INSATIABLE CRAVINGS
Insatiable Cravings – Episode 126
Subtitle; {Loving You Is A Loosing Game}
TAGS: Age-gap, Mafia, Forbidden Love, Drama, Tragedy and Betrayal.
Settings: United Kingdom, Russia and others.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
~ Genevieve ~
It’s difficult to explain how swiftly time can slip through your fingers—especially when you’re not expecting it to.
Unbelievably, it’s been a month and a half since I returned to China. I threw myself straight into work the morning after I landed, as if distraction could outrun the weight in my chest.
Both sides of my job—the legal practice and the interior design consultancy—have been brilliant, if unrelenting. I even won another case, my second since becoming a lawyer. A small triumph, but one I clung to like a lifeline.
Currently, I’m knee-deep in my third case and my workload’s heavier than ever. I’m thankful, in a strange sort of way. At least it keeps my thoughts busy—keeps them from wandering to Dominic… and to that other thing he told me to leave alone.
Only, it’s not working. Not really.
It’s been nearly two months now, and Blade’s still missing. The search for him has only ramped up these past few weeks, since Dominic suspects he’s somehow linked to whoever wants to take him down.
Me? I’m not so sure Blade is the link—but I do believe he knows who is. And no matter how often I remind myself of the “evidence,” some buried part of my mind keeps whispering the same maddeníng theory: Viktor Valdislav isn’t deàd.
I wish I could let it go. I wish I could obey Dominic, shut it all out, and just… breathe.
But the mind is stubborn. Stubborn, and strong enough to drag me down into an obsessíve rabbit hole, scavenging through half-truths and coded files, desperate to make sense of shadows.
And I found nothing. Came up completely empty.
Honestly, who did I think I was—Echo?
Even if she is one of my closest friends, I couldn’t ask for her help. She works for him. The man who ordered me not to get involved. She’d help me without question, no doubt, but Dominic would punish her for my disobedience. And I couldn’t live with that.
So now, all I do is stare endlessly at my laptop screen, hoping—foolishly—that a clue might materialise out of thin air.
It never does.
Name: Viktor Valdislav
Status: Confirmed Deàd
Last Seen: Istanbul, five years ago
Objective: Terminate Morozov Line
Again and again, I reread the same damn words.
They never change. The clue never comes. And still, I stay here, stubbornly scanning the screen like the truth might blink at me.
What were we meant to find?
Why lead us here if there’s nothing?
Is this all just some elaborate misdirection? A ghost chase?
Has Blade led us straight into a dead end?
The questions swirl restlessly in my skull, spinning like leaves in a gale—relentless, senseless, and aching for answers that don’t want to be found.
Name: Viktor Valdislav
Status: Confirmed Deàd
Last Seen: Istanbul, five years ago
Objective: Terminate Morozov Line
Confirmed déad? According to who?
No one’s ever told me how he diéd. Not Echo, not Dominic, not Dexter, and certainly not Aurora—despite how many times I’ve asked.
Maybe that’s because he is deàd. Maybe Blade wasn’t referring to Viktor at all.
But if that’s true, why was Viktor the one in the flash drive?
Why—
A sharp knock at the door jolted me like a live wire. Fear coiled around my ribs as instinct took over—I slammed the laptop shut like I’d been caught hacking into MI5.
“You’re acting weird,” Cora called, stepping out of her room, her tone steeped in playful suspicion as she headed for the door. “What, watching p0rn?”
I grimaced. “Bloódy héll, Cora—”
Before I could properly retaliate, she swung the door open—
“Dominic Morozov?”
“Good morning to you too.” His voice was light, his smile annoyingly polite—a total contrast to the absolute shock on Cora’s face. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
She blinked. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. Like a stunned goldfish.
“S-sure… w-why don’t you c-come in?”
“Thanks.”
The look on her face was priceless—utter disbelief, etched so clearly that I’d laugh if I weren’t so completely paralysed myself.
I was stunned. Floored. And then… elated.
Utterly, stúpidly elated.
I shot out of the dining chair like it had shocked me and practically threw myself into his arms. My arms locked around his shoulders, and I breathed in the scent I’d missed too bloody much.
“What the héll?” My voice shook with disbelief, my smile ridiculous. “How are you even here?”
“I flew,” he said smoothly, the smirk tugging at his lips making me swat at him lightly. That laugh—his laugh—it melted something inside me.
“I missed you too, my Vixen,” he murmured, eyes locked on mine, voice so tender it made heat rise to my cheeks.
“You know I missed you.”
“Do I?” he teased, voice all charm and dànger. “Do I know?”
