Chapter 36: The next step
The word hung between them, unfinished, but Andrey understood. His hands, still resting on her hips, softened their grip. "Just overwhelmed," he finished for her, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room. It wasn't a question.
Violet nodded, her throat tight. Overwhelmed by sensation, by the sheer unbelievable reality of it. Sascha Zverev had just tasted her, and now Andrey Rublev held her in his lap like she was something precious, his gaze so intense it felt like a physical touch.
From the edge of the bed, Sascha shifted. He stood, the movement fluid and predatory, and came to kneel beside them on the thick rug. He didn't touch her, just looked up, his face level with hers. The candlelight caught the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. "Good overwhelmed?" he asked, his tone deceptively light, but his eyes were serious, searching.
"Yeah," Violet breathed out, a shaky laugh escaping. "Very good overwhelmed."
A slow smile spread across Sascha's face, genuine and unguarded. It transformed him, cutting through the usual aloofness. He reached out then, not for her, but for Andrey's t-shirt. His fingers hooked into the hem. "Your turn is getting delayed," he said to Andrey, a teasing note in his voice.
Andrey's response was a soft grunt, his attention still fixed on Violet. But he lifted his arms, allowing Sascha to pull the shirt up and over his head. The fabric joined the growing pile on the floor. Violet's breath caught. She’d seen him on court, of course, all coiled power and sweat-slicked muscle. But this was different. Up close, in the intimate glow, his physique was a landscape of lean, defined strength. A faint dusting of reddish-blonde hair trailed down his stomach, disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.
Her fingers, almost of their own accord, splayed across his chest. His skin was hot, the muscle beneath firm and unyielding. She felt the rapid thud of his heart against her palm.
Andrey closed his eyes for a second, a sharp inhale hissing through his teeth. "Your hands are cold," he murmured, but he covered her hand with his own, pressing it more firmly against him.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be."
Sascha’s fingers went to the button of Andrey’s jeans. The metallic snick was loud in the quiet. He worked with a focused efficiency, tugging the denim down Andrey’s hips just enough. Andrey shifted beneath her, lifting his hips to help, and then he was free, his arousal pressing insistently against her thigh.
The reality of it, the size and heat of him, sent a fresh, liquid pulse through her own core. She’d been so lost in what Sascha was doing that she hadn’t fully processed this next step. A flicker of that old anxiety sparked—a worry about performance, about awkwardness.
As if sensing it, Andrey’s hands came up to frame her face. "Look at me," he said, his accent thicker. "Only me, right now. Yes?"
She focused on his blue eyes, the startling clarity of them. He wasn't asking for possession, she realized. He was offering an anchor.
She nodded.
He guided her hips, his grip sure. "Take your time," he said, his voice gravelly. "We have all night."
Violet braced her hands on his shoulders, the muscles there bunched with tension. She lifted herself, positioning him, feeling the blunt pressure. Then, slowly, she sank down.
It was an intense, stretching fullness that stole the air from her lungs. She moved incrementally, a low groan escaping Andrey’s lips as she took him deeper. His head fell back against the side of the bed, the cords of his neck standing out. "Bozhe moi," he gasped, the Russian exclamation rough and heartfelt.
When she was fully seated, she stilled, adjusting, feeling him pulse inside her. The sensation was overwhelming, a complete and breathtaking possession. She looked down at their joined bodies, at the stark contrast of her skin against his, and a wave of dizzying ownership washed over her. This was happening.
Sascha watched, his own breathing uneven. He had moved to sit beside them, one hand resting on Andrey's shoulder, the other tracing idle patterns on the small of Violet's back. His touch was a constant, gentle reminder of his presence.
"Move, krasavitsa," Andrey encouraged, his voice strained. "However you want."
She began to rock, tentatively at first, finding a rhythm. Each movement dragged a gasp from her, a soft curse from him. The angle was deep, perfect. Her earlier sensitivity from Sascha’s mouth bloomed into a new, building heat. She leaned forward, changing the angle, and Andrey’s whole body jerked.
"Right there," he gritted out. "Yes."
Emboldened, she set a faster pace, her hips rolling with a growing confidence. The shy fan from Melbourne was gone, replaced by a woman lost in a crescendo of sensation. Her hair fell around them like a curtain, and Andrey reached up, twisting a handful of it, not pulling, just holding.
Sascha’s hand left her back. She heard the tear of foil, the rustle. She didn’t look, her world narrowed to Andrey’s face, to the feeling of him filling her. But then Sascha was there, kneeling in front of her. He cupped her face, kissing her deeply, his tongue mimicking the rhythm of her hips. The dual sensation—Andrey inside her, Sascha claiming her mouth—shattered her concentration into a thousand bright shards.
