Oh my god, I’ve never experienced anything like that.
I’ve never been touched like Sebastian touches me.
He sets every nerve in my body on fire. He’s got me gasping, panting, desperate for more.
That wasn’t an orgasm. It was a glimpse at Nirvana.
When we leave the Gallo house, I can barely walk in a straight line. Sebastian can’t stop grinning—he’s pretty fucking pleased with himself. As he should be.
It’s starting to get late. I should really head back home. My father knows I’m still seeing Sebastian—on his orders—but he doesn’t know how often. I sneak out to meet Sebastian multiple times a week, because I can’t get enough of him. But I don’t want my father to know how close we’re getting. That’s not part of his plan.
I don’t know what his plan actually is—all I know is that it doesn’t involve falling head-over-heels for our enemy.
Still, I can’t seem to stop myself.
I’m so confused. Part of me thinks I should break things off with Sebastian. I know this can’t possibly end well. If I actually care about him, I should end it now, and tell my father Sebastian doesn’t want to see me anymore. That will put a stop to whatever idea he’s got in his head.
But the idea of cutting this off . . . I can’t stand it.
This is the first time in my life that I’ve ever felt happy. When I’m with Sebastian, I forget about my father, and his soldiers and lieutenants, and our house that’s like a gilded prison. I forget about the constant pressure and constant disapproval. The unspoken threats. The total lack of privacy and the assumption that I’m just an accessory that can be used as my father sees fit.
Sebastian makes me laugh. He makes me feel safe. He takes me to beautiful places, so we can experience new sights and smells and tastes together.
When I’m with him, I feel like myself. Not like a daughter, or sister, or Bratva princess. Just Yelena.
I want to tell him the truth. At the very least, I should tell him that it wasn’t chance that we met that night. That I wasn’t actually being kidnapped. I’m embarrassed by that deception. I was following my father’s orders—he thought it was crucial that Sebastian and I seemed to meet by chance. And he thought the best way to captivate Sebastian was to make him think that he “saved” me.
Now I realize that it only worked because Sebastian is a good man. He intervened to help a stranger. He protected me, before he knew a thing about me.
He had no idea that I was a shiny lure, with a hook concealed inside.
I have to tell him.
But I’m afraid.
We’ve only known each other a few weeks. If I tell him I was lying to him from the moment we met . . . why would he ever trust me again?
I’m in a hole, and I don’t know how to get out. Every day that passes, I dig down deeper and deeper. Every time I stay silent, it’s like I’m lying to him all over again.
He’ll be angry. I know he will. He won’t want to see me anymore.
I can’t go back to the way my life was before—dull and lonely. Without even a glimmer of hope.
Besides, if Sebastian breaks up with me, if my father finds out that I ruined his plans . . . I don’t know what he’ll do to me. His temper is horrifying. When he goes into a rage, nothing and no one is safe from him.
I’m in such an awful position.
“What should we do now?” Sebastian asks me.
“I probably should go home . . .” I tell him.
“Don’t go yet,” he urges. “Stay with me a little longer.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Let’s drive up to the dunes and sit out on the sand for a while. I’ve got some blankets in the back of the truck.”
The thought of sitting on the lakeshore with Sebastian is a thousand times more enticing than the idea of going home. Even though I know it’s a bad idea, I can’t resist.
I climb into Sebastian’s truck, which is becoming more and more familiar to me. I love the way it smells like him—like hawthorn and nutmeg, like fresh laundry and rubber. The seats are worn, and the windshield is cracked. I like that Sebastian doesn’t care. Despite his good looks, he isn’t vain. He doesn’t wear brand-name clothes or an expensive watch.
In fact, the only jewelry he wears is the tiny gold medallion on a chain around his neck.
“What is that?” I ask him.
“It’s St. Eustachius. Patron saint of hunters, trappers, firefighters, and, uh . . . difficult situations.”
“I didn’t know you were Catholic.”
