Las Vegas, USA

K E I R A

I woke up with a start, unsure if everything that had happened was reality or something that was a fragment of my broken mind's imagination.

An arm tightened around my shoulder, and Nikolai's groggy voice had all the hair at the back of my neck standing, "I haven't bailed,"

My arm tightened around his torso almost instinctively as I turned my head to look at him, but he wasn't looking at me, choosing to stare at the dark ceiling instead.

"Why'd you stay?"

At that he looked at me, his eyes narrowed, "I'm many things, Keira, a liar isn't one of them."

Somehow his irreproachable words managed to pour salt on a wound that refused to heal and instead had festered with an infection.

"Fuck," he cursed under his breath, "I didn't mean it that way... I," He pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath, his chest moving underneath my head.

"It's okay," I found the words leaving me before I had any chance to stop them, and it wasn't like I'd wanted him to struggle looking for the right things to say when nothing in the world would make our situation easy to understand, let alone articulate it into words.

"I just want to know where we stand now that you're here?"

I held my breath, not even trying to guess what he might say because when I'd tried to be resilient in the face of his—very understandable—anger, he'd sharpened his words like knives and used them against me repeatedly, lacerating me with his indifference and hatred towards my existence. Now that I'd understood I could never piece back the life I'd torn apart with my own hands, he'd shown up, almost willing to help me put the pieces together, wrinkled and still tearing at the seams.

"What even is this, Nikolai?" I whispered against his naked chest, my lips almost touching his flesh as if they couldn't get enough of him. "Do you not hate me anymore?" I looked at him from under my eyelashes.

"This..." He exhaled, "I need you to understand that I haven't been living for the past eight years, and when you came back, it was almost like I'd been thrown out of that grave, and it made me angry." His fingers caressed my arm almost absent-mindedly, and I held my breath, waiting for him to continue.

"You did that. You breathed life back inside me when I'd been trying everything to sniff it out, so I did hate you for that."

I didn't miss his use of past tense for that, and my stomach filled with butterflies and my blood buzzed with a different kind of awareness as I became hyperaware of his carefully chosen words.

"I—I...," his voice broke, and I knew this was taking a toll on him, confessing to something that maybe he'd been hiding even from himself, "I can't be without you. The last few years," he shuddered underneath me, and tears stung my eyes as I wondered how could we put each other through so much, and yet still come back to each other, the moment our eyes landed on the other person like magnets.

"You have no idea how I've stayed alive despite trying my best to die. I can not be the man you knew from before, and I'm not sure I can tell you the three words you're dying to hear, but," he turned his face to me, his eyes alight with a flame that licked at my skin, and beckoned every cell inside my body to him. I ran my fingers over his jaw—which now had a light beard—and encouraged him to continue. Because if this was one of the first times he'd let me see his wounded, battered soul since I'd seen him again, I would be damned if I didn't kiss his wounds.

Maybe that was what we needed, to tend to each other's wounds, because alone, neither of us had healed, and the blood we'd thought had turned into scars had just started flowing all over again.

"You should know that there is no one else for me." He covered my hand on his abdomen with his and moved it over his heart, "but in all the ways that matter, I am yours. I hope it's enough."

Even if he hadn't said that last bit, it would have been enough, fuck, it was more than enough that he'd let me close enough to see his soul without all the tenebrosity he'd been using to throw me off. I blinked and all the tears I'd been holding back left my eyes almost like his pain was a catalyst for mine and together we could feel each other's anguish.

"You're crying." He whispered, pulling me up as he sat against the headboard, so now I was straddling him, my face level with his. He took my face between his hands, wiping away the tears that escaped with his fingers. The reverence behind that simple gesture had more tears pooling in my eyes, and knew it was scaring him because through blurry vision, I could make out a frown marring his beautiful face.

"Was it something I said?" He searched my eyes, wiping more tears as they left my eyes, and I sniffled, trying to get a handle on all these overwhelming emotions I was feeling.

Unable to control myself, I launched myself at him and buried my head in his chest, my arms going around his neck. Nikolai stiffened for a fraction of a second before his arm tightened around my back and his other hand caressed my head almost absent-mindedly. I breathed in his scent, filling myself up with him like an addict sniffing his drug of choice, and he let me.

"So are we in a relationship now?" I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder.

He laughed for a second but it had a permanent smile stretching across my lips, "Technically we're married, but we can be whatever you want, it—"

"It doesn't change the fact that we need to work on our relationship." I finished for him, and he sighed, kissing the side of my head.

"Well that's not something we can do in a day, but while we fix this mess, it can be whatever you want." I pulled away to look at him, and his eyes were already trained on mine, "there's some other things though,"

"What?"

"Let's talk about that later?" He whispered against my lips, almost touching, but not quite, I nodded, closing my lips against his.

He'd kissed me with all sorts of emotions leading, however, this time, it was different, almost like a promise, a ghost story of something that I'd been wishing would stop haunting us. His lips slid against mine and I tilted my head as I opened my mouth, letting him kiss me deeper. This kiss was like a moment condensed with so many emotions it was impossible to hold onto one, so I held onto him, my fingers finding their way into his hair.

His tongue caressed mine with the same violence except that this time there was an undercurrent of vulnerability to our war. It was almost like he was stripping me bare, and rebranding his name on my soul all over again.

Nikolai sucked my tongue into his mouth as his hands cupped my ass, beckoning me to move my hips. Neither of us had any clothes on, however, it was the first time, I'd felt that he was truly naked with me. It was the first time, he'd allowed me to make friends with his demons, and even though they hid like him, at least I could see them now.

