
Karine was trying her best not to fall asleep. She didn’t want to repeat her mistakes the last time they’d been in bed together, sleeping their time away when she would much rather spend it wide awake and studying the man next to her.
He was a storm of things she didn’t understand—a picture placed in front of her that should terrify her, but he didn’t.
Not much had changed.
He still felt safe.
Still smothered her in heat.
The thud-thud of his heart in his chest echoed through her back while his arms stayed wrapped tight around her under the sheets. From time to time, she could feel his hot breath falling on her nape, but he said nothing to let her know he was still awake. He also didn’t need to.
“I spent my twenty-first birthday with you,” she said, the secret slipping into the darkness.
Behind her, his reply was a low rumble mixed with his sleepiness. “Did you?”
“I didn’t tell you before—it didn’t seem ... important.”
“Karine, everything about you is important. It’s a fucking shame people have made it worth their while to teach you otherwise.”
“Do you still want me to tell you what I want?” she asked.
“Of course, I do.”
Well ...
“I just want to be okay.”
Not that she knew what that was supposed to feel like. It seemed like something out of her reach, but still somehow possible. Now.
“You are okay,” Roman said, his lips finding her bare shoulder. Karine closed her eyes, the smile forming easily. So true. She wasn’t accustomed to happiness that was real, but she found a piece of it with him. “But it’s fine to know you want to be better, too, babe.”
Right.
Karine wouldn’t forget it.
EIGHT
The scratched ROMAN etched into the left corner of the diner’s booth made Roman smile as the memory flooded his mind of exactly how it got there, and the way his father had laughed at his eleven-year-old son’s antics.
“Knew I shouldn’t have let him give you that knife,” Demyan had mumbled through chuckles and a bite of the food he’d been chewing.
Between them sat a whole pile of pancakes—stacked six high. In a corner booth tucked away from the rest of the diner where he had spent too many mornings to count with his father, a table full with toppings of every kind separated the two.
Roman was all about hazelnut spread, and maple syrup. His father liked blueberries and whipped cream.
Roman grinned sheepishly, but didn’t bother to hide the pocketknife his newest bull had slipped him that morning saying, “Just for you, Prince.”
“It’s only little—no one will even see, Papa.”
Demyan shrugged. “No, no one would say anything otherwise, Roman—they wouldn’t dare.”
Somewhere along the way, Roman forgot that the respect and place he had was because better men worked hard for it to be so. He traced the letters of his name carved into the booth with the pad of his thumb, knowing he couldn’t go back to being that younger version of himself sitting across from his father ever again, but still longing for a simpler time in his life.
His father always picked the diner whenever he wanted to sit down with his son, one on one, and when he thought back now—Roman only had fond memories here. Even the black and white checkered tile floor brought back images of him racing across it to jump into their booth.
Roman couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten at the diner with Demyan, and that kind of bothered him. He didn’t have much of an appetite lately, though. Not since he left New York—since he was forced to leave New York. Food seemed unimportant in the grander schemes of things going on in his life, honestly.
Since, his father seemed to think it wasn’t wise to have important conversations over the phone anymore, he was supposed to meet up with the man at their old haunt for a chat. Except Demyan hadn’t shown up yet, even though he was the one who called Roman’s hotel room at six in the fucking morning, and demanded to see him.
Even if he hadn’t been able to hear the agitation in his father’s voice over that phone call, he knew something was up. It had to be for Demyan to leave his house before seven.
It was the nagging memory of the look Karine had given him when he ended the call that kept Roman lost to his thoughts while he waited for his father to arrive. She’d been sleeping in his arms, her face tucked against his chest, when his phone rang. The noise made her stir, but it was him reaching over to answer the call that woke her.
He wished she hadn’t.
She never slept well as it was, and it didn’t take long for him to notice the more she did sleep, the less Karine seemed to work on autopilot.
Either way, he couldn’t ignore a call from his father whether it woke her or not. Roman had paced the room while he talked to Demyan, feeling the weight of Karine’s stare leveling on him the whole time. There wasn’t much in the conversation that she could decipher, but that didn’t stop her from listening.