“I’m not. My uncle was. He used to wear this every day. He said it was lucky. Then he gave it to me . . . and he died a month later. So maybe he was right.”
I swallow hard, thinking of the Winter Diamond. Kristoff put it in a vault, and he was shot shortly thereafter. If my father’s right, the Gallos don’t have the stone anymore either. They sold it to fund their real estate development.
“How did your uncle die?” I ask Sebastian.
He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, turning the wheel to head out of the city, toward the state park.
“Well . . . he was killed by Bratva,” he says. “But I don’t want you to feel bad about that. It was fifteen years ago, when the Chicago chapter was run by the boss before the last boss. So . . . I doubt it was anyone you know.”
My stomach is churning, and my face is on fire. I should tell Sebastian. I should tell him.
But I can’t. There’s so much bad blood between our families. So much mistrust. He only likes me because he thinks I’m different from my father and his men. If he finds out I was part of their plan from the beginning . . . he won’t forgive me. He won’t be able to see past that. And his family won’t, either. They’ll be certain it’s proof that I’m Bratva, too. A liar and schemer. Full of ill-intent and rivalry.
“Were you close to him?” I ask Sebastian.
“Yes,” he says. “He was my father’s youngest brother—not that much older than Dante. So he kind of seemed like a big brother to me, too. He was competitive. He loved to take the piss out of people. But he wasn’t cruel. You know, most people who like to tease and joke, they cross the line sometimes. They don’t really care if you’re laughing along with them. Francesco wasn’t like that. He didn’t hit you where it hurt. But he was over-confident. He never thought he could lose at anything. Even if he was ten pieces down playing chess against Nero, he always thought he was about to come back . . .”
Sebastian sighs, pulling into the parking lot next to the beach, and turning off the engine.
“That’s probably what got him killed. When you’re endlessly optimistic . . . you’re going to be wrong eventually.”
Sebastian climbs out of the truck, grabbing a couple of heavy outdoor blankets from the bed.
We take our shoes and socks off, leaving them in the truck, so we can walk across the sand barefoot.
The dunes aren’t as crowded as the beaches close to the city, especially not in the evening on a weekday. Sebastian and I walk far up the shore, away from any other people. It’s a little rockier here, but I don’t mind. We have the blankets to lay on.
The sun has almost gone down. Heat is still radiating up from the sand. Even more heat comes out of Sebastian’s body. I’m laying with my head on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his lungs. Little waves break on the beach, in almost exactly the same rhythm.
He’s stroking his hands through my hair.
Sebastian has an incredible sense of touch. His hands are so large and long fingered that you’d think they’d be clumsy, but it’s exactly the opposite. He’s a true athlete, never uncoordinated. He touches me with the perfect mix of strength and delicacy, not too hard or too soft. Teasing out my most sensitive and responsive areas.
Even though he’s so tall, his movements are smooth and precise. His reflexes are perfect. I think I could sweep an entire set of dishes off a countertop, and he’d catch every one before they hit the floor.
And then there’s that face.
I roll over on my side to look at him.
His skin is so deeply tanned that you might think he was Latin. His face is long and lean, with a little stubble that fails to hide the boyishness of his features. His eyes are the most striking part of him. They’re brown, but not any brown I’ve seen before. The irises contain every shade of caramel and gold, bordered by dark smoky rings, and framed by thick black lashes. His eyebrows are straight, dark slashes, and his thick curls hang down almost over his eyes.
Then those lips . . . almost as full as mine. Finely shaped, but still completely masculine.
I lean over to kiss him.
Every time I kiss Sebastian, I think I’ll get used to it. I think it will start to feel mundane. But that never happens. Every single time, he takes my breath away all over again.
The whole world falls away around us—the last rays of the sun, the warm, rough sand, the sound of the water on the shore. It all disappears, and all I can feel are his lips and tongue, and his strong hands gripping my shoulders.
Sebastian rolls over on top of me. I realize how big and strong he really is, with his full weight on top of me. I’m completely hidden beneath him. Completely trapped under him.
