MAVIS

no evil ninjas will sneak up on me in my sleep?"

From behind the hotel room door, Mavis listened as Ace responded with, "Of course not. And if they do, I will hunt them down to the ends of the world and destroy them."

Mavis pitied the poor ninjas who tried to get the best of Ace.

And Isla sighed, contented, as though this was soothing. "Thanks, Ace. And one day, you'll teach me your ways?"

"Of course," Ace said, with a Russian accent angling her words. "One day, you will be a ninja of the highest order, with an entire kingdom to fear you."

Isla made another satisfied sound. Mavis wondered when her daughter had become so bloodthirsty. It was adorable.

"Goodnight, Ace," Isla said.

From where Ace was sitting on the edge of Isla's bed, Mavis saw the Russian assassin―her wife―smooth down Isla's hair and stand.

Mavis quickly backed away from the door.

After they had returned from the wedding to the hotel, Isla had been more than happy to have an entire hotel room to herself. And once Mavis had kissed her good night, she had said something surprising: Can Ace tuck me in?

So now, Mavis was listening against the door.

But as Ace rose, Mavis hurried back into her hotel room. Her heart was beating so fast it was a roar in her ears.

She was going to share a hotel room . . .

. . . with her wife.

I said no consummation, didn't I? Mavis reminded herself. No consummation. No sex. No babymaking. No hot fucking, with my hands curled in the bedsheets, moaning her name so the entire floor can hear―

Mavis! Get a grip of yourself.

When Ace returned, Mavis was laying down over the bed. Their bed. Staring up at the ceiling.

"Your daughter . . . she is like a little kiska."

Mavis dragged her eyes to where Ace was slipping off her jacket.

Bad idea.

The sight of the muscles in Ace's forearms as she rolled up her sleeves was enough to make Mavis's legs clench together. Her teeth delicately trapped the edge of her tie, and her fingertips unknotted the collar of her shirt.

I wonder what that mouth could do, Mavis thought, imagining Ace between her legs. Because the way she bit that tie, with such controlled power . . . Dios mio.

Was the air getting warmer in the hotel room?

"Um," Mavis began, very eloquently.

A slow smirk spread over Ace's lips.

Mavis tried to breathe.

And when Ace's blue eyes slid over her, filled with that raw, sensual promise―

"I have to―use the bathroom―" Mavis managed, rushing towards the door. Cold water. That was what she needed.

But once she had locked the door behind her, she stared at herself in the mirror.

I am a married woman, she thought.

There was a soft knock on the door.

"Mavis?"

"You have to promise," Mavis said, opening the door suddenly. "You have to promise that you'll protect Isla, no matter what. You won't let social services get her. You won't let her end up in foster care, you―you just have to promise me. Please."

"I promise," Ace said, without hesitation. "I will never leave Isla."

"When we go to Russia, and I . . . I offer myself up . . . you have to keep Isla safe, okay? You'll change names, you'll move to a different country . . . I don't care. You just have to let her do whatever she wants. She has to have that freedom."

"I will find a way out of this," Ace swore.

"No!" Mavis said sharply. She placed both her palms on Ace's chest, needing to feel the warmth, the heartbeat. "I have to give a convincing performance. That's the only way they'll believe that she's dead. And you said it yourself―the Russian Mafia won't trust you. They won't believe you, but they'll believe a grieving mother. I have to do this."

"I will protect you," Ace said calmly, coldly. "No one will hurt you."

Mavis shoved her. "No! You're not getting it! If I escape, how will that look? What will they think? They'll track me down. They'll find Isla. I can never . . ."

I can never see her again.

It had just occurred to Mavis that . . . that if this worked, she would never get to touch her daughter. To hug her, to kiss her good night.

"Please," Mavis said, her voice breaking. "You have to promise me, that if it's my life or yours . . . you'll pick your own life. I trust you, Ace Alisa Anastasia Whatever. I know you'll take care of Isla. So just . . . if it comes down to it, it has to be you."

When Ace nodded, Mavis let out a breath.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."

Her hands, still planted on Ace's chest, were encircled by Ace's fingers. Ace was leaning down, her blue eyes shadowed by the strands of her blonde hair.

"I swear to you," Ace breathed, "that I will never leave your daughter."

