Her couch had been too small for the two of you, but yet Balalaika seemed intent on not giving you even an inch of space. She kept you pressed into the couch cushions, warm and hard on top of you. Her scent of tobacco and leather enveloped your senses. Her lips trailed slowly over your skin, all the way from your chin down to your neck, landing on your weak spots.

Her hands moved over your body with familiarity, as if they had been in touch with your skin all along. The way they made you shiver under her touch made you respond by moving her closer to you, tightening your grip on the collar of her shirt.

However, Balalaika did not draw away… at least, not right away.

Occasionally, however, her eyes would drift away from you.

The phone placed in the table in front of the couch continued vibrating. It made a low but insistent buzzing sound, like an annoying insect that refused to stop buzzing. At the third vibration in a row, Balalaika pulled away from you.

She propped herself on her arm and sighed softly, her eyes fixed on the phone even before she was upright.

“Could be important…”

she murmured, more to herself than to you.

Then she pulled away completely, picking up the phone and scrolling through the notifications with a focused, cold expression —the expression she usually reserved for when she became the businesswoman again, head of Hotel Moscow, not the woman who had been kissing you just a few seconds before.

You remained in that place on the couch, while your heart was still pounding in your chest, together with the burning skin that resulted from her touch.

You knew it. You knew that running a mafia organization in Roanapur wasn’t easy. You knew her world never stopped, not even for one night. And yet, deep down, you had hoped that just once… just once… Balalaika might choose you over power, over business, over weapons.

Your breath escapes unconsciously as a soft murmur, gazing around as she continues to type the keys outside the monitor screen while looking serious.

These were the worst foreplay you had ever had.