10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 37

Calling it a “kiss” feels inadequate. “Kissing” is what little boys and girls do on playground dares. This has nothing in common with a chaste peck of the lips, or a high school couple fumbling around in the backseat of their parents’ car.

This is more like an asteroid hitting the fucking earth.

The red lace spiderwebbing across her collarbone tears in my fist. The sound shreds through the tiny room along with her gasp. My teeth replace her bottom lip, bite hard enough to sting. She moans, loud and sloppy, and I smother it with my palm.

“Quiet,” I growl against her spit-slick mouth. “Or they’ll hear what a greedy little thing you are.”

Ariel’s hips jerk against mine. Through two layers of fabric, I feel how wet she is, smell the musk of her need. My cock throbs, trapped against my zipper like a caged beast.

“You’re the one showing your hand,” she pants, all defiance and trembling limbs. Her nails score down my chest. “They already know what I am.”

I spin her hard toward the mirror. Her palms slap against cool glass as I yank the harness straps down her thighs. “And what’s that? What am I?”

She watches me through the reflection. “A man who breaks everything he touches.”

The accusation tears through me, raw and true. I fist a hand in her hair, forcing her head back as my other hand clenches the flimsy lace between her legs. “Then why do you keep handing me the hammer?”

Her answer comes as a ragged cry when I rip the last of the lingerie off her completely. The leather straps pool at her ankles like bondage ropes. I kick them aside as my palm replaces her bare pussy.

“Sasha—”

“Look.” I tighten my grip on her hair, angling her face toward our reflection. My fingers glide through her, spreading her open, as her sweetness drips down my knuckles. “Look at what you do to me. What I do to you.”

Her throat works as I slide two fingers inside. That perfect mouth falls open when I curl them just so. “You see? This?” I pump faster, thumb circling her clit with filthy, wet sounds. “This is what wanting looks like.”

Ariel’s shaking now, thighs trembling around my wrist. I watch drops of sweat slide between her shoulder blades, past the flush crawling up her neck. My cock aches—a persistent, primal drumbeat. But not yet. Not until…

“Come for me,” I rasp against her ear. “Let them all hear.”

Her back arches. “I can’t⁠—”

I bite the juncture of neck and shoulder as I shove her cheek against the glass and draw another whine out of her. “You can. You will.” Every word is another crack of the whip she’s begging me to use on her. “Show me how good you are.”

She breaks open with a shattered cry I swallow with my palm. The convulsions around my fingers nearly undo me. I press her harder into the mirror to muffle the sounds, watching her mascara smear across the glass. Her whimpers vibrate through my hand.

When she slumps forward, I catch her against my chest. She’s panting, those perfect tits heaving with every inhale. I tug the curtain aside—just a finger’s width—and pause.

Voices float towards me. French syllables, sharp as stilettos—Yvonne and another client, three dressing rooms down. We’re close enough to smell her Chanel No.5. She’s close enough to hear every one of Ariel’s hitched breaths.

Ariel goes rigid in my arms. I press my mouth to her damp hair. “Does it scare you? Being caught?”

“Not a bit.”

I cluck my tongue. “Haven’t I warned you about lying to me?”

“You do a lot of that,” Ariel pants. “I think you’re all talk.”

I laugh cruelly, right in her face. “Pot, kettle. You’ve been thrashing at the reins since the minute we met. But you’ve been like this—” I reach out to cup her pussy, relishing how she moans and squirms, but not enough to actually get away from my touch. “—since the second you first heard me call you mine. Since the library, the spa, since the fucking gala bathroom. Dripping for me while you waste breathing calling me a bastard.”

Her hand sneaks back, palming my cock through slacks. “I think you talk too much.”

The challenge snaps something primal. I spin her again, back to the mirror, and shove her forward until her tits smear against the glass. The rasp of my zipper’s downward drag echoes in the tiny space.

“Stay right fucking there.” I bite the word into the nape of her neck as I release her and step back. “Don’t move. Don’t touch yourself.”

