#oc: lyuda

[emalynfreya-art]

My most recent TTRPG character Lady Lyudmiia Ehrenzweig aka Lyuda! She's a runaway noble changeling Hag Bloodline Sorcerer constantly flocked by a murder of crows sent by her Hag Mother. She's a cursed gal whose hands are slowly turning black and her nails are becoming claws!

[emalynfreya-art]

Thank you again for the fantastic commission of Lady Lyudmiia and her dear Sir Tomàs!!

Thank you for commissioning me!

[mango-parfait]

10 Years

Part 1/?

Pairing: Keegan P. Russ x Lyusya 'Lou' Melnikova (OC)

Warnings: MDNI 18+, strong language, canon typical violence, war related topics, mentions/descriptiond of a miscarriage, implied trauma, hunting of an animal.

Word Count: 2.8k+

A/N: Just a bunch of drabbles I've written of Keegan and Lou with the intention of exploring their relationship during the years right after ODIN, to the current events in Cod Ghosts. I thought that they deserved a little bit of spotlight instead of gathering dust as unfinished drabbles. The years will not be in order unless I ever decide to continue the series. Thank you to @moosch, (And a few other mutuals) for encouraging me to post this because I'm way too scared to do it ;;u;; And also thank you for encouraging and enabling my russian literature brainrot that has influenced my writing style <3

Chapter summary: Lou goes out hunting beyond the walls of Fort Santa Monica. Her mind racing and muscles tensed and tight - Keegan had called her a liability, looking at her with a look she could only describe as contempt. Her mind wanders, memories comes back. Keegan comes looking for her to bring her home.

Year two, 2018, Fall

Leaves crunch under her boots- a sound filled with the childhood joy of running and leaping into gathered leaf piles in the backyard of her home, now just a thrum in Lou’s mind. Instead of the passing of a season, it’s a bone cracking under her weight. Orange hues of the trees and foliage- a reminder of lasers coming down from the sky, it’s still hard to forget the sound the ground made when it cracked open, and the screams of the people around her. 

"Eyes on the ground, Lyuda. Look for movement in the leaves, dips in the soil. Nature tells you everything you need to know." Her father’s voice rings in her ears. Rough and scratchy, an indication of one cigar too many. Back then, she'd do anything to avoid going into his study every Saturday morning because of the smoke and stench that clouded every inch of nose - but now, she'd give anything to see him again.

She walks on, each step a tense moment- her eyes darting around the ground. Tracking for games, tracking for Federation movement, it was the same. Maybe there’s game out here in the safe zones - a deer maybe, or a squirrel, or a rabbit. Maybe she’ll get a rabbit or two and bring it back to the guys at base, Merrick would be happy, so will Ajax, Torch, Kick and- 

Her chest surges in anger and bile rises in her throat. She swallows it down and presses her rifle closer to her body.

Keegan.

"Civvie like you shouldn’t be here, could’ve left with the trucks to the camps and yet you chose to stay. Dumb move, rookie."

His voice, low and serious- as it always was, rings out in the silence of the barracks hall. Cerulean eyes burning into hers as he folds his arms across his chest, gazing down at her with a dissatisfied look- or perhaps disgust, she cannot remember. 

"Elias thought he was doing you a service, taking you in and then throwing your ass at me to babysit. You’re not Ghost material, you’re a liability, should’ve left when you could."

No, her mind is wandering. He didn’t say all that- he wouldn’t.

"You’re a liability, not a Ghost."

That was all.

Reaching a small stream, she kneels down to brush her fingers along the dirt. A dip. A tiny indent in the soil, a rabbit maybe- It made sense for animals to gather near a stream for a quick drink.

She crumbles some of her biscuit rations onto the dirt and puts a good amount of distance from the stream to hide behind some boulders.

She waits, her mind starts to wander.

Anya, her baby sister- only a teenager when Lou left Russia to study in America. She promised that she would be home for New Year last year. Now she’ll never see her again. Was her hair still as golden as the wheat fields and eyes as brown as wet soil? Whatever she’s doing now, hopefully she's happy doing it. 

Time passes as Lou sits quietly in her hiding spot, eyes scanning the stream to see whether any animals have taken the bait. A rabbit appears and she readies her rifle the way her father had taught her as a young girl.

But she doesn’t listen to her father's words this time- it’s the Ghost Sergeant's. The anger surge in her chest once more at the thought of him. 

"You’re a liability."

Oh, she should’ve socked him in the jaw for calling her that.

The Sergeant knew how to get under her skin, spot her weaknesses and make her correct it immediately, his gaze always hard, sometimes even bored- either way, it's hard to read his expressions sometimes. He was strict and had taught her how to fire a rifle more efficiently, tackle long distances, control her breathing, to kill quickly, to survive one more day- one more op.

To survive.

To fight.

To live.

"Tuck your elbows in. Hips tight. Shoulders don’t pass your heels. Stock against your shoulder. Again. Do it again. One more time. Nice shot. Good job. Not bad."

Four months as his mentee. ‘Rookie’- he called her, part of the team and not yet part of it. The name had stuck and everyone started calling her that. It had even gotten to Elias, his hard face blurting out said nickname in a mission debrief. She hated it. 

A bullet fired from her rifle- the rabbit falls. Perhaps this will do for now, Lou can clean the carcasses and then bring them back to the butcher’s for processing and get meat jerky out of them. More meat in her ration packs and something she can share with the guys. Picking up the carcass and clearing it out right by the stream, her focus remained sharp as the carving knife in her hands twists and cuts its way through the tendons of the rabbit- stripping it of its skin.

Keegan had asked her once whether she had any knowledge of wildlife during a training hike after she had pointed out bare patches of grass in a passing field, saying that it was caused by one too many deers going through the same route over and over again. 

"No, sir. I just read it in a book once."

She wasn’t really sure why she lied to him.

Dunking the rabbit into the water and letting the water carry its blood along its streams, she keeps the image of the sergeant’s face in her thoughts. The day he called her a liability, his brows were furrowed a little more than usual, the frown was obvious even with the knit layer of his skull mask. The op wasn’t a tough one- if it could’ve been considered an op, just some quick scouting trip to a mall with minimal Federation patrols that they avoided easily. Afterwards, it was just a matter of setting up a vantage point, collect intel for Command, pack up and head home. It was easy, even for a rookie like her.

But she couldn’t recall what she had done wrong to make him call her a liability- maybe she adjusted the scope on her rifle incorrectly, maybe she had worn her shirt inside out. Or maybe he just felt like saying what he always thought. Either way, Lou couldn’t deny the emptiness in her chest when he said it to her face getting back to Fort Santa Monica, his eyes burning down at her as he folded his arms.

All she could do was just stare up at him with confused hurt. 

She impatiently digs the knife into the carcass, incision ragged and forced to get its guts out.

Her father’s voice rings in her head once more. "Be careful, daughter. Nice and easy- like painting a brush or like when you’re helping mother sew." She ignores him again.

The way she twisted the knife felt like the first person she had killed. A federation soldier- most probably a recruit sent out to scout the area where the hospital was. She would’ve let him pass if he didn’t choose to turn the corner that led to the room where she was hiding with a couple of the kids.

A stab into the neck with a crooked screwdriver, she held onto him even when her hands were slick and slippery with his blood. Only letting go when his body went limp in her arms.

A liability. Liability. Might as well make it a cuss word at this point, judging from how much it pissed her off. How can she be a liability when she went through basic training, did so well at long distance shooting that Elias had a long talk with about joining the Task Force?

Why a liability when she went through another month of training under Elias just so that he could start her way up to becoming part of the Ghost team?

Why a liability when she had suffered what she had suffered in No Man’s Land for four months when ODIN’s missiles scorched and cracked land for miles?

Why a fucking liability when she has fought, killed, starved and scavenged for those four months?

Dipping the carcass into the stream once more, Lou watches the blood staining the water and lets itself be led away by the current. The sight reminds her of sooty tiled floors of the bathroom in the ruined hospital, her lower half soaked in the blood that pooled beneath her. A miscarriage- that was what the medical staff told her. They said that it wasn’t her fault, supplies were running out, and with Federation soldiers constantly swarming around the hospital- it made it hard to scavenge from the other buildings in the vicinity.

The memories of deep dark blood made her nauseous and Lyusya takes in a deep breath, exhaling slowly. The baby she had lost, Constantine for a boy and Anya for a girl.

The mother she could’ve been. Now she’ll never get her chance.

So why would Keegan call her a liability when she had suffered what she suffered. What was all the pain, tears and blood for then? If she had gone through all of that just to be tossed into civilian camps and coaxed to live like normal then all that she had gone through in No Man’s Land would’ve been for nothing. 

Nothing at all.

Memories return. The piercing pain on the day it happened was like a million daggers to her stomach. The pitiful stares of the women as they tried to help her. Tried to. There was nothing much they could do.

Dirty bathtub. Tap not working. Ash and soot in the air. Blood flowing from between her legs. Gunfire in the distance. Her mother's face comes into view. She'd be there to wipe her tears and clean the blood off her.

“Rookie.”

Her thoughts come to a complete silence. The voice- so familiar. So hated.

Keegan.

She turns to look over her shoulder, unable to mask the scowl on her face.

He’s unmasked this time, dark stubble all throughout the jaw and around the lips. The blues of his eyes dimmed significantly without all the black fabric covering his entire body she sees him in so often. The bane of her existence fully clad in issued USMC shirt and pants with his dog tags hanging off a beaded chain around his neck.

Keegan wasn’t smiling, but she could detect the tiniest hint of amusement in his eyes. Oh, how she must look to him right now- the woman that attacked him in No Man’s Land, his rookie- cleaning game by the stream on an autumn morning just outside base.

“Knew you were lying to me about not knowing how to hunt.” Keegan takes a few steps forward and tilts his weight ever so slightly to loom over Lou to see what she was doing- it took everything in her not to bristle at his intrusion, he was not a welcomed sight at the moment.

“Ajax said you were outside for a walk. Never heard of someone going for a walk with a pocketful of knives.”

She turns away from him and lowers her gaze back to the task at hand and gets to cleaning the second carcass. “Just needed to clear my head, sir.”

“To hunt?”

“I was hungry.”

“That you have to hunt?” He takes another step closer and kneels beside her to watch. If he couldn’t sense her irritation growing just by being near her, then it’s clear that he’s deliberately ignoring it. “Could eat the chow back at base.”

“No.”

“No?”

“The rations are not sustainable, sir.” She hurriedly follows up, dumping out some bullshit excuse.

Keegan snorts and then stays silent. Watching her cut the guts out of the rabbit carcass with such practice and precise movements as if she had done this a million times. When he guessed that Lyusya knew how to hunt, he pictured coffee by the campfire, holding daddy’s guns and cheering him on- something he’d see in a movie.

How much did he know about the woman that he saved from No Man’s Land? Not much, that’s for sure. Something’s off about her today- he already knew why.

A gust of wind passes and Lou could smell the sea on the man. She knew he’d gone for a naval op with Merrick to do some scouting on a Federation submarine last night- they’d left out the details because she was a ‘rookie’. A full night of swimming, scouting and fighting. What the hell is he doing here then?

“You could have just asked to use the shooting range for a bit, clear your head that way.” 

“Out here is better..” She plucks the carcasses out of the stream. “Go back to base without me, sir. I won’t be long.” 

He stands up with a grunt and places his hands on his hips, eyes scanning their surroundings. The safe zones outside the Fort were as safe as they could be - if the Federation keeps to their word. As nice as this patch of grassland was, it wasn’t as safe as his rookie would like to think.

“Like hell you are.” He tells her with a sigh, frown forming on his lips- she’s so fucking stubborn sometimes. “You’re lucky enough to catch game out here, but it’s gonna run out the longer you sit on your ass. Time to go.”

Lou doesn’t look his way- the scowl on her face is better hidden from his eyes as she works on wrapping old newspaper around the carcasses and places the bundles in a canvas bag.

And to be honest? She doesn’t want to go back anytime soon. Her heart aches to wander around the open fields a little bit more. To be able to feel like a girl once more, not the broken woman she was after ODIN, and certainly not the woman that’s training as a recon sniper, fighting to survive one more day and being trained by the blue eyed son of a bitch that called her a liability.

Fuck, she’s so pissed about that and him being here right now isn’t making it easier to not snap. 

“Just leave me alone.” She stands up and sweeps dirt off the knees of her pants. “Why do you care? I'll be back in an hour.”

He huffs and folds his arms, eyes glaze around their surroundings once more. “You're not making this easy.”

“A liability never does, sir.”

His eyes narrow at her, only to be received by defiance. But Keegan's eyes didn't hold any malice just irritation and maybe a tinge of confusion. He remembers what he said to her after their mission- the hurt on her face was enough to be seared into his memory.

A year since ODIN, a year of constant fighting. This war was expensive, tiring and a drain on resources. Keegan was tired- he’s been tired since Sand Viper. If it weren’t for the loyalty for his fellow marines and the entire Ghost Team, he would’ve packed up long ago. Move to the property in Missouri that’s been on his mind, and maybe even raise some chickens.  

But here is his little rookie, the woman who spent her childhood in drama school reciting Shakespeare and reading Classics like drinking water, a woman who could- with every chance she got, choose to leave when she could. But she didn’t. Elias told her that she'd make a recon sniper, and like a little puppy, she lapped up the compliment like canned wet food.

Keegan had never meant to hurt her the way he did. She could’ve lived a normal life again and yet- she’s here. 

His rookie.

One can’t help but shoulder the responsibility.

“Whatever you are, it's time to go back to base.” He turns to walk back in the direction of the fort, its walls safely within sight.

Lou was reluctant. She could follow- then again, she could turn in the other direction and walk further into the treeline. But when Keegan turns - she freezes, her mind fights to stay. 

“Come on, rookie.” He says to her, voice unexpectedly softer. “I'm not leaving you behind.”

He doesn't walk until she does. A couple of steps forward, a tentative gaze in his direction- he continues down the trail back to the fort with her in silence.

-End-

[angelaiswriting]

Elias | Blitz x fem!OC

✏️ Pairing: Blitz x fem!OC, Bandit & fem!OC

✏️ Summary: in which Lyudmyla officially meets Elias and realizes that opening up to him is not as difficult as it has always felt with everyone else. (Sparked by an idea by my lovely @kind-wolf​)

✏️ A/N: do I love writing sex? Yes. Do I love Elias Kötz? Absolutely! 11k+ words about Lyuda and him don’t make them justice, but I don’t want to bury y’all under too many words lol. This hasn’t been properly re-read yet. Ignore possible nonsense pls

✏️ Warnings: fluff between Lyuda and Dom + 18+ ONLY (oral f/r (mentions of m/r), protected and unprotected sex, kind of accidental semi-public sex (?), bad flirting, alcohol)

✏️ Word-count: 11,588 :)) my hand slipped

✏️ Translations: tesoro (Italian) = darling // lyubimaya (Russian) = love

>> Part Two: Lyudmyla (masterlist > rainbow six) >>

ELIAS

Despite it being ten in the morning, the Base was quiet when Lyudmyla left debriefing. It had been an easy mission, albeit exhausting — go in, rescue the hostages while simultaneously retrieving some intel, then take everyone to safety. Nothing she had never done before. Nothing compared to what we’re used to, Volkov would have said, back in Stepnoy. And yet, after having been awake for longer than she could remember, she couldn’t wait to hit the shower and then her bed.

“I’m meeting up with Sanya after lunch,” Timur said, throwing an arm around her shoulders and hissing when the movement didn’t sit well with his sore muscles.

She snorted before he had the chance to continue. “You’re going to lunch?” she asked, surprised, head whipping to the side so fast she almost got whiplash. Glaz looked just as tired as she and for a moment, she wished she could ease his exhaustion like he always lifted her spirits.

“You’re not?”

“I’m going to sleep for at least two days straight, Tima,” she laughed and a moment later, before he could say anything, she stood up on her toes and left a kiss on his stubbled cheek. “So tell Sanya and the guys I say hi and that I’ll see them again when I don’t feel like a zombie anymore, yes?”

He smiled and for a moment he stood there, just staring at her, one arm still around her shoulders. If asked, she wouldn’t be able to tell with complete certainty who was keeping the other standing when all they could think of was sitting — or better yet, lying — down and not getting up for as long as they could manage. But then he pulled her in for a quick good-bye hug before stepping away. “I’ll check up on you tonight, see if you’re awake enough to grab a bite at that new place you wanted to check out,” he said before snickering. “Unless Dominic steals you again, that is!”

