Tania was good at keeping a happy face for me, but I had heard her, locked up in the library, weeping and talking to Ella on her phone.
“Give her some time,” Maksim had advised me. “They have been friends much longer than we’ve been husbands. There are things you and I speak of that no one else understands. It is the same for them.”
What hit the hardest was that I walked away from that night in Dublin free. There is no miraculous cure for what happened to me during the kidnapping, but putting that entire family down like dogs took away my nightmares, and the moments when their laughing voices were too loud in my head to push away. But I felt tremendous guilt for it, as if I had traded my struggles for my wife to be burdened with hers.
Looking up at me with a smile as I approached, she put her violin aside. “Hey, gorgeous,” she said, “how was your meeting?”
“Productive,” I said, lifting her chin with my finger to kiss her. It was easy to forget everything else with Tania’s lush mouth, her tongue tracing and curling with mine. I picked her up from the chair seating myself and then her on my lap, straddling me.
“How areyoudoing, myKoroleva?”I brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, tilting my head to get her to look at me.
“I’m fine,” she shrugged with a false smile. Then, she sagged a bit, leaning her cheek against my hand. “I mean, I will be. I’ll work this out in my head and make sense of it.”
“Will you let me help?” I asked, “I want to take this pain from you.”
“I know. I wanted to take yours, too. Just… you know. Just be here, okay?” She buried her face in my neck, taking in a long breath.
“Are yousniffingme?” I teased.
“You smell delicious.” Her voice was muffled against my neck.
“Like one of Anya’s honey cakes?” I chuckled.
“Nope. Like pine. And sea salt and warm cotton,” she kissed the tight cord in my neck and I felt her warmth spread over my skin.
Biting her soft earlobe, I whispered, “You are heading for a very full afternoon if you keep this up.”
Tania gave her hoarse little chuckle against my skin. “Is that a double entendre?”
Sliding my hands up under her skirt and grabbing the rounded cheeks of her ass, I squeezed them, enjoying her yelp. “We have run out of Catherine the Great horse jokes, we must find something new.”
Now she really chortled, and it was so good to see her laugh again.
Standing up, I kept my hands on her ass as her legs wrapped around my waist. “We cannot walk into the house like this, Yuri!” Tania gasped, “Seriously-”
“I am not taking you into the mausoleum,” I corrected her, heading in another direction. I grinned at her embarrassed expression. “You think you are the only one who likens this house to a mortuary?”
“No, it’s really beautiful and-”
“Ah, ah. No lies, even if they are polite ones. I have plans for you.” Taking a left at the arbor covered in roses, I headed for a little stone cottage almost hidden by the vines.
“What is this?” Tania stopped sucking on my neck long enough to notice the cottage.
“It was used by the guards for a while until we built them a new base of operations,” I said, “I’ve kept it for a quieter spot to escape to when the house is full of people.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” she kissed me again as I fumbled for the handle.
The instant the door was shut, I slammed her up against it, squeezing her ass as I lifted her higher to bury my face between her breasts. “Take this off,” I pulled at her sweater with my teeth. She yanked it off and was left in her bra, a pretty black lace and silk one. I sucked her nipple harshly over the lace, feeling it pebble instantly, then groaned and moved to the other breast. Tania’s nails scratched gently against my scalp, then she gripped handfuls of my hair as I bit the nipple I had just coaxed free from its cup.
Swinging her off me and over the arm of the couch, I yanked her leggings and panties down her legs and slapped her luscious-looking ass. The red imprint of my hand was gorgeous on her tanned skin, and I slapped the other cheek, just to be fair.
I pressed my hard cock against the curve of her body leaning over the couch, growling as I grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head up to kiss her. “What is the word?” I whispered into her ear.
“Schenectady,” Tania moaned, feeling my cock rub against her, ready to rip free from my zipper.
“It will be impossible to ever forget that safe word,” I bit her neck, a sharp nip that made her jump and gasp. Sliding my hands from her shoulders, up her arms and to her wrists, I put them on the middle couch cushion, forcing her to stretch to reach it. “Do not move your hands from here,” I warned her, “I would hate to deny your orgasms for the next week.”
My wife made an irritable sound that ended in a gasp as I sank to my knees, pressing my mouth against her perfect cunt.