She does as I say. Her reflection watches me strip—jacket hitting the floor, shirt following. When I’m bare-chested, I kneel behind her. My tongue licks a hot stripe from knee to thigh. She tastes like salt and poor decisions. Like every sin I’ve ever craved.

“You’re insane,” she whispers as my teeth sink into the soft flesh of her ass.

“And you’re wetter than ever.” I slide two fingers back into her heat. “What does that make you, Ariel?”

Her moan judders through the mirror when I add a third finger. The stretch makes her eyelids flutter. I watch her throat work as I pump slowly, carefully. “Answer me. It wasn’t a rhetorical question.”

“It makes me… d…d-des…”

“What’s that?” I suckle her clit from behind for a moment, then let it fall from my lips. “I can’t hear you.”

“Desperate.” Her hips jerk back. “Fuck—please⁠—”

My free hand replaces her throat. Not squeezing. Just… holding. A reminder. “Desperate for…?”

Her eyes meet mine in the glass. Defiance wars with hunger. Hunger wins. “You. Always you.”

That guts me. Rips me wide open. I’m moving before I decide to—dragging her up by the throat, shoving her against the wall, her back to my front. Our mouths clash—a battle of teeth and tongues and broken growls. Her legs hitch around my hips. I shove my slacks down just enough, spit into my palm, stroke myself once. Her eyes replace mine in the mirror—dark, hooded, daring me.

I slam home.

The mirror rattles. Her cry drowns in my mouth. For one suspended eternity, we’re fused together—her heat strangling my cock, my hand bruising her thigh. Then she moves.

“Sasha.”

My name becomes both prayer and profanity as she bucks back into me. I devour every sound, every twitch. When her head falls back against my shoulder, I crane around to nip the frantic pulse at her throat.

“That’s it,” I rasp against her skin. “Take what you need. Fucking use me.”

Her hands reach up to fist in my hair and drag my mouth to hers. The kiss tastes like tears.

“Not using,” she pants between thrusts. “Never using. Wanting. Fuck⁠—!”

Her thighs clamp like a vice. An orgasm rips through her with a sob she buries against my palm. I hold still, shaking, letting her pulse around me. Letting her feel every inch I’ve claimed.

Gospodi pomiluy, she looks like a fucking goddess. My handprint, red and purple on her throat… Her tits bouncing with every thrust… My cock splitting her in two… The sweat and joyful tears and black, streaked makeup mingling on her face is the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen.

“Please,” she whimpers.

I tighten my grip. Her pulse drums against my palm. “Please what?”

“H-harder.”

I snap my hips viciously. The mirror rattles. She chokes on a scream-turned-moan.

“You want them to know?” I hiss. “Want Yvonne to hear her precious merchandise getting fucked raw?”

Her cunt flutters. Christ. I drag her head back by the hair, exposing her throat. “Beg.”

“Sasha—”

“Beg.”

“Please—please don’t stop⁠—”

I release her throat to shove two fingers in her mouth. “Suck. Taste what you’ve done.”

She moans around the digits, tongue swirling. I fuck her harder, angling deep. When her knees buckle, I catch her with an arm around her waist, never slowing. “That’s it,” I growl. “Take it. Take me.”

I can feel my own finish coming, but I’m nowhere near ready to be done with this fallen fucking angel. So I tear myself out of Ariel and I toss her on the velvet ottoman. Her legs part instinctively and I descend to my knees to feast on her pussy. Licking, fingering, consuming her like a dying man.

Her eyes roll back in her head as I keep devouring her clit and fingering her. “No. Don’t you dare fucking look away. You look at me when you come, Ariel. For the rest of your life, it’s my face you’ll see when you come the fuck apart.”

She obeys. Barely. But the overwhelm is tearing her face in half a dozen different directions. She looks almost broken as she murmurs, “Please—Sasha—I can’t⁠—”

“You can.” My fingers spread her wider. “And you will.”