He was gone before she could flip him off — jokingly, that is. Everything was light and easy between them, and between her and Dominic as well. She had bonded with the other operators back at the base in Stepnoy, when she had been a Spetsnaz agent and nothing more, and with some of her new colleagues as well, of course, but none of those people had ever felt like home, not like Tima and Dom did. They had her back and she had theirs and with Dominic most of all, it was like being children again, sneaking around with your dearest friend and causing mischief behind everyone’s back.

When she unlocked the door to her dorm room, twenty minutes or so later, there was a surprise waiting for her on her bed.

“Christ, Schatzi, you look like absolute shit!”

Caught by surprise by his words, Lyudmyla stopped in her tracks, magnetic card still in one hand as she stood in the doorframe. Then, when she came back to the present moment, something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh left her lips. “Thanks, love. It’s good to see you, too.”

The door closed behind her back with the soft click of the lock going back into place, and the weight of the mission and of the relief of being back home crashed down on her shoulders all at once. No more running around for a few weeks now; no more aiming at someone hundreds of yards away through the gunsight of her rifle; no more Lion to stand day and night. A sob almost bubbled up in her throat when the realization that she could now rest dawned down on her — sleep, a stroll around Hereford’s grounds, a jog through the park, fun times with her friends…

“I drew you a bath.”

“How the fuck did you get in here?” It was a halfhearted complaint, for she truly didn’t mind the man sneaking into her dorm. She spotted her baggage on the dresser to her right and realized that he was probably the one who had brought it there after she had forgotten to. For a split second, she contemplated taking out her dirty clothes to bring them to the laundry room but decided not to.

Drained as she was, she felt like she was moving in slow-motion, movements and sounds slowed down around her now that she was back to safety and had the time and space to just let go of everything. So, when Dominic grabbed her by her shoulders, she jolted in place, a gasp leaving her lips at that unexpected gesture.

“Are you okay?” was what he asked, eyebrows knitted together and head slightly tilted to the side as he stared at her — almost through her, for he knew she had a habit of keeping how she truly felt a goddamn secret. He waited for her reply to come but in vain. “Go take that bath before the water gets cold.”

“A shower would be quicker,” she complained as he steered her in the direction of the bathroom, hands on her shoulders.

He parroted her once before he tsked her. “Should’ve texted me that that was the plan. Hop into the tub, I’ll unpack your stuff.”

Exhausted or not, there was no complaining, not when Dominic set his mind on something. So, when he left her alone and the door ajar, she slowly stripped herself of the uniform she was still wearing and set first one foot and then the other into the warm water. She wondered how long ago he had drawn her that bath, but the thought came and went, for her body seemed to melt in the welcoming warmth that enveloped her the more she sank into it.

Allowing herself to relax for the first time in weeks, she let her head fall back and her eyes close. Not a sound reached the quiet confines of the bathroom but Dom’s rummaging silently through her things. She heard him move around her room, putting away some of the things she had brought back, before soft music started playing through the speakers of her TV.

She chuckled. He had a way of doing things… and she loved it — loved how caring and sweet this soldier was, even when she gave him a hard time to make up for the fact that he gave her a hard time. He had been just a text away for endless days, always ready to send back some stupid reply at whatever ungodly hour she managed to send a few words his way, and now that she was back, it was almost weird to realize that he had never changed, not even when she was battered blue and purple and could still feel the muzzle of that gun kissing her left temple.

At some point during her slow fall into deep relaxation, he pushed the door and her eyes shot open, stared at the anthracite gray of the wall tiles. Something about taking her dirty laundry away, and even though there was a Please, stay with me burning the tip of her tongue, she let him go.

There was silence for the first time in forever, then, the volume of the music so soft her ears could easily bypass it. She could hear her own breathing, though, slow and steady, and underneath that, the regular beating of her heart.

Russian operations had been worse, she tried to convince herself — and Spetsnaz training topped it all. The pain, the exhaustion, the humiliation… Nothing could compare and yet, she had been this close to leaving this world and although it had been just one of many, many times, she had seen Mira this time. Mira and that sweet smile of hers — and how she hadn’t seen her in forever as Lyuda always did anything in her power to stay away from Nizhny Novgorod and the house she had once lived in.

Ten-year-old Mira, smiling up at her big sister Lyuda as she got ready to leave with a uniform in her only luggage. Ten-year-old Mira and that Will you come home for Christmas? of hers that sometimes still plagued her, ten years after those words had been uttered. She had promised she would, but then her mother had let one of her usual malicious words leave her mouth a couple of weeks later and she had thrown the idea to the wind. She hadn’t come back for Christmas, nor to check up on her sister after the accident that took her sight away, and all because even the army had felt better than going back home.

Had she died seven days ago, she would have done so with guilt and remorse in her heart, and that wasn’t how she planned to leave this world. Not with Miroslava’s chocolate eyes full of hope staring at a Lyudmyla that would never be back.

Her back slid down along the wall of the tub and before she could realize it, her head was underwater, her eyes closed and her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t know what it was about this time, why it had struck her so much. Why she couldn’t shake off the cold kiss of a gun against her temple. She hadn’t run a real risk, she knew Timur had her back — Timur, and how good of a sniper he was. She had volunteered to act as a bait; she had found herself kneeling on the dusty ground because of a plan she had helped come up with. She had been in that position many a time, and she could see no reason why this one accident should take the crown.

“Lyuda?”

The sound of Dominic’s voice was muffled and almost distorted by the water, but it still managed to startle her, and as she jolted up to sitting and water sloshed out of the tub, she found herself gasping for air.

“What happened in Nairobi?”

She turned to look at him, and it still felt like moving underwater. Then, when she put him into focus, something seemed to click and the world went back to its usual speed — although a bit too quick when all she wanted to do was make up for lost time. “What?”

“I met Twitch in the laundry room when I dropped your things off,” he started, voice slow and measured. She could read it in his eyes — that accusation of sorts, and the more she stared, the more it seemed to make the droplets of water on her upper body burn her skin. “She said something about fearing Glazkov not being able to take you out of there in time.”

It was one thing to know she had a mother, back in Russia, that despised her job — hers, her ex-husband’s, her only living son’s — and that wanted another life for her, one that didn’t suit her, one that would never fit her. And it was another to have a hardened soldier stand in front of her, with his arms crossed against his chest and his eyes trying to burn the truth out of her — out of her reckless mind.

“Everything was under control,” she heard herself say with that confidence so typical of her. Nothing had been under control, not with Lion fearing for the hostages’ lives when there was nothing to fear, not yet. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, not when she was sure her friend had already grasped part of the truth.

He didn’t say anything for a long minute and as he stood there, almost towering over her despite being at the other end of the bathroom, Lyudmyla felt small and insignificant under that knowing gaze of his. Without uttering a word, he took a towel from a cabinet and laid it down on the floor next to her. “You know you don’t have to close off,” he said eventually. His hand was making the skin of her shoulder burn, or so was the sensation she felt, and that was what she focused on as she tried her best to avoid his gaze. “Not with me, there’s no need to. I’m always here for you if you need me.”

“I know,” but it was soft, faint, and she wondered if he had heard her before he left the room and a fresh change of clothes waiting for her on the counter by the sink.

When she walked back into her bedroom some time later, after she successfully scrubbed all the grime off her skin and out of her hair, she found Dominic waiting for her on her bed as he scrolled intently through Netflix in search of a title that could catch his attention. She didn’t say a word for long, endless minutes, but she knew he had heard her, that he knew she was right there. 

She didn’t exactly know why she hadn’t told him about that stupid plan as soon as she had had time to, and the only explanation she could come up with was that causing him to worry was truly the very last thing she wanted. And even more so when he was thousands of miles away, with more time on his hands than he knew how to occupy it all.

“It was the only sensible thing to do at that moment.” There was no need to justify herself, and surely not to someone who did her exact same job. Running risks was part of the job and it was foolish to think that nothing bad would ever happen — they handled real weapons, after all, not some cheap toys for children. “It had to be done if we wanted to collect the information RAINBOW wanted.”

Dominic shrugged his shoulders, his eyes still fixed on the TV screen hanging on the wall opposite her bed. “I have no doubt about that.” Just then, he seemed to settle on a title and he let the remote drop to his side as his head turned in her direction. “And I’m not here to judge whatever decision you and the others made back there. I want to know how you’re feeling, that’s all.”

He stretched his right hand out in her direction and she hesitated for a heartbeat or two before she walked away from the wall she had been leaning against. His hand was warm in hers, the skin of his palm roughened by callouses. It was a comforting touch and while she wasn’t a fan of touching people or of being touched, she realized now just how much she had missed being this close to him.

“You don’t have to say shit if you don’t want to,” he warned her, moving up on the bed so that he was sitting back against her pillows and she could cuddle against his side. “But if you do decide to talk about it, I don’t want to hear bullshit. It’s either the truth or nothing at all.”

It took her a while to move her head against his shoulder and stare up at him. She had been hardened by the military life she had been thrown into long before she had enlisted, and the prospect of opening up to someone physically pained her at times. There was also no lying to Dominic: he always somehow managed to see right through her shit and call her out on it.

“It isn’t for the threat itself,” she eventually sighed in defeat, eyes locking with his.

“You had your head underwater, Schatzi…”

She shook her head before repeating that It isn’t for the threat itself, with more conviction this time. “I have a sister, Mira, living back in Russia with my mother. I don’t know why I never talk about her,” she said when a look at his expression made her feel guilty for never telling him about her. Dominic was probably the one that knew her best, better than anyone else in the world, and although he might think he knew her better than the back of his hand, there were still secrets she had never disclosed, not even to him.

“Did you think of her?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been unjust with her, and never once made up for it. I haven’t seen her in almost ten years and I… miss her, I think.” A sigh, then, and after that, a long moment of silence.

He was playing with her still-damp hair and instead of playfully complaining about her getting his shirt wet, his lips remained sealed. “Why don’t you go back and visit her, then?” He frowned, and she could read his confusion in his eyes clearer than it was in his voice. “I could come with.”

Her head tilted back; it almost slid off his shoulder in her attempt to look at the ceiling instead of the possible new wave of accusation that might flash across his features. “She had an accident, ten years ago. I was eighteen and had just joined the army. It was my first time truly away from home, among people that didn’t know who the hell I was. Well, the majority of them, at least. My mother never wanted for me to truly enlist, and even more so after what happened to Vasya and Serzh, I told you all about this already. Mira had made me promise to go back for Christmas, but I couldn’t make it because of training, you know how these things are. It was October. I got a call from my mother in March, and I ignored it. Around the end of May, my dad visits my unit for military reasons and he tells me Mira’s had an accident, that she’s in a coma and has been for three months.”

“Her being in a coma wasn’t your fault, though.”

“No, but never visiting was. Never calling for the first two years, was. Running away from the idea of going back just to keep my pride intact, was, as well. There was nothing I could do, but I sure as hell could’ve done something.” She huffed, and then turned onto her back to rub her face with impatient hands. “I just wanted to run away. Away from my mother and everything Nizhny Novgorod, but I ended up being trapped in this mess anyway. We talk over the phone every once in a while but…”

“You’ve been at gunpoint in the past, and you’ve never thought of her that I know of. Why this sudden crisis?”

“I got a text in Nairobi,” she confessed. “My baby sister is inviting me to her wedding next year and while she knows I’m busy and most likely won’t be able to make it to her engagement party, she’s still inviting me over when I’m free to meet her fiancé and celebrate together.”

“And?”

“‘And’ what?”

“That’s not a bad thing. You should accept the invitation, meet your future brother-in-law, and enjoy your time with her. We could die at any given moment when we’re on a mission, so why spend so much time on spilled milk?”

She frowned and gaped at him for a moment, brain incapable of coming up with words. It sounded so easy on Dominic’s lips — fly back home, hug your sister, possibly apologize for being a terrified cunt ten years ago, and then go on with your life. Easy peasy. Right?

“You’re still in contact, ain’t you?” His voice brought her back to the present moment and when she moved her gaze to focus on him again, she found him staring at her with a smile and the remote back in his hand. “What do you fear? Repercussions? I’m sure she knows how you feel, or at least has an idea of it — you’re not that hard to read once one gets to know you. It’s your sister: she wouldn’t invite you to her wedding if she didn’t want you there.”

That made sense, and the more she turned that thought around in her mind, the more sense it made. “I’m not in the mood to talk about this now. Put on that movie.”

He didn’t move for a long minute, and she could feel his burning gaze on the side of her face as she sat back against her pillows, mirroring his position, and stared at the TV in front of her. In the silence of the room, she could hear his regular breathing — and then something else, something in the air between them that she couldn’t put her finger on and name, but it was that feeling that always overcame her when she closed herself off and he didn’t like it.

“Marius is throwing a party for his birthday on Saturday,” Dominic said after a while, some time into the film he had chosen and not long before she finally crashed out from exhaustion. “You’re invited as my plus one and you can’t say no. Consider it training for your sister’s invitations.”

*

It’s gonna be just us — that’s what Dominic had said, four days ago. It had taken him a lot of convincing and that prospect was what had bought her. She was on good terms with almost every one of her RAINBOW colleagues, but she wasn’t one to mingle too much. She felt better off in small groups, just a few people at a time, nothing too overwhelming; she wasn’t one for crowds. So when she walked into the bar, fully expecting to find the German team and maybe a few other operators, she found herself being a deer caught in headlights, taken aback by the amount of people Jäger must know and that he had invited to his party of sorts.

“I was starting to think you had blown me off!” Dominic elbowed his way through the people present and pulled her into a side hug, a bottle of beer in the hand that wasn’t squeezing her shoulder. A huge grin on his face, his eyes seemed to twinkle under the slightly-dimmed lights of the place.

“And I thought it would be ‘just us’,” she groaned back, grabbing a hold of his beer to steal a sip. Beer wasn’t her favorite, but so wasn’t water, and she knew how to settle for the lesser evil.

He shrugged, guilt burning bright in his amused expression. “Oh, c’mon, babe! You’ve been away for endless days,” he slurred, head bowing down closer to her just so that he could look at her from underneath his lashes, in that childish way of trying and getting things done his way that he never missed a chance to sport. “Left poor me to live with the boredom of the Base alone, when almost everybody was away. Grant me this one?”

It was impossible to stay impassible when Dom was around. Whether you wanted it or not, he always managed to find a way to put a smile on your face. And more than that, it truly warmed her heart, the way he always tried with her — to lift her spirits, to take her out of her shell, to give everyone he cared about a good time… So she smiled. Instead of groaning or rolling her eyes — which she tried to do for a moment, there was no denying that —, she gave him a lopsided grin before caving in. “I’ll leave at some point, though. I’m still exhausted, my body is a whole ache.”

“None of that bullshit,” he shook his head as he led her to the side of the room Marius had rented for the night. “I know you had a Thai massage earlier today.”

She snorted at that and for good measure, she gave him a look, just before being greeted by the birthday boy himself. “I’ll book an appointment for you, then. I’m sure Tachanka will be more than happy to practice his rough skills on someone new. I’ll let you decide how Thai that massage is.”

Then, before he had the chance to process the fact that her masseur was a giant of a man or even just to say a word, Marius pulled her into a tight hug and she wished him a hundred more of these days. They had never truly bonded — they had never been assigned on a mission together, and those were the occasions she used to get to know people better. If she didn’t see how they fought and worked, then she didn’t have the chance to form an impression about someone. And aside from Dom, she had never worked with the Germans.

“I’m glad you could make it!” Marius had taken her towards a booth and had made her sit, and when her friend joined them with a new beer for her, she found herself being squished between the latter and Blitz. “This motherfucker’s always talking about you and how good of a drinking partner you are, but he never shared before.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, and it’s usually not beer,” she smirked, taking a sip from her bottle.

Ten minutes into the party, and she had already been introduced to Marius’ civil British friends and to some of the RAINBOW operators she didn’t know that well, Elias Kötz included. She had seen him around already, and for obvious reasons, just as she knew his codename was Blitz. And that he was the freak with the freaky shield she had always wanted to see in action but never had the chance to.

He seemed like a nice man, and while Dominic never downplayed anyone, he had never portrayed his friend as such a fun person. He knew more jokes than she could recall and some time later, deeper into the drinking games, when the alcohol started making her forget her English, she even found out he spoke Russian — and that he was very good at it.

“What part of Russia have you been to?” she found herself asking at some point, the party now completely forgotten just as she was unaware of Dominic staring at her — and at his friend and colleague — with a smirk on his face from some meters away. “I can’t pinpoint your accent.”

