57
CORA
This is over. We’re done.
I don’t let myself believe it until Konstantin has dragged Mikhail through the front door and it slams closed behind them.
Is this war finally over? Am I free?
Ivan is still staring at the door like he is waiting for the Sokolovs to run back in, armed to the teeth. It’s not such a crazy idea. They aren’t easy to put down.
But the house stays quiet.
I reach out and squeeze Ivan’s hand. I run my thumb over his thick knuckles. I soak up the warmth of his touch.
We made it.
We’re okay.
“Well, that went about as well as I thought it would,” I observe wryly.
Ivan turns back and starts to smile. Then he sees me—and his face falls.
I almost duck down. With a look like that on his face, someone must be behind me. Maybe Francia regained consciousness and is coming in for round two.
Then Ivan grips my chin and tilts my face up to the light. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m—What?”
“I didn’t see it before. You didn’t say anything. You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” I try to reach for my face, but he pushes my hand away.
“I need bandages,” he barks towards the kitchen. “Now!”
I’m not in pain. I don’t see blood dripping anywhere. Am I in shock? Maybe it all happened so fast that I didn’t feel it. I’ve heard about that happening with stab wounds. People don’t realize until minutes later that they were stabbed at all.
But Francia didn’t have a knife in her hand, did she? If she stabbed me in the head, I like to think I’d know.
“Is it just a cut? Do you think I need stitches?”
Ivan pushes me back to my chair. My knees buckle when they hit the seat, and I drop down. “I’ll take care of you. You’ll be okay.”
A maid rushes out of the kitchen with a first aid kit. Ivan snatches it out of her hands and tears through the contents like I’m moments away from bleeding out.
“Hold this in place.” He presses a piece of gauze to my forehead and then searches for a bandage. Ivan shakes his head. His jaw is set and his eyes are a stormy gold. “You’re hurt. Francia hurt you.”
“She barely even touched me. You stopped her.”
“Not soon enough.”
He pulls my hand holding the gauze away. I reach up and feel the tiniest cut on my forehead. “This? This is what you’re worried about? Look at the gauze, Ivan. There isn’t even any blood. I’m fine!”
“Stop saying that,” he growls. His lips brush against mine and I slide towards him. My thighs open, straddling him where he kneels on the floor in front of me.
“I’m fine,” I repeat softly.
Ivan doesn’t seem convinced. “No one was supposed to get close to you. The only reason I went through with your plan is because you were supposed to be safe.”
“And I am safe, Ivan. Look at me. I’m safe right now. With you.” I grab his hands and press them to either side of my face. He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs and then lets his hands slide lower. He traces every inch of me, taking stock.
“I’m okay,” I say again. “I’m perfect.”
He can’t stop running his hands over me. Even when Yasha and Lev appear, Ivan doesn’t stop touching me.
“What’s the word on this one?” Yasha pokes at Francia’s limp leg with the toe of his shoe. She is still face-down on the tile. “Drag her to the dungeon?”
“How about the bottom of the ocean?” Lev suggests.
“That’s too easy of an ending for her.” Ivan scowls, glancing at her only briefly before he turns back to me. His hands slip over my hips and around my waist. His fingers massage into my spine as he gives them an answer. “Francia told me she wanted to be a Bratva wife, so let’s make her one. Send her back to Moscow. Let the old-school Bratva members watch over her.”
Yasha winces in something very close to sympathy. “We might as well put her in a hole and let her rot. It’ll have the same outcome. They’ll eat her alive.”
Ivan reaches up and brushes his finger over the supposed “cut” on my forehead. “Good.”
Yasha and Lev haul Francia out of the room by her hands and feet. As she dangles between them, I try to feel something. Anger or vindication. Maybe even sympathy.
But there’s nothing.
We spent countless hours together in the kitchen at Quintaño's. We used to open together on Saturday mornings and we’d play ABBA on the jukebox while we wiped down tables. On slow nights, we’d split our tips.
She was my friend. And now…
“I thought that would feel more…momentous.”
Ivan is stretched up on his knees now, his face level with mine. “What?”
“Francia being hauled away. Dragged out of my life forever. I thought I would care more.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m glad she’s gone. I just thought it would matter more, but…” I shake my head and run my hands over his shoulders. “The only thing I care about is this. You.”
Ivan hums as he squeezes my ribs, his thumbs dragging over the lace detailing of my dress. “It’s hard to care about anything when you’re wearing this. It was distracting.”
“You didn’t look at me once when I walked out,” I laugh.
“I didn’t need to.” He nuzzles my neck, his stubble scraping over my pulse point. “I could feel you. That was enough.”
Goosebumps erupt across my skin and I shiver. “I think it might be a wedding dress. It seemed appropriate given… well, everything.”
