I’m Going To Keep You

RECOMMENDED TRACK: Saint Mesa – Lion

Not tonight.

Adrian had been so…so at ease the last few times I had seen him, so normal-friend-like that I was totally unprepared for his absurd birthday gift. A first edition copy of, what else? Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. I had been in a panic trying to figure out how to reject a very personal, multi-thousand-dollar gift kindly, but I think he must have thought I was wavering. He leaned in and whispered my name, tucking my hair behind my ear before I pushed him away.

I hadn’t given him the chance to do anything, so I felt a little bad when Misha stormed in and threatened him—and maybe a little swoony, if I’m being completely honest.

But any sense of guilt melted away the second he insulted Misha.

Afterwards, I was determined not to let Adrian ruin the evening that Misha had been so excited to plan, so I threw myself into enjoying it. Mind over matter, right? The restaurant sounded nice, and I’d wanted to try an escape room for ages.

Misha’s buoyant mood helped. There I was, kind of appalled at how harsh I’d been, no matter how well-deserved…but he seemed elated by it. He escorted me to a lovely, intimate corner booth in the back of a fancy Italian place in nearby Greenwich. We sat side by side and ordered food while Misha picked a bottle of red wine, an Italian variety I hadn’t heard of before. Whatever his education had been like in Moscow, it must have included a thorough course in fine dining, drinks included.

“I think you’ll like this,” he told me as the wine arrived, smiling confidently at the waiter and then a little more bashfully at me, a rare sight.

He was right. I’ve never had much of a palate for wine, but when I took the first sip I shot him a surprised look that made his smile turn a little smug. It wasn’t sharp like the handful of reds I’d tasted, more rich and subtle.

The flavor of the wine lingered, and although I only drank a couple glasses in all, I let it carry me into an easy place, erasing the mess from the library and replacing it with Misha. Just Misha and me and a sort of giggly buzz that grew between us. I wasn’t drunk, not even tipsy, really. Just…loose, happy. Misha drank a bit more than me and was probably affected less, but he was more than content to sit in that soft space with me, flirting shamelessly, even when the waiter came with dessert.

It was struffoli, a neatly-arranged pile of tiny dough balls drenched in honey, delicious and sticky. When I jokingly complained about the mess, Misha made a show of plucking one of the little treats and holding it up to my lips. “Moya koroleva should never get her hands dirty,” he declared, eyes twinkling playfully. “Unless she wants to, of course.”

I leaned into the challenge, parting my lips and accepting the dessert he slipped into my mouth, nipping impishly at his finger.

“Such an eager queen,” he laughed, reaching for another and offering it to me. This time, I closed my lips around his finger, blinking up at him with wide eyes of innocence. He gave his head a shake, but his expression heated up. “That is very dangerous,” he said in a sultry voice. “We have the escape room still, you know.”

I paused but didn’t release his finger, considering the matter. I was interested in the puzzle room, eager to see what happened when we put our minds together on something we knew was solvable. And he had gone to the trouble to arrange it for me.

But…after what happened in the library, I guess I wanted to give him a more clear demonstration of how I felt, of how he mattered more to me than Adrian. Or an escape room. It made perfect sense at the time.

So I curled my tongue around his finger instead, looking at him with deliberate intent.

He plucked his finger from my mouth with a little groan. “No, no, no. Emma. I did so good,” he complained, but he dropped his hand to my thigh and squeezed it. “Dinner, escape thing you said you wanted. I am trying to be a gold-star boyfriend and you are trying to kill me.”

I looked up at him with my best attempt at a pout, which probably wasn’t very good because I couldn’t stop smiling. “Home,” I said petulantly. All I wanted was to follow this gentle glow wherever it led, to leave behind the heaviness that had been trailing us these last weeks. “Bed.”

He called for the check.

The drive back to my apartment was only twenty-ish minutes but felt like forever. Though I enjoyed the impatient looks he kept running up and down my body at every stoplight, the little growls he made in Russian that I understood more by intent than literal meaning. Each rumbling syllable made me squeeze my thighs together, though, and I started counting the traffic lights.

By the time we made it into the apartment, he was rock hard as he spun me around and pressed me against my own door. I flipped the lock and twined my arms around his neck while he shook off his suit jacket. Our tongues met in an aggressive tangle, not so much vying for dominance as like we were trying to melt them into one.