Blitz — Elias, he had insisted for her to call him by his name — seemed to blush just before he brought his beer to his lips to hide that satisfied smile of his. “I’ve never been,” he shrugged. “I had a girlfriend during my second year of high school, she was from Ekaterinburg. We ended up breaking up during summer break, but I found some people that could help me with the language and I didn’t say no to that chance. I knew it would be useful one day.”

And maybe it was the vodka in her system — and in his as well — but she found that blood flowed quickly to her cheeks under the smile he sent her way. He was a pretty sight, for sore eyes and all that, and she wasn’t one to be sheepish around men, whether she was drinking or not. Hell, there had been two guys back in Stepnoy with which she had done things that would make her own father’s face turn beetroot red! This man flirting — or trying to — with her shouldn’t be anything new. Nonetheless, she found herself staring down at the table, stomach squeezing and fingertips tingling.

“Useful, you say?” The right corner of her lips turned upward into an almost-trembling smirk as she tried her best not to chuckle. “Did you have any chance with some Russian these days?”

He let out a long ehh and he shrugged his shoulders, eyes gazing up at the ceiling as his own smirk risked giving its place to full laughter. “There’s this one woman, very pretty. She’s my homie’s homie apparently. As Marius said, Dom doesn’t share much, but I’m sure you’ve seen her around Hereford. On the short side, shoulder-length hair, doesn’t open up much, amazing shooter on the long distance…”

At those words, and at the badly-contained amusement in his expression, she couldn’t help but laugh — and almost choke on her shot. She had lost count of how many pickles and how many drinks she had had by now, but it didn’t matter, not when she was feeling that nice warmth inside. “First off, she’s not on the ‘short side,’ try again.” She nudged his thigh with her knee and they both chuckled, by now badly sitting up straight on the leather bench of the booth. “Second off, she does open up… with those she feels comfortable around.”

He chuckled at her grin, and then at the way she chomped on that pickle, grinning with both eyes and lips. “She sounds like a really interesting person, maybe you could help me out a bit with her.”

Neither of them knew how her hand ended up moving over his, nor how the fingers of his other hand ended up touching her cheek. All Lyudmyla knew was that she ended up staying much longer than she had planned to — and she didn’t regret it at all.

*

When she woke up the next day, she had her head squished into the pillow and it took her disoriented brain a full five minutes to pick up the light snoring coming from next to her. There wasn’t much she remembered about the night before — Sanya had driven her to that club before heading to his own date, and then Dominic had tried his puppy dog eyes on her. She did remember making out in the restroom with Elias, though, and she found herself suppressing giggles as that tingling sensation in her lips came back.

Then, the more she woke up, the more her ears seemed to focus on the sound of the person sleeping next to her. When she turned around, she almost expected to find a sleeping Blitz by her side, but it was a relief to be proved wrong, for once, and to be met by Dominic snoring with his face turned towards her, one hand on his chest and the other underneath his pillow.

She stared at him for a long moment, almost in the attempt of memorizing the lines of his face for the umpteenth time. He hadn’t shaved in days, and the stubble he had sported when she came back on Tuesday had grown longer. His expression was peaceful, the expression lines on his face fully relaxed, and she had to resist the impulse of extending a hand out to poke one of his cheeks.

Bringing the night’s events back to memory proved to be a tough thing, hindered by the dull headache pounding inside her skull, but she was fairly sure there had been endless German in the car, and then Marius’ voice wishing her sweet dreams, probably right after he dropped both her and Dominic in the latter’s room. For a moment, as she splashed cold water on her face in her friend’s bathroom, she wondered why and it was only after a quick shower that she realized the reason must have to do with her door pad and a key (or a code) these people didn’t have.

“Such a pretty view when I have such an insisting headache,” was the groggy voice that welcomed her when she walked back into the room, hair still wet and dripping water on the shirt she had worn the night before. “Not that I’m complaining, but what the hell are you doing in my room?” he asked, rubbing his eyes as he tried to shake the sleep off of his system.

She chuckled at him and before she spoke a word, she threw a blister of ibuprofen she had found in the cabinet behind his mirror at him. “I sneaked in here to have fun at the expenses of drunk you, that’s what.” But she walked up to him, took the bottle of water on his bedside table, and opened it to smell if its contents were still any good to be drunk. “Pop a pill, big boy,” she smiled, handing him the bottle. “And when you’re feeling like a bull again, remind me to never come to a party with you again.”

“C’mon, you had fun, I saw you and Eli ‘opening up’,” he snickered, but she was already flipping him off as she left his room.

The mess hall was empty when she crossed it, her objective being the kitchens behind the door at the opposite side from the one she had come in. She could only think of coffee — and then of some more vodka, she wouldn’t say no to that; she just needed Sanya or Tima hiding with their alcohol in the kitchens and she would have a blast of a morning. But when she walked in, it was German the first thing she heard — amused German as someone seemed to be making fun of someone else.

“Hi,” she smiled, stopping in her tracks when she spotted Marius and Elias playing with forks as though they were tiny swords of sorts. “I will only ask if you left any coffee for another hangover person.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Marius chuckled, massaging the spot where his friend’s fork had hit the back of his hand.

He said something else, but Lyudmyla was back to feeling like a teenager for the first time in a while and she didn’t hear a word. Elias was pouring her a cup of coffee — not as hot anymore by now, but she had had far worse in Russia, so she wouldn’t complain — and she tried to hide a smile at the memory of last night’s kissing. His kisses had been so soft and demanding at the same time, she found herself remembering, and they had giggled against each other’s lips like some school kids at something either of them had said.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked her, fingers brushing against hers when he passed her the mug.

She smirked in amusement, and her eyebrows rose almost comically as she stared into the blue of his eyes. “I’ve had worse,” she confessed. Then, when she turned around, she barely had the time to take in Jäger’s indecipherable expression as he stared at them, that she was talking again. “If you two are in the mood for a late breakfast, I’ve been dying to try out this new place downtown.”

“Count me in!” came Dominic’s booming and unexpected reply as he strode into the room, clothes still crumpled after he had slept in them all night. Then, as she turned around to check in with Elias, came Dom’s whiny What? at the slap Marius gave his arm and that neither of the other two present in the room had the chance to see.

“Unfortunately I’ll have to turn your offer down, Lyuda,” Marius smiled. “I have a device evaluation in a bit that I really can’t postpone. I will say yes to another day, though, if you’ll have me.” Then, when she nodded happily, he went on. “Thank you for coming to the party yesterday, I’m glad we could get to know each other better. Dom was right about you.”

*

Lyudmyla was still thinking about Jäger’s Dom was right about you when they left the diner she had wanted to check out for a good two months now — the verdict: nothing special on the outside, but the food was delicious. She had even met up with Timur after changing her clothes before leaving the Base, but he had turned down her offer as well, adducing something about Sanya and ‘an embarrassing injury’ whose details he hadn’t disclosed.

She tried to understand what those words could be about, what exactly Dominic had told them about her — knowing him, probably a big, smoking pile of bullshit — but she couldn’t come up with anything. A good impression, that’s what she hoped that was: Emmanuelle had thought her to be a bitch before she got to know her better, and all because she didn’t socialize much with the others. She knew she could come off as haughty, but she was anything but with Bandit.

Not that I care about what people think of me — but the truth was, deep down, she did.

“I’m full like an egg,” Dominic complained, sitting back on the park bench they had called for themselves. Hands on his stomach, Lyuda knew he was puffing it out on purpose to make her laugh, and she was doing her best not to just to see where his attempts would go. “You’re quiet, Schatzi. What are you thinking about?”

“What the best way to shut you up is,” intervened Elias, and she found herself absentmindedly chuckling at those words.

Eyes set on two dogs playing with their owner not far from them, she just enjoyed the quiet — or as much of it as she could have with Dominic’s never-ending babbling. For the first time in God knew how long, she was comfortable, sitting there with her best friend and then another guy she didn’t know that well, but that, for one, she found interesting and for two, she had spent the night making out with in some not-so-clean restroom. It was out of the ordinary, but it was a good feeling, one she found herself basking in.

“Or maybe she’s just a bit uncomfortable because you’re here, as well.”

“Oh, eat shit, Nic,” she laughed, just to then lean her head on his shoulder for a moment, before taking one of his hands in hers, a You know I love you chuckled softly against the leather of his jacket. “Maybe, but it’s just a hypothesis, I’m not that well-rested, since I had to sleep next to a snoring you.”

“I don’t snore.”

“Of course, you do!” and she turned to smile at Elias when they both said it at the same time.

He gaped for a moment before he frowned. “Fine, maybe I do. A bit,” he groaned. “Sometimes.”

Then, before any of them had the time to drag the joke out a little longer, Dominic’s phone rang and after an insistent call with Marius, that motherfucker, he was forced to leave. It had taken plenty of convincing, or so it had seemed, before Dominic finally stood up with a grunt and complained under his breath. That Everything’s alright? of hers was met by a huff and then a sigh, and eventually by a smile and a nod of the head on her friend’s part, before he patted her cheek twice and said his good-byes.

“Should we follow him?” she asked as she stared at Dominic’s silhouette disappearing behind the cars in the parking lot at the entrance of the park. He seemed to stomp his feet even from that distance, and she wondered what Jäger could have said to make him act like a child.

“Nah, we can go for a walk of our own.”

And before she could reply, he had her hand in his and they were strolling along the pathway, passing by a bunch of kids playing on the slide as their mothers chatted together.

“You know, he really loves you.”

Lost in her thoughts, and in the way Elias’ hand seemed to envelop hers and make it disappear, she hummed, eyebrows furrowed when she turned her head to stare at him.

“Dominic,” he explained. “He’s always bringing you up. We could be doing anything and he would go Lyuda this or Lyuda that,” he chuckled. “I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. He really loves you,” he repeated, just to be met by her laughter.

“Oh no,” she shook her head and inadvertently tugged on his arm as she walked up some steps. “No, we don’t do love. We’re just really good friends, that’s all. I’ll confess that we did some things in the past, but we’re not into each other like that. I have his back no matter what, and he has mine. We fuck around, but we don’t fuck around. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.” She was grinning, and when she turned around to gaze at him, standing three steps below her, she found him staring at her with a soft smile on his face that almost made her blush. “And don’t tell him, but when he’s drunk and in a particularly good mood, he’ll say I’m his best friend as well. Not a ‘homie’, a ‘best friend’.”

And that made him chuckle. It was a nice sound, and she found herself holding her breath for a couple of seconds as she watched and listened to him. She didn’t do love, but maybe — just maybe — she could do him.

“You’re like his best-kept secret,” he confessed after a while, walking up until he was on her same step before they both proceeded forward. “He’s always babbling and babbling, just like a kid, but if you ask him something, he’s all Not your business, stay away from her. I didn’t expect for him to invite you to Marius’ birthday party, but I’m glad he did.”

“I didn’t expect to accept his invitation, either.”

“How did he convince you?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, if we’re walking back to the Base, I have quite a bit of free time,” he grinned.

*

It was a week later when it first happened. Her mother would call her names — she’d call her worse things if she knew her daughter had been on her knees with a man down her throat just less than twenty-four hours after getting close to him —, but it didn’t seem to matter when he seemed to be on her same page.

“I fucking hate that bitch,” Lyudmyla groaned out, a moment before Elias managed to tear a moan from her.

He had a skilled mouth — and his fingers felt… like fucking heaven, she wouldn’t lie, but at the same time the night had started on the wrong foot and now she couldn’t zone out and focus on him only. Lain between her legs, he was going down on her like only few ever truly did and although she could feel him — and enjoy the things he did —, she couldn’t erase the noise of the world around them.

His chuckle distracted her, though, and when it became even clearer that she was too worked up over something that had happened, he slowly moved up her body while his right hand kept on lazily fingering her. “What happened, Myla?” he whispered against her neck before peppering kisses over her warm skin. He was the only one that called her that. She was Lyuda or Lyudka; Tima called her ptichka, for he sometimes painted little birds for her, and at home she was Lyudochka. However, Elias called her Myla and although they had truly been in each other’s lives for a little over a week, she loved that already.

But right now, she could feel him against her thigh, through the microfiber of the towel he had wrapped around his hips, and although her blood was boiling in her veins, her body still arched up against him. “That fucking bitch,” and she gasped when his fingers brushed across a sensitive spot inside her, “thinks she can make salty puns about me. Call me —” another gasp — “Russian Ice Queen just because I— God.”

One hand cupped the back of his head, while the fingers of the other gripped his hip and if it weren’t for that towel, he’d have the crescent-moon shapes of her nails marked into his flesh. “‘Just because you’ what?”

But she was too close to her climax to think straight, and that thumb of his toying with her clit didn’t help her cause. Her toes curled and for a split second, as she spat out Monika’s name as though it were venom and added an insult for good measure, the only thing she could think about was tearing both her shirt and her bra off her body and riding Elias into the next morning.

“Myla, you’re too smart to let her get to you.”

He hid his face in the crook of her neck when she came. Her back arched and her fingertips pressed into his flesh, and he suckled on a hickey right on her pulse point until she came down from her high. His damp hair tickled her cheek, but it was the gentle rocking of his hips against her thigh that brought her back to the reality of his room.

When she opened her eyes, a minute later, and made the conscious attempt of trying to calm her panting down, she found him propped up on an elbow gazing down at her. His fingers were still gently circling her clit and, barely aware of the whiny whimpers that fell from her lips, their touches — and the orgasm they had provided — had completely wiped her brain clean.

Her hand came up and although it was still trembling, her grip on the back of his neck was firm when she pulled him down to kiss him. “Fuck me,” she whispered then, lips moving right against his, eyes staring directly into his.

He was so beautiful, she found herself noticing. So beautiful and yet, still rugged around the edges, and the longer she held his gaze, the more she felt herself falling for those eyes of his that always seemed to speak louder than words.

“‘Fuck you’?” he chuckled as he helped her up to sitting and made quick work of removing the clothes that still covered her upper body. “I’m going to make you forget all about Monika and her words for a few hours,” was the groan that followed, quickly followed by that hungry kiss that almost made her eyes roll into her skull as he laid her back down.

Good God, she felt herself burn — on fire probably didn’t even come close to describe the feeling. His hands were insistent on her body as he kissed her sanity away, and he grunted and huffed from his nose when he pushed his hands underneath her buttcheeks and pressed himself against her.

She gasped when she felt him nudged against her throbbing core, through his towel, and her hips bucked up against his. Breathless, deafened by the pounding of her heart in her ears, she couldn’t hear the lewd things he was groaning against her skin as he kissed her neck, and then down her collarbones and between her breasts before he pushed up on his knees again. Her eyes remained fixed on his, for she knew that if she let her gaze wander lower down, she wouldn’t be able to be as still as he wanted her.

“But first I’m going to make you come,” he smirked, making her move up the bed a bit as he lay down on his stomach between her legs. “Again.”

The whine that came up her throat when he licked up between her folds made her skin tingle, but it was that groan of his as she tugged on his hair that made her moan.

Lyudmyla had always been used to quickies more than anything else — a quick fuck in the common showers after training, or in the back of a truck, or behind one of the buildings back at the base in Stepnoy. And she had never minded, not even once, because while the time spent off-mission could get boring at times, there was always something to do. But the sounds that left Elias’ lips… Bozhe, she would go insane in his room, doing any kind of stuff with him, really, because his grunts and his moans — God, his whines of pleasure — tugged at her skin and at her heart, at her fucking core, and she could never seem to get enough of him.

He made sure to moan against her every time he went down on her — eleven times in the past seven days, two of which only that night — and really, it was as though he knew the effect he had on her, how much more quickly pleasure crept up on her when he was vocal. Two of his fingers pushed into her at once, then, and as she tugged almost a bit too harshly on his hair again, his eyes peered up at her and she read his smirk in them more than she felt it around her clit.

Her thighs tensed, and she huffed out a fuck when her head fell back and her sight set on the ceiling of his room. Fuck — she desperately wanted to be loud for once, because those two fingers of his curling up inside her and brushing against all the right spots made her insides twist and knot, her breathing grow quicker and labored. And before she knew she was close, her thighs tensed on the sides of his head and her back arched almost painfully as she came again, this time a bit more intensely, as her system seemed to reboot and the air got trapped in her lungs.

