Chapter 2: The Stakes Get Higher
The air in the office thickened, heavy with the smell of cheap vodka, engine grease, and a new, sharper scent: anticipation. The space heater whirred, casting a orange glow that made the shadows in the cluttered room seem to dance.
Viktor moved from the door, his presence shrinking the room further. He pulled a worn deck of cards from a drawer, the sound of the shuffling a rapid, threatening whisper in the quiet. He didn’t sit at the desk. He pulled two chairs close to the low, scarred coffee table, his eyes on Julia the entire time.
“A simple game,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “High card wins.”
“Wins what?” Olga asked, settling into the chair Andrei held for her, her skirt riding up her thighs as she did so.
Andrei’s grin was all teeth. “Bragging rights.”
They sat. Viktor and Julia on one side, Andrei and Olga on the other. The table was small. Knees brushed beneath it. Julia felt the rough denim of Viktor’s work pants against her calf. She didn’t pull away.
Viktor dealt two cards face down, sliding one to each woman with a flick of his wrist.
“Peek,” he instructed.
Julia lifted the corner of her card. A queen of hearts. She kept her face impassive, the mask of the prosecutor firmly in place even as her pulse thrummed in her throat.
“Feeling lucky, advocate?” Viktor murmured, so only she could hear. His arm was along the back of her chair, not touching her, but the heat of him was a brand.
“Luck is a statistical anomaly,” she replied, her voice steady.
Across the table, Andrei leaned close to Olga, ostensibly to see her card. His hand disappeared below the table’s edge. Olga’s breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. A faint, pink flush crept up her neck. Andrei’s face was a study of casual concentration, but his shoulder shifted slightly. Julia knew, with a certainty that burned, that his hand was on Olga’s thigh.
“Looks like a good hand,” Andrei said, his voice slightly thicker.
Olga laughed, a shaky little sound. “It has… potential.”
Julia watched, mesmerized. She saw Olga’s fingers tighten on the edge of the table. Saw her part her lips just slightly. This was no longer a game. It was a demonstration.
Then she felt it.
Viktor’s hand, which had been resting on the back of her chair, descended. Not to her shoulder. It slid down her spine, a firm, deliberate stroke that made every muscle in her back tense, then melt. His palm was broad, calloused. She could feel each ridge of hardened skin through the thin cashmere. The touch continued, down to the curve of her waist, over the swell of her hip, and finally came to rest on her thigh. He didn’t grope. He simply laid his heavy, warm hand there, his fingertips just brushing the inner seam of her jeans.
A current of pure, undiluted lust shot through her, so intense it stole her breath. She stared straight ahead, at a faded poster of a tank, seeing nothing.
His lips were at her ear, his stubble scratching her skin. His breath was warm and smelled of tobacco and mint. “Your turn to play,” he whispered, the words vibrating into her very bones.
Her hand trembled as she placed her queen face up on the table. Viktor flipped his card. A two of clubs. He’d lost.
He didn’t look at the cards. His eyes were on her profile. His fingers on her thigh began to move, tracing a slow, infinitesimal circle. “Looks like you win,” he said, his voice a dark caress. “What’s your prize?”
The directness was a bolt of lightning. It shattered the last pretense. She turned her head, her lips a hair’s breadth from his. The world narrowed to his grey eyes, the harsh lines of his face, the demanding pressure of his hand. “I think you know,” she breathed.
A crash of metal from the garage outside made them all jump. Andrei muttered a curse, his hand whipping back above the table. The spell was fractured, but the fracture lines were now permanent.
Viktor stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly. “Garage is closed for maintenance,” he said, his voice now carrying the unmistakable tone of command. He looked at Andrei, a silent communication passing between them. “An hour.”
Andrei nodded, understanding. He rose and offered a hand to Olga. “Let’s go find that scarf, yeah? I think I saw something in the parts locker.”
Olga took his hand, her eyes wide and dark. She shot Julia a glance—a mix of fear, excitement, and unspoken solidarity—before letting Andrei lead her out of the office, through the garage, and toward a heavy metal door marked ‘STORAGE’.
The office door clicked shut, leaving Julia alone with Viktor.
The silence was absolute, pressurized. He turned to face her, leaning back against the desk, arms crossed. He just looked at her, stripping her bare with his eyes. The careful composure, the expensive clothes, the aura of unapproachable authority—he saw through all of it. He saw the neglected wife, the simmering frustration, the raw, aching need.