I don’t feel afraid. Quite the opposite—it seems like the safest place in the world.
I want to stay inside his arms forever.
He kisses me deeper, his body grinding against mine. I can feel his cock stiffening, pressing against my bare thigh with only his jeans between us.
I feel my own body responding. He made me cum harder than I have in my life only an hour ago, but already I want more. Already I’m dying to feel that same sensation flushing through my system, wiping every fear and stress out of my mind.
His cock is getting harder and harder, until the pressure on my leg is almost painful. His arousal makes me aroused. It makes me want to touch him the way he touched me.
I reach down and snap open the button of his jeans. I tug down his zipper and reach inside his boxer shorts.
His cock is so hard that it’s rammed down the leg of his jeans. I can barely slip my hand down to touch it.
I close my hand around his shaft, shocked by its thickness. His cock is bigger than a banana—it’s almost as thick as my own wrist. And much warmer. I can feel it throbbing against my palm. Sebastian groans with frustration.
Gently, I tug his cock upright, and it gets even harder, now that the blood can flow freely. His erection juts out the open fly of his jeans, his cock brown and veiny, with a heavy head swollen with blood.
I stroke his cock with my hand, marveling that I’m doing something completely forbidden out here in the open. I’m not allowed to touch a man like this. I’m not allowed to do anything sexual without my father’s permission.
I can’t believe how simultaneously soft and hard Sebastian’s cock is. The skin is like silk, and the flesh beneath is iron. When my fingers catch the little ridge under the head of his cock, Sebastian moans into my mouth.
His cock is leaking fluid, which helps lubricate my hand. I slide my palm back and forth across the head, gently tugging and squeezing. Sebastian is thrusting into my hand, and those powerful thrusts make me soaking wet, imagining what it would feel like to have that cock penetrating another part of my body.
Sebastian reaches his hand under my skirt and slips his fingers inside my panties so he can touch me at the same time. My pussy is still swollen and sensitive from earlier. He rubs his fingers in gentle circles on my clit, then reaches down a little lower to slide his finger inside of me.
Oh my god, just the feeling of that finger is exquisite. The warmth and pleasure is like an itch being scratched.
I want more. I want so much more than that.
Sebastian wants it, too.
Without speaking, I pull off my underwear and spread my legs a little wider. Sebastian positions his warm, heavy cock at my entrance, looking down into my eyes.
“Are you sure?” he asks me.
I’m not sure. Actually, if I’m sure of anything, it’s that this is a terrible idea. I’m not supposed to even fool around with Sebastian, let alone let him take my virginity.
My father subscribes to the American idiom, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” He intends to sell this particular cow for a hefty price. He’ll be enraged if he discovers I’ve destroyed my value in his eyes.
But here’s the problem. I want to fuck Sebastian. I want it more desperately than I’ve ever wanted anything.
If my father intends to sell me off at some point in the future . . . then I want to lose my virginity right here and now, with the person of my choice. No one can steal what I don’t have anymore.
“I want you,” I tell Sebastian.
That’s 100 percent true. No lies, no hidden motivation.
Sebastian pushes his cock inside of me, slowly at first. Even though I can tell he’s being as careful as possible, it still hurts. He’s just so fucking big. A tampon or a finger isn’t close. Not even a tenth the size.
Seeing me wince, he pauses and says, “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Keep going.”
Sebastian kisses me again, stroking my hair back from my face with his free hand. That feels good. My body relaxes just a little, and his cock slides in a little more. But it’s not all the way in yet. It’s reached a kind of sticking point, where it doesn’t seem to want to go any further.
Sebastian doesn’t seem impatient. He kisses and holds me, his tongue soft and warm in my mouth, his breath sweet and sensual. He touches my face, he caresses my breasts.
And then, finally, with one more thrust, he breaks through the last barrier. I feel a sharp, tearing sensation, and a flood of warmth. Now his cock is better lubricated. It slides all the way in, until I’m completely filled by him.