When the call had finally ended, he turned to face her only for her to immediately ask, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Naked under the sheets and sitting up in bed, she had looked like every inch of his wettest dreams with the fabric clutched to her chest, hiding her breasts. Her hair had fallen over her face in a mess, giving her a bit of a just fucked look, and those plush lips of hers sat in a pout that did wonderful, but also terrible, things to his mind.
He’d wanted to stay right there.
With her.
In her.
Except he couldn’t.
Instead, Roman had walked right up to Karine, and pushed some of that hair off her face, tucking those thick, dark strands behind her ears while she stared up at him with those big, wide eyes framed by sweeping lashes. He thought doe-eyed was as much a look someone had as it was an aura they gave off.
Every inch of Karine screamed frightened, and fragile.
Sometimes.
Her voice sounded cold and hollow when she had asked him that, and it killed him a little bit. His hand traveled to cup her cheeks until he could hold her face with both hands, and tilt it up so he could hold her gaze, too.
“But I’ll be back. I won’t be gone for long, Karine.”
As fast as he’d held her, she’d pulled away to bury her face into the pillows. Just the fact that she hid her face from him said a lot—a few hours was probably an overwhelming amount of time for Karine. He was tempted to call his father back and cancel the meeting, even if it gave him a bit more time to work Karine into the idea of Roman leaving. Which was foolish, and even he knew it.
Still, Roman had considered it.
What was happening to him?
She provoked urges in Roman that he had never known existed within himself—he was not soft, selfless, or concerned about anything or anyone except for himself. Or he hadn’t been ... for a long time.
Karine was not the same.
He didn’t understand why.
The truth of the matter, whether he liked it or not, was that she had turned into a liability of sorts for him. A weakness—the very last thing he needed—because he did care about her, and that simply meant someone could use it against him.
Or her.
“I’ll be back,” he had told her, then, still waiting for her to stop hiding herself from him, “As long as you keep asking me to do it—I’ll keep coming back. I promise. You trust me, don’t you?”
It took a few more seconds before Karine had turned her face out of the pillows so he could see the tears that had welled in her eyes. Something else to cut into a heart that he thought had been dead for years.
So much for that.
“That’s the thing I’m scared of most,” she had whispered before he left to meet up with his father, “I trust you too much, Roman, and I don’t know if I should.”
That might have been easier to swallow had he not seen the look on her face when he still needed to walk out of that bedroom.
Roman wasn’t so lucky.
• • •
The longer Roman was made to wait for his father, the more he regretted leaving the hotel suite in such a hurry. It didn’t help that his paranoid nature chose then to remind him the longer he hung around in a public place, the bigger of a target he became for any Yazov man who might be watching him.
If they were watching.
Roman didn’t know.
That’s why he was a paranoid fucker. Not knowing drove him insane. There was far too much happening that he didn’t know a thing about in Chicago to feel at all safe.
He’d already called Marky to keep watch outside the diner, and his friend had arrived at the same time as himself, along with another guy from an Avdonin brigadier’s crew. At least, he could rely on his best friend being punctual.
But apparently, not his father. Not that he would ever make that particular comment to Demyan’s face. Roman was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
And he was being a bit of a prick, to be fair. Demyan had a lot of other shit to deal with that didn’t involve Roman and his manufactured problems that stemmed from a selfish want to feed his own desire.
Karine.
His bored—but careful—gaze darted to the window. Roman’s booth wasn’t directly next to the glass, so they easily avoided being seen unless someone was peering inside, but it meant he couldn’t keep an eye outside, either. Well, not the full scope. Only a portion wasn’t enough to soothe his nerves.
Marky would do his job.
And the other man.
It was all about trust, wasn’t it?
Distracted by the chaotic mess inside his mind, Roman didn’t even notice when Demyan finally showed up until he slid into the other side of the booth with a quick, tight smile while his hands worked to unbutton the heavy tweed jacket he wore over his suit blazer. His father had the unique ability to make a low-key entrance when he wanted to. He was also a natural at attracting the room’s attention at times. Damn near the second his father sat down, all three waitresses working the diner’s floor turned their booth’s way until the one closest to their position seemed to win the contest.