Ivan kisses my collarbone and my neck. He trails his hot mouth over my skin, setting me on fire piece by piece. “You know what else seems appropriate?”
I’m breathless, eyes closed and heart thundering. “What?”
His lips find the shell of my ear. “Claiming you on this table. Celebrating that you are mine and now, everyone fucking knows it.”
I’ve lost the power of speech. Instead, I circle my arms around Ivan’s neck and nod.
He kisses me with bruising force as he scoops me up and sits me on the edge of the table. Untouched champagne flutes topple over and spill. I feel the liquid soaking into my dress, but I don’t care. I’m going to beg Ivan to rip me out of it in a second anyway.
Turns out, I don’t even have to ask. Ivan grabs the neckline of my gown and shreds the bodice from my collarbone to my waist with one solid tug.
It’s so hot I can’t even bring myself to care that the dress probably cost thousands of dollars.
“You’re perfect,” he growls. His eyes are dark with desire as he shoves the shredded fabric to the side and swirls his tongue over my breast.
I arch against his mouth. “I’m yours.”
Ivan finishes ripping his way through the skirt while I fumble with the button on his pants. The lace is soaking up some of the champagne. The rest of it forms a sparkling waterfall that flows off the edge of the table and splatters to the tile floor. But it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters but this.
When I finally get Ivan’s pants out of the way, I take him in my hand and press him to my opening. He doesn’t ask if I’m sure or tease me half-mad.
With one thrust, he gives me exactly what I want. He gives me everything.
I cling to him with my arms and sticky legs. His hands wrap around my butt, pulling me even tighter against him. Grinding into me until there’s no more space. Until I have nothing left to give.
“Oh, Ivan. I want you this deep all the time,” I gasp as he pulls out and thrusts back in. “Right there. Please.”
He drags out of me and pulses back in until I’m practically crawling up his body to get closer. Until I am delirious with need and begging for him to let me come.
Ivan slips his hand between our bodies and circles his thumb exactly where I need him.
Then he holds me together as I shatter.
An embarrassing number of people are probably listening in from the kitchen. Yasha will give both of us shit about this later. He’ll definitely tell Jorden all about it and I won’t have a leg up in getting to tease her about all of her secret trysts with Yasha. But this moment is worth all of it. Nothing matters more than this man and the way being pressed against him feels.
I wrap my body around him, holding him tightly. “Never let me go. Stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He kisses my temple and lifts me off of the table as he fucks me relentlessly. “I’m staying right here.”
I don’t question how Ivan is able to carry me from the dining room to our bedroom without ever once slipping out of me; I just enjoy it. I kiss his neck and roll myself down his length until he has to stop on the stairs, a steadying hand on the wall.
“Keep that up and you’ll kill us both,” he warns with a laugh.
“I can’t decide if that would be the best or most embarrassing way to die.”
“Both,” he decides. “But I’m serious: quit it. I have plans before I die.”
Hopefully, plans that involve finishing what we’ve started here. And then starting it up again the moment we’re done.
To make sure we both live to see that moment, I pivot to kissing his neck and sucking on his earlobe while he walks us up the stairs, down the hall, and into our bathroom.
Ivan sets me on my feet in our shower and pushes the shredded remains of my dress from my shoulders. Then, before I can get him out of his clothes, he spins me around and presses my palms flat against the tile. His fingers thread through mine slowly. He kisses my shoulder blade and my spine. He moves lower, licking and sucking his way across my skin.
“You taste sweet,” he groans.
I can feel him hard and throbbing against my thigh, I squeeze my legs together and stroke him. “I think that’s the champagne.”
“No,” he groans, thrusting into my thighs. “It’s you, Cora. It’s all you.”
He shifts his hips and, without letting go of my hands, he fills me again.
“Fuck,” he whispers against my neck. “How do you feel this good? How is it like this?”
I shake my head. I truly have no idea. Every time Ivan touches me, I’m amazed at how well we fit together.
There’s been so many lies and charades from the beginning of our story. But this… this is real. This heat building between us means more than a ring and a sheet of paper ever could. It’s a commitment. Because nothing will ever be better than this. After being with him, how could I ever settle for anything less?
It has to be him.
Now. Later. Forever.
His hands clench around mine and I know he’s close. I arch back, meeting his thrusts so the sound of us coming together echoes off the tiles. The new angle leaves heat pooling low in my belly.
“Right there, Ivan,” I beg. “Don’t stop. Right there.”
He growls in my ear. “Come for me, Cora. Come for me again.”
And I do.
Ivan’s hands twined through mine are the only reason I don’t melt to the shower floor. He holds me firmly, thrusting through my orgasm until he finds his own. When we’re finished, the evidence of it dripping down my legs, Ivan finally takes off the rest of his clothes and starts the shower.
Together, a tangle of lips and limbs, we let the hot water wash away the day.