ZIVEN IS ON EDGE.
It’s been two weeks since I ran from Oswald, and the only traces of his cruelty that are left behind are in my own head.
My nightmares are fewer, but they’re still there, regularly. I’ve gained ten pounds, and am starting to look more like the version of myself from months ago—at least on the outside.
The anger toward Ziven I held onto for so long has all but disappeared. I see him now. I see that he is kind and good. Though he’s rough, he’s sweet and so very funny. He usually makes me laugh daily, except the past few days. He’s been a ball of nervous energy. He’s not been the usual jovial, happy, smiling man that I’ve come to care a great deal for—perhaps have even fallen a bit in love with.
I slip the royal blue cotton dress on over my bra and panties. A bra, something I have to start wearing now, since my breasts have doubled in size, thankfully. They’re still small, but they’re almost back to their normal size.
I make my way into the kitchen, grabbing a slice of the apple streusel bread that I made yesterday before I walk toward Ziven’s office, where I know he must be hiding. I nibble on the bread as I make my way toward him, finishing it on the way.
“What do you mean you can’t find anything, Oliver? You’re the best,” he practically growls as he talks into his phone.
“I need to know where they are. I need to know why they’re hiding,” he practically urges.
“Oliver, this has to happen. I must know.”
I bite my bottom lip, too curious for my own good as to what he’s talking about, and who he needs to find so desperately.
“Come in, katyonak. Don’t lurk in the doorway,” he grunts.
I step into his office to see that he’s sitting behind his desk. Ziven’s normally only slightly disheveled hair looks an absolute mess, and I clench my thighs together at the sight. He looks even sexier than normal.
I’m on edge, too, but not the way he is. I’m sexually on edge. His soft caresses, sweet kisses, and the way he holds me every single night, it has me ready to implode. If he doesn’t touch me soon, I’m going to have to force him to.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, shaking off thoughts of Ziven’s fingers caressing me in all the places I crave him.
“Yeah,” he mutters almost distractedly.
“Are you leaving for work soon?” I ask.
“C’mere,” he mutters.
I slowly make my way over to him, rounding his desk before his hand shoots out, wrapping around my waist and tugging me onto his lap.
“You’re so gorgeous, Quinn. You know that, yeah?” he asks as his hand slowly glides up my back and twists in my hair.
I shake my head, and he grins slightly, his other hand resting at my ribs, his fingers wrapping around me, holding me firmly but gently as his thumb caresses the underside of my breast.
“You’re wearing a bra,” he states. I nod as I exhale a shaky breath. I might be wearing a bra, but it isn’t heavily padded, and I can feel each stroke of his thumb. “You’ve gained weight.”
“I’ve been baking. Those cookbooks you bought me are fantastic,” I whisper.
I was so surprised when he brought me home a cookbook. He’s come home with two more since the first. It’s very sweet, and I’m extremely appreciative.
However, I need to slow down on the treats or I’m going to continue to gain, surpassing just the weight I lost and charting new territories.
“There’s an engagement party in a week,” he rumbles as his head dips and he places a kiss on my neck.
“Oksana’s?” I guess.
“Yeah.”
I slide my hand from his arm, up his shoulder and around the back of his neck arching my body into his touch. He lifts his head and looks up at me as I lower my face and brush my lips across his neck.
“Please touch me, Ziven,” I whisper.
“How, Quinn? How do you want me to touch you?” he asks, his face void of a smile. Instead, his eyes flare with intense heat.
“Everywhere. I want you to touch me everywhere,” I murmur, swallowing the lump in my throat; swallowing down the nervousness.
“I need to hear what you want. I won’t take it from you. Never again will I take.”
“You’ve never taken anything that I wasn’t more than willing to give you, Ziven,” I admit, thinking of all the times we fucked hard and dirty in the past.
“Hmm,” he hums as he lifts his hand and his fingers gently slide down the column of my neck, sweeping across my collar bone.
“Please, I’m begging you,” I whine.
“No, you’re not begging me, yet. You will one day. I’ll have you on your knees, begging for my cock as though your life depends on it. You’ll be on edge, on the verge of coming, and it’ll hurt. Then, you’ll know that only I can make that feeling building inside of you go away. You’ll beg and plead for me, Quinn.”
