I suck in my first real breath when the doctor says that Yan will survive.
He lost a lot of blood and he’s still unconscious, but there’s no immediate threat to his life.
Those words tear into my chest and lodge against my heart with a force that robs me of balance. I grab Adrian’s arm and anchor myself as we stand in the middle of Yan’s room that’s located in the guest house, the place Adrian never allowed me in before now.
He’s on his back, chest bandaged, no more blood leaving his body, but he’s not opening his eyes either. His pretty model face is pasty pale and his lips are chapped.
Kolya is by his side, checking his temperature just as the doctor showed him. I don’t miss that they have an onsite doctor, or that he didn’t ask any questions about why he had to treat a gunshot patient in Adrian’s house.
He just nodded and left as if this were an everyday occurrence.
It probably is.
“How is his temperature?” I ask Kolya as he stares at the device in his hand.
The room is plain, with a bed in the middle and a closet in the corner. The only light comes from the lamp on the nightstand, casting dark shadows across Yan’s pale face.
“It’s high, but not alarming.” Kolya straightens, and even though his usual scowl is strapped in place, there’s a subtle wariness in his posture. “I’ll make sure it goes down through the night.”
I take a step forward. “I’ll stay, too.”
“No.” Adrian grabs me by the elbow and pulls me back. “You did your part. Leave it to Kolya now.”
“He’s right, Mrs. Volkov. Thank you for everything you’ve done. If you hadn’t carried him or tried to stop his bleeding, he wouldn’t have made it.” Kolya offers what resembles a smile. He’s just like his boss in that department. They could use a lesson or two from the lively Yan.
“It was nothing.”
I want to stay and watch over Yan, but Adrian carries me in his arms and leaves the guest house, heading to the main one. He’s been doing it since earlier because I have no shoes on, and I’m thankful because my legs can’t carry me properly. My hands inside my bloodied gloves rest on my lap and I try not to get caught up in the sight of them and recall what happened to Yan.
“Hold on to me, Lia,” Adrian says sternly.
“They’re bloodied.”
“Do I look like I care?”
He doesn’t, but I do. Even as I wrap my arms around his neck, I try to keep the gloves away. I don’t want to get blood on him.
There shouldn’t be any blood near him.
As soon as we’re inside the room, I squirm so he’ll let me go. In the bright light, I can see the crimson on my gloves, all over my coat, and down my dress. It’s everywhere, like a second skin.
Adrian lowers me to my feet and I scoot away. He clicks the door shut, and when he advances toward me, his eyes are hooded, dark, as if they’re brewing a storm or a volcano or both.
His white tuxedo shirt has smudges of blood on it. There’s some on his forehead, too. I don’t like it. I don’t want it on him and I hate that I’m the reason it’s there.
There really shouldn’t be blood on him.
I frown. That’s the second time I’ve had that thought in a few seconds. I have no clue why I’m plagued by that, but I know that I can’t see the crimson color on him. It tugs on a dark part of me where that black box I was trapped in exists.
“I… I’m going to take a shower.” I slip past him to the door. “I’ll do it in one of the other rooms.”
My hand is on the doorknob when his body flattens mine from behind, his hard muscles and tall build dwarfing my smaller frame. His palm covers my bloodied gloves over the doorknob as he whispers against the shell of my ear, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Shower…” My voice is low, breathy, and sounds insincere because showering is actually the last thing I want to do right now.
“Do you have any idea how worried I was?” He rubs his chin against the side of my head as his fingers undo the clips holding my hair. The strands fall to my back and he nuzzles his nose against it, inhaling me in. “I thought I’d lost you again, Lia.”
My eyes close, soaking in the deep, low tenor of his voice and the feel of him behind me. It’s safe and so damn familiar. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts right now, not when he’s speaking about another woman, but I’m unable to think past his presence. His touch. His words.
I’ve become addicted to him instead of alcohol. His brutal punishments and my overwhelming orgasms have become my new fix, but he took it away and that hurt more than not drinking. At least with the lack of alcohol, it was a headache. With him, my whole body has been going through withdrawal.
I’ve been starved for so long—an eternity it seems—and tonight’s events only added to my hunger.
Adrian’s lips brush against the curve of my jaw and trail down to the hollow of my throat, nibbling, sucking.
My muscles lose their rigidity from earlier and I relax into his grasp, my fingers releasing the doorknob. Adrian holds my jaw with two fingers, lifting it so he can kiss my neck, then my collarbone, before moving back to my jaw.