Mavis blinked back tears. "You know . . . for a Russian Mafia assassin, you're not so bad, blondie."

There was something like faint surprise on Ace's face, and Mavis thought it looked―beautiful on her.

Damn it. Mavis thought the blonde bimbo was beautiful.

"Tell me something," Mavis said suddenly, falling back onto the hotel bed.

She heard the sound of Ace's footsteps, and then a light closing. Now, only the golden lampshade on the nightstand illuminated the room.

Mavis lifted a single hand, forming a shadow bunny on the ceiling with her fingers.

Ace rolled into bed beside her. "My favourite colour is red."

"What?"

"You said to tell you something."

Mavis turned her head to the side, so she could see Ace's profile in the golden light. Like a statue carved from ice, Ace was sharp, with high cheekbones and long lashes. Jesus. If Mavis could ignore the whole Russian assassin thing, she would look like a princess. Maybe Cinderella. Possibly even Sleeping Beauty.

"Red," Mavis repeated. "That's . . . unusual. I didn't picture you as a red kind of girl. I was thinking―I don't know, blue. Like―"

Mavis stopped herself from saying, Like your eyes.

The corner of Ace's mouth sharpened into a grin. "I didn't have a favourite colour until I met you. But when I saw you for the first time . . ."

Her signature colour―Mavis always wore red, and she had been wearing it that day at the strip club where she had met Ace.

"Oh," Mavis managed. "Um."

How poetic.

"And you?" Ace asked, in a quiet, rough voice.

"My favourite colour is yellow," Mavis offered. "Like sunflowers."

"Sunflowers." Ace turned on her side, facing Mavis. "That is beautiful."

A ridiculous blush was warming Mavis's cheeks. Think of something―anything―else. "What―what was it like in prison?"

"Hell," Ace breathed.

"So . . . not like Orange Is The New Black?" Mavis winced. "Sorry. Oh, God. I didn't mean . . ."

"I was in a solitary cell. Two years, I spent alone in that white room. The only thing that kept me alive was―the thought of the sky. A bird. I would imagine myself, flying away. It was all I could do to keep from . . ." Ace's voice had become rough. "Losing my mind."

"Was it a hawk?"

Ace shook her head, and her blue eyes were suddenly piercing in the golden lamplight. "It was a pevchaya ptitsa. A songbird."

"Did it work?" Mavis whispered. "Did it stop you from losing your mind?"

"There were times . . . when I wondered. If I was even still alive. If maybe this was hell after all. And after everything I've done―everyone I've killed, I thought I deserved it. Maybe my moments had run out, maybe . . . there was no good in me after all."

Mavis shook her head. "No, that can't be true. You didn't kill me. There's still good in you, I . . . I believe that."

"And you? Isla's father . . . how is your relationship with him?"

"Evan Powell." Mavis snorted. "Relationship? It's nonexistent, for one. He . . . I haven't seen him since . . . since I was fifteen."

"He didn't want to be a father?"

"He didn't know," Mavis said softly. "He . . . he kicked me. With his friends. It was―" She laughed sharply, bitterly. "The point is, he wouldn't have wanted this baby."

Ace swore softly in Russian. "And your parents?"

"They threw me out. When I told them I was pregnant, it didn't end up so pretty. They were religious, and . . . well, a baby before marriage? That wasn't very holy, was it?"

"Have they met Isla?"

Mavis curled her lip. "Isla's seven now, but I haven't seen my parents since they told me to get out of their house. Sometimes, I have dreams of my mother―you know, when she's yelling at me, telling me she doesn't want me, that she doesn't love me. All I ever wanted―I just wanted her to support me, you know?"

"I know."

And suddenly, Ace's fingertips were tracing the outline of Mavis's jaw. Tucking back a lock of her hair.

Mavis held her breath. Every thought about her consummation rule disappeared with a puff of smoke.

"Tomorrow," Mavis began, "how do I tell my daughter that―that I'm never going to see her again? That I'm going to Russia to offer myself up for her freedom?"

Something sharp and dangerous flashed in Ace's eyes.

"She knows that you love her," Ace said. "You are . . . you are a good mother."

"And you are, too," Mavis said, without thinking.

Shit.

"Um―not that you are, just that―you would be―I mean, if you had . . . um."