Lyudmyla did have men between the moment she and Dominic had stopped going down on each other and the moment she had found herself on his knees with Elias’ cock in her mouth, last Sunday, and during that year time in-between, she had considered her best friend to be the best oral she had ever had — and that she would probably have. But as she tried to slow down her heart, close as it was to going off inside her chest, and to even out that same breathing she had lost all control over, she found herself thinking that nobody even came close to this man that had managed to make her open up like no other.

“You still with me?” he mumbled against her breasts, before he took a nipple in his mouth and suckled gently, tearing yet another moan from her. She almost twitched when he patted her clit once to grab her attention, and the chuckle he let out made her skin crawl as she whined, eyes still closed shut. “Myla,” was the hum that followed, and the way he drawled out the first syllable made her smile and exhale loudly from her nose as she tried not to giggle.

“Yeah,” she panted, hands coming up blindly in search of his sides. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to go down on you again,” he said, and the seriousness in his voice made her eyes blink open all of a sudden. His upper lip was glistening in the warm light of the lamps on either side of his bed, and she found that if only she had the strength to, she would prop herself up on her elbows and lick her juices off of it. “That’s right,” he smirked when he realized he had her full attention. “I’m going to eat this pussy out again,” and he punctuated his intentions by moving an arm back between their bodies and tracing her opening with his calloused fingers. “And then —” he kissed her — “I’m going to fuck you into this mattress.” The heel of his hand pressed against her clit and she gasped. “Is that alright with you?”

He’d stop if she said no — she could read it in his eyes, behind the firm tone of his voice. They had never talked about boundaries and invalicable limits: things weren’t serious between them despite the considerable amount of time they had spent between each other’s legs in the past few days. But as she looked up in his eyes, she knew that was how things would go.

“That’s very tempting,” she answered honestly, but she also felt that if he were to go down on her again, right now, she would break in the best way and she’d never be able to leave his room before someone — Dominic or Tima — went looking for her. “But,” and she tugged at his towel so that it would come loose and she could throw it to her left and discard it once and for all, “I want this.”

He was hard in her hand, and the protruding vein on his underside called for her thumb.

“Please.”

His smirk turned into a grin and then into a chuckle, and his head bowed down until he could playfully nip at the tender skin of her neck. “How do you want it?” he asked; his hips unexpectedly bucked in her hand and she gasped out a moan. “Slow and sensual?” He kissed the side of her breast. “Or fast and hard?”

Lyudmyla swore she could feel her heartbeat everywhere in her body, deafening her again, making her breathe out burning hot hair from her nostrils as she stared up at him and thought of all the ways she wanted to have this man. “Fast and hard,” she panted out. “I don’t want to feel anything else.”

He pulled up on his knees, and the smirk was back on his lips when he reached out for the bedside table to her right to fetch a condom from a drawer. “How are we doing this?” he asked as he rolled the latex down on his erection, not once taking his eyes off of her, intent as she was, staring at his hand wrapped around his cock. “No strings attached?”

“No strings attached,” she whispered back, spreading her legs for him as one of her hands reached down between them. And while ‘no feelings attached’ sounded just fine at the moment, with time she would find out that that suit would grow too tight on her.

*

She had been assigned to a five-week mission — the duration could change depending on how things would go, of course, but by the looks of it, it was clear to all of them that it would be time consuming any way it went. If anything, she had worked with Bandit and Tachanka more times than she could recall, and she had trained plenty of time with Maestro, during simulations. The fact that Blitz was the only attacker had unsettled him at first, even though the one they would be leaving for very soon was a defensive mission, but she had seen Lady double as an attacker had partially eased his doubts — jack-of-all-trades-style, the Italian used to say.

“There are men here ready to get us in,” Bandit was saying, pointing at a point in the map that looked like the perfect place to fall into a trap. That was the unsettling thing, walking at the bottom of a canyon with people up there that could shoot them like targets at a funfair. “We all know how to kill, our positions in the organization are merely a formality.”

“If we follow this plan, though, we’ll be in the open. This Trojan horse mode won’t work. It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Blitz clarified, “it’s just that I’d rather us be more than just five.”

Lyudmyla sat back against her chair, tired out of her mind after the round after round of simulations they had just come out of. “We’d all like that,” she sighed. “I’d rather be in the belly of a carcass than do this undercover bullshit,” and she answered to Sanya’s glare with a glare of her own. “But this is easier than it may seem, you just have to play the part. Being a mercenary isn’t that hard: there’s always someone out there ready to pay for you, just as there’s always someone out there ready to be bought. RAINBOW has money to throw into this plan, and we have the expertise these people are looking to buy. We go, we play whores, and if anything goes wrong, we have our green card out.”

“What you seem to forget,” Elias rebutted, “is that we’re not mercenaries.”

She exchanged a look with Alexsandr, who tried to suppress a smirk at the other end of the table with the holographic plan of the map, and then turned towards Dominic. “Bandit worked undercover. Tachanka took part in some… sketchy missions in Russia, I’d dare say. My brigade has done things, as well. If there’s one thing Spetsnaz selections taught me, is that even those who look incorruptible bend the knee in front of the prospect of money.”

“The lady is right,” Adriano intervened.

“Watch your mouth, M,” she glared, but there was a smile on both of their lips.

“I mean it with the utmost respect, tesoro.” He turned back to Elias, then. “We’d still be doing our job, just… on the other side of the barricade. These people don’t know what RAINBOW agents look like. In their eyes we,” and he pointed his gaze on each of them, “are just more men they can use. They’ll have no reason to have doubts about us if we are the ones bringing in the Governor with handcuffs on his wrists and a gun pointed at his head. Then, when they’re dead or in shackles, we’ll take the Gov back out and to safety. Easy peasy.”

Lyudmyla was still thinking about Adriano’s words two hours later, when she left the training gym smelling like the body wash she had stolen from Sanya. She still had no idea how Six had managed to convince the Governor to play this scheme, nor what strings he had moved to even come up with the plan in the first place. And as she walked towards the firing range, shielded by the late-April rain, she decided she didn’t want to know. She was there to do her job, not to ask questions. She had committed the mistake of asking Volkov questions, the first time her Commander had sold her services as part of a mission, and she had learned not to fall for the same mistake again.

The shooting range was loud when the door closed itself behind her back. Shots ricocheted off the walls, although deadened by the partitioning wall that separated the actual range from the corridor of the control booth that led down to the armory.

She wanted to see Elias eye to eye — to talk and maybe do something else before they left the next morning before sunrise. She knew from experience what too many worries before a life-or-death-situation kind of mission could do, the breaches they could open. Her unit had lost two of theirs during her first year as a purely Spetsnaz agent, and four had risked losing a limb or something more, she included. So if there was anything she could do to ease his mind, she was ready to do it.

Elias was standing in booth number three — his lucky number, or so Dom had told her once, when she had asked him why his friend always booked the same one. The Brits were recharging their weapons in their booths at the far left end of the range, and Sanya sent her a smirk from his position at number one before he hung a new target sheet on the target carrier.

She leaned on the partition that separated booths three and four, though, and smiled when the German turned his head towards her. His expression was unreadable, but she almost had the impression that part of the tension he still carried inside eased at the sight of her.

“Wait for me in the control booth,” he told her as he pressed the call button for his target holder. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

A nod of her head, and then she was gone without a word. She waited for him as he had asked her to, and in the meantime, she tried to come up with comforting things to tell him. But no matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t come up with a single thing that wasn’t it’s all going to be okay. She knew they’d come back alive — probably not completely unscathed, but that risk came with the job. She just wished he could see it the same way.

Lost in her thoughts, she jolted when someone touched her shoulder and when she whipped around, she let out a breathy chuckle when she saw it was just him.

“Look, I didn’t want to offend any of you before,” he started before she had the chance to open her mouth. “And I trust all of you. You’re the only one I’ve never worked with before, but Dominic has and he’s only ever spoken highly of you, on or off the field.”

“I’m not here to tell you off,” she replied as she followed him towards the armory. She had already been in the Germans’ sector, but out of respect she still turned her head the other way when he punched in the code to unlock the door. “I came to tell you that it’s all going to be okay but…”

They both chuckled and he sat down on one of the benches when he put his electronic head muffs in his locker.

“Yeah, I know, not exactly the right job for those words.”

She smiled, hands placed on either side of his face as she stood between his legs. “I had a friend in Stepnoy that used to say that those words bad luck,” she snorted. “I don’t believe in bad luck, but I still can’t bring myself to say them.”

He mirrored his smile, and as she watched his lips stretch sweetly, he seemed to finally fully relax. But before he could say anything, her eyes went as wide as those of a kid in a candy shop.

“Oh my God!” she squealed. “Is that your shield?”

Her hands turned his head to the side to prompt him to turn around. He had used a normal shield during their simulations as a way not to blind his colleagues, but she had wished to actually see it with her own two eyes ever since she joined the team two years ago.

His laughter seemed to ring in the closed space when he nodded his head yes. “You can touch it if you want.”

And what had come out as an accidental double meaning turned into some form of lewd foreplay as they sat there, talking about anything and nothing at the same time. Elias always had some pun on the tip of his tongue and was always a pleasure to listen to.

Some time later, as her hand had almost moved over the crotch of his pants to unzip the fly and his had been between her panties and the crotch of her joggers, the Brits walked loudly in and they barely had the time to resume a less compromising position that they passed by their box. A few more minutes and when they walked back, Mike popped his head in. A You’re the last ones here, lock the door when you leave later and he was gone, his heavy footfalls echoing in the armory as he ran after his friends.

“I had an idea before they walked in,” Elias muttered, eyes still trained on where Thatcher’s head had been mere seconds before. When he turned around, he had a telling smirk on his face and really, she didn’t need to hear it, but she wanted him to be dirty and say it out loud.

“What kind of idea?”

“The one where I fuck you against one of these walls.”

And just like that, his hands were on her hips, tugging her forward from where she was sitting straddling the bench to right between his legs, her thighs made to rest directly over his.

“And I want you to be loud,” he groaned, head coming down so that he could nip the skin in the crook of her neck. “To be as loud as you want before we leave in less than twelve hours.”

She laughed, and before she knew it, they were both standing up and he was tugging her pants and underwear down her legs as soon as she had taken her shoes off. Then, she was in his arms, legs wrapped tightly around his hips as he walked her towards the wall, coming to a stop right next to his shield, still facing the door from where she had left it. Then, he kissed her.

And right then, the undeniable truth was, Elias Kötz was a damn good kisser, and she had spent the last almost two months learning just that. No strings attached he had said — but he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her breath away every time and while yeah, she could definitely do casual, she always found herself looking forward to the moments she spent with him. 

When his lips skimmed along her jaw and went back down to her neck, as a way for both of them to catch their breath, one of his hands moved between her legs and she let out a long moan, deep in her throat.

“What got you so wet?” he hummed, breathing hard against her cheek. “My shield? Or my puns?”

She huffed a laughter. “What else did you expect when you started casually telling me all the things you wanted to do to me?” He let her pull his head back, her fingers tangled in his hair, and the kiss that followed muffled the moan his fingers pushing into her elicited.

“So you like it?” he asked when he pulled back and her hands were finally unzipping his pants and taking his erection out of his briefs. “When I say I want to take you in the armory?”

He was inside her in a heartbeat. Her neck arched, and her head fell back against the wall at the sudden sensation of fullness that tore a whimper from her very soul.

“Or when I say how tight you always are around me?”

He thrust up again, hands moving to her buttcheeks to keep her as close to him as he could.

“Tight and warm,” he groaned. “Always so wet, I can never stop thinking about you, lyubimaya.”

She panted his name, neither of them fully aware of the way he had just called her. Her hands were on either side of his neck and she did try keeping her eyes open and locked with his, but the drag of his dick inside her was making her see stars as he stretched her open.

“When we come back,” she breathed, “we’re gonna do it nice and slow.”

“We can do it any way you want, Myla,” he breathlessly chuckled as she felt him start twitching.

He was pushing her up the hill that would take her to her orgasm and as she fulfilled his wish for her to be loud and dragged him with her towards his finish, only Elias heard the sound of heavy steps coming their way.

“Keep your eyes closed,” he moaned in her ear when she squeezed down on him and one of his hands came up to her eyes.

The flash went off right when she reached her orgasm and blinded by pleasure as she was, her mind barely able to process the fact that he was still thrusting up into her, his movements now curt and sloppy, she didn’t even notice he had activated his shield, nor did she hear the plaintive groan of Alexsandr getting blinded.

A few moments later, when the intruder had left the armory, Elias grunted his release against her lips as she held his face between her hands. His came to plant themselves firmly on the wall on either side of her head and the hold of her legs on his waist tightened, and as she automatically contracted around him, they both moaned in unison.

They stayed in that position for a few minutes as they both tried to catch their breath, their hearts still beating wildly against each other’s chest. Then, he laughed — a hearty laughter that made her chuckle for a moment before she simply rested there, a satisfied smile on her lips as she cradled this wild man’s face in her hands.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked, voice faint and still breathy.

“Someone will think twice next time before sneaking up on Blitz having sex next to his shield,” he snickered.

“Someone saw us?”

“The only thing we flashed them was my shield, don’t worry.”

He pecked her lips and stared at her in content silence for a moment longer before he pulled out slowly. When she hissed, he pecked her lips again.

“I want to take you somewhere nice when we come back,” he said when they left the building where both firing range and armory were. He had an arm thrown around her shoulders and she was pressed into his side as she tried to keep both shielded under the umbrella.

She moved her head against his shoulder and looked up at him. “Yeah?”

He hummed in response. “We could go climbing. Marius has told me of a place. It’s a trail for experienced hikers, but the view at the end is a nice and secluded place.” Then, his smirk was back on his lips and his next words made her chuckle before she pushed him under the rain. “You could climb me when we get there.”

:) I love these two :) and I love Lyuda and Dominic’s friendship :) hello mtv, welcome to my crib trashcan

[ Original pic used for the banner: https://www.pexels.com/photo/pink-flowers-photograph-1083822/ ]

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ask)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi​ @becs-bunker

[alolan-colress]

So I’m not a Russian but i know a couple of nicknames:

Dmitri - Mitya

Mikhail - Misha

Aleksandra or Aleksander - Sasha

Lyudmila - Lyuda

Tatyana - Tanya

oh!! im actually looking for someone who could provide me nicknames for my oc’s ;w; but thanks!

[emalynfreya-art]

I am still so completely obsessed with this!!!! I'm blown away by how intricate it is and how beautiful you made my girl!!! Thank you so much ❤️❤️

Another Art Fight attack I did for @emalynfreya-art of their character Lyuda Ehrenzweig!! We love a witchy gal and her lil bird friend in this house!

[archangelbelletti]

Incorrect quotes w/ my WIP ocs

Lyuda & Siyanda edition + their aesthetic

Lyuda Do you like my outfit?

Siyanda: Not as much as I like what's underneath it.

Lyuda, blushing: S-Siyanda --

Siyanda: I need your chair. Get up.

Siyanda: I like my men like I like my soul.

Lyuda: You don’t have a soul.

Siyanda: Debatable, but rather the point.

Siyanda: Sorry, but you're under arrest for robbery.

Lyuda: What did I steal?

Siyanda, trying not to cry: My heart.

Lyuda: I married my wife. I love saying ‘my wife,’ it sounds so adult.

Siyanda, looking at Alexander: That’s my wife.

The ocs:

LYUDA:

SIYANDA:

[ao3feed-snape]

Our Own Russian Spy

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2MhXKTC

by Reindeerlady

In which the 1st years at Hogwarts gain a Russian classmate, and she is a good influence. - Aw yea self indulgent Oc time. I wrote this fic for myself but if u happen upon it I hope u think it’s okay.

Words: 1793, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter - All Media Types

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Characters: Original Characters, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Quirinus Quirrell, Hogwarts Students, more tags to be added - Character

Relationships: Harry Potter & Original Character(s), Hermione Granger & Original Character(s), Ron Weasley & Original Character(s), Severus Snape & Original Character(s), Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy & Original Character(s), Original Character(s) & Everyone, More tags to be added - Relationship

Additional Tags: Found Family, Russian Literature, The author is a Russian-American gen z attempting to write a RUSSIAN millennial, I don’t like J.K Rowling, Severitus | Severus Snape is Harry Potter's Parent, Good Severus Snape, Sev is a Dad, not a great one but he’s trying, Harry and Lyuda are siblings, This fic is mostly me being self indulgent and nostalgic so I’m sorry, I’m not a Draco fan but his dad is a shitty person and he’s just a kid in this so uh Draco ppl it ok, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, what even

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2MhXKTC

[back-on-my-nerd-shit]

Thank you so much for drawing Lyuda for this art challenge! She looks so beautiful! I love it! ❤️❤️🥀

Hi! If you're still doing the oc flower art meme, I'd love to submit my changeling sorcerer, Lyuda, with the 🥀. Thanks ^.^

Thank you for the ask! <3

[angelaiswriting]

Lyudmyla | Blitz x fem!OC x Tachanka

[link with credits below]

✏️ Pairing: Blitz x fem!OC x Tachanka

✏️ Summary: in which Lyudmyla is no lady, despite what people might think, and she’s always down for some casual good times.