He’s all the way inside of me, and I’m looking up in his eyes, thinking this is the closest I’ve ever been to another person. Whatever happens after this, Sebastian will be my first lover, now and always.
My pussy is burning with pain and intensity. Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, running down toward my ears.
“Are you okay?” Sebastian asks me.
I nod, saying, “I’m good. It’s just . . . a lot.”
“You feel incredible,” Sebastian says. “You’re so beautiful, Yelena . . . I know you know that, but I have to tell you anyway.”
He starts to thrust in and out of me, slowly and carefully. Now, finally, I feel something more like pleasure than pain. A warmth deep inside of me, which spreads outward until my pussy feels that pleasant ache again, and my whole body relaxes and thrums with sensation.
I can hear the waves again. If the ocean were pleasure, and my body sand, then each time Sebastian thrusts into me, it’s like a wave breaking on the shore, soaking me in bliss.
And like the tide, the waves are coming stronger and faster. I feel like I’m about to be submerged.
“Keep going,” I beg him. “Just like that.”
Sebastian wraps his arms around me, pressing our bodies tight together. He kisses me, his tongue thrusting into my mouth at the same time as his cock penetrates deep inside of me. My thighs are wrapped around his, and my clit is grinding against his body. Every inch of my skin is lined up with his. The more we touch, the more intense the sensation.
I can feel his breath speeding up in time with his thrusts. His ass is flexing against my calves, driving into me harder and harder. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore—all I feel is warm, liquid pleasure, running through my veins like honey.
I already had the best climax of my life today.
What’s building now isn’t a climax—it’s a fucking tsunami.
I kiss Sebastian ferociously. I’m biting at his lips, clawing at his back. I need more, more, more of him.
Sebastian squeezes me so hard I can’t breathe. He gives one last monstrous thrust into me, and he lets out a long, strangled howl. I feel his cock twitching and pulsing, buried to the hilt in my pussy. That twitching tips me over the edge. With each pulse of cum, my pussy contracts. I’m clamped around him, my whole body shaking, my eyes rolled back in my head. I can’t see, or feel, or hear anything except the brilliant flashes of color in my brain. I’m cumming so hard that I think my soul left my body.
When I come to again, the beach is dark. There’s no warmth in the sand, and the sky overhead is black, studded with cool white stars. It’s the most stars I’ve seen since I came to this city.
Sebastian is warm. His heavy body blankets me, his cock still inside of me. He has one arm wrapped tight around me, and his other hand cradling the back of my head. His face is buried in my neck.
“Look,” I whisper.
He looks up at the sky, seeing the view you can never see when you’re fully inside the city, because the light pollution drowns it out.
“You like stars, don’t you?” he says. “You always point them out.”
“My mother got me a telescope. When we went out to the country, we’d go up on the roof to use it.”
“Sometimes it freaks me out thinking about space,” Sebastian says.
“I find it comforting. Everything out there is so much bigger than anything happening here. Nothing we do can move a single star by even an inch.”
“You look like something that fell from heaven,” Sebastian says, kissing me gently on the temple.
His arms are wrapped tight around me.
I don’t want him to ever let go.
But I’m realizing how late it is. The dunes are almost an hour from Chicago. We have to get back.
I start to sit up, and Sebastian gently disentangles from me. When his cock pulls free, I see there’s blood on his shaft, and on my thighs.
“Are you okay?” Sebastian says, frowning with concern.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. I’m alarmed at the blood, though, worried that I got some on my dress, since I never actually took it off, only pulled it up around my waist. I have no idea where my underwear went.
“Here,” Sebastian says. “Use the blanket to clean up if you like—it’s old, it doesn’t matter.”
The blanket takes care of the worst of the mess, but I still can’t find my panties. I either flung them somewhere, or they’re buried in the sand.
“Never mind,” I say to Sebastian. “We better just leave. I wasn’t supposed to be out this late.”
