Seven Minutes and Thirty-Two Seconds

POV: NORA

The apartment is silent. Without Gwen’s voice buzzing through the speaker, the quiet feels strange. Thick. Heavy. I close my eyes, leaning my head back against the faded, lumpy upholstery of the armchair. The frantic adrenaline from my internal meltdown in the office has finally drained away, leaving my limbs feeling like lead. If I keep my eyelids shut tight, I can ignore the lingering smell of cheap processed burrito cheese and the disaster area Derek calls a living room. For a brief second, the darkness brings a necessary peace.

Then, a face materializes behind my closed eyelids.

Viktor.

Even off the clock, my ruthless boss mercilessly haunts my thoughts. He is wearing that precise, devastating smirk Gwen described earlier. That commanding, predatory curve of his lips that screams he knows exactly what he can do to a woman in the dark. In the vivid theater of my mind, the angle shifts. He steps closer.

The imaginary Viktor wears an ivory button-down shirt. The top two buttons are undone, revealing the strong, corded muscles of his chest, a dusting of dark hair, and the faint, teasing edge of a black ink tattoo I can never quite make out in reality. He raises his arms, rolling up his sleeves to expose thick, powerful forearms. His heavy knuckles crack. The sharp sound echoes loud in my brain, pulling a surprised little gasp right out of my throat.

*I like when you make that noise,* his phantom voice croons. It is dark, smooth, and coated in pure sin. *Shall I see if I can make you do it again?*

I am nodding to the empty room before I even realize what I am doing. My breathing is already turning shallow. "Make me moan," I plead blindly.

My hands drop to my lap. Without conscious thought, my fingertips graze the inside of my bare knee. But in my hazy, heat-addled brain, it is not my own touch. It is Viktor’s hands. Huge, heavy, and dominating. I picture those rough palms sliding up my bare thigh, slipping right under the hem of my pencil skirt with a possessive grip.

*You have been a naughty assistant,* he growls. I can almost feel his minty breath brushing my cheek, mingling with the phantom scent of his rich, woodsy cologne. There is a dark, wicked amusement lacing his tone, leaning into the sheer madness of this forbidden fantasy because the heat of it outweighs the absurdity. *You have been so very, very bad. Step into my office and shut the door.*

The real world evaporates as if I just followed his strict orders. The cramped walls of my apartment, the lingering garbage smell, the exhaustion—gone. All that exists is the suffocating aroma of Viktor Volkov. His cologne. His breath. Beneath it all, the raw male musk that sets my nerve endings ablaze.

"Are you going to punish me, Viktor?" I whisper into the quiet room.

*You would like that, wouldn't you?* The imaginary boss steps right into my personal space. *You would love it if I bent you over my heavy mahogany desk and unzipped that skirt until it pooled at your ankles. You would love it if I spread my palm across your bare ass, a tender stroke before I raised my hand and spanked you hard enough to make you yelp again. You would go fucking crazy if I let my fingers wander down, knocking your thighs apart, dragging one slow, teasing fingertip right through your wetness. You would love all that, wouldn't you, Ms. Mercer?*

I bite down frantically on my lower lip. My own hand dances higher, slipping past the lace edge of my panties, pushing the fabric aside. I am throbbing. Aching and slick. The faint whisper of the apartment’s air conditioning hitting my bare pussy sends a jolt of raw electricity straight down my spine.

*But that is the problem, Ms. Mercer. You would love it way, way too much.* His voice drops to a lethal, velvet purr. *What kind of punishment would it be if you enjoyed every second of it? I have a better idea.*

I am literally on the edge of my seat, squirming on the cushions, grinding my hips up against my own slick fingers. The fantasy has me chained. Imaginary Viktor has me eating out of the palm of his hand. I would do anything he commanded. Say anything he wanted. Be anything he demanded.

"Yes, sir," I rasp, my voice hoarse. "You are right, sir. What did you have in mind?"

*I am going to start with what I just described. Bend you, tease you, spank you.* His words paint a graphic, filthy picture in my mind. *Then I am going to press you face-first flat against my desk. I will drop down behind you and put my tongue exactly where my fingers just were. I am going to lap up every drop of you. At first, it will just be the tip of my tongue. Just a fluttery, light kiss to your pussy lips. I will graze your clit, and you will push back against my mouth, searching for more. But I will pin your hips down to the hard wood and snarl at you. Do not dare fucking move unless I tell you to. And what will you say to that?*

"I won't move, sir," I croak desperately, my hips bucking upward against my hand. "I will do exactly what you want me to do. I will stay there while you eat me."

*That is a good answer, Ms. Mercer. It is the only way you will get me to keep going.* The phantom voice wraps around my throat like a silk tie. *But if you are a good girl, if you listen and obey, then I will keep going. My kisses between your thighs will turn into long drags of my tongue over you. Then I will spread the lips of your pussy apart and go deeper. I will push a finger between your wet folds. Then another. I will crook them to stroke against the deepest parts of you, the parts where a single touch makes you twitch like a live wire. I will go faster and faster, pistoning in and out of you while I devour your wetness. I will not stop until your legs are trembling and those moans are loud music in my ears. How does that sound?*

"It sounds so fucking good, sir." I am pumping my own fingers in and out of my dripping core, matching the frantic, wet rhythm of his filthy words. The slick, slapping sound of my masturbation fills the room. "Please do that. Please, please."

*You are going to be right there. Right on the edge. You can feel it, can't you?* His dirty talk drives me to the brink of insanity. *The biggest orgasm of your life is right there for the fucking taking. All I have to do is lick you in a certain way, move my fingers just like this, and you are going to come for me like my special little princess, aren't you? I know it. You know it. We are both just waiting for the right moment. And it is coming, I promise you that. That moment is coming closer and closer and closer, and I am licking and fingering, and you are moaning and spasming, and we are almost right fucking there, and then...*

"And then what?" I scream at the ceiling, my back arching off the cushion. "And then what?"