“Well?” he finally said.
It was the simplest of provocations. It was all she needed.
Julia stood. Her legs felt unsteady, but she willed them to carry her the three steps across the room until she stood directly in front of him, within the sphere of his heat and his scent. She didn’t touch him. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze with a defiance that was really a surrender.
“No more games, Viktor.”
A slow, predatory smile touched his mouth. “Finally.” His hands came up, not to embrace her, but to frame her face. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, rough and possessive. “The lady wants it straight.”
“I want,” she said, the words a raw confession torn from a deep, locked vault, “to not think. I want to feel. I want you to make me feel it.”
That was all the permission he needed, or perhaps he needed none at all.
His kiss was not an invitation. It was a conquest. It was hard and demanding, his lips forcing hers apart, his tongue claiming her mouth with a brutal, skilled intensity. It was nothing like Igor’s polite, dry pecks. This was a devouring. She met it with equal hunger, her hands flying to his shoulders, gripping the hard muscle beneath his sweater, pulling him closer. A low groan escaped him, vibrating into her mouth.
He broke the kiss as suddenly as he’d started it, his breathing ragged. “You talk a good game,” he growled, his hands sliding down to the hem of her turtleneck. “Let’s see if you can take it.”
In one swift motion, he pulled the soft cashmere up and over her head, tossing it aside. The cold air hit her skin, followed immediately by the heat of his gaze on her black lace bra, on the full, heavy curves of her breasts spilling over the cups. His eyes darkened with pure, unadulterated want.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word a prayer and a curse. His calloused hands covered her breasts, squeezing roughly, his thumbs scraping over her nipples already hardened into tight peaks against the lace. The sensation was so sharp, so perfect, it drew a choked cry from her throat. He pinched a nipple through the fabric, a twist of pain that melted instantly into molten pleasure, making her back arch, pushing herself into his hands.
“Yes,” she hissed. “Like that.”
He unclasped her bra with a practiced flick, and her breasts spilled free. He didn’t pause to look. He bent his head and took one tight, dusky peak into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue lashing the sensitive flesh. His other hand mauled her other breast, squeezing and kneading with a roughness that bordered on painful. It was exactly what she craved—a sensation so intense it obliterated every thought, every worry, every memory of gentle, indifferent touches.
Her fingers tangled in his short, coarse hair, holding him to her. “Harder,” she begged, the word filthy and foreign on her tongue.
He obliged, biting down gently on her nipple before soothing it with his tongue, then switching to lavish the same brutal attention on the other. She was panting, a steady stream of pleas and obscenities falling from her lips. She felt wild, untethered, an animal finally freed.
His mouth left her breast, trailing wet, biting kisses down her sternum, over her quivering stomach. He dropped to his knees in front of her, his big hands hooking into the waistband of her jeans. He looked up at her, his eyes blazing. “These,” he said, yanking them and her panties down her hips in one violent, efficient motion. “Off.”
She stepped out of them, naked now except for her boots. She should have felt exposed, vulnerable. She felt powerful. His gaze raked over her—the smooth plane of her stomach, the swell of her hips, the dark triangle of curls at the junction of her thighs, her long, toned legs. The appreciation in his eyes was a physical touch.
“Spread your legs,” he commanded, his voice gravel.
She did. He leaned forward, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs, and buried his face between her legs without preamble.
There was no gentle exploration. His tongue was a blunt, demanding instrument, licking a broad, wet stripe from her entrance to her clit. He circled the swollen bud once, twice, with torturous precision, then sealed his mouth over it and sucked, hard.
Julia cried out, her head hitting the wall behind her. The sensation was so acute, so shockingly direct, it buckled her knees. He held her up, his grip firm on her thighs, his tongue and lips working her with a ruthless expertise that spoke of a deep, carnal knowledge of a woman’s body. He fucked her with his tongue, delving deep, then returned to torture her clit, alternating patterns until she was a writhing, sobbing mess above him.
“You taste like fucking sin,” he grunted against her wet flesh, the vibration pushing her closer to the edge. “Gonna come for me? Come on my tongue like a good girl.”