“Ziven,” I gasp, thinking about his words.
Imagining myself on my knees in front of him, begging, pleading, and craving all of him.
Without a word, he lifts me, adjusting me on his lap so that my back is pressed against his hard chest. He lifts the bottom of my dress to my waist and runs his fingertips up the tops of my thighs and then repeats the motion at the inside of my thighs, stopping and pressing his thumbs against my center. He applies just enough pressure that it makes my legs tremble with need.
“Ven,” I sigh, letting my head fall back against his shoulder, turning to press my lips to the underside of his jaw.
“Is this where you want me to touch you, katyonak?” he asks, his voice smooth and low.
“Yes, very much so,” I murmur against his smooth jaw.
I gasp when one of his thumbs slides beneath my panties and gently passes over my wet center. He caresses me, softly and delicately. He doesn’t dip his thumb inside of me, but instead touches everywhere else. His gentle caresses have my hips squirming for more. When his thumb slides over my clit, I moan.
“I’m going to fill your pretty pussy up, Quinn,” he grunts as two fingers slowly slide inside of me just as he’s promised.
His free hand wraps around the outside of my thigh and spreads my legs further apart, giving his hand more access to my center. I lift my arm and wrap my hand around the back of his neck, holding onto him while my legs shake. He doesn’t move. His palm presses against my clit, and his fingers fill my pussy as his face buries in my neck.
“You’re so wet,” he rasps against my skin.
“Always for you, Ziven, always,” I whisper.
I feel his fingers curl inside of me, and my eyes roll to the back of my head at the sensation. He slowly fucks me with his fingers, handling me like gentle crystal. I don’t mind.
In fact, in his arms, I feel delicate for the first time in my life. His palm grinds down against my clit, and I can’t stop my hips from rolling and thrusting up in search of more.
I whimper as I climb closer toward my release, feeling it build inside of me, ready to burst through at any second. It’s going to be huge when it does; it’s going to be magnificent. I can practically taste it.
Ziven’s mouth opens against my neck, and his teeth sink down into my skin, causing me to jerk. Then I come. It’s long, it’s hard, and it’s exactly as I predicted it to be—utterly magnificent.
I slump against him after I catch my breath, and I expect him to remove his fingers from inside of me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he continues to fuck me, gently guiding himself in and out.
“Ziven,” I whisper.
“You’re always so gorgeous when you come. I’ve missed it,” he murmurs against my skin.
Tears prick my eyes at his confession. I wonder, not for the first time, how I could have despised him so much, and for so long? He has to be one of the sweetest men I have ever known. How I had thought of him as this big, bad, evil man, I don’t know.
“Just let me play for a while, yeah?” he asks as he continues to slide his fingers in and out of me, curling them inside every so often.
My head lolls to the side in a lame nod, and I allow him to play. It doesn’t take long before my body is heating back up again and climbing toward a second release. My legs shake as Ziven’s free hand slides under my dress and he grabs the cup of my bra, yanking it down to free my breast. I hum when his fingers pinch my nipple, and he gently tugs.
“Come again. Let me see what I’ve been missing,” he rasps.
I do exactly as he’s asked, wanting to give him whatever he desires. When I’m breathing heavily again, my body completely and thoroughly sated, I turn to him, he’s looking down at me, one hand still cupping my breast, the other my pussy, and he grins.
“What about you?” I ask shyly, my face turning hot just at my words.
“That wasn’t about me, Quinn,” he murmurs, kissing my neck.
“But—.”
“But nothing, katyonak. Seeing you come was my main goal. My cock can be patient, and I know the prize that waits for me will be worth it all,” he rumbles, squeezing me a bit tighter before he releases his hold on my breast and my center.
“I don’t think I’ll ever deserve you,” I whisper as his arms wrap around my waist.
“Nonsense,” he murmurs. “We all make mistakes in our past, shit we wish we could go back and change. The important thing is to move forward.”
“I’m so happy to be moving forward with you, Ziven. I’m so thankful and grateful that you’re giving me a second chance,” I confess.
“You need some rest now, yeah?” he asks, ending the conversation.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
Without a word, he picks me up like a child and walks me into the bedroom. Once he sets me down on the bed, I wrap the comforter around my body and I look up at him. His concerned eyes are watching me, and he lifts his hand before he lets his fingertips run down the side of my face and across my lips.
