Chapter 15: Morning Devotion
The Thames was a slab of molten lead under the grey London dawn. Vanja watched it from the vast bed, her body a catalog of subtle aches. One month. One month since the silent, lavish ceremony in a Mayfair townhouse, witnessed by grim-faced strangers and a cathedral’s worth of white orchids. One month since she’d become Mrs. Maximillian abramovich a name that felt like a costume two sizes too small.
The penthouse bedroom was a monument to Roman’s taste: dark walnut, cold marble, and floor-to-ceiling glass that turned the city into a owned diorama. It smelled of him—sanded wood, bitter espresso, and a cologne with a faint, metallic edge. Max slept on her left, his handsome face smooth in repose, one arm thrown possessively over her hips. On her right, Roman slept on his back, his breathing deep and even, a king in his rightful place.
She was the filling in a dynastic sandwich.
Her body, however, was no longer just her own. The first faint curve of her abdomen pressed against the silken sheets. A life, a convergence of two violent bloodlines, was knitting itself together inside her. The thought should have been terrifying. Some days, it was. But in the silent, pre-dawn hours, it felt like the only real thing in the gilded cage. A secret she had with herself.
A hardness pressed against her left thigh. Then, a matching one against her right.
She froze, her breath catching. Max, still mostly asleep, nuzzled into her neck, his morning erection digging into her hip. On her other side, Roman shifted. His hand slid over the plane of her stomach—a calculated, claiming gesture—and down to the junction of her thighs. He found her warm and, to her shame, already damp from the turmoil of her dreams. He let out a low, approving hum.
“Mmm. Dreaming of us, princess?” Max’s voice was sleep-roughened in her ear. His hand came up to cup her breast, his thumb scraping over her nipple. It peaked instantly, painfully under his touch.
Roman’s finger dipped inside her, just to the first knuckle. “She’s thinking of the shop in Vienna,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Aren’t you, Vanja? You think of the glass. You think of me watching.”
Her face flushed hot. She had. The memory was a permanent stain, a degrading film she played in her head at her weakest moments. The tap-tap-tap on the mirror. Max’s furious, performative fucking. The way her own body had betrayed her, singing a chorus of shameful pleasure.
“Don’t,” she whispered, the word meaningless.
“Don’t what?” Max growled. He bit her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to brand. His hand left her breast and shoved between her leg and Roman’s probing hand. “Don’t remember how much you loved it? How fucking wet you got for us?”
He hooked his leg over hers, rolling her onto her back. In the same fluid motion, Roman moved. He straddled her chest, his powerful thighs caging her head. The early light caught the silver in his hair, the brutal lines of his torso. He was already fully hard, his cock thick and flushed, jutting toward her face.
“Good morning, princess,” Max growled, his blue eyes now fully awake and dark with intent. He flipped her onto her hands and knees with a practised ease. The sheet pooled around her waist. The cool air hit her skin, followed immediately by the heat of his body covering hers. He pressed her down into the mattress, his chest against her back.
Roman guided himself to her lips. “Open,” he commanded, his voice quiet.She did. He filled her mouth, a heavy, salty weight. She choked instinctively, tears springing to her eyes.
“Suck it,” Roman said, his hand tangling in her hair. “Like you mean it. Like you did for my son on his wedding night.”
Behind her, Max spat into his palm. She heard the slick sound as he stroked himself. Then the blunt, insistent pressure of him at her entrance. He pushed in, not slowly, but not with the brutal force of the boutique. He filled her in one long, deep stroke, burying himself to the hilt. A groan was torn from him, vibrating through her back.
“Fuck, she’s tight,” he gasped, his hips flush against her ass. “Even now. Like a fucking vice.”
Roman began to move in her mouth, a slow, deep rhythm. “She’s perfect,” he said, his voice showing the first hint of strain. “Designed for this. To take us. To hold us.”
