His smile is knowing. “Oh, I’m sure I will. Little girls need to learn how to behave. But I think before that happens…I need to give you a reward.”
“You…you do?” I’m breathless now, halfway to begging.
Then his mouth is on me, licking me, teasing me, tying me up in knots. I hold the white iron bars of the daybed as if that can keep me grounded—but nothing can. I’m flying. Then his fingers slip inside me, and I’m falling. He follows me down, flicking his tongue against my clit while I cry out and beg for more, for him to never stop, for him to crash with me, come with me.
For the first time, he listens to me. He releases himself from his suit pants with rough, jerky movements, and then he’s inside me, his expression intense, almost pained.
“Don’t move.”
But I can’t help it. I’m rocking underneath him, writhing, my sex clenching around the invasion. “Please.”
He makes a low growling sound. “I said don’t. Fucking. Move.”
My eyes widen, and I grow very still. “I won’t.”
His gaze softens, even though the tension around his mouth doesn’t ease. “I don’t want to finish too soon. Not when I’ve been dreaming about being inside you.”
“You dream about me?” I whisper.
“Every damn night.” One thrust. Two. “Even before you left.”
His cock hits a spot inside me that makes me moan. “Before I…”
His smile is crooked and boyish—completely unlike the Ivan I knew but so much the man I love. This Ivan is letting me see him, all of him. “I tried to keep you safe from me, I really did.”
“And now?”
He thrusts in deeper than before, and I flinch. “Now there’s no going back.”
He opens his shirt, button by button, exposing just a sliver of his dark, broken skin. Then he pulls aside the sides of his shirt, and the full impact of his scars takes my breath away.
He places my hands on his chest. “Do you know what these mean?”
They mean pain. They mean secrets. “Someone hurt you.”
He shakes his head. “These were a wall. I was closed off from the world. And you, you kept opening me up. I fought you with everything I had, but in the end, you vanquished me. More than these marks ever did, more than anyone else ever could have.”
I make a low sound of sorrow, of grief as my hands move over his broad chest, his abs, feeling the rough texture of him, the marks that couldn’t break him.
“You asked me once what makes you different.” He holds my wrists still, keeping my hands tight to his body. “This is what makes you special, little one. Countless people have tried to hurt me, to kill me. You were the one to slay me.”
“Ivan,” I whisper. “Daddy.”
His eyes glow with a kind of silver power. He moves my hand so it’s directly over his heart, and I feel the thump of it against my palm. “You’re here, little one. Forever.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I know exactly what I’ll do with the Grand. Plans that have been forming for years, kept hidden even from myself, are bubbling to the surface. The VIP rooms will have to go, although actual VIP rooms, ones with swanky booths and quiet music, would be wonderful.
For the after-party, of course. There would only be one a night, not a steady stream of single girls onstage. And as for the dancing…let’s just say I see a lot more high kicks and bustiers in the show.
I do love the cottage, but it’s more like a good friend. The Grand is my forever love.
Like Ivan.
“Did you find Alex?” I ask, holding my breath. The last thing I want to do is have to tell Sarah Elizabeth that her brother has been killed.
Ivan shakes his head. “He’s in the wind.”