The command, the filthy words, shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and convulsing, a wave of pleasure so intense it was almost agony. She screamed, her body bowing, her hands scrabbling against the wall for purchase as he drank every shudder, every pulse, relentless until she was limp and trembling.
He released her, letting her lean heavily against the wall as he rose from his knees. His gaze was a physical weight. Her thighs were slick, her breathing a ragged concert in the quiet room. He unbuckled his belt, the rasp of leather and clink of metal abnormally loud.
“Get on your knees,” he said. It wasn’t a request. It was the next logical step in the equation.
Her legs, still weak, carried her the short distance to the worn patch of floor in front of him. The concrete was cold and gritty against her bare skin. She looked up at him, this man who was not her husband, her mouth still tasting of her own pleasure. He pushed his trousers and briefs down over his hips, and his cock sprang free, thick and already fully erect, curving upwards against the hard plane of his stomach. It was a brutal, beautiful thing, heavily veined and ruddy with blood, the tip flushed and leaking. A genuine size that made something deep in her clench with greedy anticipation.
“Look at you,” he muttered, wrapping a fist around his length, giving it two slow, rough strokes. “Prosecutor Julia, on her knees in a garage.”
Then his other hand fisted in her hair, not pulling, just holding. Anchoring. “Go on. Get it wet for me.”
Her hand reached out, her fingers encircling the base. Her wedding band, a delicate platinum loop, caught the weak light from the space heater, flashing a sterile metallic wink against the hot, living skin of his shaft. The juxtaposition was obscene. It sent a fresh, shocking bolt of desire straight to her core. She began to move her hand, pumping him slowly, feeling the iron-hard flesh beneath the silken skin, the throbbing pulse that matched her own.
Viktor let out a sharp, gratified sigh. “Yeah. That’s it. See that?” he growled, his eyes fixed on her hand. “Your husband’s ring, shining while you jack me off. He know what his wife’s hands are really for?”
The words were a violation, and they ignited her completely. She leaned forward, her tongue flattening against the swollen head, lapping up the salty, bitter pre-come. She opened her mouth and took him in, not halfway, but deeply, letting her throat open on the first thrust as his grip in her hair tightened.
“Christ,” he hissed, his hips jerking minimally.
She had no gag reflex to hinder her. She took him deeper, her nose pressing into the coarse hair at his base, her world narrowing to the smell of him—musky, clean sweat, and male. She pulled back, saliva slicking her chin, and focused on his balls. She took one into her mouth, rolling the heavy weight on her tongue, sucking gently, then with more pressure. Her lips worked over the sensitive flesh, her other hand gently massaging the other sac.
Above her, Viktor trembled. A raw, guttural sound tore from his chest. “Fucking hell. Your mouth is a miracle.” His control was fraying, the dominant commander giving way to pure animal need. “Enough. Turn around. Bend over the desk. Now.”
She released him, her lips wet and swollen. She turned, placing her palms flat on the cluttered surface, scattering papers. She bent, presenting herself to him, feeling more exposed and wanton than ever before. She heard him spit, a wet sound, then felt the broad, hot pressure of his cockhead nudging against her soaked entrance.
“You want this?” he demanded, not moving.
“Yes,” she gasped, pushing back against him.
“Say it.”
“I want your cock. I want you to fuck me with it. Now.”
He drove into her with a single, brutal thrust, filling her so completely she saw stars. The stretch was immense, perfect, banishing every empty feeling she’d ever had. He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a punishing rhythm, his hips slamming into the back of her thighs, his hands gripping her waist hard enough to bruise. The desk shuddered with each impact.
“Take it,” he grunted, each word a punch of air. “Take all of it, you hungry bitch.”
She was mindless, meeting every drive, her cries muffled against her own arm. The room filled with the sounds of their bodies—skin slapping, his ragged groans, her choked pleas for more. He leaned over her, his chest hot against her back, his mouth at her ear.
“Your friend Olga,” he panted, thrusting deeper. “She’s getting the same right now. You hear that? You both needed this. You both needed to be used.”
The image—of Olga bent over in the parts locker, of Andrei taking her—coupled with the brutal fullness inside her, tipped her over another edge. She came again, a silent, shuddering convulsion that clamped down on him like a vise.
