A satisfied grin dawns across his face. “Khoroshaya.”
He leans in, and his mouth finds my throat again. Instinct makes me reflexively want to pull my hands from behind my back and grip his hair. But he shifts his weight against me, not giving me an inch of room to do so, simultaneously sinking his teeth into the soft curve of my neck.
“Uh-huh,” he growls. “Ne dvigaysya.”
His hands are at my waist now, moving with deliberate slowness, refusing to rush anything, his patience a quality that I have been finding alternatively maddening and devastating since the storage room. And right now, in the dim light of my apartment, with his mouth on my skin, it’s devastating.
Both of my hands grip the couch at my back, and my eyes close as his mouth explores my skin where my shirt used to be. The rise of my breasts where they peak out from beneath my bra, the flat of my stomach down to the hem of my pants.
“Skazhi mne,” he says. His mouth against my ear once more, his voice lower than I have ever heard it. “Chego ty khochesh.”
“You,” I say in a raspy voice. “I want you.”
He makes that sound low in his chest again as his hands move to the button of my jeans, and I stop thinking altogether as he unbuttons them, sliding the zipper down next. Placing soft kisses on each piece of flesh uncovers as he does.
“Victor,” I breathe, his name barely more than a husky whisper.
His eyes lift to mine. The look he gives me is devastating, giving me every possible chance to tell him to stop, but absolutely hoping I won’t.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, voice low with desire of his own.
I swallow hard, my fingers gripping the couch cushion harder. “Don’t stop.”
His restraint thins instantly, jaw tightening, his hands settling over me more possessively than before. Then his mouth is on me again, lower this time, and my head lolls back in response. Heat is building throughout my body, every place his hands touch, every spot his mouth makes contact with, pushing me further.
I try desperately to stay quiet. The sensation is nearly overwhelming as I hold on to my own sense of control with every ounce I can muster.
But I find out quickly that Victor is very good at breaking that control with his tongue. He learns my body with terrible patience, discovering each place that makes my breath stutter, my hips rise, or a moan escape. Everything I fail to hide.
“Look at me,” he commands.
When I do, it undoes me. His eyes are dark and focused entirely on me, and what he is doing to me. The pleasure crests so fast I almost resent him for it. My body tightening as the room narrows around us, his hands, his mouth, the low murmurs of praise he mutters against my skin.
I tip over the edge with his name caught on my tongue somewhere between a gasp and a plea for release.
For that one suspended moment, there is nothing. Just us, just this moment. No danger. No past. No reality. Just his hands at my waist, his mouth on me, and the tremor that runs through my body.
And then my phone rings.
The ringtone is Evie's — a specific one I set for her, different from everyone else, the one that means I answer it no matter what, no matter where, no matter what I'm in the middle of. The sound, mixed with the light of the screen, cuts through the dark apartment and through the candlelight and through the specific gravity of this man's mouth and that look in his eyes, pulling us both from the moment.
I put my hand on his chest and push. He steps back immediately, no resistance, reading the situation fast, not asking for me to explain.
I answer before the third ring. "Evie. What's wrong."
Her voice comes through high and thin, the voice she uses when she is frightened and trying not to be, the voice that I have heard exactly twice in three years and that does something to my nervous system that nothing else on earth does.
"There was a sound," she says. "Outside the window. Alex, it was really loud and I don't — I don't know what it was. Lily and the others heard it too, everyone’s freaking out, and her parents aren't home yet and I?—"
"I'm coming," I say. "Right now. Stay on the phone with me, I’m on my way out the door."
"Okay," she says, very small.
"I’m here," I say, and look at Victor. “I’m coming.”
He is already at my door, flipping the locks open, his phone flashlight back in hand, holding my jacket up for me. I didn’t see him grab it, but he could have been performing magic right now, and I wouldn’t care. I take it without speaking and shrug it on one hand, phone still at my ear, he steps aside just enough for me to pass, following close behind as I lead the way out the door.
"It's probably the transformer," I tell Evie, moving down the hall, "the whole block is out, there would have been a loud sound when it blew." I hit the stairwell, moving fast. "You're okay. You're safe. I'm one building away."