“Just like old times,” he said while Demyan surveyed the diner with a fond softness to his stare.
Demyan was also quick to check the windows—and the fact there was nothing to see from their favorite booth. “Well, mostly. Some things still changed, son. We certainly did.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Roman also didn’t want to get into that subject with his father at the moment when he had more pressing matters to deal with first. Undoubtedly, Demyan wanted to discuss Maxim and what he’d found out about the Yazov bratva, or the current events in Chicago, but he needed to get his idea across first.
Something that was just as important—even if only to him.
“I’ve been giving this some thought,” he said before his father could start the conversation where he wanted to while the waitress moved to pour a cup of black coffee for Demyan.
Roman said it at the right time because the presence of the waitress assured his father wouldn’t discuss anything but the food and weather around an unknown female. At their silence, the waitress smiled—bubbly and sing-song—with a greeting already on the tip of her tongue.
He assumed that kindness and personable attitude worked with most other people, but Demyan didn’t even met the woman’s gaze when she asked, “What can I get for you guys?”
His father didn’t hesitate to reply, “A stack of pancakes.”
Roman nodded, adding, “Blueberries only for fruit. Do they still make the whipped cream?”
“People complain about the stuff in the can unless it’s for pie, so,” the short brunette replied with a shrug.
“Because it sucks—whipped cream, too.”
Demyan grinned to himself before saying, “Hazelnut spread—anything else is good for toppings, too. The usual. Thank you.”
Before the woman could even think she’d begun earning the likely hundred-dollar tip his father would leave on the table, she was shooed with a wave of Demyan’s hand and nothing more. While he would discuss the weather or food, if he had to, nobody could say the man liked to.
Dismissed, the waitress headed away from their table without as much as a glance over her shoulder. Demyan worked on adding sugar and cream from the table to the famously strong black coffee, telling his son at the same time, “You were thinking, you said—about what?”
Right.
Now or never.
“Our property in Vermont,” Roman replied, already making his father’s brow dip dangerously, “... maybe that’s where Karine could stay. Instead of moving from one hotel to the next in the city. I think that’s part of her issue, why she can’t sleep. She doesn’t stay in one place long enough to get comfortable, so someone is always up at one hour or the next. If you get what I mean.”
Demyan picked up his coffee and took a big gulp, holding the steaming mug against his lips long enough for Roman
to think it might burn, but his father had no reaction. Pain, he had learned a long time ago, was something his father used. Something he had managed to control.
But other than the knot in his father’s brow, Demyan offered no other response to Roman’s suggestion of taking Karine to their private family property in Vermont. The place was sacred—to his grandparents, even his father. For reasons he was sure he didn’t even understand, but the fact his father didn’t speak for more than a few seconds had Roman’s heart thundering loud in his ears.
“What’s happening in Chicago—why did you call me here?” he finally asked.
Clearly, something was happening.
So, let’s get straight to the point, then, Roman thought. His father glanced up at him with his jaw tight, muttering, “I spoke to Maxim last night. The fucker finally returned my calls. Imagine.”
“And?”
Demyan chuckled dryly, shaking his head. “Honestly? I don’t know anymore than I did before he called me. I have more questions than I do answers, and a part of me thinks that might have been the point.”
Picking the coffee up for another sip, his father pulled it away only to say, “He ended the call about as fast as he started it. He made some strange—well, he apologized to me, and told me to convey to Karine that he loved her.”
That last bit came out quieter than the rest. Offered to Roman as if he should consider it more carefully than the rest, and he did. He didn’t miss it, but it didn’t impress him ... considering Maxim’s treatment of his daughter .
Some things couldn’t be forgiven.
To him.
Sitting a bit stiffer in the booth, Roman mutter under his breath, “What fucking shit is he on, or—”
“I got word about what happened last night at the Yazov mansion,” his father interrupted before Roman’s anger could make itself properly known. “Presumably straight after Maxim called me.”
That froze him in the chair, though.
Cold.
“There was a big fire. Everything burned down. The mansion is as good as gone, or so I was told.”
“The fuck,” Roman said. “Seriously?”