He swore, his rhythm faltering. He pulled out of her suddenly, spinning her around. He sat heavily in the desk chair, pulling her down onto his lap, impaling her on his cock in one fluid motion. She straddled him, her arms around his neck, their faces inches apart.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his hands on her hips, guiding her frantic pace. “Look at me when I fill you up.”
She held his storm-grey gaze, watching his pupils swallow the irises as his climax gathered. With a final, deep grind of her hips, she took him over. He came with a roar, his body bowing into hers, pumping his release deep inside her in hot, pulsing jets.
They stayed like that, fused, breathing in ragged unison. The hum of the heater was the only sound. Slowly, the world seeped back in—the cold air on her sweat-sheened skin, the ache between her legs, the stark reality of what she’d done. Her wedding ring, now resting on his sweat-damp shoulder, felt cold and heavy.
Her wedding ring, now resting on his sweat-damp shoulder, felt cold and heavy. The weight of it was an anchor, dragging her back from the primal haze. Viktor’s breathing slowed beneath her, his hands loosening from their vise-like grip on her hips. He didn’t speak. The silence was a physical thing, crowded with the smell of sex and dust.
A sharp, metallic bang echoed from somewhere deep in the garage, followed by a muffled, feminine laugh. Olga. The sound jolted Julia. She moved to get off him, her muscles protesting, a slick trickle of his release already cooling on her inner thigh.
“Easy,” he said, his voice a rough scrape. His hands helped her, his touch now merely functional.
Her feet touched the cold concrete. She found her clothes, movements awkward, robotic. She didn’t look at him as she dressed, the soft cashmere of her turtleneck now feeling like a ridiculous costume. She could still feel the specific, deep ache he’d left inside her, a branded reminder.
“You’re a hell of a prosecutor,” Viktor said finally, zipping his trousers. He lit a cigarette, the match flare illuminating his satisfied, implacable face for an instant.
Julia said nothing. She located her hair tie and gathered the dark mass of it, her fingers trembling. The act felt like reassembling a disguise.
“Your friend’s having a time of it,” he added, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling. “Sounded like a toolbox went over.”
The image was immediate and vivid: Olga, her blonde hair splayed against a grimy shelf, Andrei’s young, eager body hammering into her. Julia felt a confusing twist of jealousy and complicity. They had walked into this lion’s den together, two hungry women offering themselves on a platter.
“We should go,” Julia said, her own voice sounding foreign, too tight.
“When you can walk straight.” He didn’t smile. It was a simple assessment.
She finished, every piece of clothing a layer of shame and exhilaration. She was just turning toward the door when it swung open. Olga stood there, silhouetted against the dim garage light. Her blouse was misbuttoned. Her hair was a wild halo. A flush covered her chest, and her eyes held a glazed, shattered look that mirrored exactly what Julia felt inside.
“Well,” Olga breathed, her voice hoarse. “That was… informative.”
Andrei appeared behind her, grinning like a wolf, tucking his own shirt in. He gave Viktor a sharp, triumphant nod.
“Get what you came for?” Viktor asked, his gaze sliding from Olga back to Julia, who stood frozen by the desk.
Olga’s laugh was a broken little sound. “And then some.” Her eyes met Julia’s, and a silent, terrified understanding passed between them. They had crossed a line from which there was no return, and they had done it listening to each other’s muffled cries through thin walls.
The drive back was shrouded in a thick, loaded silence. The luxury car felt like a sarcophagus. Only when the bleak, open fields surrounded them, the base a smudge in the rearview, did Olga speak.
“He fucked me over a crate of engine parts,” she said, the words blunt and shocking in the sterile quiet of the car. “He came on my back. I didn’t even know his name until after.”
Julia stared at the road, her hands at ten and two. “Viktor,” she said.
“What?”
“His name is Viktor.” She felt the ghost of his hands on her hips, the brutal fullness. “He… finished inside me.”
Olga was quiet for a long moment. “Igor will notice.”
“I know.”
“Will you care?”
Julia didn’t answer. The familiar streets of their affluent neighborhood began to appear, manicured hedges and gated drives mocking the raw animal reality of the last hour. She dropped Olga off first. They didn’t say goodbye.
Her own house was a museum of subdued taste. Silent. Cold. Igor was at a conference in Minsk. She stood under a scalding shower until her skin was red, but the smell of Viktor—tobacco, sweat, sex—seemed embedded in her sinuses. She scrubbed between her legs, the flesh tender, and a sharp, shameful thrill cut through her as she touched the lingering soreness.