When we came up for air, I put my hands on his chest and directed him backwards. He raised an eyebrow but obeyed, pausing only to kick off his dress shoes next to my heels.

I only took control occasionally, but when I did, he was every bit as eager as when he was more in charge. “Spoiling you means giving you whatever you want,” he’d told me once, and his confidence fueled my own.

When the back of his legs hit the bed, I gave him a final nudge and he fell easily back on the absurdly plush bed I’d let him buy, more for his sake than mine. I crawled on top of him and returned my lips to his before trailing them back down his neck in a series of soft little kisses.

“You are a monster,” he said, half-suppressing a gasp as I reached his Adam’s apple and sucked it gently. “A beautiful little monster.”

“Hmmph.” I sat up, straddling his waist and tugging on his dress shirt. “Off, please,” I requested carelessly.

“Bozhe moy,” he breathed, fumbled at his buttons and watched with hungry eyes while I unzipped my dress and tossed it behind me. “Look at my queen, sitting on me like a throne.” I was glad I’d chosen to wear black lace underneath when his hips rocked up against me. As soon as his shirt was open, I let myself fall back down to him without even letting him slide it off his shoulders, resuming my trail of kisses down his chest.

I took my time, not trying to tease so much as trying to explore. To indulge myself in a way I could only do with him.

I think he understood, not interfering as I dragged my tongue from his collarbone to one nipple and tugging on it with my lips before moving to the other. I flicked at each in turn, back and forth, for a minute, smirking against his skin as he swore. “You taste good,” I told him with a contented hum. Then I kissed my way down his chest, pausing to rest my chin on his stomach and look up at him, enjoying his red, flustered face as I checked in with him.

He slid one hand to my head, carding his fingers through my hair, just stroking me. Like he was indulging a playful pet.

Apparently I liked that, because I instinctively leaned my head into his touch and kissed his palm.

I unbuttoned his pants and he lifted his hips eagerly for me to tug them off with his boxer-briefs. His breath hitched when I took his cock in my hands tenderly, nuzzling it and pressing a kiss to the tip, enjoying its responding twitch. I brushed my thumb gently along his piercings as I slowly swirled my tongue around the head, lapping up the droplet of precum that formed at the slit.

Then I licked up the shaft, watching his face while I ran my tongue slowly over each barbell in turn. He dropped his head back with a hiss when I reached the head and took it between my lips again, alternating between suckling, licking, and pumping it into my mouth with shallow strokes.

“Ty menya pogubish,” I heard him say as his muscles tightened, holding back a thrust. I’d learned that phrase. You’re going to ruin me.

I hummed contentedly and pulled back, earning a little lamenting sound from him as I tugged my own underwear off and moved back up his body. “Misha,” I said in my best spoiled-princess voice. His eyes snapped back open and found mine, his eyes dark with hunger. “I want lazy doggy.”

He rolled us without hesitation, me on my stomach and him hovering over me, propped up on his forearms. “Lazy doggy for my lazy little queen?” He murmured mischievously in my ear.

“Yes,” I said. “Pozhaluysta.” This had become one of my favorite positions when I wanted to be pampered most. This angle made the best use of his piercings, a texture I’d come to crave. And beyond that, I loved the sensation of being so completely blanketed by his body—like a warm shelter against anything outside of the bed we shared.

I mewled as he slipped his hand between my legs and slid one finger inside me teasingly. “This is mine,” he said against my ear, voice husky. “Not my possession. My responsibility.” He swirled his finger once and then extracted it, chuckling as I gave a little whine. “My job is to give it exactly what it needs. Yes?”

“Yes, Misha, please,” I groaned as he slipped his cock between my legs, rubbing against my slick arousal and coating himself with it. It would be embarrassing except I knew he loved it as much as I did, that giving me what I wanted, providing for me, turned him on. “Moya krasavitsa,” he said against my ear as he pressed against my entrance and began to slide slowly inside me. My pretty girl.