✏️ A/N: I... don’t know what happened haha apart from @kind-wolf​ throwing all kinds of new crushes at me 😈 the important disclaimer is: I’ve never played this game, I’ll most likely never have the chance to, either, but I was hit hard when I least expected it, so here I am. Let me know if anything is OOC: I read these people’s Wikia, but that’s it.

✏️ Warnings: 18+ ONLY (some language, mentions of weed and alcohol + sex: fingering, oral m/r and f/r, public sex (I have no shame), sex with quite the age difference, unprotected sex, mentions of a threesome)

✏️ Word-count: 10,075 (sorry?)

✏️ Translations: tesoro (Italian) = darling // mudak (Russian), stronzo (Italian) = dick/asshole/jerk // ptichka (Russian) = birdie

<< Part One: Elias (masterlist > rainbow six) <<

LYUDMYLA

“Lady.” Slightly taller than her, bald, confined inside an anonymous black suit, the man was smiling at her one of those smiles that could mean nothing and anything at the same time. “That’s quite the delicate codename around here.”

Someone coughed when passing behind her and when Lyuda turned her head to the side, Elias shot her a look. Need help? or so the look in his eyes seemed to ask. She shook her head once, though, the movement short and almost tense and even though she was more than capable of handling a ‘Bureau man’, as she called them, on her own, her German colleague stopped at her side.

“If she had a penny for every time she heard that line…” he chuckled, posture composed and almost standing at attention. Despite the chuckle, there wasn’t a single trace of amusement in his stance, nor on his face, at what he had just heard.

The man’s smile thinned. Lyudmyla had never been that good at reading people, but she thought she knew how to spot an annoyed man from miles away. “I meant no harm,” he said, cold gray eyes moving away from the operator to look at the woman in front of him again. “It’s a delight to see that there are delicate operators among our lines.”

Boring. Boring and presumptuous — almost as though caring about one’s physical appearance took away from the hits one had under one’s belt and made them… less lethal, less dangerous on the job. As fragile and as delicate as a flower — ha! It couldn’t have been farther from the truth in Lyuda’s case, but then again, she hadn’t shown up at that poor excuse for an International Meeting (TM, because they were mostly a waste of time these days anyway) expecting for people that didn’t know her to take her seriously.

She had been through it already, and so many times that she had not only lost count, but she had also stopped caring. It stung, and it was annoying as fuck, but there wasn’t much she could do and at the end of the day, ignoring the remarks was by far the easiest way out of possibly highly angering situations. And she didn’t do well with anger.

“It’s a pity that you have to-”

But she interrupted him mid-sentence. “Have you ever heard of Lyudmyla Pavlichenko, Mr.…”

“Porter. Mark Porter,” he grinned, extending his right hand just before retracting it a moment later, when it became fully clear that she had absolutely no intentions of shaking it — nor of reading the identification tag he had appointed to his suit jacket. “And I’m afraid I haven’t, no.”

Lyuda’s lips stretched and for a moment, they matched the man’s grin, even though her eyes remained untouched. “My father named me after her when I was born. And then, when I was made to join RAINBOW, my comrades named me after her once again. She was a fine sniper back during World War 2, had three hundred and nine killings under her name. But she wasn’t called Lady, and neither am I. The name is Lady Death.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Blitz trying to contain his laughter, barely able to hide a chuckle behind a closed fist in a mock and poorly failed attempt at coughing again.

She was more interested in the tensing jaw of the man in front of her, though, and even if the wish to deepen his uneasiness was tickling the back of her throat, she smiled sweetly — very lady-like, if she wanted to put it that way, just to mock the way others mocked her — and that was that.

“Have a good rest of the day, Mr. Porter.” She motioned in her colleague’s direction with a nod of her head, then, and dropped her smile until all that was left wasn’t but a shadow of what it had once been. “I’m afraid my duties are demanding my attention now, but a fine man like you will spot another lady to find entertainment in, I’m sure.”

With those words, she turned on her heels — uncomfortable after the last three weeks spent on the field — and made her way toward the exit.

“How do you manage to stand them?” Elias had caught up and was walking towards the elevators with her.

They had… bonded, if so one wanted to put it. It had happened just a few weeks before the mission they had just come back from, and it had been nothing sentimental, really. Lyudmyla might come off as a lady, but she truly was anything but — or so her mother still complained to her about, every time they spoke on the phone — less and less these days, but even ten minutes at the end of the month seemed to be worse than the most boring of missions.

So, no strings attached. Just two consenting adults that could die the day after and that needed a way to remember about the fact that they were made of flesh and bone, and not of tactic gear and shields and an M24 strapped to the back.

Her middle finger pressed the call button of the elevator and for a moment she stood there, staring at a decently manicured nail. There were still faint traces of blood underneath it and her breath hitched in her throat, albeit for just a second. She had scrubbed and scrubbed, and then scrubbed some more, to the point where she had feared her skin would be left raw and of an angry-red color. But the blood had come off, and she could only see it because she knew where to look.

“Myla?” Elias called and in a flash, she was back to the reality of the conference center floor. “You okay?”

“I don’t,” she replied, barely aware of the question she had just been asked, for her mind still had his How do you manage to stand them? on loop. “Stand them,” she voiced when all she was met with was his puzzled gaze. “I don’t stand them. It hurts, in a way. Hurts my pride. But then again, they can think whatever the hell they want. I come off as delicate and feminine and whatever they want to label me with, but at the end of the day, they are the fucks that have to rely on us for their missions. And that includes me in the package. I still get the job done, Lady or not.”

The elevator dinged. The doors opened with a breathy whoosh, barely audible above the elevator music, and they stepped inside. She didn’t complain when Elias pressed the button for the ground floor, even though all she wanted was a nap, and after a look at the guests’ faces, neither did the liftman.

“Maybe I should have beaten Tachanka’s ass when he found it amusing to bring up Lyudmyla again,” she chuckled, Russian rolling much more easily on her tongue than English ever did.

It was a luck that her friend spoke the language. It was nice to revert back to it whenever someone was around and she didn’t feel like flashing her business for the world to see, and it was much easier than dusting off her shallow German knowledge. Multilingualism was on Blitz’s resume, after all, not exactly on hers.

“He’s twice your age, and probably three times your size,” he laughed, staring ahead at the closed doors and shaking his head slowly. “But the mental picture surely seems to promise good fun.”

Her snort made him turn his head slightly to the side to stare down at her. She, too, shook her head for a moment before composing herself again. “He doomed me with that name. Two words; who the fuck has a two-word codename among us?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions.” He made a noise, then, a tsk that distracted even the liftman from his thoughts and made him lift his gaze on the two people in the elevator with him.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. Big and tall as he was, and he still shrugged and managed to seem just as imposing as always. Not as Sanya, of course — that man was a fucking mountain. “Why didn’t you insist on it being shortened to just Death?”

Witty bastard, she thought, for he was right.

*

The hall of the hotel was bustling with life when they crossed it, Lyudmyla closely following Elias towards the bar. She seemed to recognize some of the people that had been present at the NATO meeting just less than an hour ago, but then again, she had been too busy napping and trying not to get caught that she couldn’t be so sure. They were all there for a reason she couldn’t exactly remember — she was still jet-lagged from the mission, and she just… wasn’t interested. She never was when official meetings were involved: they implied all kinds of formalities, uncomfortable clothes she wasn’t used to anymore, dickheads that wanted to withdraw financial support from the very organizations that kept them on their chairs; and she truly didn’t have time for all that. But she had received an informal reprimand by Six in person — sort of, if ‘video call’ could be considered an ‘in-person meeting’ — and so she had to behave.

The bar was the opposite of busy, even though it wasn’t empty either. It was a grand room, with tall windows on one side that offered a picturesque view on the city below, and a full wall covered in mirrors on the other. There were round tables, their surface made of crystal-clear glass, and elegant people that had nothing to do with the meeting she had just come out of sat and chatted in an environment that was the opposite to what Lyuda was used to.

“Did the others even make it to the meeting?” she asked when Elias leaned against the counter of the bar to catch the barwoman’s attention. “I don’t think I saw them.”

He shot her an amused look before he chuckled. “Mein Gott, no! Maestro is still pissed that we’re here in the first place, and Tachanka joined in with him. They said they would hit the bar,” he replied, but a look around the room revealed that the two men were missing. “Bandit is probably still in his room, ‘tending to his wound’.”

Completely ignoring the fact that her friend was still partially in mission mode, if the use of their field names could be considered an indicator, she laughed at the last thing he said. “I thought that wasn’t but a ‘bruise on his body’,” she recalled. She had managed to take out the offender from four hundred yards away, laying on her higher ground, but a bullet had already been shot and Dominic had been hit. It had been a week ago, and the man had carried on with their mission like nothing had happened, but guilt was still simmering in the pit of her stomach. Half a second too late, focused as she was on something that moved a few degrees from where the enemy sniper had been hiding, and her colleague had been hit.

“You know how he is,” he shrugged, handing her their good-morning whiskey before he grabbed his own glass. “He hates these things just as much as we do.”

She hummed, taking a sip from her drink as she listened to Elias ask the barista if she had seen ‘two disruptive men, this big, ugly military faces and with probably more alcohol in their hands than a human liver could stand’.

“Why didn’t you stay back as well?” she wondered out loud, downing the alcohol before asking for a refill. “I had ‘please Six this time’ as my excuse, what was yours?”

The right corner of his lips rose in an amused smirk and, raptured, she stared as he sipped on his drink, the ice cubes clinking against the glass. The tip of his tongue came out then — and truly, it was an innocent and instinctual movement to lick away that droplet that had almost rolled down his lip, she was sure, but all she could think of was the last time he had gone down on her and how ardently she craved that contact again, now that her body felt closer to exhaustion than she would ever admit.

“I had to make sure no one found you sleeping surrounded by heads of state and RAINBOW officials reporting on our missions.” There it was, that shit-eating grin of his that always made her want to scoff and laugh at the same time. “Plus, I was hoping we could sneak out somewhere, have some fun, and for as much as I care about the guys, I’m not sure I’m into being dicked down by Alexsandr.”

She snorted out a laughter this time and her hand came down to slap his shoulder. “You are terrible,” she laughed, walking away from the counter when he got a new drink and pointed his glass towards the French windows that opened onto the panoramic terrace. “But you could have told me. Could’ve sneaked into the restroom before heading for the elevators.”

Still navigating around the tables, she turned her head in his direction when she didn’t receive an answer and she found him staring, lost in his own thoughts, his tumbler half-way to his lips. “Hadn’t that dude stopped you like that, I definitely would have.”

The terrace was slightly busier than the bar. It had a view on the city and on the lake — and the dozens of press reporters buzzing around the entrance of the hotel as they waited to report on some actual news.

“There you are, motherfuckers!” Alexsandr’s booming exclamation caught everyone’s attention, and a couple of kids sitting at a table for a late breakfast with their parents burst into giggles under Mommy and Daddy’s scowls.

“How much did you have to drink already, old bear?” she chuckled when she reached him, grabbing the bottle he and Adriano had on their table — Dragon Bleu. Her eyebrows arched. “French vodka?” she asked as she sat down in the chair to his right, amusement curving the corners of her mouth upward.

“I’m keeping the good shit for tonight,” he simply said, implying that he had plans and those plans involved getting hammered just so that he could avoid whatever meeting they should be attending to the next day as well. “So, did you two do all your homework like the good pupils you are?” he snickered, lifting his right hand to his lips to take a drag from his cigarette.

“Oh, fuck off,” Elias groaned, eyes rolling upwards under Tachanka and Maestro’s amused gazes.

“Nice teamwork, abandoning the two of us to the vultures,” Lyuda chirped in before taking a sip of vodka straight from the bottle.

“Tesoro, you know these things are not for people like us.” Adriano was in a good mood, but even though she was fairly sure he had spent the morning drinking with his Russian friend, there was still sleep laced in his voice. “We do the dirty job and they,” he gestured vaguely at the people standing or sitting on the terrace but everyone knew who he was really referring to, “take to the talking and hand-shaking. That’s how the world rolls.”

“The Italian mudak is right,” was nodding Sanya, completely ignoring Adriano’s half-amused, half-pissed Who the fuck are you calling ‘mudak’, stronzo? “Plus, I’m sure your pretty face is a much nicer sight than our rugged mugs, da?”

They always played around her Lady nickname, but when it came to her friends and colleagues, it never mattered as much. It didn’t irk her, didn’t bother her, for she knew they were playful but still respectful — and even though Bandit had gotten a graze from a bullet on his arm, she knew they valued and respected her abilities, whether it came to a long-distance rifle or a gun.

“News from Dom?” she asked instead, accepting the cig Alexsandr was handing her. The smoke tickled her nostrils more than it did her throat, for her mind had wandered back to that goddamn sniper and the luck they had had when that gust of wind had unexpectedly risen.

“Probably watching porn at the expenses of RAINBOW,” the man to her left snickered, hitting his closed fist with Maestro’s.

“You should stop worrying,” the Italian said, putting out his cigarette butt before lighting up a new one. He took a sip from his drink and smiled at her as a hand came up to rub at a beard-covered cheek. “It really is just a bruise. Bandit just likes to rub it in everyone’s face to avoid boring-ass meetings, not because he’s in pain.”

She sighed, a hand scrunching up and massaging her forehead as she looked down at the metal surface of the table. It was gray and almost sparkly under the bright, almost midday sun, and the light reflecting off of it felt like a finger in both eyes when they were still tired and sore. “I know,” she huffed and almost tensed when Elias’ hand squeezed her knee under the table in a reassuring gesture she hadn’t expected. “I just…”

“Nothing happened, Lyudka.” Tachanka knew how to be menacing — he was huge and imposing, a real mountain in human form, and he could be equally terrifying both with and without his helmet. But the look on his face was so sincere, and the half-smile he was throwing her way so sweet and reassuring, that she couldn’t not believe him.

“But it could have,” she insisted, inhaling a sharp drag of smoke. “It almost did. Half a second earlier, and Dominic wouldn’t have a head anymore now. I should’ve seen that guy, I should’ve-”

“You shot him down, that’s what matters,” Elias intervened, tipping his glass back to finish his drink. “Dom is fine. Shit, he’s great! And he loves you just the same.”

“Kid’s right. ‘Terrorist’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘incompetent asshole’,” Adriano smiled. “Some of them do their job just as well as we do. Aria got a bullet in her leg because of me once, and we’re still good. Mistakes happen, and you shouldn’t spend so much time brooding over a ‘what if’ when things already went the other way.”

Defeated, Lyudmyla sighed. She sipped on her drink, smoked Alexsandr’s cigarette, and a second before a message made Adriano’s phone beep, she nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Anyway, buzzkill. We’re going out tonight,” Sanya declared and by the tone of his voice, she knew there was little to no room to complain about the plan he had come up with for the whole group. It was a way to keep the feeling of camaraderie going for a little longer, before the post-op high and exhaustion faded away and they went back to a half-idle wait for a new mission. “We’re all getting some pussy.” His grin widened and his eyes closed as he inhaled sharply from his nose before exhaling even more noisily from his mouth. “Or dick,” he added, eyes shooting open when he turned to look at her. “Or both.”

The way he stared at her made a shiver run down her spine and for a long minute, before Dominic joined them with a beer in one hand and his phone in the other, she couldn’t look away from the stormy blue of his eyes.

*

The knocking on her door was what woke her up at three thirty-seven in the afternoon. Lyudmyla had slept for less than two hours, but she felt better than she had in what could have very well been forever. Her back arched as her arms stretched toward the headboard, and a drawled-out moan of satisfaction crawled up her throat and almost made her lips tingle.

It took her a while before her still-sleepy brain put two and two together and she fully registered the knocking and the voice calling her name from the corridor.

“I’m going to put my hands on the door pad if you don’t come, Lyuda!”