He leaned in, lips hovering—so temptingly close to mine. But I placed my hands firmly on his chest. Stopped him.
He groaned under his breath and straightened up, already understanding. Of course he did.
Then he turned to Cora, offering his hand. She stared at it like it was some alien relic.
“Dominic Morozov, just as you said.”
“I—um…” She composed herself, finally shaking his hand. “Cora.”
“Alright then, Cora-with-no-surname. Lovely to meet you.”
She managed a professional smile. “You too. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Likewise.”
Her gaze flitted to me, then back to him. “All good things, I hope.”
Dominic nodded. “Oh, absolutely.” Then he turned back to me, and what he said next actually made me gasp aloud. “So now, if you’ll excuse us—I’d quite like to kiss my girlfriend.”
Cora beamed, retreating into her room faster than I’d ever seen her move. The soft click of the door locking was his signal.
He didn’t kiss me right away. Instead, his eyes travelled slowly over me—hungry, reverent.
“I thought you had something incredibly important this week. What are you doing here?”
“I do have something important to do, my Love.”
“May I ask what it is?”
“You’ll see.” He drew me in, pressed me tightly against him. “But first, let me kiss you.”
Not that I was going to protest.
I barely had time to register the look in his eyes before he stepped in, closing the distance in a single breathless moment. One hand curled around the back of my neck, the other slid around my waist, and before I could speak—before I could even think—his mouth was on mine.
Hot. Commanding. Devastating.
I gasped against him, my hands flying up to clutch his chest as he kissed me like I was his air—like he’d been holding his breath for years and could finally exhale into me.
It wasn’t slow.
It wasn’t polite.
It was the kind of kiss that took. That claimed. That carved his name into the deepest parts of me with nothing but lips and tongue and teeth.
His mouth moved over mine with maddening precision—parting my lips, coaxing me open, deepening with a hunger I felt echo between my thighs. His hand tightened slightly in my hair, tipping my head back, and I whimpered into him, all thought gone. All resistance—not that there were any—burned to ash.
I kissed him back like my life depended on it. Like I had no idea where he began and I ended. Like I’d díe if he stopped.
He tasted like heat and ruiñ and something unspoken—something sharp and masculine that filled my lungs and soaked into my skin. My hands slid up his chest, around his shoulders, until I was clinging to him, drinking him in like the world outside didn’t exist.
When he finally pulled back, his breathing was ragged, eyes dark and unreadable.
My lips were swollen. My chest heaved.
And yet all I could whisper was, “Do that again.”
His mouth twitched into the faintest, filthiest smile.
“Say please.”
••
Whatever this “very important thing” was, it was happening tonight. He wouldn’t say a word about it, not even a clue.
So I stopped asking and instead took him sightseeing—dragging him across the city like a tourist. We laughed, wandered, got lost, and somehow it made everything feel lighter.
Now we’re in my car. He’s driving us back to the hotel where he’s staying, and the night air outside is cool, the city glowing in golds, greens, yellows and blues.
“You’re seriously not going to tell me what this important thing is?” I asked, eyeing him.
“Nope,” he said, completely unfazed.
I narrowed my eyes, glaring. Then turned to the window with a huff.
“I promise you’ll love it.” His hand slid over to squeeze my thigh, just enough to make my stomach flip.
“We’ll see.”
..
Forty-five minutes later, I was in a mid-length red dress, paired with black stilettos. My hair was straightened, sleek down my back.
Dominic was nowhere to be found.
I’d checked every room in the suite. Finally, I messaged him.
Me: Where are you?
He replied instantly.
Mine: Up.
Up?
Me: Up where?
Typing bubbles. My pulse picked up.
Mine: The rooftop, Love.
I nodded and grabbed my clutch. The hallway outside was silent, polished to a gleam. I made my way to the lift, and by the time I reached the rooftop, a gust of night air greeted me—cool, clean, brushing against my skin like whispered anticipation.
Then I saw him.
And my breath caught.
He was in a suit.
Of course he was.
I started walking towards him and he met me halfway, hand slipping effortlessly around my waist as he led me to one of two chairs.
“You’re doing the ‘very important thing’ after this?” I asked, sitting as he pulled out my chair. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, rounding the table—the kind you only see in romantic films, with candles and covered dishes. “And no. This is the very important thing.”
“This date?”
He nodded.
“…Right. And what exactly is it?”
My mind was racing. I needed answers before my heart explodéd.
“Let’s eat first.”
“But—”
“Let’s eat first, baby.”
Fine. I can wait.
What’s a few more minutes?
Right?
TBC📖✍️