The blood doesn’t deter him. It’s as if it doesn’t exist.
He whirls me around and I stare up at him as my behind meets the solid surface of the door.
He stares back as he removes his jacket and follows with my coat. I’m silent, as one item of clothing follows the other, pooling around me.
Adrian threads the fingers of one hand through my hair as the other finds my zipper, undoing it in one swift move. The material slides down my arms before it joins the rest of the clothes scattered on the floor. I’m standing in nothing but a strapless bra and black lace panties.
I’m half-naked, and yet I don’t feel vulnerable, because the way Adrian watches me is heated, burning, unlike all the robotic looks he’s given me over the past couple of days.
“I’m so proud of what you did to help Yan, Lenochka,” he murmurs against my face as he hooks his fingers around the edge of my panties.
“You’re proud of me?” I grab the sides of his shirt for balance.
“I’ve always been proud of you.” He pauses. “Let’s change that to mostly.”
I want to ask if ‘mostly’ includes me or Lia, but I choose not to ruin the moment. I don’t care what he sees me as right now, because I’m the one here.
It’s not Lia.
Me.
Adrian unbuckles his belt and I stare with bated breath as he lets his pants and boxers fall to his feet. He’s always a sight to behold, something that I can’t take my eyes off of, even when my instincts tell me he’s dangerous.
Despite that danger, or more like because of it, I’ve been caught in his orbit with no way of escaping.
He lifts one of my legs and loops it around his waist. I keep it there, unable to look away from his cock. It’s hard, thick, and so ready that my insides flutter with a carnal type of desire.
Adrian enters me slowly, and even with my slick core, his cock forces its way into my body, filling me without being all the way in. As he takes his time, I realize it’s not only desire that’s gripping me, tearing through my flesh and finding refuge in my bones. It’s something deeper, darker, and more sinister. At this moment, I want to watch the way he’s owning me, inch by each agonizing inch. I want to watch how our bodies are joined.
A throaty moan fills the air and I realize it’s mine.
Adrian pauses and a pleased groan spills from his lips. “Fuck, Lenochka… Do you know how many times I’ve thought about hearing your sexy throaty voice?”
I want to bite my lip, to end this, to not allow him to hear my voice when he’s still calling me by another woman’s name, but the look in his eyes stops me. The gray is intense, but not harsh. It’s like being trapped in a bright dream and knowing that I’ll wake up soon, so I should enjoy every second of it.
“You’re so beautiful,” he rasps, rolling his hips until his cock is all the way inside me. “You’re fucking home.”
I gasp at both his words and the way he’s filling me to the point of stretching me in the most delicious way possible.
Home.
He called me home.
My arms circle his neck as I climb up his body so that both of my legs are looped around his waist. I don’t care about the blood or how this is possibly my worst appearance yet.
The only thing that keeps ringing in my head is the word ‘home.’ I’ve never actually had one, not really, and the fact that Adrian is calling me his is triggering a dormant part of me I didn’t think existed.
The part who also wants a home and wants him to show me how much I’m his home.
Adrian drives slowly into me, the new position giving him a depth that allows him to hit me in a sensitive spot with each unhurried thrust.
“You’re so tight, Lenochka. Come on, open up to me.”
I realize then that he’s only taking it slow so he won’t hurt me. Despite his ruthless nature and his merciless punishments, Adrian sometimes treats me as if I’m a crystal glass that will break if he presses hard enough.
That might be true since he is, in fact, huge. He’s so big that I feel a burn every time he pounds inside, even though I’m soaking wet. But it’s the exquisite type. The type that moths wouldn’t mind being burned alive in as long as they get to taste it.
I dig my heels into his ass, urging him silently. Adrian’s lips capture mine as his rhythm increases. His kiss matches the ferocity of his thrusts. First, they’re deep and unhurried. Then, they’re fast and merciless, robbing me of any sense of reason.
It’s impossible to keep up, even if I try. My back hits the door, sliding over it and bumping against it to match the sharp power of his hips, of his kiss, of his whole body.
I’m a marionette in his hands, but he’s not taking my logic away. He’s engraving himself under my skin. He’s stealing my common sense and my breath. He’s opening doors inside me I didn’t realize existed.
Since he started kissing me, I haven’t longed for air. He’s my oxygen now. The reason I’m fighting tooth and nail to hold on to life.
The orgasm hits me so hard, I don’t see it coming until it blasts in my face. I roll my head back, my lips momentarily leaving his. “Aaaah… Adrian! Adrian!”
“Fuck, fuck.”