A smirk. "You are beautiful when you blush."

Mavis scowled, reaching out to push Ace―

But Ace caught her hand, curling her fingers over Mavis's knuckles. "Tell me," Ace whispered.

"Tell you what?"

"You know what," Ace said, her blue eyes darkening to the colour of a storm.

Mavis grinned. "Make love to me."

The Russian accent was heavier now. "Make love?"

Mavis rolled over until she was on top of Ace, her hands on Ace's chest. "Fuck me."

"That," Ace breathed, with a dangerous smile, "I can do."

And with that, she flipped Mavis beneath her, now leaning above her with molten blue eyes, their mouths only an inch apart until Ace stole her breath with a hard, fierce kiss.

Vanilla. She tasted like vanilla.

"Easy there, blondie," Mavis gasped, pulling back slightly when she couldn't breathe. "Do you fuck as good as you kiss?"

Ace responded by tearing Mavis's wedding dress down the middle.

"Hey! I thought you liked that dress."

"I do," Ace whispered. "But I like you better without it."

Then they were kissing, so fiercely that Mavis lost herself in it―in the rhythm, the dance, of their lips moving against each other, of hands exploring skin and her hips grinding against Ace's. More, more, more. When Ace bit gently on her bottom lip, Mavis moaned.

It seemed to shatter any restraint holding Ace back.

"Like that," Mavis whimpered, her back arching.

Ace's mouth trailed down her bare chest, circling over her breasts until the peaks of her nipples stiffened. Mavis hissed at that―pleading, begging, as Ace's tongue traced the sensitive edge, sweeping lower. Down her ribs, to her navel.

"These―are lovely," Ace whispered, tracing the curve of Mavis's hip. "What do you call them?"

"Stretch marks," Mavis said, her head tilting back as Ace's mouth finally found its way between her thighs.

Ace's fingertips lingered on either side of her hips, gripping her as her head dipped down. "Your stretch marks are beautiful."

Mavis opened her mouth to speak, but at the first stroke of Ace's tongue inside of her, she lost all thought, all sense of reality.

"Ace," she moaned.

Everything in her body narrowed to the sensation of that mouth, grazing over every sensitive, raw part of her, so deeply that she had no choice but to throw her back, pleas spilling from her lips. More, more, more. The pleasure was so intense that Ace's name became a war cry, a dying man's prayer. Mavis needed more.

"Say my name," Ace breathed, once Mavis was so close to the breaking point that her legs were shaking, her hips twisting with needy, desperate tension.

"Ace," Mavis gasped. "Ace. Ace."

And she shattered, just like that, with Ace's hands on her hips, her tongue sliding within her inner folds, circling her clit. Mavis fisted the bedsheets, moaning so loudly she was sure the room next door could hear. She didn't even care. The waves of her climax rolled over her, and Ace's tongue kept stroking, kept drawing every ounce of ecstasy from that inner part of her.

When she was done, when the waves of pleasure had receded, all she could do was whimper faintly, breathing hard as Ace dragged her swollen mouth back up to Mavis's lips. Letting her taste the slickness there.

"Tell me," Ace challenged softly.

Mavis closed her eyes, her heart still pounding. "Again," she panted. "Again. Please."

Ace obliged by sliding a single finger inside of her. Mavis's hips writhed when a second joined it, curling deep within her in a way that made her breath catch.

"Ace," she whispered, as her body bucked greedily against that touch. "God, Ace. Like that."

When she climaxed for the second time, it was pure, carnal bliss.

And when she climaxed for the third, and fifth, and twelfth time, it was absolute ecstasy.

Mavis lost track of how many times she shattered against Ace's mouth, with those fingers buried inside of her, coaxing out every bit of pleasure. She only knew when she collapsed back against the sheets, with Ace's arm snaking over her in a protective grip.

She didn't even have the energy to muster the words, "Good night."

And even if she had, it wouldn't have mattered. Mavis wasn't sure she was capable of speech―at least, not if it involved anything but whimpering Ace's name.

"Sleep now, prekrasnyy," Ace murmured against her hair.

And with Ace's fingers still buried inside of her, still filling her, Mavis settled her head onto Ace's chest and fell asleep.

Her last thought was, I think we might have just consummated our marriage.