I moaned again as he brushed against my sensitive inner wall, rubbing myself back against him, taking more. He exhaled as he bottomed out inside me, and I arched my back just enough for him to slide a hand under me to grind against. “Misha, yes, more…”

“That’s my good girl. So needy for me,” he praised as he bottomed out inside me, then began to move, firm, deliberate thrusts that stoked my pleasure slowly but steadily. Even when I whimpered and begged for harder, faster, he resisted me with a growl I could feel reverberate from his chest against my back. “Not yet. Or else this ends too fast.” I let out a keening whine, but rocked my hips against his hand as his words slipped further out of English. “Da, vot tak,” yes, like that, and “moya khoroshaya,” my good girl, and then something I’d heard him growl several times but he had never explained: “Ostavlyu tebya sebe.”

I’d looked it up. I’m going to keep you for myself.

It was my favorite.

“Ya tvoya,” I choked out, a response I hadn’t offered him before. “Misha, ya tvoya.” I’m yours.

He froze for a second, then pressed his forehead against my shoulder. “Ne mogu sebya sderzhat,” he muttered. I can’t stop, I think, or close to it. I didn’t understand and was becoming too frenzied to try. “Ty slishkom…” You’re too…

And then he moved again and all semblance of restraint was gone. I gave a blissful cry as he finally began to drive into me with harder, deeper strokes. It didn’t take long before I began to feel my pleasure near its peak. “Misha, I’m close.” His hand clasped mine.

“Me too,” he said with a grunt, but I was already there, already feeling those first shivers before I broke with a wail, lost to the moment.

He said something I was too far gone to make out and followed me over the edge. When I was able to make sense of the world again, I felt the wet heat of him inside me, his chest heaving against my back as we both panted in silent recovery.

After a few minutes of catching our breath, he rolled us onto our sides, spooning me and pressing a kiss to the back of my neck. I sighed contentedly and pushed myself back up against him, willing him to stay in this moment with me. I felt like as soon as he slipped from my grasp, reality would come crashing back around us, and I wanted to fend it off just a little longer. I don’t know if he felt it, too, how fleeting this euphoria was. But when I tugged his arm over my waist, he pulled me tighter to him without a word.

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Bonus Content:
That’s What We’re Here For

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Author’s Note

B-Side Track: The Weeknd – Earned It

Hehe, I love that Emma is sitting there feeling guilty and Misha’s like “she tore him a new one and it was on my behalf and that is so fucking hot.”

HOUSEKEEPING:

Surprise Sunday chapter! You will now be getting THE RUSSIAN RISK updates three times a week instead of two. 😈

HOUSEKEEPING 2:

THE RUSSIAN RISK will be releasing in ebook format at the end of this month! The ebook version will include all of the bonus content you’ve enjoyed here, PLUS over 10k words of additional stories, including two exclusives: GOOD BROTHERS, a flashback to when Emma first met the rest of the Sigma brothers after she and Misha started dating; and SHE IS NEVER ALONE WITH ME, a special story where Misha meets some people who are very special to Emma…I shan’t spoil further. 🙂

The ebook version is available for preorder NOW on Amazon (look up “The Russian Risk” or Amazon identifier B0HMM4X7CX)- more retailers coming soon. You can also always get more news and info at my site, DahliaWrites.com. 🙂

FUN FACT:

Struffoli is not commonly found at Italian restaurants. It’s more common seasonally (Christmas and Easter), to start, and it’s just not very restaurant-friendly—it has to be served right away and it’s generally served in a big pile of honey-covered dough balls that are great at a big dinner party and just…not so great for a few people at a restaurant. So, colpa mia there. (You may occasionally find struffoli’s Greek cousin loukomades at a restaurant, though it’s not super common.)

Hope you enjoyed that spice, by the way. It’s hard to classify Misha as a romantic lead; he’s dominant, but his dominance is expressed through caretaking, not through seeking submission. “Soft dom” is close, and “pleasure dom,” is probably the closest title if I had to give him one, but let’s be honest: both of those could overstate the kink level here. And the style of dominance. Misha usually likes to be in charge of the action, but he doesn’t use pleasure itself as a control mechanism, no edging, no begging. He’s always liked being legitimately good in bed, and with Emma in particular he feels rewarded by providing for her in numerous ways…even if she resists some of them outside the bedroom.

Do you think you would be into a Misha type, or do you prefer things a little darker? Or more vanilla, for that matter? Or, shoot, maybe you like a femdom? (You should see what I have planned for my next book 😏)