“Sure,” he says, gathering up the blankets. “Let’s go.”
He takes my arm to help me back across the sand. I think I’m walking awkwardly, as I do feel a bit raw and sore.
Once we’re back in the truck, Sebastian turns to me and says, “That was incredible, Yelena. Just . . . incredible.”
I feel suddenly shy, and yet I want to tell him what I was feeling in that moment.
Biting my lip, I say, “I wanted you to be my first.”
Sebastian starts the engine.
“This is a first for me, too,” he says, throwing a quick glance in my direction. “The first time I . . . the first time I’m falling in love with someone.”
I’m so dumbfounded that for a moment I think I misheard him.
“Me?” I say. “You’re falling in love with me?”
Sebastian laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I hope that’s okay.”
I’ve never felt two such opposing emotions at once. Absolute joy at the thought that Sebastian could actually love me, and terror at the thought of losing him when he finds out what I’ve done.
Misreading my expression, he says, “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it too—I know this is way too early. I just wanted you to know that this isn’t about sex for me. I mean, I wanted to sleep with you of course. I was dying to. But it’s so much more than that. From the moment I met you, Yelena, I was stunned. You’re a fighter. You’re ferocious, and proud, and brilliant, and I love that about you. You’re brave.”
I can feel tears pricking at my eyes.
He’s wrong.
I’m not brave.
If I were brave, I would tell him the truth. I’d tell my father to fuck off, and damn the consequences.
But I’m terrified of my father. He’s the monster who’s haunted my nightmares since I was a toddler. No one could understand what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of a vengeful god—to know that at any moment if you displease him, he could destroy anything and everything you hold dear. To know that he takes pleasure in hurting you, in crushing out the last bit of your rebellious spirit.
Worst of all, my father isn’t evil all the time. If I could just hate him constantly, that would be easier. He’s so much more insidious than that. He’s bought me gifts and allowed me favors. He’s given me compliments, and even good advice from time to time. He shows benevolence and humanity when it suits him.
He does that to find the weaknesses in my armor. To make me question my own judgment. He provides just enough hope that sometimes I think, “Maybe he’ll let me apply to university. Maybe he’ll let me marry a man I love, someday. Maybe he’s growing kinder. Maybe he’ll love me.”
He uses the carrot and the stick. And he saves up the information he learns so he can hit me with it at the worst possible moment. I never know what he knows or doesn’t. I never know if I’m safe. His manipulation is so entrenched that sometimes I believe he can read the thoughts in my head.
My mother used to bear the brunt of his abuse. But after she died, it focused almost entirely on me.
Now I feel like I’m bound in chains in the darkest of dungeons. Sebastian is offering me a key—a way to get out. But I’m so goddamned terrified that I don’t know if I even have the strength to try the locks. Because my father is always watching.
So all I can do is shake my head silently. Wanting to tell Sebastian everything, but unable to do it.
“You are brave,” Sebastian says, smiling at me. “You stood in the skybox. If you can do that, you can do anything.”
Sebastian drops me off at home. I was supposed to be out shopping, but there’s no point continuing with that ruse, since the malls closed hours ago, and I don’t have any bags of clothing with me.
I can see that the light is off in my father’s office, as well as on most of the main floor. A little kernel of hope blooms in my chest, thinking that he must be out. I’ll be able to sneak in unnoticed.
But as soon as I open the front door, I’m faced with the hulking, silent figure of Rodion Abdulov.
Rodion has worked for my father for twelve years, since his last boss cut out his tongue.
Maybe that’s why he’s so relentlessly loyal—to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Bratva. To quash any suspicion that he might have resentment over losing the ability to speak. Or maybe it’s just his nature. Whatever the reason, he follows my father’s orders to the smallest degree, no matter how heinous they might be.
He seems to have decided that his most important task of all is to keep an eye on me.
Adrian has a different theory. He thinks Rodion is fixated on me. He thinks Rodion believes that if he serves my father loyally, I’ll be given to him as a prize.