The sensation was overwhelming. Max’s cock was a thick, stretching presence inside her, pulsing with his heartbeat. Roman’s hit the back of her throat with each thrust, making her gag, tears streaming down her temples into her hair. The bed, an island of thousand-thread-count linen, rocked with their combined rhythm. Max set a punishing pace, pounding into her from behind, each slam driving her forward onto Roman’s shaft.
“Look at her,” Max grunted, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. “Look at my wife. Taking us both. Your cock in her mouth, mine in her cunt. You see this, Father? You see what we made?”
It was a grotesque parody of the boutique. A daily reaffirmation of the hierarchy. Vanja’s mind tried to flee, to think of her studies, of Mika the cat, of the soft green hills of Munich. But her body was a traitorous, responsive instrument. The double penetration, the sheer fullness, the crude, filthy reality of it sent sparks of shocking pleasure through her core. A moan escaped her, muffled by Roman’s flesh.
He heard it. His grip in her hair tightened. “She likes it,” he said, his voice thick. “She’s a greedy little thing. Wants to be full. Isn’t that right?”
Max leaned over her, his breath hot on her ear. “Answer him, baby. Tell Daddy how much you love our cocks.”
Roman pulled himself almost all the way out of her mouth. A string of saliva connected her lips to his tip. “Tell me.”
“I love it,” she sobbed, the words humid and broken. “I love your cocks. Please.”
“Please what?” Roman demanded, slapping his length against her tongue before pushing back in.
“Please don’t stop,” she cried, the confession torn from a place of deep, shameful need.
“Good girl,” Max purred, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. The slap of skin on skin, the wet sounds of her mouth on Roman, the creak of the bedframe—it was a symphony of depravity. Max reached around, his hand finding her clit. He rubbed rough, rapid circles, his touch knowing and cruel. “You gonna come, Vanja? You gonna come on your husband’s cock while you suck your father-in-law’s?”
The coil in her belly wound impossibly tight. Her internal muscles fluttered around Max’s length. She was teetering on the edge, disgust and ecstasy fuseing into one inseparable sensation.
“I’m close,” Max warned, his rhythm faltering. “Where do you want it, Father? In this perfect, fertile pussy? Or should I paint her pretty ass?”
Roman’s hips stuttered. He pulled himself free from her mouth with a wet pop. “Switch,” he commanded, his voice a guttural rasp.
In a blur of motion, they moved. Max pulled out, his cock glistening with her arousal. Roman rolled her onto her back, pushing her knees up toward her shoulders. He didn’t enter her. Instead, he positioned himself at her other entrance. She felt the blunt, impossible pressure there. He spat into his hand, slicking himself, then pressed forward.
“No, wait, it’s too—” she gasped, but he was already pushing inside. The burn was exquisite, a sharp, tearing stretch that made her see stars. He was bigger than Max, and he took his time, burying himself in her tight, virgin channel with a ruthless, controlled pressure until he was fully seated. The feeling of being filled there, so completely, so wrongfully, shattered her. A raw, broken scream was torn from her throat.
Max watched for a second, his cock in his hand, stroking himself furiously. Then he moved over her, aligning himself with her wet, swollen folds. He pushed back into her slick heat, sheathing himself in her pussy as Roman remained buried in her ass.
The fullness was monumental. Staggering. She was stretched to her absolute limit, a vessel containing both of them. They began to move, not in sync, but in a devastating counter-rhythm. As Max withdrew, Roman pushed in. As Roman pulled back, Max filled the space. It was a ceaseless, rolling wave of sensation that smashed against her every nerve ending.
“Look at me,” Roman ordered, his face a mask of fierce concentration. She forced her blurred eyes to focus on his. His icy blue gaze was blazing, locked on hers. “This is what you are.This is your purpose. To be the link. The living, breathing bond.”
“Fuck, she’s so full,” Max grunted, pounding into her. “Can you feel me, Father? Right beside you? In your son’s wife?”
“Cum for Daddy,” Roman growled, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating through her very bones. He pistoned into her, the sharp, taboo friction triggering something primal deep within her.
