He snatched at my hips, flipping me over on my stomach, then shoved his pants to his thighs. Like an animal, he impaled me with one brutish thrust, mounting me.
His cock had to fight against my clamping walls because I was already coming, his rough invasion triggering my release. "Oh, my God!"
"Is this what you needed from me?" He seized my shoulders, yanking me back right as his hips shoved forward, sending his cock deeper than it'd ever been.
My cry was drowned out by his triumphant roar as he began to fuck.
His animalistic intensity called to my own, demanding another orgasm, stoking all my heat from before and then some. A new, unknown friction began to simmer deep inside me, until I was clawing the backs of his thighs, spurring him for more, more.
This position forced all my senses into overload. The sound of our slapping skin. The sharp sway of my breasts. The way his sac swung up to smack my wet clit with each buck of his hips.
He grated, "Is this"--thrust--"hard enough"--brutal thrust--"for you?"--savage thrust.
My teeth clattered on that last one, my arms giving out. I lay facedown on the bed, ass up, helpless to do anything more than receive his merciless fucking.
The idea of him using my limp body like this, a plaything for his lusts, hurtled me closer to the edge, my climax boiling up inside of me.
I panted his name repeatedly, half-afraid of the strength of my coming release. The pressure escalated and escalated. . . . Again I wondered, where would it end?
"This was what you wanted? A hard fuck?" he bit out, pummeling his cock inside me. "Then show me how you like it! Come again, pet . . . come all over my stiff cock."
He ordered; I obeyed.
My pussy convulsed around his girth, spasms racking my muscles. When the rapture hit and my mind registered the force of it, I emptied my lungs on a wild scream.
Screaming. Screaming. Until his roars joined mine and his heat flooded me, his hips whipping against my ass for his final draining thrusts.
Dizziness. Remembering to breathe. Happily picking up the pieces.
He collapsed over me, murmuring my name as he nuzzled my hair. His lips brushed my nape, his breaths fanning perspiration there.
Yet then he tensed, seeming to wake up. He withdrew from me with a curse, climbing off the bed.
By degrees, I managed to make it to a sitting position.
"This wasn't what I wanted." He yanked up his pants.
He was acting like what we'd just done was wrong--when it'd been amazing and perfect and exhilarating.
He pointed an accusing finger at me. "You push and push. You don't know what you provoke."
I shoved my hair out of my face. "But I want to know!"
When he said nothing, I rose to snag my robe. Time to dig in my heels. Belting the garment around me, I said, "Sevastyan, something's got to give."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm unhappy. With our relationship, with our sex life--"
"Are you joking? I make you come till you scream. Yet you're unsatisfied?"
"I want to explore what you showed me before. On the plane, you said I wasn't supposed to be like this, but I am."
He stilled. "You don't know what you are. You're twenty-four and have never had another lover."
"You are the one who said I loved it, needed it. You were right! I'm a flesh-and-blood woman, a hot-blooded woman--not some porcelain doll. So why have you changed with me?"
"You're under my protection. You're mine," he said simply.
"Please tell me this is not one of those Madonna-or-whore situations, where you think of me either as a pristine pedestal-topper or a slut."
He shrugged. No denial. Oh, shit. I pinched my temples. No, no, no, he can't think that way.
Because I knew such a belief couldn't be fixed. Not like a broken clock. Not with my sweet, sweet love. Not with all the magic of my vagina. Not with my inevitable ocean of tears. "Look, neither of us is getting what we bargained for. Maybe we should think about taking a break from each other."
He whirled around. His lowering expression made me back up a step. "You belong to me. There are no breaks." He swept his arm over the dresser, sending makeup and jewelry flying.
I tensed, ready to bolt for the safe room. Until I remembered that, for all his faults, this man would never hurt me. In spite of his balled fists, I demanded, "Then help me fix this!"
He put a hand to his throat as if he couldn't get enough air. "There is a need inside me--it's like a beast that howls. I need to do things to you. I need to control you, command you, punish you. In order to madden you." He stabbed his fingers into his hair. "I indulged in this before you, but never felt like I couldn't live without it. Yet now, with you . . ."