Hearing him curse only strengthens my orgasm. He’s not the type to curse usually, but he seems to have lost some of his iron control ever since he got me in his arms.
He powers into me with animalistic force, fucking me against the door with deep, furious strokes. “Repeat that. Repeat my name.”
“Adrian,” I whisper, then moan. “Adrian!”
For a moment in time, I feel like I’m suspended in mid-air. My head and heart are lightheaded. My scar doesn’t tingle, my chest doesn’t ache.
I’m free.
In Adrian’s arms, I’m free of everything and everyone. I’m just me.
Those thoughts expand the wave of my orgasm as it swallows me whole. It’s nothing like I’ve ever felt before and it scares me, but I ride it, anyway. My fingers dig into Adrian’s shoulders as a long whimper mixed with a moan spills from my lips.
Adrian comes then. I feel his cum warming my insides as his shoulders tighten beneath my fingers.
“Fuck,” he breathes out against the hollow of my neck.
But he doesn’t even pause as he steps out of his pants and boxers and carries me to the bathroom while he’s still inside me. He removes my gloves and my bra, throwing them behind him. My hands are bloodied, but Adrian doesn’t look at them with disgust, more like with pride.
I’m proud of you, he said.
You’re my home, he also said.
Am I still over the moon because of the orgasm or is this something entirely different?
He puts me on my feet, and I’m a bit unsteady, so he keeps a hand on my arm as he eases out of me. I shiver at the loss of him, then my eyes droop when his cum trickles down my legs.
Jesus. Is that supposed to be a turn-on?
Adrian watches the evidence of his thorough fucking as he shrugs off his shirt, revealing his hard muscles and the ethereal ink decorating his arms.
I want to touch them, to hold him, but it always feels like it’s not my place to do that. Like I have absolutely no claim on him to be able to study his tattoos.
Adrian hits the button and the water soaks us in a second. He slowly rubs the blood off my hands and uses a brush to remove it from under my nails. Then he moves on to my face, my neck, and my arms.
I’m about to melt from the way he touches me. The care in his eyes. The softness that doesn’t suit his character that he shows only to me.
When he’s done, he wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me up, digging his fingertips into my ass. Then he rams inside me in one ruthless stroke.
I come. Just like that.
I wasn’t even that aroused, but I think the way he washed me was so stimulating that all he had to do was enter me for me to orgasm.
It’s not even the physical stimulation, it’s the meaning behind it, the tenderness, the concern in his gray eyes that he’s only ever dedicated to me.
I don’t bother to muffle my moans, my screams, and my utter joy as he fucks me under the shower. I hold onto him with both hands, not wanting to let him go.
Not now, not ever.
He doesn’t stop fucking me, owning me, changing position every so often. His hands are everywhere, cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples, pulling my hair so he can nibble on a sensitive spot on my throat. He kisses me, then bites my tongue. He sucks on my nipple, then tugs on it. He powers into me slowly, then takes it to an irregular, maddening level.
It’s like he can’t get enough of me and wants to deepen our connection with each touch. He fucks like he talks, with apparent calm yet subtle darkness.
I’m so stimulated, I feel like one orgasm keeps bleeding into the other.
My front is now against the transparent shower stall as he powers into me from behind while caging both of my wrists in one hand on the glass above me.
My mouth is open in an ‘O’ as I take every delicious thrust and every sting of pain that comes with it.
“Ahhh…Adrian…I’m coming…”
He increases his rhythm, pinching my nipples with his other hand until they’re sore and I scream in pain. “So sensitive.”
“Adrian!” I fall down without any landing. I keep falling and rolling, finding a pause just so I can fall again.
If I knew this was how it would feel, I would’ve let him hear my voice so he would’ve fucked me a long time ago.
Adrian still hasn’t come. If anything, my orgasm has made him grow harder inside me. His lips meet my ear as he whispers, “Thank you for welcoming me home.”
And then he comes inside me again. I close my eyes to memorize the sensation and his words.
Thank you for being my home, I’m about to whisper in response, but his head falls into the space between my neck and shoulder and he kisses the skin there. “Fuck, I missed you, Lia.”
My whole body goes slack against him. Everything that happened tonight. His worry, his unbound passion, and even the way he’s nibbling on my skin and slightly rocking his hips were never meant for me.
He doesn’t see me. He’s only seeing Lia.
That thought cuts me open so deep, a tear slides down my cheek, mixing with the water and falling down the drain.
Because I know, I just know that he’ll never see me as Winter.
I’ll always be Lia.