She broke the kiss, panting, her forehead dropping to Sascha’s shoulder.
"Look at you," Sascha murmured into her hair, his own voice thick with want. "Fucking magnificent."
Andrey’s hands gripped her hips tighter, his movements becoming less passive, meeting her thrusts with upward drives of his own. The slick sound of their joining filled the space between ragged breaths. "Sascha," Andrey grunted, a clear, urgent signal.
Sascha nodded, understanding some unspoken communication. He guided Violet back, just slightly, changing her angle again. Then his hand slid between their bodies, his fingers finding the swollen, sensitive peak of her.
The touch was electric. Violet cried out, her rhythm faltering.
"Keep going," Sascha commanded softly, his fingers circling with pinpoint precision, matching the pace Andrey set from below. "Both of you. Don't stop."
It was too much. The coil, which had never fully unwound, tightened impossibly fast. Pressure built at the base of her spine, a seismic wave gathering force. She was a instrument being played by two masters, and they were driving her toward a breaking point.
"I can't—" she choked out.
"Yes, you can," Andrey insisted, his blue eyes blazing up at her. His pace became relentless, each thrust hitting a spot that made her see stars. "Let go. For me."
The permission, the raw need in his voice, was the final key. The wave crashed over her, violent and all-consuming. Her body clenched around him, milking him, as a silent scream ripped through her. She shook, vision whiting out, anchored only by Andrey’s hands and Sascha’s steadying arm around her waist.
Her climax triggered his. With a guttural shout, Andrey drove up into her one last, final time, his body arching off the rug as he found his release. She felt the hot pulses deep inside, the tremors of his thighs beneath hers.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their desperate breathing. Violet slumped forward, a boneless weight against Andrey’s chest. He held her, his arms wrapping around her, his face buried in her hair. His heart hammered against her ear.
Sascha’s hand was still on her back, stroking gently. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade. When she finally had the strength to lift her head, she saw the look that passed between the two men over her shoulder—a complex mix of satisfaction, exhaustion, and something deeper, a silent acknowledgment that felt profoundly private.
Slowly, carefully, Andrey helped her off him. She felt empty, trembly, gloriously spent. Sascha stood and offered a hand to each of them, pulling them up. Without a word, he led them not back to the bed, but through a different doorway into a vast, slate-tiled bathroom.
He turned on the rain shower, steam quickly filling the glass enclosure. The water was hot and cleansing. They washed each other with a tender, wordless practicality. Sascha soaped Violet’s back, his hands gentle on her sore muscles. Andrey rinsed his hair, tipping his head back under the spray.
No one spoke. The only sounds were the water and the soft sluice of hands on skin. It wasn’t awkward. It felt necessary, a silent integration of what had just transpired.
Wrapped in thick, soft towels, they drifted back to the bedroom. The candles had burned lower, the room now bathed in a deeper, more secretive gold. The earlier dinner tray had been magically removed—Sascha must have messaged someone, a thought that was both strange and unsurprising.
They collapsed onto the huge bed in a tangle of limbs, the crisp sheets cool against their warmed skin. Violet lay in the middle, Andrey on her left, Sascha on her right. Andrey was on his back, one arm behind his head. Sascha lay on his side, propped on an elbow, looking down at her.
The adrenaline was fading, leaving a hollow quiet in its wake. Violet’s mind, ever the traitor, began to stir. What happened now? What did this mean? Was this a one-night surreal fantasy? The questions buzzed like gnats.
“Your brain is so loud,” Sascha murmured, tracing the furrow between her eyebrows with his thumb.
“It’s just… what happens tomorrow?” The question slipped out, small and vulnerable.
Andrey turned his head on the pillow. “Tomorrow, we have coffee. Maybe we go down to the water. The day after, I have to fly to Madrid for practice.”
His matter-of-fact tone was oddly comforting. It didn’t dismiss her worry; it just placed it in a mundane context.
“And I leave for London the day after,” Sascha added. “The tournament season doesn’t stop.” He studied her face. “This doesn’t have to be a punctuation mark, Violet. It can be a… comma.”
“A comma,” she repeated, testing the word.
“Yeah,” Sascha said. “A pause. Not a full stop.”
Andrey reached across her, his fingers brushing Sascha’s arm in a brief, familiar touch. “She could come to Madrid,” he said, as if suggesting she pop down to the shops. “Watch practice. If she wants.”
The offer hung in the air, simple and enormous. It wasn’t a promise of forever. It was an invitation into the relentless, traveling reality of their lives. A comma that could extend.
Violet looked from one famous, impossibly handsome face to the other. She saw not the celebrities, but the men from the past few days—the one who cooked her eggs, the one who argued over silk blouses, the one who looked at her as if she were the only real thing in a world of plastic.