"Now what?"
"It's like a sickness inside me that I fight and fight but can never defeat." His voice was rising with each word. "And then you tempt me like this?" he yelled. "You gut me!"
I yelled back. "So stop fighting it!" I marched up to him, grabbing his face. On my toes, I met his gaze. "I'm here, Sevastyan. I'm ready, I'm willing. I need you." I'm falling for you.
For some reason, I held those words back. Maybe because I didn't expect him to respond in kind.
He'd talked about owning, controlling, and possessing me. He'd talked about obsession. But never about love. "Why would you fight something we both crave?"
With an eerie gentleness, he peeled my hands away, then strode over to the safe room's desk. From a false-bottomed drawer I hadn't known about, he retrieved a letter. Returning to me, he shoved it into my hands. "You weren't the only one who received a letter."
Overwhelmed with curiosity, I opened it. My father had written a final correspondence to him as well? The paper was crinkled. How many times had Sevastyan read it? Would he expect to read mine, still hidden in my suitcase?
My eyes widened as I scanned the lines:
She is precious, Aleksei, treat her as a treasure, and above all things, respect her. . . . My Natalie's life is in your hands. . . . She's fragile, has been uprooted from a safe and sheltered existence, forced into the danger our world presents. Nothing else matters if she's not happy and protected. . . .
Oh, dear God. I gazed up at Sevastyan as everything became clear. "This is why you've been denying us?"
The man who'd been his savior, the one he felt like he'd failed, the mentor who'd guided his life for decades--had given his blindly loyal enforcer a final set of instructions. "Sevastyan, I respect Paxan's wishes. I do. But this letter has no bearing on what goes on between us." I handed it back to him.
He clasped the page with a shaking hand. "How can you say that?"
"We have to make our own way together."
"This letter reminded me of what you are. And then, right after I first read it, I saw . . . I saw the bruises I'd given you. I hadn't even meant to discipline you, not like I do in m
y twisted imaginings."
"Sevastyan, just wait--"
"He was your father. He was . . . my father. He expected me to treat you like a treasure. He didn't know about that part of my life. I took pains to keep it secret. If he had, he would never have chosen me for you."
"You're acting like that type of life is dark and dirty. Like only broken people do it."
He raised his brows: No shit!
"You don't have to be broken to like kink. Look at me. I had the most idyllic upbringing ever, and I can't stop thinking about it with you." When I saw he wasn't budging, I said, "You were instructed to keep me happy. Well, right now, I'm far from it."
He looked like he'd just stifled a wince. "Then that means I should succeed at least in protecting you. I don't want my past to taint you."
"Taint? Because I was so wholesome? Hate to break it to you, but I was already leaning this way. When I went online to order my 'arsenal,' do you think I didn't mosey over to the other pages on the site, the ones with braided black leather and shining silver chains? I was already curious."
For the first time, doubt flickered in his expression. Hope?
I pressed my advantage. "That's right. Maybe deep down you sensed it in me from the very start."
He shook his head hard. "This can't be. I don't want to discuss it further--"
"Shut up and listen to me! I'm fighting for us, and you're not even trying to meet me halfway. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No! What are you talking about?"
"What you described as a sickness . . . you can't suppress something like that forever. You already threatened to find another woman the last time you didn't get your way with me. Since you refuse to see me as a partner, sooner or later you'll go to another to have those needs fulfilled."
With a sharp shake of his head, he grabbed my arms, about to speak, but I cut him off: "Did you never think that I might go to another too?"
He released me with splayed fingers, as if tossing a live grenade. With a vile curse, he turned toward the door.
On his way out, my fighter punched a hole in the wall.
A lone, still pissed, I'd gotten myself dressed, then picked at some food I'd found in the fridge. Afterward, I'd called Jess--who'd been hungover and out of it. So I'd made my way into the panic room to idly survey pedestrians for mindless hours.