I could get used to this.
As much as you can get used to being woken up by a very skilled tongue licking between your thighs, anyway.
I smile and stretch my arms over my head. Yakov presses a huge hand to my stomach, pinning me down as he works the flat of his tongue across me.
“Good morning to you, too.” I close my eyes and try to soak in every second of it.
The early morning light coming through the window, the brush of Yakov’s stubble against my sensitive skin, the rough touch of his hands on my waist, my hips, my chest…
This isn’t something I thought I would ever have. Definitely not with a man like Yakov. This mishmashed relationship of ours could have easily ended up as nothing more than a string of stolen moments and passionate nights broken up by long stretches of my lonely pining.
Then he found me under his office desk. Everything changed after that.
We can’t stop fucking, for starters. Any hour of the day and night, you can find me on my knees or my back while Yakov growls and roars and spills into me. I’ve come on all fours, on top of him, beneath him. I’ve moaned into windowsills and throw pillows and into the muzzle of Yakov’s hand clenched over my panting mouth. I’m sore around the clock.
It’s incredible.
This morning is a soft one. Softer than last night’s frantic doggystyle in the gym, at least. I can still feel the light bruises where he held my hips in place. Yakov flicks his tongue over my clit and I melt. My thighs clench around his ears and my back bends as I near the brink.
Okay, so I guess not everything has changed. I still come embarrassingly fast every single time. Thank every higher power in existence for that.
But now, once he’s done wringing countless orgasms out of my helpless body, he pulls me into his side and we fall asleep. He’s there when I wake up, too.
Things feel good between us.
Yakov plunges a finger into me, curling his roughened fingertip against my insides while his tongue circles and teases.
“Holy fuck,” I hiss, gripping the headboard. “That feels s-so good. Great. Never stop.”
I feel the curve of his lips against me. The fact that he’s between my legs, smiling, is too much to take. I catch my breath and release it in a ragged exhale. My body tightens around his finger. Pleasure pounds through me until I’m nothing more than a limp impression in the mattress.
Yakov climbs over me. His lips glisten with the evidence of what he just did. He kisses my stomach and roughly sucks my nipple into his mouth. Then he rolls me over and fills me.
Sex has never felt this easy with anyone. I give myself over to his touch and he takes care of me. I’m not trapped in my head, straining and fighting for release the way I had to with Benjy. Coming with Yakov is easier than breathing. It’s natural.
“I’m close.” I fist the comforter in my hands.
“Not yet,” Yakov demands. “Only when I tell you.”
His fingers dig into the soft curve of my hips. He drives into me again and again. Each thrust slides deeper.
I grit my teeth and hold myself at bay as long as I can. But when he speeds up, I’m hopeless. “I can’t,” I gasp. “Yakov, I need to—”
“Come for me,” he growls. “Now.” Just as I release, he slams into me and stays there. “I feel you, solnyshka.”
We lie there, breathless and spent, until Yakov rolls off of me. He kisses my shoulder and slides out of bed.
“I don’t know how you can even walk after that,” I laugh. “My legs are jello.”
Yakov pulls on a shirt and pads to the closet for pants. “I don’t have a choice. I have work to do today.”
“Again?” I don’t want to sound like I’m pouting, but the one thing that hasn’t changed over the last few days is that I still spend a lot of time alone during the day.
The garden has given me something to think about and I’ve barely made a dent in the stash of ebooks on my Kindle. I have things to do. It’s just that none of those things are nearly as fun as being around Yakov.
Yakov comes out of the closet with pants on. It feels like a crime to see him clothed now that I know exactly what is going on underneath.
“I’ll be back tonight.” He snags my calf and twists me to the edge of the bed. I yelp, but it doesn’t stop him. He presses a soothing palm over my still-pulsing center. “I’ll make it worth the wait.”
Two orgasms before eight in the morning and I could still go for a third. “You’re going to kill me at this rate.”
Amusement sparks in his eyes. “Never, solnyshka. I’ll take you to the edge, but you’ll survive. It’s the only way we can do it again.”
He leaves. I miss him before the door even clicks closed.
Things are magical… when Yakov is around.
I feel fulfilled and content… when Yakov is around.
It’s the moment he leaves that I realize how empty the rest of my life here is. I have an ache that hobbies and movies and days lounging by the pool can’t fill.
I need a friend.
Which is why after days of keeping the burner phone from Yakov’s office stashed in the bottom drawer of the dresser, I pull it out.
I meant what I said when I told him that I trusted him. I do.
I also meant it when I said that I didn’t need answers to all of my questions. I don’t.
But I do need Kayla.
I set the phone up with my debit card and tap in Kayla’s phone number. She made me memorize it years ago. “If you get kidnapped and don’t have your phone, you’ll need to be able to call me,” she said as she quizzed me over and over again on her number.
I never thought it would actually play out like that. I also never thought I’d fall for the man who kidnapped me. It goes to show that I don’t know a damn thing.
“Hello, Kayla Stevenson speaking,” she answers.
I smile at her “Professional Kayla” voice. “Hello, Miss Stevenson. This is Miss McCarthy calling to—”
“Holy shit, Loon, I’ve been dying over here!” Kayla hisses into the phone. She’s whispering, so she must be at work. “Give me a second. Hold on. Don’t hang up.”