She wrapped herself in a robe and poured a vodka, neat. The ice clinked in the glass, a sound of pure isolation. She replayed it all, frame by filthy frame. The card game. The hand on her thigh. The feel of concrete and his tongue. The way he’d turned her, bent her, used her. The look in his eyes when he told her to watch him fill her.
Her body reacted, a fresh pulse of heat contradicting the chill of her home. She was hollowed out and yet humming, a plucked string. She finished the vodka, the burn a poor substitute.
Three days passed. Life resumed its impeccable, empty order. Court documents. Staff meetings. Dinners alone with the television murmuring. Igor called, his voice distant, discussing flight times. She touched herself once, in the dark of their marital bed, but her own fingers felt pathetic, insulting. She needed the weight, the brutality, the annihilation.
On the fourth day, her private mobile buzzed with an unknown number. A text. Garage. 7pm. The general’s wife left her scarf.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She deleted the message. She told herself she would not go. She prepared a solo dinner, a filet of salmon with dill. She ate none of it.
At 6:45 PM, she was in her car, wearing jeans and a simple black sweater. No cashmere this time. This time, she knew what she was.
The garage was closed, a single security light burning over the rolling door. A smaller side entrance was unlocked. The familiar scent of oil and metal enveloped her, a smell that now made her mouth water. The office door was ajar.
He was at the desk, not working. Waiting. He looked up as she entered. No smile. No greeting. His eyes were like flint.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“I see that.” He leaned back. “You been thinking about it?”
“Yes.”
“What part?”
She didn’t blush. She stepped further into the room. “The part where you told me to bend over the desk.”
A slow nod. He stood. He didn’t approach her. He went to the door and closed it, throwing a heavy deadbolt. The sound was final. Then he went to the old, worn couch against the wall and sat. He just looked at her, his expression unreadable.
“Show me,” he said.
“What?”
“You heard me. You’ve been thinking about it for days. Show me what you thought about.”
A command. A test. Her breath hitched. The clinical part of her mind, the prosecutor, observed this as a power play. The rest of her was liquid fire. She held his gaze and let her robe fall from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet. She stood before him, naked under the fluorescent glare.
“Good,” he said. “Now turn around. Bend over. Show me how wet you are for it.”
She obeyed, moving to the center of the room, presenting herself to him. She arched her back, reaching back to spread herself open with her own fingers, exposing the slick, pink folds still glistening from her own anticipation. The air was cold on her most intimate flesh. The submission was absolute, and it was a drug.
She heard him stand, the rustle of his clothes. His footsteps were slow, deliberate. He stopped behind her. His calloused thumb traced her lower lip, not her mouth, but the other one, dipping into the soaked heat of her. She whimpered.
“Dripping,” he observed, his voice thick. “You’re a fucking natural.”
The broad, blunt head of his cock nudged against her. He wasn’t gentle. He didn’t guide himself in. He just pushed, a steady, inexorable pressure that stretched her, filled her, stole the air from her lungs in a ragged gasp. He buried himself to the hilt in one smooth, devastating stroke and went still, letting her feel every inch, every vein, the overwhelming completeness of it.
“That’s it,” he growled, his hands clamping on her waist. “That’s what you wanted. That’s what you came back for.”
Then he moved. There was no rhythm, just possession. Hard, deep, driving strokes that shoved her forward with each impact. The sounds were obscene—the wet slap of flesh, his guttural curses, her own choked cries. He leaned over, his chest plastered to her back, one hand fisting in her hair, pulling her head up.
“Say it,” he snarled into her ear, his pace never faltering, each thrust punching a moan from her gut. “Who’s fucking you?”
“You are!” she cried.
“Who owns this cunt right now?”
“You do!”
He released her hair, his hand sliding around her hip, his fingers finding her clit. He rubbed hard, circles of rough, perfect friction, in time with his pounding. The dual assault was too much. It coiled tight, a spring at the base of her spine, ready to snap.
“Come on,” he urged, his voice breaking. “Scream for it. I want the whole fucking base to know.”
The spring shattered. Her vision whited out. The orgasm was a seismic event, tearing through her, ripping a sound from her throat that was raw, unhinged, and utterly primal.
SHE SCREAMS HIS NAME.