“This is where you belong, where you’ve always belonged, Quinn.”
Ziven walks away, and I watch him as my eyes grow heavy and close. I’m asleep before he even closes the bedroom door. Two beautiful orgasms lulled me into a peaceful, dreamless nap.
Oliver can’t find Agent Wilson or Quinn’s father. They are seriously fucking ghosts in the wind. That makes me twitchy and nervous. It also makes me not want to leave Quinn, even during the day.
I’m fighting two separate things here. Them, and the mystery man she lived with for six weeks. She’s like a vault, refusing to tell me his name, only that he has a powerful job.
Fuck his powerful job. I’ll kill him anyway—if I only knew who he was.
I pick up my phone to call Mika.
“Boss?”
“Quinn has to leave the condo. She’s been holed up here this whole time. I’m going to take her out shopping for a dress for Oksana’s Valentine’s Day party, but I want to know if you’d be available to escort her if she wishes to leave anytime I’m not around?”
“You want me to be her Byki?” he asks, almost sounding offended. It is well below his position, so I can understand why he’d feel that way.
“She trusts you, Mika. I don’t want to have a stranger around her and have her feel uncomfortable,” I admit.
“Things are good with you?” he asks, not answering me.
“So far, yeah.”
“Then, yeah, I’ll be that for her,” he agrees.
“Spasibo,” I grunt, thanking him.
I go back into my office, avoiding the cookies and breads that are laid out in the kitchen. Another reason Quinn needs to get up and stop hiding out. She’s baking too much. I didn’t think it was possible, but she’ll have to roll me out of the condo if it doesn’t quit. She’s a damn fine baker.
I sit down, turning on my computer screen, and I stare at the two pictures in front of me. One of Agent Wilson, the other of Quinn’s father. I comb through what little documentation that Oliver was able to dig up for me. They both disappeared around Christmas, only a week before Quinn left me.
It makes me curious if it’s all tied together. Her leaving and them disappearing.
It must.
I don’t know how to connect the dots, though. I won’t know until she tells me the name of the man she was with for those weeks.
I stand from my desk, turning my computer off, unable to look at the screen for another second. I decide to go into a room I haven’t’ dared step foot inside of for months.
Standing in front of the door, I turn the knob and slip inside, flipping the light on as I close the door behind me. It smells the way she used to smell. I look around at the settled space. It hasn’t been touched; I would know. I memorized it when she left.
Quinn’s old room.
I don’t know if she’s staying away for a reason, but I’m glad she hasn’t come in here. This is just a reminder of the hell we lived in months ago, when she hated me; when we only spoke enough words to each other to fight. Then we’d fuck and come before turning away from each other again.
I decide to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t when she left me. It’s time I look through her things. Her clothes are all gone, but everything else of hers she left right here, probably because I bought them all for her. The first place I decide to look for answers are her nightstands.
I sit on the bed and pull open the drawer. There are fliers there for some events that we went to. Nothing too exciting. Charity auctions and dinners that I thought she would enjoy; event’s where I could talk with powerful men without making appointments that leave behind a paper trail.
When I reach the bottom of the drawer, I find a card. Picking it up, I read over it a few times before I realize exactly what it’s for, and who it belongs to.
The District Attorney of Denver, Oswald Johnson. I flip it over and I find he’s hand written something.
CALL ME BEAUTIFUL.
—O.J.
My gut twists as if it knows the truth before my brain can even comprehend. I remember the event where I saw Oswald. It was a children’s charity. I don’t remember the cause, but I remember the evening. We hadn’t been in Denver very long; this was right before Thanksgiving, and she ran from me shortly after—right before New Year’s.
“Ziven?” Quinn yawns from the doorway.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, staring at this card, knowing that the woman I’ve held affection for over a year has gone to another authority figure, again. This time of her complete and total free will.
“Why are you in here?” she asks, looking around.
Her hair is messy and her eyes look tired, but she’s sexy as fuck all, and I don’t want to be pissed off at her, but I fucking am.
“You ran off with the District Attorney?” I accuse.
I watch her reaction, the way her eyes widen and the gulp she swallows.
Fuck.