She thought of her quiet life in Melbourne, the predictable routine. She thought of the dream she was already living, travelling Europe for tennis. This was a detour she’d never dared to map.
A slow smile, her genuine, bright one, spread across her face. “Madrid has a good tournament,” she said softly.
Sascha’s answering smile was a flash of white in the dim light. He leaned down and kissed her, slow and sweet. When he pulled back, Andrey was already asleep, his breathing deep and even, a faint snore beginning to rumble in his chest.
Sascha chuckled, a low, warm sound. He settled back, pulling the duvet over them. “Get some sleep, Violet,” he whispered. “The comma continues tomorrow.”
She curled onto her side, her back against Sascha’s chest, her legs tangled with Andrey’s. Surrounded by their heat and their weight, the gnats in her mind stilled. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t overthink. She just felt. And what she felt, as she drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep, was a sense of belonging so profound it terrified her.
Violet didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. The way her body trembled against his had nothing to do with the cool evening air slipping through the villa’s vast windows. It was the aftershock, the vulnerability, the terrifying, exhilarating realization that she was completely exposed to them in every way.
Andrey understood. His hands slid from her hips to the small of her back, a slow, steadying pressure. “Just feel it,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in his chest against hers. “Don’t think.”
From the edge of the bed, Sascha shifted. The mattress dipped as he moved closer, his knee brushing against Andrey’s thigh. He reached out, not for Violet, but for Andrey’s face, his fingers curling gently around the back of his friend’s neck. It was a gesture of startling intimacy, a silent communication that made Violet’s breath catch. Sascha’s dark eyes were soft, his usual aloofness burned away by the candlelight. He looked at Andrey, then at Violet, a question in his gaze.
Andrey gave a barely perceptible nod.
Sascha’s focus returned to Violet. His hand left Andrey’s neck and came to rest on her bare shoulder, his thumb stroking the ridge of her collarbone. “You’re in control,” he said, the words simple and heavy. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need.”
The power in that statement, the sheer weight of it, steadied her. The trembling subsided, replaced by a different kind of heat—a slow, building certainty. She looked down at Andrey, at the stark want in his blue eyes, at the way his jaw was tight with restraint. He was letting her set the pace, even as every muscle in his body seemed coiled with tension.
Violet leaned forward, her long brown hair curtaining their faces for a moment. She kissed him. It wasn’t like the frantic kisses from before. This was slow, exploratory, a rediscovery. His lips were softer than she expected, and he let her lead, his hands remaining steady on her back. She could taste the faint, clean scent of his skin, something like pine and salt.
When she pulled back, his breath was uneven. “Bozhe moy,” he whispered, a rough prayer against her mouth.
Emboldened, Violet’s hands went to the hem of his simple grey t-shirt. She pulled it up, and he raised his arms willingly, the fabric slipping over his head and discarded somewhere on the floor. His chest was paler than Sascha’s, lean and defined, a dusting of reddish-gold hair across his pectorals. A scar, thin and white, traced a line over his ribs. Without thinking, she bent her head and pressed her lips to it.
Andrey flinched, a sharp intake of breath. His hands came up to cradle her head, his fingers threading through her hair. “Old injury,” he managed to say, his voice strained.
“I know,” she whispered against his skin, remembering the article she’d read years ago about a stress fracture. It made him real in a way statistics never could.
Sascha watched, his hand still a warm weight on her shoulder. She could feel his gaze like a physical touch. Violet shifted her attention to the button of Andrey’s jeans. Her fingers, which had felt so clumsy moments before, worked with a newfound surety. The button popped open. The zipper hissed down.
Andrey lifted his hips, helping her as she tugged the denim and his boxer briefs down in one motion. He kicked them away, and then he was as exposed as she was. Violet sat back, looking at him, taking in the full, straining length of him, the tension in his thighs. He was beautiful in a fierce, unadorned way.
Her own need, momentarily sated by Sascha’s mouth, reignited low in her belly, a sharp, insistent pull.
“Violet,” Sascha said softly from behind her. He was holding something—a small, square foil packet. He must have gotten it from the nightstand. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers.
The gesture was deliberate. It was his way of saying, This is yours. You decide.
Her hands trembled again, but this time it was anticipation. She tore the packet open. Andrey watched her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, but he didn’t move to help. He let her roll the condom down over him, her touch tentative at first, then firmer. A low groan escaped him, his head falling back against the headboard with a soft thud.
When she was done, she positioned herself above him, her hands braced on his shoulders. The head of his cock brushed against her, and they both gasped. She held there, hovering, the moment stretching out, thick with potential.
Andrey’s hands found her hips, his grip tight, but he didn’t push. He waited, his eyes begging her.