I moaned as my pussy moved against his hardening cock, and Nikolai's hand came to the back of my throat. I opened my eyes to see him already looking into mine. He leaned forward and dragged my lower lip between his teeth, before circling his tongue around mine. His hands were everywhere, and I moved against his cock, moaning as I felt his throbbing hardness grind against my swollen pussy.

Nikolai pulled away, resting his forehead on mine as the fire in his gaze licked my skin, leaving me burning for him as he rolled his hips into me.

"Keira,"

He whispered my name so softly, almost like he was getting reacquainted with feeling it on his tongue and a shiver racked through my body as I pulled myself up, fisted his cock, and slid down on his pulsating hardness. Both of us hissed as I sank all the way to the bottom and rolled my hips. Nikolai brought his lips back on mine in a searing kiss as he moved beneath me, his pelvis rubbing against my clit. His fingers rolled my nipple before pinching it and my lips fall lax against his, my breathing erratic. Nikolai rolled my hair around his arm, tugging my head back with a fist in my hair as he breathed heavily against my neck, the sweat from his hair rolling off my flesh.

My hands trembled when he slammed into me with force, the bite of pain pungent, but just enough to drive me crazy as his thrusts turn vicious, his fingers around my throat tightened and his lips came back against mine, plundering everything that I had to give. I moaned, lifting my hips to slide off him, and then back down. Shivers passed through my spine as I sank onto him again, the head of his cock brushing against that spot inside me, and I couldn't hold myself off anymore. Niko swallowed my moans, stole my breaths, and filled me until I felt my pussy clench around him, my eyes fluttering close as I convulsed around him, my orgasm crashing over me like waves. He groaned against my lips, his teeth sinking into my lip as his cock pulsed inside me, his own orgasm catching him by surprise. I could feel his cum lashing against me before seeping out of me onto his cock, undoubtedly making a mess. I crashed against his chest, the fatigue finally catching up to me, but still, that didn't stop me from kissing him again, my finger tangling in the damp strands of his hair.

Nikolai pulled away, his breaths coming heavy against my lips, and he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead before tucking me close to his chest, his cock still inside me.

"When are we going back home, Niko?" I whispered against his chest, one of my hands intertwined with his as I explored and rememorized all the ridges of his body with my other one.

"Where?" He stiffened beneath me, his fingers tightening around mine.

"Back to Moscow...?" My words came out more as a question than anything else.

"We're not going back there."

"Why?"

"Because I need to be in Chicago for what comes next." His reluctance to divulge more had the hair at the back of my neck standing, and if it wasn't for his arms around me, I would have turned around to face him, just to ensure I could catch the truth in his eyes.

"And what's that?"

He sighed, "My grandfather will step down soon unless he dies before that, and it wouldn't do if his heir wasn't ready before that happens."

"So you'll take over next?"

"I don't have a choice. He gave me some time to put my affairs in order, and return..." he seemed to be weighing his words, and I stayed silent, waiting for him to finish, "with my wife."

At that, I twisted my body and turned to face him, "He knows about me?"

"He's the Pakhan, it wouldn't have done me any good to try and hide it from him. And believe it or not. I need him on my side."

I cupped his face with my hands, "he's your grandfather, of course, he's on your side."

Nikolai chuckled before kissing my palm, "He is on the side of ensuring the Chernov Bratva's dominance."

"I can't believe that..."

"You should. I wanted nothing to do with this life, but I suppose mayhem runs in my veins."

"Then why did you become a part of this life?"

A shadow cloaked his emotions for a fraction of a second before he pinned me with his gaze, his eyes darkened almost as if someone had just come and snuffed out the fire in a forest at midnight. Except, I knew there was no rekindling that fire as I found myself getting lost in the depth of his depravity.

I held my breath as he opened his mouth, his words penetrating my ears a little late, "It was all for you. Unfortunately for me, I knew enough about the world to deduce what happened when someone just vanished, and—"

My fingers flexed against his heart that was drumming hard against his ribcage, "Why didn't you find me?"

"Dealing with my grandfather comes with a fine print, I was too broken to notice." He shrugged, "Besides, it wasn't a moral dilemma. I think I've always had it in me, I was maybe just too busy trying to fit into herds of sheep."

"I'm so sorry, Niko." The words I'd been holding back since he'd told me to save it all those months ago, slipped my lips, and he closed his eyes, breathing in, almost like he was in pain. "Nikolai—"

"Shut up." He was breathing hard, and my lips pressed against each other, afraid of what he might say. He didn't say anything though. Instead, he touched his forehead with mine, breathed in, opened his eyes, his fingers skimming my pulse, "Just... Stop talking."

I tried protesting but Nikolai brought his fingers over my lips, silencing me before he ghosted a kiss on my lips. He moved us so now he was lying on top of me, his legs between mine as his elbows held him up,

"Not today."

His words had managed to kill me and revive me at the same time, and his pain had ricocheted inside the marrow of my bones as he had established a new kind of ownership. One I didn't have a name for, but I knew that it ran deeper than just love. It was like the glimpses of the dark corners of his soul had grown claws and marked my soul in a way I didn't know I could be claimed.

This time when he leaned down to press his lips against mine, I opened my mouth for him with the knowledge that perhaps we'd never be okay, and maybe it wasn't about being okay. Maybe it was about both of us ruining each other, and loving each other anyway.

* * *
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