The command was the final trigger. Her orgasm detonated, a silent, catastrophic explosion that turned her world white. Her back arched off the bed, a soundless scream on her lips as her body clenched violently around the two men invading her. The intense, dual stimulation wracked her with endless, rippling waves of pleasure-pain.
Feeling her convulse, Max lost control. “Vanja!” he roared, slamming into her one last time. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release flood her depths.
The sensation of Max’s cum inside her, while Roman still relentlessly fucked her ass, pushed Roman over the edge. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself as deep as he could go and held. A hot, searing jet joined the mess inside her. He groaned, a harsh, triumphant sound, his body shuddering as he emptied himself.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city below. They collapsed on either side of her, a tangle of limbs and sweat and cooling release. The evidence of their joining leaked from her, a warm, sticky shame on the expensive sheets.
Roman was the first to move. He withdrew from her body, the sensation making her wince. He sat up on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair. He looked out at the grey dawn, his profile like carved stone.
“We leave for Monaco tonight,” he said, his voice once again calm, devoid of the heat of moments before. “The Karelia is ready.”
Max propped himself on an elbow, looking down at Vanja. He brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. His touch was almost tender. “A change of scenery will be good,” he murmured, but his eyes were distant, already calculating.
Vanja lay between them, staring at the ceiling. The body that had just been a conduit of unimaginable sensation now felt hollowed out, used. The baby, her secret anchor, gave a gentle flutter, a tiny fish in a poisoned pond.
Roman stood, walking naked to the window. He surveyed his domain, then glanced back at the bed, at her. “The rules have served their purpose,” he said, more to himself than to them. “It’s time for a new game.”
He turned, his eyes finding Vanja’s. In them, she saw no satiation, no softness. Only the cold, gleaming anticipation of a chess master who has just cleared the board for the next, more complex move.
“Rest,” he said. Then he turned and walked into his bathroom, closing the door behind him. The click of the lock was the period at the end of the sentence.
The scent of him lingered on her skin long after Roman had slipped from the stateroom—a mix of expensive cigar and something colder, metallic, like the Baltic air through an open porthole. Vanja lay perfectly still beside Max’s sleeping form, the echo of Roman’s words a bruise deeper than the ones on her hips. Dreaming while I ruin what’s his.
Max shifted, his arm draping heavily over her waist in a sleep-softened embrace. She stared at the ceiling, at the subtle play of moonlight on polished wood, and felt the ghost of Roman’s thrusts still echoing inside her, a violation that had, sickeningly, coiled heat in her belly. Her own complicity was the poison. She had muffled her cries, yes, but her body had arched back, had taken him greedily. She despised that part of herself, the part that thrilled at the danger, at the raw ownership both men exerted in different ways.
She thought of the boutique, of Max’s hands on her in the mirror, and now Roman’s in the dark. They were two sides of the same brutal coin. And she was the currency.
The short vacation in Dubrovnik was Max’s idea, a brittle attempt at normalcy. “Sunshine,” he’d said, tracing her jawline. “You need colour.” He didn’t mention the shadows under her eyes, shadows he’d put there.
They sat at a harbourside café, the Adriatic a dazzling sheet of cobalt below the ancient city walls. Vanja sipped a sparkling water, trying to feel the warmth on her skin. Max was on a call, his voice a low, commanding murmur a few feet away. She watched the passers-by, the easy laughter of strangers, and felt like a specimen under glass.
“I beg your pardon for the intrusion.”
The voice was smooth, accented. She looked up. The man was handsome in a weathered, sun-bleached way—forties, sharp blue eyes, a smile that seemed genuinely appreciative. He gestured to the empty chair at her table. “Every other seat is taken. May I?”
She glanced at Max, his back turned. A petty defiance made her nod. “Of course.”
He sat, ordering a coffee in fluent Croatian before turning his full attention to her. His gaze was direct, but not leering. It was the look of a connoisseur presented with a masterpiece. He let out a soft, appreciative breath.
“You will think I am a madman,” he said, his eyes crinkling. “But I must say it. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
Vanja let out a short, genuine laugh. It sounded foreign to her own ears. “My husband says the same thing.” The word ‘husband’ felt like a lie on her tongue, a costume she was wearing.