I hear static and muffled voices as Kayla talks to people in her office. Then her heels make their familiar click across the bathroom tiles and she’s back. “I have so much to tell you. Where have you been?”
In bed. With Yakov. Not experiencing Horny Stockholm syndrome, that’s for sure. Kayla won’t buy it, so I keep it generic. “Around.”
“You’re still at his house, right?” she asks. “You better be. If you escaped and didn’t immediately sprint your ass to my apartment, our friendship would be over.”
“I’m not trying to escape, Kayla. Yakov is keeping me safe.”
“Right, right,” she drawls. “But if you did escape…?”
“If I left, you would definitely be my first stop.” I roll my eyes, but can’t help but smile.
This is why I need to talk to Kayla. To remember what it’s like to be a person outside of this house.
I sit on the window seat overlooking the side of Yakov’s property. I’m far enough away from the door that no one passing in the hallway can see me. And as a bonus, I can see the driveway. I’ll know if Yakov’s car comes back.
Guilt gnaws at my stomach, but I shove it down. I’m lying to Yakov, yes. But it’s just so I can talk to my friend. He’d understand that… right?
“Now that that’s settled,” Kayla says, “I have a metric fuckton of stuff to tell you.”
“About what? Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone out here is fine. It’s you we’re worried about.”
I freeze. “Who is ‘we’? No one can know what’s going on, Kayla. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”
She sighs. “No, I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t asking questions. I know you fancy yourself a spare tire, but the rest of us think you are vital to the group.”
I snort. “It’s called ‘third-wheeling.’ I’m not a spare tire.”
“That’s not the point!” she snaps, mostly at herself. “I have stuff to tell you, Loon. About Yakov.”
Instinctively, I look towards the door. As if the sound of his name will summon him. He’s powerful, but I don’t think he’s that powerful.
Still, I turn away from the door and lower my voice. “What do you mean? You don’t even know him.”
“I don’t need to know him. I just need to type his name in a search bar. Luna, do you have any idea who you are living with?”
The question pokes at some tender part of me that knows there are still way more questions than answers where Yakov is concerned. A part of me that worries, deep down, I’ll never truly know him. Not in the ways I want to.
I wave that dark cloud away. “Of course I do, Kayla. Yakov has been honest with me.”
“Okay. Cool. Great. So you are super chill living with a man who is rumored to have killed the leader of a rival crime family, then? That feels super normal and not at all terrifying to you?”
Yakov told me he got revenge for his father’s murder. I asked him what that meant, but I already knew. How else do you seek revenge? He could take the person responsible to court and sit through a lengthy trial, but Yakov doesn’t strike me as that type. He takes matters into his own hands.
Still, hearing Kayla say it so plainly sends a shiver down my spine.
“Luna?” Kayla calls. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Yes, I’m here. Sorry.”
“So?” she snaps. “Did you know that?”
“I knew… something like that,” I admit. “Yes. I told you, Yakov has been honest with me.”
She barks out a laugh. “Well, you’re the only one. He also has a massive list of suspected crimes: murder, money laundering, racketeering—I don’t even know what that last one means, but it doesn’t sound good.”
I pull my knees to my chest. “I hear you, Kayla. I get it. It sounds scary, but—”
“But what? Are you defending this? You don’t even like to jaywalk.”
“I know, but—”
“You told me it was stealing when I tried to tip a waitress fifteen percent instead of twenty,” she continues. “When I got those edibles from John at work, you wrapped them in a tissue, shoved them in your sunglasses case, and smuggled them home in your purse. That was after weed was legalized.”
“I get it!” I shout. I blow out a long breath and lower my voice. “I get it, okay? I walk the straight and narrow. I’m a boring rule follower and you can’t believe I’d ever get into anything exciting. I hear you.”
“Luna,” Kayla breathes, “I do not think you’re boring. You are, however, my best friend in the world. Which is why I’m worried that you are into something very messy.”
I’ve had that same thought too many times to count over the last couple weeks. Can I really blame Kayla for having it, too?
“Yakov is tight-lipped about some of this information because he thinks knowing about it could put me in even more danger,” I admit. “That means it’s also dangerous for you to know. I would cool it with the Google searches if I were you.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” she laughs. “If our roles were reversed, you’d have an entire dissertation written on the guy by now. A Netflix documentary would be in the works to figure out if he was guilty or not. You would be doing everything imaginable to make sure I was safe and I’m going to do the exact same for you.”
Tears well in my eyes. “I appreciate that, Kay. I love you, and I always want you to be okay. But I’d also trust you if you told me to back off.”
There’s a pause. “Are you telling me to back off?”
“In the kindest way possible… yeah. I love that you care about me, but I really am fine.”
She sighs. “I want to believe you, but I don’t even recognize the number you’re calling from. Did you get a new number?”
“It’s just temporary. It’s a burner phone.”
“Yakov gave you a phone?”
I chew on my lower lip. “I… got the phone from him.”
There is still so much about Yakov’s day-to-day life that I know nothing about. Kayla just aired out his dirty laundry. Yakov is a criminal. A criminal criminal.
And yet…
“Yakov is protecting me,” I tell her. “I really believe that. I trust him.”
Kayla sighs. “I really fucking hope you’re right, girl.”
That makes two of us.