It is true that Rodion watches me constantly, following me from room to room in the house. But the way he looks at me is nothing like love. It’s more like suspicion or hatred. Maybe he knows how I feel about my father, and he thinks I’m dangerous.
I try to walk past him. He shifts his bulk so he’s blocking my way.
Rodion is a beast of a man, with short, dark hair almost exactly the same length as his beard. His small, round head sits on a body the shape of a refrigerator, with no neck in between. His eyes are little slits in the puffy flesh of his face, and his nose has been broken several times. I don’t know what his teeth look like, because he doesn’t speak or smile.
It’s his hands that upset me the most. He has thick, stubby fingers that I’ve seen bathed in blood too many times. Even after he cleans up, the remnants of blood linger under his fingernails, and in the deep crevices of his hands.
He uses those hands to make his own curt, unlovely signs. It’s not normal sign language—they’re signs that he invented, that his boyeviks understand. I understand them too, though I pretend I don’t.
“Get out of my way, please,” I say to him coldly. “I want to go up to my room.”
Slowly, without moving, he points at the door.
He’s asking where I was.
“None of your business,” I say. I’m trying to keep my voice as haughty as possible, so he doesn’t see my nervousness. But Rodion doesn’t shift his position in front of me. His piggy little eyes roam over my body.
I can feel his eyes like insects crawling on my skin. I hate it at all times, but it’s particularly intolerable now, when I’m already feeling nervous about what I’ve just done.
His eyes fix on the skirt of my dress. The hem is dusty from contact with the sand, but that’s not what he’s looking at. He’s looking at the single spot of dark red blood on the skirt.
He turns his palm over, hand open—his sign for “What?” He’s asking me what happened.
“It’s nothing,” I say impatiently. “Just a little wine from lunch.”
Rodion isn’t fooled. He knows what blood looks like better than anyone.
Grabbing the front of my dress, he shoves me up against the wall. I consider screaming, but what good would that do? Any men who came running would be Rodion’s soldiers.
I know Rodion has weapons on him at all times—a knife in his pocket, and another strapped to his calf. Sometimes two guns in holsters beneath his jacket. And always, a Beretta tucked in the back waistband of his pants.
He doesn’t need any weapon to subdue me, besides his own strength and size.
He’s got me pinned against the wall with one meaty forearm, his glittering dark eyes staring down into mine. I can smell his cologne, which isn’t warm and pleasant like Sebastian’s—it’s sharp and acidic, like alcohol. Beneath that, the musky animal scent of his sweat.
“Let go of me,” I hiss, trying to hide my terror.
Instead, Rodion forces my feet apart with his boot. He reaches under my skirt with one hand, keeping me pinned to the wall with the other. Now I do shriek, but it doesn’t matter. He touches my pussy with his thick fingers, feeling the flesh that’s still swollen and sore.
When he pulls his hand away, I see the gleam of blood and my own wetness on his fingertips. Possibly Sebastian’s fluids, too.
My heart stops dead in my chest.
If he tells my father about this, Papa will know what I’ve done.
At that moment, my brother comes into the foyer. For a moment he looks shocked, and then his face darkens with fury.
“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER!” he shouts.
Rodion steps away from me, taking his heavy forearm off my chest. I can breathe again, but just barely, because my ribs are still tight with fear.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Adrian demands. “How DARE you touch her?”
Rodion looks between us with silent disdain. He respects my brother more than me, but ultimately he answers only to our father.
He doesn’t bother to make a sign to either of us. He just turns and walks away down the dark hallway.
As soon as he’s gone, I sink down against the wall, shaking with the difficulty of holding back my tears.
Adrian sits down beside me, alarmed and confused.
“What’s wrong, fasol?” he asks me. “Fasol’ ” is “bean.” It’s been his nickname for me since we were children, because we were two peas in a pod.
I want to tell my brother everything, but even here I can’t be sure that no one is listening.
So I just press my face into his shoulder so I can cry silently.