Sascha moved then. He settled behind her, his chest to her back, his legs bracketing hers. His arms came around her, not to take control, but to support. One hand splayed across her stomach, pulling her back snugly against him. The other brushed her hair over one shoulder, exposing her neck to his lips.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Sascha murmured into her skin, his voice vibrating through her.
Violet took a final, shaking breath. Then she sank down.
It was a slow, inexorable slide, a fullness that stole the air from her lungs. Andrey’s eyes screwed shut, a muscle ticking in his jaw as she took him in, inch by inch, until she was fully seated, her body flush against his. They stayed like that, joined, breathing each other’s air, adjusting to the shocking, perfect fit of it.
Andrey’s eyes opened. They were blazing. “Violet,” he breathed, her name sounding like a foreign, sacred word in his mouth.
She began to move. Tentatively at first, a slow rock of her hips. Sensation exploded through her, amplified by Sascha’s solid presence at her back, by his lips and teeth on the curve of her shoulder, by his hand slipping down from her stomach to where she and Andrey were joined. His fingers circled her clit, applying a perfect, knowing pressure in time with her movements.
“That’s it,” Sascha coaxed, his own breath ragged. “Just like that.”
Andrey’s control began to fray. His hands tightened on her hips, his own hips meeting her upward strokes with sharp, driving thrusts. The rhythm built, fracturing the quiet of the room. The sound of skin against skin, of ragged breaths and choked-off moans, of the bedframe creaking a soft protest, filled the candlelit space.
Violet lost herself in it. The overthinking mind finally, blissfully quiet. There was only sensation: the hard planes of Andrey’s body beneath her, the scrape of his chest hair against her nipples, the secure cage of Sascha’s arms around her, the clever, relentless work of his fingers. She was the point where they converged, the center of a storm of their making.
Andrey’s murmurs shifted into rough, guttural Russian, words she didn’t understand but whose meaning was unmistakable. His pace became desperate, his fingers digging into her flesh. Sascha’s hand on her clit moved faster, his own hips grinding against her backside in a helpless, rhythmic push.
“Look at me,” Andrey ground out, his voice breaking.
Violet forced her eyes open, meeting his intense blue gaze. His face was a mask of agonized pleasure, his lips parted. Seeing him like that, so utterly unraveled because of her, tipped her over the edge. Her orgasm ripped through her without warning, a silent, seizing wave that clamped down around him, pulling a shout from his throat.
He followed her, his body arching off the bed, his release tearing through him with a series of sharp, jerking thrusts. His eyes never left hers.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, her body boneless. Sascha held her through the tremors, his arms still wrapped around her, his forehead resting between her shoulder blades, his own breathing harsh and uneven.
For long minutes, the only sounds were the slowing of their hearts and the distant sigh of the Mediterranean against the cliffs below.
Andrey’s hands, which had been gripping her so fiercely, softened, moving to stroke her back in slow, sweaty circles. Sascha finally loosened his hold, pressing a final, damp kiss to her spine before shifting back.
Violet didn’t want to move. The weight of Andrey beneath her, the smell of their sex and sweat, the residual hum in her veins—it was all too perfect.
It was Sascha who moved first, carefully disentangling himself. He disposed of the condom and returned with a soft, warm cloth, cleaning Andrey and then Violet with a tenderness that made her throat tighten. He fetched water, holding the glass for her to sip before offering it to Andrey.
The mundane caretaking in the aftermath felt more intimate than anything that had come before.
Finally, Violet shifted, rolling off Andrey to lie between them. The bed was a tangle of sheets and duvet and discarded clothing. Andrey turned on his side to face her, his eyes heavy-lidded. Sascha mirrored him on her other side, propping his head on his hand.
No one spoke. Andrey reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Sascha’s hand came to rest on her hip, his thumb tracing idle patterns.
The candle on the nightstand guttered, sending a final, long shadow dancing up the wall before going out, plunging the room into near-darkness. Only the faint, blue glow from the pool outside filtered through the windows.
“The dinner,” Violet whispered, her voice hoarse.
Sascha let out a low, quiet chuckle. “Fuck the dinner.”
Andrey smiled, a slow, tired, genuine thing that softened his entire face. “It’s probably cold.”
“I’m not hungry,” Violet said, and it was true. She was filled with something else, something warm and expansive.
Sascha leaned in and kissed her temple. “Sleep,” he said, his voice a rough murmur. “We’re here.”
Violet closed her eyes. The last thing she felt was Andrey’s fingers lightly entwining with hers on the pillow, and the solid, warm presence of Sascha along her back. The three of them, nestled in the dark, in a silence that was no longer awkward, but deeply, profoundly full.