Dominic’s insistence made her chuckle but a moment later she managed to yell out a Wait a sec! The light throbbing in the muscles of her legs showed up again when she stood from the bed after successfully managing to untangle her feet from the mess the blankets had become while she slept.

“The plan was to take a bath when I woke up,” she half-heartedly complained when she opened the door to reveal the man she had almost got killed. “Not to babysit you, Dom.”

Laughter seemed to rumble directly in his chest when he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her backward to step into her room. “No one is stopping you, Schatzi. What, are you suddenly shy? After that emergency shower we had to take back in Syria?”

“You are so full of yourself sometimes.” But it was said in a light voice, and Bandit knew she didn’t mean it in a negative way.

He stood there as she made her bed, and he barely moved out of her way when she reached the window he was standing in front of so that she could open the curtains. Light entered the room again, and the creamy colors of the furniture seemed to turn a bit more welcoming than they had looked in the half-darkness.

“We were worried,” he said after a while, when she indeed started to fill up the bathtub to soak into that bubble bath they all shared the need and wish for in their fantasy. “You didn’t show up at lunch.”

When she turned around, after dropping some of the hotel’s complimentary body wash into the tub, she found him leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed against his chest. He wasn’t wearing a bandage on his arm anymore, but she knew there was band-aid tape on the stitched wound on his left bicep.

“I was tired,” she shrugged, turning around to face away from him so that she could take her shirt off. He was right — he had seen her naked, so she couldn’t see a problem in doing just as he had proposed. They joked and bantered, but there was nothing more than friendship between them and for once, it was perfect that way. “I didn’t sleep much last night, and that fucking meeting got my breakfast stuck in my stomach.”

From behind her, she heard his amused chuckle. “Burger King truly does sound like a light lunch after all…” he joked, hinting at the empty box that laid forgotten on the table.

“Oh, shut up,” she tried not to scoff.

She dared a look over her shoulder when her hands reached the clasp of her bra, but she found him staring the other way, back into the bedroom. Not a word left her lips on the topic, but she mentally thanked him as she finished undressing and climbed into the tub.

“You hurried away right after noon,” he spoke again, this time fully walking into the bathroom to come and sit down on the floor next to her. He had his back against the side of the tub, the back of his neck resting right against the edge, and for a moment they found themselves staring into each other’s eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

A soft sigh on her part, and then her lips came down to press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m just… so very sorry,” she admitted. “And before you start, too, the guys have already tried to talk me out of it.”

“Yeah, too bad your skull is too thick.”

“Oh, shut it!” They laughed together for a moment, and it was good to be light again, with not a worry in the world but what Sanya had planned to drag them into that night. “I’m serious, though. I almost cost you your life, and all because I looked in the right direction a moment too late.”

He turned around, and one hand slipped down underneath the surface of the water for a moment before he moved it back up on the edge of the tub. “What can I do to make you stop worrying about it, ptisha?”

Her lips parted to reply back, but then his words registered and she furrowed her brows. “What? What’s that?”

“What? Ain’t that how Glaz calls you?” he shrugged.

It took her a moment to realize what he meant and when she did, laughter bubbled up again. “Ptichka, oh my God!” she corrected him, and added a playful slap to the back of his head for good measure.

“Yeah, exactly what I said.” He tried his best puppy dog eyes on her, but if there was one sure thing, it was how badly they always failed. He was big and rough, and the scar he had on his head didn’t help him any, and so, instead of relying on them to have things done his way, he used them on her to make her laugh.

After that, they sat in comfortable silence, both their backs pressed against the wall. He even let her play with his left hand in hers. She dipped it into the bubbly water and then picked it out again, removed the bubbles with her forefinger — the one she used to pull the trigger — and then started again. It was relaxing, a nice way to empty both their minds after the hectic days they’d had on their mission.

“Are you going back home once we’re done here?” she asked after a while, when he knelt by the tub to rub shampoo in her hair. She didn’t really need to wash it again, but it was nice to have someone pamper her every once in a while, and so she let him do.

His answer was a hum as he massaged her scalp. Her eyes were closed and that was how she missed the comically focused expression on his face. “Are you?”

She sighed in contentment at his touch and it took her half a minute to reply, relaxed as she was in the warm water and the cozy atmosphere of the bathroom. “No, I’m probably going back to the base. I don’t feel like going back and have my mother over. You should leave that absurd job and do something more appropriate for someone like you, that’s what she’d say.” And then, when he pointed out that he spoke no Russian and that she should speak a more comprehensible language, she translated. “I was born into a military family, I don’t understand what she expected me to become. A kindergarten teacher? Knowing my father, I probably even held a gun before I held a book.”

“You’re a full adult, fuck what the old woman says!” His exclamation made her tremble with laughter and he had to tell her to keep still or he’d get water in her eyes. A moment later, he started washing the shampoo out. “Come to Berlin with me,” he proposed. “I’ll introduce you to my brother and the kids, and you’ll have the chance to pay me back for this head wash.”

It was truly something, the way he made her feel — light and weightless, with butterflies inside that weren’t due to some form of crush or physical attraction. From different groups and yet, she sometimes felt closer to him than she did her Russians. It was easy — spending time with him was easy, it made all her worries and thoughts leave her mind in peace.

“C’mon, ptisha,” he joked again, grabbing the towel from the hanger with one hand and extending the other for her to grab so that he could help her out. “Let’s not replay the broken nose you got in Syria.”

*

As it turned out, Alexsandr had rented a nice convertible at the expenses of the organization and had dragged them around the city before reaching his destination. Black and sleek, driving in it had felt like it just glided on the asphalt as she had sat there, in the passenger seat, with the wind moving her hair all over the place and laughter spilling from her lips. Even now, in the high-end nightclub Sanya had been recommended by God knows who, there was still that same kind of excitement making her fingertips tingle.

Four shots into the night, Lyuda was free. The loud music felt like the weirdest kind of contrast to the new routine of the latest mission and as she danced, it seemed to loosen up all of the knots she had carried in her muscles till that night. Dominic’s injury, the hostages, the terrorists, it all faded into a blurry chaos that got drowned out by the people around her and left her mind pleasantly empty.

The Germans were still sitting in their corner, she was sure of it — smoking weed when she was fairly certain they shouldn’t be allowed to, but they didn’t care. The initial plan had concerned both Tachanka and Maestro, but only the latter had accepted and shown to be down with trying. Sanya had scowled, said he needed no weed to relax and enjoy the party and had kept on muttering under his breath until she had dragged him to the bar before dumping him there.

A drink will do him good — or so she had thought — still did. She had left him there without thinking and had joined all those strangers on the dance floor, letting go to the unknown song the DJ was playing up in her booth.

She didn’t jolt when a pair of hands placed themselves on her hips and someone breathed down her neck, lips barely brushing against her skin. She had danced with a couple of guys already — no one worth mentioning, just good distractions that kept her mind as far as possible from RAINBOW and NATO and the meeting that was going to be held the morning after. One had tried to touch her, though, to let his hands go down her hips to the hem of the mini dress her friends had dropped in her hands when Dom had left her hotel room and then back up underneath the cool, almost silk-like material, and it was then that she had moved away, too relaxed to be bothered and put up a fight — one she knew she’d win.

But she was thinking about Elias — about his hand on her knee that morning and the Why don’t you blow me? he had whispered in her ear before leaving the hotel, an amused reply to the I’ll blow your knees out she had let out at a stupid punchline he had come up with. She had hoped he’d join her, that he’d moan dirty German she couldn’t understand right against her skin, and then maybe throw her over his shoulder and carry her someplace quiet, show her a good time. It made her feel bad, the way she thought of him as a ‘good fuck’ because Elias was really a nice person, one she admired and cared for, but that was the reality of things. Both for her and for him — it was a thing that went both ways, that was matched by both parties, and for the time being, it was good.

The man she was grinding against wasn’t Blitz, though, she noticed with a gasp when she turned around.

Alexsandr was staring down at her, an amused and tipsy smirk plastered on his lips. It was a surprise, to find him there, against her, his hands now down on her buttcheeks, gently pawing at them. He was twice her age, just as Elias had reminded her that morning in the elevator, but she’d be lying if she said the thought of him had never crossed her mind. Fucking massive and resilient, and yet ever so delicate when it came to his weapons; always saying things how he saw and thought them, and she did find that attractive.

He twirled her around. Lost in her thoughts as she was, with the alcohol in her system pleasantly making her head float just a few inches higher than normal, she almost lost her balance as his antics made her chuckle out loud. It lasted for a heartbeat, and then she was back to square one, her back against his chest and his arms caging her in this time, his hands on her hips making them sway.

“Everything alright with Bandit?” he yelled in her ear as one of his hands trailed up her side and somehow stopped on the front of her throat.

It was… hot, somehow. His warm skin against hers seemed to burn her sweat away, and his lips moving right against her earlobe made the baby hairs on the back of her head stand up on their ends.

She nodded against him, suddenly brought back to the guilt she had felt for how things had gone with Dominic. But he had assured her — more than once — that things were just as peachy as always between them, and she had no reason to doubt his words, not when nothing at all seemed to have changed — in the way he talked to her, looked at her, simply acted around her. He had made her promise she’d go to Berlin with him, and she had playfully told him that she wouldn’t keep that promise, but both knew they’d soon be on the same plane, headed towards the same destination.

Dom wasn’t on her mind for long, though, not when Sanya was grinding right back against her. And she could feel him. God, she could feel him, confined as he was in his black pants, almost nestled between her buttcheeks. The feel of him, the way he was moving, breathing down her neck, his lips ghosting against her skin — her eyes closed, her eyelids heavy, and she rested her head back against him, a soft sigh of contentment and pure peace slipping past her lips.

The music faded away, and at the same time, it seemed to buzz in her veins, to beat right in her temples as her arms came up and she placed her hands on the sides of his neck. There seemed to be nothing else for a moment or two, until his right hand moved away from her hip and slipped down her thigh much like that nameless man had done earlier. Her eyes shot open then, and the nightclub was back where it had always been, with its DJ and her music and all those unaware people dancing the night away.

Suddenly hyper-aware of every touch of his, her hand moved away from his neck for a second, almost shooting down to stop his out of instinct, before she brought it back where it was.

He kissed the side of her neck — he truly did, this time; it wasn’t just the ghost of a kiss, with his lips being but a feather against her skin. He kissed her neck, one-day stubble grazing her skin, and his hand slipped past the hem of her dress, his fingers trailed up her inner thigh before they reached her clothed core.

Her heartbeat was louder than the music, she could have bet her right hand on it, and it almost felt as though her heart had jumped up in her throat, making it hard to keep her breathing steady and slow. That thump-thump was in her temples, in her eardrums, and even down in the pit of her stomach as one of his fingers traced a line on her panties — so loud that she didn’t catch what he yelled in her ear.

Then, without notice, lulled as she was by the movement of his hips still gently swaying against hers, his hand came up to her stomach and then slid underneath the elastic band of her underwear.

She tensed against him, tried to turn around and tell him something along the lines of not here, not now, but one of his fingers slipped between her folds and teased her for a moment before swiftly nudging her clit.

“Nobody will see anything,” were the words in her ear as she ground her hips back and despite — or probably because of — the thrill mounting inside her, she blindly chose to trust him.

The place was packed, sure, but anyone could turn around and catch him with an arm across her body, his hand between her paralyzed legs. It was thrilling in a way, almost exhilarating, and she tilted her head to the side to grant him access to her neck.

Then, a thought crossed her mind like a meteor. She didn’t exactly know what happened to RAINBOW operators that had feelings for each other, or that were simply caught while getting down to business. A nightclub didn’t grant the same level of privacy a hotel room did, and for a moment — before his middle finger pushed inside her and she decided that she truly didn’t care — she wondered if someone ever checked the security tape of the places they went to.

Sanya’s finger was thick, the fingertip slightly calloused by use. Its slow and steady pumping made her toes curl in her sneakers and her head press back against him as she felt him smile against her neck.

It was a slow teasing, unhurried, proving a patience Lyuda didn’t know Alexsandr had. It made her insides tense, her breathing come out ragged and uneven, completely uncontrolled when he added another finger. She felt the stretch then — hot and delicious, in a way, making blood rush to her skin and burn in her cheeks. His thumb was on her clit, and its movements were lazy and irregular as he focused on fingering her, gently scissoring his fingers as her walls contracted around them.

“Sanya.” It was a groan, and although he felt the vibrations under his lips, he didn’t hear it above the scream of the music.

So close. Oh God, she thought — so close to losing it in the middle of a nightclub, with someone twice her age edging her closer and closer to an orgasm that was making her body hum in anticipation.

The idea that he had somehow — sometimes — thought of her was enough to almost make her feel delirious. It was easy, to forget about anything else when you were on the job, with a loaded weapon in your hands, even more strapped to your body, and a plan to follow, an objective to hit. Your focus was all there, on the very center of the target, and thoughts of anything else didn’t even knock on your mind’s door. But then, when you stepped back, mission accomplished and the permission to go back home for a while in your hands…

She pulled his hand out from inside her and as she did so, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, air coming in sharply from her nose as she tried her best to get a grip back on herself. One deep breath in, one deep breath out — and it was good to know he wasn’t insisting on keeping his hand where it had been for the past minutes, that he was respecting her spaces — she wouldn’t have expected anything else from someone like him.

But then she turned around, lips parted and cheeks bright, his hand still in hers, big and warm and finger wet and sticky. She brought them to her lips, kissed the fingertips of his middle and ring fingers before pulling them into her mouth and sucking them clean.

The smirk was still on his face and under the ever-changing lights of the club, his expression seemed to constantly change as well as he stared at her, eyes set on hers and never leaving.

He had her pressed against a wall in a matter of minutes, her back to the solid surface and her legs wrapped around his hips as he ever so slowly thrust up into her pussy — and neither of them knew exactly how they had come to find themselves in that position, in that dark corner with people less than five meters away.

The music was a blessing — probably the cause for a headache in the morning, but at that moment a blessing no doubt, concealing all her whimpers and moans as his dick stretched her open.

He was big — and on that there had never been a doubt. Proportionate — that was the word her old high school friend Nina would have used to describe him —, no doubt taking the first place among the men she had ever been with. The stretch was delicious, and the feel of him — heavy and thick inside her — was enough to make her eyes roll as her nails scratched at his neck.

She was panting when his hipbones pressed against hers and he was fully sheathed inside her; panting and whimpering as she felt herself clamp down on him. And his breath was scorching hot against the side of her neck, his right temple pressing against her shoulder.

His hips moved back, then, and the drag of him inside her made her head fall back against the wall as she fought to breathe when he pushed back in. It was a slow rhythm — slow but slowly mounting, making her mind and her body dance closer and closer to the delirious climax he seemed to promise her. At some point, when his hands moved down to grab her thighs and he tilted his hips up in a slightly different angle, a low moan scratched up her throat as the tip of his cock hit deeper inside her.

She was whimpering his name, a litany of Sanya, Sanya, Sanya that he couldn’t hear but that he could read on her lips as he stared at them, his own lips parted as he grunted, thrusts growing more and more unfocused the closer he was to orgasm.

Less than a minute later, as pleasure went off in her body and behind her closed eyelids, she would have seen Elias stare at her with a smirk on his lips had she had her eyes open.

*

The morning after Lyudmyla was sitting next to Elias at the very back of the conference room, where she knew they wouldn’t be attracting anybody’s attention in case one of them were to take a nap. And although she was as uninterested as the day before and had passed a sleepless night after they had got back to the hotel at around two in the morning, tired as they were, she couldn’t seem to be able to fall asleep again.

Eyes set on the spokesperson talking non-stop at the other end of the room, the pleasant soreness in her muscles was the only thing she could actually focus on.

Sanya had bruised her, that night — she had found his handprints on her thighs when she took a shower before bed. Big, red handprints on her outer thighs that had kept her awake all night as she replayed the nightclub quickie she could still feel in her very core over and over again. His lips on her, and then his tongue on her neck, his fingers — on her clit, inside her, on her throat, her thighs — and then…

“Myla.”

It was by pure miracle that she didn’t moan out loud when Elias whispered her name in her ear, his lips close enough to be perceived but not felt. He had moved a hand on her thigh, and his thumb gently soothing her inner thigh from above her pants made her lungs squeeze, the air come out hot and quick from her nose.

God, was the only word that kept on bouncing around inside her head. God. Her mind wandered, as it had been wandering all morning already, and for a moment she experienced the first actual thought of the day: What would it be like, to have both Elias and Alexsandr in her bed, even just for once?