“He is a wise man,” the stranger said, extending a hand. “I am Niko.”
Before she could take it, a shadow fell across the table. Max stood there, the phone lowered, his expression a calm so absolute it was more terrifying than any scowl. Roman materialized just behind his shoulder, a silent, broad-shouldered sentinel. The air at the table tightened, charged.
Niko looked up, unfazed. His smile didn’t waver; it deepened, turning knowing. He looked from Max to Roman and back to Vanja, his eyes glinting with a comprehension that chilled her blood. He didn’t retract his hand. He simply let it rest on the table, a casual challenge.
“Gentlemen,” Niko said, his tone friendly, diplomatic.
Max’s eyes never left Vanja. The blue in them had frozen over. He saw the ghost of her laugh, the faint blush on her cheeks from the stranger’s compliment. He saw everything.
“Vanja,” Max said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Come.”
She stood, her chair scraping softly. As she moved to Max’s side, Niko gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, his smile lingering on her.
They walked away, a tense procession back towards the yacht. The moment they were out of earshot, on the secluded gangway, Max stopped. He gripped her arm, not hard, but with a finality that pinned her in place. Roman watched, his face unreadable.
Max leaned close, his lips beside her ear. The scent of his cologne, usually a comfort, now smelled like a threat. His words were a raw, hissed truth she wasn’t prepared for.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word vibrating with a fury he was barely containing. “They still want you. You carry our name. You carry my son inside you, and yet they look at you like that. They still want you.”
Vanja’s breath caught. The world tilted. You carry my son.
The late sun, the sparkling sea, Niko’s smile—it all dissolved into a white, roaring static. She looked down at her own flat stomach, then up at his fierce, possessive, terrified face. The final piece of the trap snapped shut. It wasn’t just her body they owned anymore.It was her future. It was everything.
Max searched her eyes for a reaction—fear, joy, anger. He found only a devastating, hollow shock. Roman took a half-step closer, the two of them framing her against the glittering water, a united front of devastating, inseparable possession.
The scent of him filled her nostrils before she was fully awake—cigar smoke, expensive cologne, and the cold, metallic hint of the night sea. Vanja’s eyes snapped open in the dark master stateroom of the Karelia. Moonlight sliced through a gap in the velvet drapes, painting a silver bar across Max’s sleeping form beside her, and across the heavier silhouette standing at the foot of the bed.
Her breath hitched, a sharp, silent gasp.
Roman.
He was just a shape in the darkness, but she knew the set of those shoulders, the deliberate stillness that felt like a predator coiled to spring. He hadn’t been on the yacht when she and Max had boarded in Helsinki. Max had said he was tied up with business in Kaliningrad. A week. It had been a week of strange peace, of whispered confessions in the sauna, of Max’s hands mapping her body without the ever-present shadow of his father. A foolish, fragile peace.
She watched, frozen, as Roman silently unbuttoned his tailored coat and let it drop to the plush carpet. His movements were fluid, precise. He unclasped his wristwatch, the faint click obscenely loud in the silent room, and placed it on the grand piano. Then he turned his head, and even in the dark, she felt the full force of his gaze lock onto hers. A jolt, pure and electric, shot through her belly.
He padded around the side of the bed, his socked feet making no sound. He didn’t look at Max. His eyes were only for her. The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge, his weight pulling the sheets taut against her leg. The warmth of his body radiated toward her, a stark contrast to the chilled air. He reached out, and his thumb traced the line of her jaw, then drifted down the column of her throat. His touch was deceptively soft.
His hand closed.
Not enough to choke, but enough to claim. His grip was a collar. He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.
“Look at him,” Roman murmured, his voice a rough, low vibration meant only for her. “Dreaming while I ruin what’s his.”
A protest died in her throat, suffocated by fear and a treacherous, awakening heat. He released her throat, his hands going to her hips. In one brutal, seamless motion, he flipped her onto her stomach. The silk of her nightdress rode up. The cool air hit her exposed skin a second before his palm did, a sharp, stinging slap on the curve of her ass that made her jerk and bite down on a cry.