*And then I am going to stop.* His voice turns icy and cruel. *I am going to stand up and back away. I am going to leave you there on my desk, a dripping, ruined fucking mess. It will serve as a stark reminder that, just like your heart and your mind and your body and your soul and your free time and your hopes and dreams... just like all of that, your orgasms belong to me.*

The brutal denial shatters my restraint. My body clamps down hard around my fingers. I crash into the most intense, earth-shattering climax of my life. My spine bows like a strung bow, my hips jerking as wave after endless wave of blinding euphoria rips through my core.

"Nooo!" The heart-wrenching, breathless scream tears from my throat as I come harder than I ever have before.

It feels like getting hit by a freight train aimed directly at my clit, squeezing me from the inside out, lighting my nerve endings on fire while simultaneously turning my veins to ice. The phantom Viktor is every bit the ruthless bastard the real man is. He vowed to keep my orgasms to himself, and right now, I feel like I just stole this explosive release from his iron grip. The pure ecstasy rips through me in one endless lightning bolt after the next, leaving me twitching and breathless.

Eventually, the pounding in my ears subsides. I slowly drift back into normal consciousness, a trace of drool dampening my lower lip. My fingers are wet, slick, and sticky with my own heavy desire. My inner thighs are trembling exactly the way he promised they would. My throat aches from the feral noises I just made, and my core feels wonderfully, painfully sore.

I shift my weight on the cushions. I need to clean up. I need water.

My hand reaches down into the dark, narrow crevice of the couch cushions, digging past the fabric to retrieve the phone I dropped earlier. My sticky fingers brush the smooth metal casing. I pull the device free, the screen glowing bright in the dim apartment.

Pure, icy horror paralyzes my entire body.

The screen is not locked. It is active.

Viktor’s name is lit up in glaring white letters against the dark background.

The call timer ticks upward, merciless and mocking.

07:31

07:32

The reality of the screen clicks in my gut like a loaded gun, though my panicked brain takes a few agonizing seconds to process the sheer magnitude of the disaster.

I have been on an active, live call with Viktor Volkov for seven minutes and thirty-two seconds.

For seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, I have been audibly masturbating to the filthiest, most graphic fantasy of my life, starring the very man on the other end of the line. My phone recorded every desperate gasp, every wet slosh of my fingers, every throat-tearing scream while I begged my mafia boss for mercy and pleaded with him to eat my pussy.

Did Viktor hear the whole damn thing?

POV: VIKTOR

"Nosebleeds?" I echo, the word tasting like ash on my tongue.

"Minor blip. Nothing to worry about. We had a few bleeders in every trial." Pavel, my lead chemist, drags his feet across the sterile gray floor of the underground laboratory. He gestures vaguely toward the pristine steel tables. Sets of glass test tubes sit in neat, perfect arrays, each brimming with a luminescent white liquid. Pavel hems and haws, frantically flipping through his thick leather-bound notebooks as if the answers to my rising, lethal irritation are buried somewhere in the scribbled margins.

Fucking scientists. They possess brilliant minds, but they are a massive pain in my goddamn ass.

I stare him down with cold intent. My patience is non-existent today.

"Pavel, humor me here." I clear my throat, the low rumble of my voice cutting through the dull thunder of the lab equipment churning around us. "What is Elysium?"

His hooded eyes blink in rapid confusion. He knows I know the exact answer. Elysium is the massive, billion-dollar bet designed to secure the future dominance of the Volkov Bratva. I have poured endless resources into this project. Bribes to local law enforcement, massive sign-on salaries for new street dealers, aggressive territory negotiations, and securing raw material suppliers. Elysium is not just a side hustle. It is my legacy. It is how we win the city. What this sweating fool does not know is why I am forcing him to recite its purpose like a scolded child.

"It is, uh..." Pavel stammers, wiping a bead of sweat from his receding hairline. "It is an aphrodisiac with mildly hallucinogenic properties."

"Good job pretending I am stupid. Keep it up," I say, my tone deadpan and sharp as a razor. "An aphrodisiac would be...?"

His blinking accelerates. I watch his pulse jump erratic and wild in his throat, wondering if his weak heart is about to malfunction right in front of me. "I-it is an elite erotic stimulant. Explicitly designed to induce st-strong s-sexual urges."

I step menacingly close. My heavy leather shoes make no sound on the tile. The temperature in the room seems to plummet ten degrees. "Excellent. Now, tell me... do nosebleeds strike you as particularly erotic, Pavel?"

Pavel shrinks back. He glances nervously over his shoulder at his three lab-coat-wearing proteges. The young assistants stand frozen in a neat row against the far wall, inadvertently mimicking the sterile rows of Elysium samples resting on the table. They look utterly terrified.

"No, sir," Pavel admits, his voice dropping to a pathetic squeak.

"'No' is correct," I snarl, stepping further into his personal space until my tall frame towers over his hunched shoulders. "Nosebleeds are not erotic. Therefore, they are not a minor fucking blip. They are a massive problem. When my clients pay premium prices for an elite sexual experience, they do not want to bleed on their expensive sheets. What I want to know is, is it fixable?"

Pavel gulps loud enough for me to hear it over the heavy machinery. He clutches his notebook to his chest like a useless paper shield. "I will try, sir."

I fix him with the infamous, paralyzing Volkov glare. The same dead-eyed, predatory stare that makes hardened criminals and rival syndicate bosses want to piss their pants when they find themselves on the receiving end.

I do not tolerate excuses. I demand absolute obedience.

"Do not try," I command, my voice dropping to a lethal, unyielding register. "Do it."