And at that, there came another one: What would he — Elias — say if he knew about what she had done that night? What would he do? They weren’t exclusive, she didn’t belong to him just as he didn’t belong to her, but it would be a lie to say that she wasn’t curious.

His nose brushed against the shell of her ear, then, and all thoughts fled from her mind. “Are you still thinking about his cock?”

She gasped, but the sound was low enough to only be heard from the few people sitting close to them. When she turned around — to answer honestly or to just stare at him in shock, she wasn’t sure —, she found him staring ahead and even though his hand was still on her leg, it was now in a position more befitting to their surroundings and the seriousness of the meeting.

Her gaze trailed back towards the stage of the room, her breathing now a little labored as she took in the new person speaking — someone from RAINBOW, but at that moment she couldn’t remember his name for the life of her.

The muscles in her thighs tensed. Her mind was running a mile a minute, but without producing actual thoughts. It was just Sanya’s thrusts up into her as she clenched down on him and Elias’ awareness of what had happened, and they were both on loop, overlapping until their edges got too blurred to be recognized.

He opened his legs a little wider, then, and she caught the movement from the corner of her eye. As his knee pressed into her leg, the fabric of his pants stretched tight on his thigh and the only thing she could think of, was that time he had made her ride it, the day before Dominic had got hit.

She wanted to leave. She felt the need to stand up, grab his hands and drag him down the corridor — to the restroom or the elevator and then up to one of their rooms, she hadn’t made a decision yet — and get things going. But she didn’t want another call from upstairs, and so she resolved on staying put and just moved her hand over his to grip it.

“Is that why you couldn’t look at him in the eye at breakfast?” Elias asked when the debate started and there was enough noise in the room for him to murmur those words, everybody’s attention now fully set on something concrete. His hand didn’t move from where it laid on her thigh and although for the better, it slowed her brain down. “Because you kept on thinking about him fucking you against a wall?”

Her gaze came down to frantically look at his watch, just to then remember he barely ever wore one, just like she.

She shook her head and absentmindedly, her legs opened a bit wider, his left one pressing right into his knee. “No,” but her voice trembled when she spoke.

He chuckled.

It was a tense half-hour the one that followed. They both sat there, listening to what people said and proposed, but Lyuda’s mind was somewhere else — with someone else. Her gaze kept on flickering to her left as she checked Elias out from the corner of her eye. It was excruciating, to have him there next to her, an amused smirk on his lips, when he was talking about someone else fucking the sanity out of her.

God. Fuck. Hadn’t it been for Six, she would have left that room. And hadn’t it been for that stupid high-level meeting, she would have her hands on him and his on hers. And for no reason other than how much she enjoyed being with him.

His hand cupped her from above her pants and she lost it. Almost. She gripped his wrist, blunt nails digging into his flesh, and the soreness and the feeling of Sanya inside her came back.

“Let’s leave,” she whispered as she sat there, on the edge of her seat and turned into an absolute bundle of nerves. Her eyes didn’t meet his and instead, they remained set on the window wall in front of her. Why were they brought there, to this absurd event that barely had anything to do with them? Why did she have to let herself get involved with him in the first place? “God, Elias, let’s leave.”

She had her jaw set, her right hand wrapped into a fist at her side, on the chair, and her thighs clenched and trapped his hand in-between them.

“The meeting’s not over yet,” he replied.

When she turned to look at him, eyes wide and lips tight, half a curse starting to form on the tip of her tongue, people started to stand up and he quickly freed his hand from her hold.

They stood, shook hands with a few people as they eyed those from the organization to have a nod of confirmation that allowed them to leave. And when they received one, she grabbed his hand in hers and dragged him outside, and on their way to the elevator, she almost crashed into that very Mark Porter that had committed the mistake of underestimating her the day prior.

“Relax, Myla,” Elias said when the doors of the elevator closed and the liftman pressed the button for her floor. He had one hand on her hip as he stood right behind her, his left leg pressing into the back of her right. “What got you so worked up?”

He was smirking, she was sure of it, she could hear it in his voice as he pressed that half-erection of his against her rear end, lucky in the fact that he was being discreet and that the liftman was minding his own business, probably too hypnotized by how many hours he spent in there with the same elevator music in his ears.

“You’re a dick,” but they both knew she didn’t really mean it.

Back in her room, the electronic keycard thrown blindly on the table, he pulled her to him and kissed her breathless. His lips were insistent, just as hungry as always, even if they had all the time in the world in this hotel. He pulled on her lower lip and then kissed down her cheek to her jaw, and then down her neck, one hand quickly unbuttoning her pants to slip into her panties.

“You like them older?” he groaned against her as the pad of his middle finger massaged her clit. Her hands moved to his hair, nails gently scraping his scalp as her body seemed to purr against his. “Or was it the thrill of a public place?”

One of his legs moved in-between hers and she had to do her best not to cave in and grind herself down against it.

It was when he pulled back to look at her, a grin plastered on his lips, that she came back to reality and took his hands out of her pants.

“What, Elias?” she smirked, pushing him back until the back of his legs hit her bed and he fell down to sitting. She bent down and pecked his lips as her hand trailed down the front of his button-down shirt to his crotch. A hum left her lips right against his as they stared into each other’s eye. “Did it make you hard?”

Her fingers traced his outline downward before her hand flattened against him.

“Did the sight of Alexsandr fucking me get you going?”

She kissed his neck as he choked on a chuckle, his hands trailing up to her hips until he managed to pull her down onto his thigh.

“Did you spend the night thinking about it?” she moaned, lips moving up the side of his neck to gently suckle right underneath his ear.

“I never thought I’d be into sharing,” he confessed, turning his head to meet her lips in a kiss. It was soft and slow this time, and a hum crawled its way up Lyuda’s throat as her free hand moved to cradle the back of his head. “But shit, that was fucking hot.”

She chuckled a yeah when she slid off his thigh and knelt between his legs. Her actions were slow and deliberate when she pulled down his zipper, eyes set on his as he stared down at her, breath almost hitching in his throat when he pushed his weight up with his hands to let her take his pants and briefs down to his ankles.

“Maybe we should call Sanya,” she hummed, breath hot against the sensitive skin of his dick. She licked a stripe up, from balls to tip, before she smirked. “Ask him if he’s up for a threesome…”

Her lips wrapped around his head and his breath hissed, his reply got stuck in his throat. He didn’t lie down when she took him in her mouth for a moment before pulling back to lick at his underside. Instead, he kept his eyes on hers and Lyuda could feel them even without seeing them.

She kissed and licked him, got him wet before she started using her hand. Her movements were slow and controlled and when her mouth came down again to suck him off, both his hands came up to her head to keep her in place.

The more she teased him, tongue swiping over his frenulum, the more labored his breathing got, and when his hips started to thrust up a little, he pulled her head up and begged her to stop in a whisper, eyes almost closed and brows furrowed in concentration.

“Undress and lay down,” he asked, hands still cradling her head as she looked up at him.

It made her burst with pride each time, the way she managed to work him up. Elias was an entertaining lover to have, if so he could be described, and she loved watching him fall to his feet in front of her.

And instead of teasing him, of keeping up the game, she stood up and made a deliberate decision to strip down for him. Slow and teasing, and she watched him take himself in his hand the second after tearing his shirt off his body as he stared at her.

He bruised you? There was no need to ask it out loud, for she saw the question in his eyes, in the knitting of his brows. Elias had never bruised her — maybe once, but he was very careful not to leave marks behind. Uncomfortable questions were the last thing either of them wanted, so the unspoken rule begged for no bruises and no hickeys.

When she laid down, he was quick at moving over her body, kissing up from her abdomen to her lips, and his tongue came out to tease her nipples in passing, drawing a sigh from her.

“Was he harsh?” he hummed against her neck, one hand trailing down her side before moving between her legs.

She shook her head no and brought his lips back on hers just as he touched her. “But I’m still a bit sore,” she confessed, right thigh tensing when he brushed two fingers between her folds.

He kissed down her body again then, and this time his lips moved past her navel and he licked all the way up her slit to her clit. “I’ll be gentle, then.”

And it did feel like a promise when he started going down on her, one finger and then two slowly pumping into her as he focused on her clit.

She could feel the noise his fingers made inside her — and then those groans of his that just made her toes curl.

He built her up slowly, almost as though they had all day to spend bunkered up in that room, just the two of them. And then, just as she felt herself getting closer and closer to her release, he slowed down, fingers still inside her but lips leaving kisses to her right inner thigh.

It wasn’t common, to have her beg for him, but this time was an exception. With Sanya’s rough fuck now in the back of her mind, her thoughts were all on the man between her legs and on the way she knew he could worship her body.

She hissed slightly when he pushed into her and it took her a moment or two to realize that he had stopped dead in his tracks and was now staring down at her.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice trembled when she contracted around him, but there was a serious look in his eyes and she knew, then and there, that he’d follow through with whatever she felt more comfortable with.

It squeezed her heart, really, and she found herself smiling. “No, just start off slow.”

That he did. He pulled his hips back and then slowly eased himself back into her, and every time he reached a bit deeper. Hands covering the bruises another man had left on her thighs, his lips were on her breasts, tongue teasing and mouth sucking until her hands were on his back, pressing against his muscles as her back arched.

He moaned when her lips latched on his neck, on that sweet spot right on his pulse point, and she smiled into the action. He laid down flush against her when she pulled him down, and his hands moved from her thighs to underneath her butt as his thrusts deepened.

She called his name, voice trembling and faint as she closed her eyes and swore she could see stars. She had never felt closer to him than right now, with him moving slowly against her — and so deep that she would swear she felt him in her soul.

Her legs wrapped tighter around his waist and as she did so, he angled her hips a bit better.

Elias — and then she was gone, nails scratching down his back as she came, back arching and breasts pressing into him, thighs locking against his sides. A few thrusts more, and then he followed suit, grunting his orgasm into her neck as his thrusts turned snappier, and then sloppier. And then, when they both came down from their highs and their breathing was back under control, they both gasped at the condom they had forgotten to use.

He cleaned her up when he pulled out and she heard him chuckle to himself on his way back to the bathroom when she squealed out of happiness. He had given her the all-clear about the whole Sanya situation and so, as she waited for him, she picked up her phone from the nightstand where she had left it all morning and texted Alexsandr. She was promising for a good time now that they finally had some time off — he even more, since he never showed up to the meetings — and she knew that Sanya would never turn such an offer down.

Still, she watched powerless as her text got read — just read.

“Is he coming?” Elias asked when he walked back and lay down next to her.

He was strong and warm, and Lyuda felt herself relax in his arms as he played with her hair.

“I don’t know, but I hope so.” She was looking into his eyes as he repeatedly pecked her lips, and the laughter that bubbled up was hard to contain. “I’ll just need you to remind him to take it easy on me if I can’t talk.”

She let him kiss her, arched up against him as she molded into his arms, and that You have nothing to worry about of his seemed to linger in the hot air around them for a little longer, until someone knocked on the door and shattered the magic of the moment.

It’s me. Open up, read the message she received right after.

[ Original pic used for the banner: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-plant-4630020/ ]

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ASK)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi​ @becs-bunker

[archangelbelletti]

Incorrect quotes w/ my WIP ocs

Malka & Joaquin edition + aesthetics

Joaquin: If I run and leap at Malka, she'll catch me in her arms!

Joaquin: *runs and leaps at Malka*

Malka, who is holding coffee: *drops the coffee to catch Joaquin*

Lyuda, to Joaquin: I dare you to—

Malka: Joaquin isn’t allowed to accept dares.

Joaquin: Apparently I have ”no regard for my personal safety”

this is SO TRUE

Malka: time sensitive question how flirt boy

Lyuda: Throw rocks at he

Gabriel: Hot dog

Hans: Kill him

Malka: thanks guys

Malka: *sharpens knife* We've got ways of making people talk.

Malka: *cuts piece of cake*

Joaquin: …can I have some?

Malka: Cake is for talkers.

The ocs:

MALKA:

JOAQUIN:

[angelaiswriting]

Baby Fever | Vladimir Ranskahov x reader

[original picture from: probably pinterest]

✏️ Pairing: Vladimir Ranskahov x wife!reader (+ Semyon x fem!OC with their baby girl Svetlana mentioned)

✏️ Requested by Anonymous: (paraphrase) soft breeding kink with Vladimir where he’s been with Y/N for a while now and he starts to think about the future.

✏️ Warnings: you guessed it right, 18+ only!! As usual, if you’re not 18 yet, don’t cheat if you don’t want to be blocked. Smut (fingering, oral f/r, breeding kink, sexy times in general, no daddy kink) + also some fluff. Mentions of a terrible father and the death of a baby sister.

✏️ Word-count: 4,451

REQUESTS ARE OPEN IF YOU WANT ME TO WRITE FOR YOU 💛

The thought pops up in his mind unwelcomed and it’s so sudden and unexpected that it leaves Vladimir breathless: he wants children with Y/N.

It’s a weird thought, one that strikes him as he stares at his woman as they look for some clothes to bring to Semyon’s child’s baby shower. He’s expecting a girl and the little thing is due in two months, maybe nine, ten weeks from now. Y/N is looking at tiny onesies and minuscule shoes and he… He wants to see that smile for his child, wants to see how she’d react at finding out she’s pregnant with a little Ranskahov.

It is… odd. Kids have never been in his mind: not before losing Moscow, not before leaving Russia, and sure as hell, not before today. Kids are noisy and defenseless. And a responsibility. And Vladimir doesn’t like responsibilities. He takes whatever his job throws at him, he takes the responsibility of protecting his wife from his enemies, but kids…

Kids are a danger. You get too attached to them and suddenly people have something to hurt you with.

But he still wants them now, wants at least one. He looks at Y/N, at her smile, at how carefully she handles those clothes, and he wants her children, wants to give her his children.

He wants to wake up one day and touch her pregnant belly, feel his spawn move inside her womb.

He wants to believe he’s capable of that. He needs to believe he’s capable of generating life and not just death. There’s this sudden urge to stop for a moment and think–think about what legacy he wants to leave behind when he’s finally lowered into his grave.

“What do you think of this?” Y/N is showing him a yellow flowery dress and it’s so small it’s almost unbelievable.

“Is… nice.” It is nice, but it’s also identical to the other thousand things he’s seen in the last hour. He’s not good at this, he’s not good at being a normal person. All he has to wear is suits and shirts and he doesn’t spend hours looking at them when he has to buy them. He just… buys them. He tries them on, gets them tailored, pays the price, brings them home.

“You’ve already said that about every piece of clothing I showed you!” She’s smiling, though, she’s not pissed or irritated. She just shakes her head, goes back to looking at clothes and comparing them.

And she’s beaming. She’s beaming so fucking much his knees feel like they’re made of jelly and he’s so scared. So scared.

His thoughts scare him, his desires scare him. It’s a whole lot of ‘what ifs’, and every single doubt chokes him. What if she doesn’t want kids? What if she doesn’t want his kids? What if he can’t give her kids? What if he turns into-

His father was a dick, and that was–and still is–a fact. Sure, he worked hard for his family, but he also hit them hard. Words, slaps, fists. Kicks sometimes. His belt as a whip on particularly bad days. He hit his wife, hit his kids. He didn’t even shed a tear when Dasha died–and he had always used to call her ‘his princess’. She was six and she was just a kid and her daddy was too fucking drunk to even realize his daughter had died, that someone had run over her just out of school.

And Vladimir doesn’t want that. He fears he’ll be just like his father because that is the only father God gave him. He wants to be good for his children–and this thought hits him hard, harder than his baby sister’s death. His fear is that he won’t be able to be that for them, won’t be able to be a daddy and not just a father. And while he trusts Y/N to be a great mother, he’s not sure he’ll ever be as she wants.

For fuck’s sake, he can’t even help her out with these stupid clothes, now!

“Lyuda asked me to buy a crib for her,” Y/N says as he pays for what she’s chosen. He’s surprised when he doesn’t see a single pink item, but he doesn’t question it, not when the old cashier glances at his tattooed hands and frowns at him.

This is why he won’t ever be a good father: he wants to shoot that old rag and he wants to stare as she bleeds to death. You don’t go tell your children that. You don’t go teach them how to handle a gun. You don’t feed them violence. And it scares him because he is violence, he probably knows nothing else.

“You want to go now?”

He wants to refuse. He wants to ask her to go buy that crib on another day, maybe bring Tolya with her–his brother is better than him at basically anything in life. That’s probably because young Tolya had to take care of a slightly younger Volya when they were kids.