He yanked her hips up, positioning her on her knees. She heard the swift, efficient sound of his zipper. Then he was there, the broad, insistent head of his cock pressing against her. No preparation, no tenderness. Just possession.
He shoved into her with one deep, punishing thrust.
Vanja’s face buried into the pillow, her back arching against the invasion. He was thicker than Max, a brutal stretch that bordered on pain. He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a ruthless, driving rhythm, one hand anchored on her hip, the other fisting tightly in her long, dark blond hair, pulling her head back. Each snap of his hips drove her forward, grinding her face into the linen. She could hear Max’s steady, slow breathing just inches away, a peaceful counterpoint to the violent, wet sounds of Roman taking her.
“You are angry with me,” Roman growled, his voice strained with the effort of his thrusts.
She couldn’t speak. The pillow muffled her strained gasp.
He yanked her head back further, the pain sharp and bright. “Say it.”
“You’ve been gone for a week,” she managed, the words fragmented.
He stilled, buried deep inside her, and she felt him laugh, a silent shake of his torso against her back. “You missed me,” he smiled into her hair, the arrogance dripping from the words.
“Shut up.”
He moved again, a slow, grinding roll of his hips that made her toes curl. He leaned over her, his chest flush against her back, his mouth against her ear. When he spoke, it was in the guttural Russian he knew she was still learning, the language of his private, dark world.
“Ты скучала по папочке, девочка?” You missed Daddy, baby girl?
A moan tore from her, unbidden, humiliating. It was an admission. It was a surrender. Her body, traitorous and alive, clenched around him in response.
He chuckled, a dark, satisfied sound. With a forceful pull, he dragged her off Max’s sleeping form and onto her back. He lay down, positioning himself flat on the mattress, and guided her to straddle him. His hands were on her waist, lifting her, then lowering her onto his rigid length. She was impaled, facing him, forced to watch the stark hunger in his icy blue eyes.
“Show me,” he commanded, his voice a gravelly whisper.
Vanja moved, hesitantly at first, then with a growing, desperate urgency. She rose and fell, taking him deep, her inner muscles fluttering around him. The sheer fullness was a crude, perfect counterpoint to the emotional void he carved inside her. Her nightdress was bunched around her waist, her breasts bare and bouncing with each movement. His gaze dropped to them, hungry.
His hands came up to cup them, his thumbs circling her nipples until they were painfully hard. Then he leaned forward, capturing one taut peak in his mouth. He sucked hard, his tongue lashing, his teeth grazing. The dual sensation—the deep, filling thrusts and the sharp pull on her breast—unraveled her. Her rhythm broke, becoming ragged, needy.
“That’s it,” he grunted against her skin, switching to the other breast. “Take your fucking frustration out on me. Use me. Ride me like you wanted to all week.”
She did. Her hips pistoned, driving him deeper, chasing the coil of sensation tightening low in her belly. She was slick, the sounds obscenely loud in the quiet room. Her hands braced on his hard chest, her head thrown back. The orgasm built like a wave, inevitable and terrifying. She couldn’t stop it. It crashed over her, a silent, convulsing storm that made her body clamp around him in rhythmic pulses. She saw stars, her vision whiting out at the edges.
Through the haze, she felt his hands clamp viselike on her hips, holding her down as he thrust up into her, once, twice, three more times with a frantic, jarring force. A low, feral groan ripped from his throat as he came, his body rigid beneath her, flooding her with his release. He held her there, locked together, as the shudders subsided.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the gentle lap of water against the hull. Then, Max stirred in his sleep, mumbling something incoherent and turning over.
Roman’s eyes, locked on Vanja’s, glinted with a dark triumph. He slowly, gently, lifted her off him and laid her back on the sheets beside his sleeping son. He leaned over her, kissing her forehead with a chilling tenderness.
“Sleep well, мой грех,” he whispered. My sin.
He stood, pulled on his trousers, collected his things, and left as silently as he had arrived.