I ignore Yvonne’s concerned “Everything alright in there?” and suck harder.

Everything’s fucking peachy, Yvonne.

When she comes, back arched like a bowstring, thighs crushing my head, I can only laugh. I don’t give her long to soak in the aftermath, though. Instead, I rise and flip her onto all fours. I pull my belt free of my pants. In one quick motion, I loop it around her throat and tighten.

Ariel’s eyes bulge. I can hardly blame her. Fucking in a public dressing room, with a belt around her throat—we’re playing with fire, fucking on the razor’s edge of what’s dangerous and what will make her come harder than she’s ever come in her whole cursed life.

But when I think about it, it all seems appropriate. This has been a bad idea from the start. What’s the harm in pouring gasoline on a burning star?

What little is left of her composure dissolves when I crash into her again. One hand clamps on her waist; another holds the leather leash. Her elbows slide in our mingled mess as I fuck her from behind.

“Watch,” I snarl, angling her face toward the mirror. My thumb digs into the purple bite mark on her ass. “Watch me wreck us both.”

The first thrust punches air from her lungs. The second draws blood where her teeth split her lip. By the third, she’s meeting me stroke for stroke—a frantic, filthy cadence.

“Fuck—” Her hand flies to my hip, nails digging. “Don’t stop— Don’t you fucking stop⁠—”

I’m losing it. Not much longer left. I’m everywhere at once—hands on her breasts, teeth on her neck, cock buried to the hilt. The ottoman skids across the floor with every thrust. Lipstick tubes and price tags rain around us like confetti as I pull the belt tighter, tighter, tighter.

“Come with me,” I demand, fingers replaceing her clit. I yank the belt fully taut. “Now.”

She breaks first. I follow a heartbeat later, pistoning through her aftershocks until my release paints her dripping walls white. The roar I bury in her shoulder leaves teeth marks.

We collapse in a heap of limbs and gasping breaths. Fuck only knows how long we stay down there. As far as I’m concerned, it’d be fine if we never move again. I loosen the belt and let it slither aside.

Ariel exhales and trembles against my chest. I stroke her hair with shaking hands and worry that maybe we went too far. But as the shaking worsens, my concern does, too—until I realize it’s not tears wracking her right now.

It’s laughter.

“You’re insane,” she accuses again. “Absolutely crazy.”

“I never pretended otherwise.”

She turns in my arms. The trust in her gaze terrifies me more than any Serbian gun ever has. “It’s not just sex, you know. Not for me.”

My thumb traces her swollen lips. “I know. It’s not for me, either. Not with you.”

“Whatever comes next,” she breathes against my mouth, “we face it honest. We face it together. Don’t… don’t hide from me anymore, okay?”

I look around at all the carnage: our clothes scattered in every corner, a shredded thong, the reddened outlines of my belt where it tightened around Ariel’s throat as she sang such a pretty little song for me.

It’s an utter disaster. It’s perfectly us.

Then I look up. Through the skylight overhead, I see a soft, white snow has begun to fall.

The clerk stares at the armload of lingerie Ariel had “tried on.” “Shall I… wrap these?”

“We’ll take it all,” I tell him.

Under her breath, Ariel adds, “It would be highly unethical to return it.”

The afternoon sun hits my face as we exit. My grip tightens around her hand—not possessive, but present. Her grip tightens back in response.

Klaus lobs the bags into the trunk. “Sir, Feliks called. He asked me to inform you that you’ve got the Zimoy meeting in twenty⁠—”

“Reschedule it.”

“But the Albanians⁠—”

“Reschedule it.”

I help Ariel into the backseat, then follow her. When the door closes, she turns to me. “Sasha⁠—”

“Not one word.” I press my palm to her cheek and feel her sweet warmth seeping into me like honey. “Not yet. I just want to sit with you for a while.”

The engine purrs to life. Somewhere beneath the musk of sex and leather, I smell other things.

Smoke.

Blood.

And the faintest hint of hope.