But he ends up nodding. He nods because she’s happy, because she’s always babbling about Semyon’s unborn daughter, because she’s always helping Lyudmila with something baby-related and she loves it. Her happiness burns so brightly there’s no way he cannot see it. It’s almost brighter than the fucking Sun and it… it warms him, it calms him. It’s good to come home after a long day at the garage just to find her going through baby magazines because she just wants to find the best gifts ever, because she wants to be the goddamn best auntie that kid will ever have.

“Lead way,” he smiles and it’s a genuine smile. It’s also a smile that hurts because he’s scared of telling her he wants that for her–for them. So he just intertwines his fingers with hers as she tugs him along.

Cribs are something else entirely. They’re different from clothes or from socks the size of his thumb. They’re almost more… real. They’re like a womb outside the womb and it’s a stupid thought, really, but it’s what strikes him.

He feels it again, then–a tug in his heart. It reminds him that he does have one and that the only ones who have seen it are his brother and his wife. He wants… No, he feels like he needs to show it to someone else. Or maybe let someone else teach him how to use it and how to feel it and how to open it without breaking it.

*

He thinks about having kids again, eight weeks later.

The maternity ward is weirdly calm. Its silence unsettles him, it puts him on edge. He’s ready for the worst to come, but the worst doesn’t come. There are just women and newborn babies and husbands even more terrified than he is–and he’s not even a father, not yet.

Y/N is sitting in an armchair and she’s holding Semyon’s kid and Sveta looks so small and fragile as she sleeps in his wife’s arms, wrapped in a light pink blanket.

He’s selfish and he wants that. He wants that for himself as he kneels down next to his woman and kisses her cheek. It’s wet and it…

She’s crying.

“Happy tears,” she reassures him with a low chuckle when she pecks his lips. “She’s so beautiful.”

Vladimir smiles, but he smiles at his wife, not at his friend’s daughter. And the more he looks up at her, the more he wants this. And now he doesn’t only want this for himself, he wants this for her. She’s given him so much, and she has given up on so much just to be with him, too. He wants to give something back, he’s ready to give something back to her. And he figures that if he’s able to have a kid, to generate something that’s not dark nor made with violence, then he’s worthy to be called a man.

“She is,” he agrees.

He brushes his tattooed knuckles against Svetlana’s forehead and he’s almost surprised to feel it warm. That’s not a doll, it’s a real kid, someone that will eventually turn into a woman, a person one day. And it’s surprising–to think that she was born just because of how powerful people were. He wants that power.

He wants that love. He wants to look at his wife one day and see she’s holding their child. He wants to be able to say, I did this. I love my wife so fucking much that she gifted me a child. And among all those thoughts, there’s one that paralyzes him: he wants to look in the mirror and see father-material, and not just an ugly scar marking his face like a raised middle finger.

“We can have this.” It’s a whisper, one that leaves his lips before he has the time to stop his tongue. It’s out there before he even has the time to realize his brain has formed that thought.

He wants to believe he’s ready–and he can only hope that’s what she wants, too. He wants to feel as rich as Semyon feels now, and he wants Y/N to feel as powerful as Lyudmila feels now.

“Yes, we can,” she whispers back and he feels himself blush under her stare. The blood is there, warming up the skin of his cheeks before he has the time to turn his face to the side.

*

After that day in the hospital, they don’t talk about kids for a while. Vladimir is too busy replacing Semyon at work and Y/N does her best to help Lyudmila when she needs her with the baby.

However, after the first few, hectic weeks, things start to calm down again. They can both breathe again–but not too boldly, because you never know with kids and they really, really need a break. They haven’t had much time to spend with each other, to live each other, and it strikes them one Sunday morning.

They’re both still lying in bed and Vladimir is spooning his wife. And her back against his chest is the most blissful pressure he’s felt in a long while and he can’t help but smile and breathe her in, his face pressing into her hair.

He’s not thinking about anything. It’s one of those lazy mornings where all he wants to do, is lay in bed with the woman he fell for. There’s a warm feeling slowly taking over his sore muscles and his restless mind and he welcomes it with open arms. He welcomes it in the same way he welcomes those peaceful days that always come unexpectedly.

“You awake?” Y/N’s voice is a whisper and her hand is just as light as it moves over his, resting on her belly.

He smiles–he doesn’t do it often, but today’s an exception, just like uneventful days are. But he’s so cozy now, his whole body completely relaxed behind hers, that he truly doesn’t matter. It’s not like he has anything to fear in her presence, he somehow trusts her completely–he wouldn’t have married her otherwise–and the realization strikes him like a punch every time.

His only answer is a low hum as he pushes his right knee right against hers, pushing it forward. He feels heavy, limbs completely relaxed against the mattress as he presses her closer to him with the hand on her abdomen. “Da.”

She smiles and he hears it–hears the way she exhales, the way her head slightly tilts back against his forehead, the way she relaxes even more against him. “Do you have anything to do today?”

“Nyet.” He’s proud of it, he’s… ecstatic at the thought of having a whole day to himself, to spend it with her. Tolya forced him to take that day off, that’s true, but the truth also is, he needed that push. Work means so much to him, too much, and the last thing he wants is to let his own men down. “Nothing.”

“Good.” It takes her a while, but after a couple of minutes she turns around in his arms and he feels the most powerful man on the Earth. She smiles at him, brings her hand up to meet his cheek, smothers her palm against his skin. She’s warm–and not just her hand it. Her whole body pressing against his pleasant against his. “‘Cause we’re not getting out of bed.”

“No?” He chuckles low in his throat and it’s a sound he cannot stop, he cannot help it. It bubbles up from deep inside him as he adjusts her leg to hook around his hip and he pulls her closer.

“At all,” she grins, pressing a light kiss to his chin. “I missed you too much to let you do anything today.”

She hugs him then, nuzzles her face in the crook of his neck, and he holds her closer, he wraps his arms around her.

It’s then that he thinks about it again, just as his morning erection brushes against her inner thigh from underneath the cotton of his briefs. His right hand moves down to her belly of its own accord, he presses his fingers against her soft skin. “That  is good.” His voice is hoarse, still laced with sleep as he pulls her hips closer. “Only thing I want to do - you.” He struggles to get one English word after the other, but he does his best and it takes all his strength not to forget that language when she looks up at him with half-lidded eyes.

She’s still sleepy; he feels it in her hand, in the way it weighs on his cheek, where her thumb is still caressing his cheekbone. But then she smirks and she moves closer, and he can feel her breath on his lips before she presses her lips against his.

“Is that so?” Her lips brush against his as she murmurs and he grins.

“Konechno.” His hand slips underneath the shirt of her pajamas, it grazes the skin of her back upward as far as he can go without moving too much before moving it back down, pushing harder against her lower back until he gropes her ass. “Is time to stop worry about others’ kid.”

Her breath itches and her eyes are quick as they snap up to meet his, but his eyes are closed and so she focuses on the scar on his cheek. It looks darker in the morning light, an angry reddish contrasting against his pale skin. “You want a kid?”

Vladimir hums and he exhales hard, left hand reaching his right on her buttcheeks and pulling her closer. She whimpers when her core, covered only by her panties, brushes along his thigh, resting between hers. His hands are massaging the plush flesh of her ass, fingers pressing hard into her skin, and she knows that’s his way to confirm her question.

A smile slowly stretches her lips at the thought. Vladimir has never brought up the idea of having kids, and the only exception so far has been his whispered words in the nursery of the hospital, when she had been cuddling Semyon’s daughter. After that, radio silence. Not that she’s ever been brave enough to bring up the topic: there are some boundaries when it comes to Vladimir, and she never wants to overstep them, not without him taking the first step. She knows some things are hard for him, and some are even harder, and she never wants to push it.

But this… To say she’s never fantasized about having his kids would be a lie. She has, and on plenty an occasion. And after Svetlana’s birth, she’s been thinking about it more often, and she’s found herself wishing to be just as lucky as Lyudmila is on more occasions than she could count.

“You should work for it, then,” she surprises herself saying. Her finger outlines his lips, presses against them until they part and her fingertip touches his teeth. “Or are you waiting for the Holy Spirit?”

He chuckles and she knows he’s about to say something, but he must have changed his mind for he cradles her head with a hand and kisses her.

It’s slow and still a little sleepy, and at first, it’s just lips pressing against lips. He changes positions slightly, tilting back a little, opening up for her, and she follows suit, pressing herself better against him until she feels his erection and she gasps. Vladimir’s tongue slips past her lips then. It brushes against her teeth before gliding against her tongue. The movements are slow and lazy; he doesn’t want to rush it and neither does she.

They kiss for what feels like an eternity and a heartbeat at the same time, before Vladimir’s hands slip underneath the hem of her shirt, calloused palms brushing the skin of her back. The feeling makes her toes tingle as she arches slightly against him, a long hum vibrates in her chest and it’s quickly followed by a gasp when Vladimir turns onto his back with a grunt, dragging her with him.

She settles against him, moves her thigh so that she’s straddling him, and the kiss is broken when she brushes her lips along the column of his throat and down to his chest. Her tongue licks a stripe up the crucifix in the middle of his chest and Vladimir shivers, hands coming up to caress her arms.

“How many?” she asks, pressing herself down onto his lap and lazily grinding her clothed pussy against his hardened cock. It tingles and there’s a light throbbing slowly awakening. And the more she moves against him, the more intense it gets.

He hums–he doesn’t understand.

Vladimir is a vision in the soft light of the early morning. The blonde of his hair looks richer, his skin looks like it’s glowing, the few freckles on the bridge of his nose are more visible. Eyes closed, lips slightly parted, he’s something she’ll never tire of seeing and all she wants to do is kiss the skin of his face–eyelids, lips, cheekbones, scars, and every single freckle timidly dotting his face.

“How many kids?”

It’s a whisper in his ear and when she presses down against him, he gasps and his eyes open in surprise, for it’s not the cotton of her shirt he feels against his chest, rather it’s her burning skin and there’s a sudden wave of goosebumps rushing over his skin.

“How many kids do you want?”

He twitches in his boxers and so he bucks up against her, tears a moan from down her throat until she kisses just below his ear.

“Don’t know,” and it’s the truth. While he’d want to say he’s never thought of having kids–of becoming a father–, he has and it’s always been just that, the desire to fuck a kid into her. But how many kids does he want? There has never been a number on his mind, for he has never thought of actually doing anything to have even one.

“We should start with one, then.”

There’s a smile on her face when she sits up against him, her thighs caging his hips. And she, too, is a vision. The first ray of the sun of the day make her skin look softer, her eyes even more playful as her hands glide up from hip bones to breasts.

She moves away before his hands can reach her, but it’s not for long. Her fingers hook underneath the hem of his briefs–the only garment he managed to wear after last night’s shower and before collapsing on the bed–and swiftly drag them down his legs and onto the floor.

He knows what she wants to do next and even if he didn’t read it in her eyes, it’s what always happens when they’re in this position. But Vladimir rarely lasts long in the morning and so he pushes her onto her back and he kisses her hard. The kiss robs them both of their breath for a couple of seconds, before his mouth wanders down the side of her neck, suckles the skin.

He settles between her legs and his left hand covers her right tit, it massages it for a while before he smirks up at her. He bends forward and his tongue laps the underside of her left boob. She moans at the feeling of his stubble against her tender skin and then a whimper leaves her lips when he presses his tongue against her nipple.

It’s then that his left hand trails down her side and her hip before it moves between their bodies. She’s impossibly wet when he moves his middle finger between her folds and he could get off on the moan that escapes her lips when his thumb gently presses against her clit.

He takes his time to open her up, to push her to the edge just before pulling back.

At first, he fingers her; he starts with one finger and he curls it up against her front wall and he massages it as he sucks on her clit. It’s long and slow and lazy and she loves every second of it–he does, too. He ups his game then and continues to tease her until she complains and forces him on his back.

She’s hovering over him now and her hair tickles his neck when she bends down to press a kiss against his skin, her hand snaking its way between their bodies to grab his dick at the base. Vladimir gasps at the feeling of her fingers against his burning skin and he all but arches off the mattress when she sinks down so slowly he feels her walls clamp down on him.

He swears under his breath because fuck, he almost comes then and there. She’s wet and tight and warm and he wants to lose himself in her, to savor every second of her walls clamping down on his erection.

There’s only one thought on his mind right now: he never wants to get out.

And a look at where their bodies are joined is enough to tear another moan from his fucking soul before his fingers press harder into her hips and he bucks up into her.

Her boobs jingle and her back arches a little and all he wants to do is to fucking ruin her. He wants to pound into her until everything aches and there’s finally a mini Vladimir inside her womb and-

Fuck.

She’s pressing down against him, breasts flat against his chest, and he swears his mind is going in override as she grinds her hips against his.

It all feels so right: the weight of her body on his, the tight embrace of her cunt around his dick, her ragged breath against the skin of his neck, her lips fumbling as they move up to her jaw and then his lips.

And it’s almost everything he wants because it takes him a couple of minutes to remember what he wants to do to her. He’s quick at reversing their position, though, and in a heartbeat she’s on her back, staring up at him with half-lidded eyes and parted lips as he pounds hard into her, groaning and grunting mere millimeters from her lips.

She loves it when he does this, when he holds his whole weight on his forearms and she’s caged in between the mattress and his sturdy body as he thrusts in and out of her.

It’s only when her hands brush up his arms just to then clutch at his shoulders that Vladimir’s pace turns deeper. It’s bruising, but not punishing, and his cock manages to stroke every sweet spot she has. And he’s so girthy and hard and veiny that all she can do is curl her toes, completely robbed of her breath when he bends down to suck a hickey on the side of her breast.

“Going to fuck you so good,” he groans, teeth playfully scraping her skin. His voice is raspy and it’s hard to breathe or even focus on anything because she clamps down harder on his when he speaks. “Going to spend all day fucking kid in you.”

Her back arches and her chest presses hard against his and his mouth when a whine crawls up her throat. Her nails scratch down his shoulders and her thighs wrap around his waist and he ends up even deeper inside her.

Vladimir’s breathing is animalistic as his hips snap against her. The feeling of her squeezing him the way she’s doing, so close to tumbling over the edge, is almost more than he was expecting when he woke up next to her.

And when she eventually comes, his lips latched around one of her nipples, sucking hard, her walls hug him even tighter and it only takes him a glance at her blissed-out face to follow suit. He groans when he comes inside her, her convulsing pussy milking him so impossibly deliciously that he feels like he’s going crazy. And in a way, he is: they haven’t made love in a while, both too busy and tired to actually do anything, and it feels so good and satisfying that he’s not sure he wants to pull out. So he lets himself collapse on her and her hug gets tighter as she whimpers and moans under her breath, his lips ghosting against the side of her neck.

“I missed you,” she manages to gasp out after a while, lips pressing against the side of his face.

Vladimir’s dick has stopped twitching and his breathing is becoming regular again, but he doesn’t move. He lies there, head resting between her breasts and he holds her tight. “We should soon do it again,” he smirks and beams when she chuckles. “Should make sure you’ll end up pregnant.”

It’s a weird word on his tongue–pregnant. Saying it out loud makes it all feel real, in a way, and there’s a shiver running down Vladimir’s spine, and he’s both scared and excited.

“How soon do you want this baby?” she asks, amusement in her voice.

“Soon,” he answers and she chuckles.

“Then stop spending so much time at the garage and start coming home soon, so that we can start working on it.”

There’s a smile on her face when he lifts his head to stare at her and her smile warms his whole body. “Tak tochno!” He jokingly salutes before he presses a kiss on her cheek. “You, too.”

Somehow writing this got /so hard/ at one point... I honestly think my best friend gave me a smut-block on Sunday that messed up with me HAHA But hopefully this story was okay and you (and also the anon who requested it) enjoyed it! Feel free to leave me feedback, I’m always happy to chat with you!

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ask. Same goes for ‘Bratva’)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892  @mblaqgi

The Assistant: @flowers-in-your-hayr

Bratva (people not on the lists but that might still be interested): @sweetvengeancee @theranskahovs @brobachev @kind-wolf

[emalynfreya-art]

Thanks so much for drawing Lyuda for me!!! She looks so good!!

Thank you for commissioning me!

[nataly-lanier]

Hi! If you're still doing the oc flower art meme, I'd love to submit my changeling sorcerer, Lyuda, with the 🥀. Thanks ^.^

Thank you for the ask! <3