“Any more protests?” he grated as he eased home.

I arched to him, sighing, “All good here.”

As he began to thrust, I clutched the bedspread on both sides of my head. I saw his gaze flick from my hands, to my eyes, then back to my hands. When I stretched my arms over my head and crossed my wrists, his lids went heavy, and I felt his shaft pulse inside me.

“Don’t hold back, Sevastyan.”

“Not holding back.”

“Don’t you want to pin me down? Stop giving me pleasure at the expense of your own!”

He cast me a look like I was insane. “You think this isn’t pleasurable for me? It’s everything I can do not to come!”

“Then pin me down hard—because I need it.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, bending down to kiss me, tonguing me with my own taste. He brushed my ni**les over and over, then trailed his hand to my mons. His thumb worked my cl*t until I was moaning into his mouth.

When he finally broke away to drag in a breath, my head lolled, my gaze on the TV screen. I watched him from above, savoring the view of his powerful body as it toiled to sate mine. His back was lathered with sweat, the rigid muscles of his ass flexing as he plunged between my thighs. I could see his shaft disappearing into my pu**y, his heavy testicles drawing taut.

As his chest rubbed over my ni**les, even more moisture seeped down my cleft. He gripped the curves of my ass with both hands. His spread fingers encompassed the entire width of my ass, holding me steady for his taking.

Just as I wondered if he could feel all the slickness up and down my crevice, he grated, “So wet. My woman needed to be f**ked, no?” I’d learned he tended to talk in the throes, and loved it when I talked back.

“I’ve needed it since this morning in the car. I kept imagining what you would do if I leaned over and started sucking you off.”

His fingers dug in deeper, his middle one perilously close to my rim. But it felt good. How easy it would be to use my wetness to breach me with that finger. He squeezed even harder, spreading me, inching closer.

When I imagined him gently probing my ass while his c*ck pillaged my pu**y, I wriggled to get his fingers there.

“Stop, pet. You’ll give me ideas.”

Anal play had always looked hot in the p**n I’d watched. Just thinking about him readying me . . . “I told you I’d try just about anything once.”

He hissed, “You want me to f**k your ass?”

When he said it like that? With such lust? “Okay!”

“That’s not for you, beautiful girl. I’d hurt you.”

Before I’d been a dirty girl. Or a greedy one. Now this tenderness was about to drive me insane.

I was sick of this! Frustration removed any remnants of a filter that had never existed in the first place. “I’ll just imagine it then, fantasize about you forcing me to bend over the bed . . . spreading my legs and making me raise my ass so you can lube it up for your use.”

“Unh!” His h*ps shot forward, his body bucking even harder.

His ungoverned response shocked me. God, how badly he needed to do these things to me—how badly I needed him to! I’d already planned to wear him down. How far was I willing to go?

In a throaty voice, I said, “My arms would be tied behind my back, my mouth gagged. You’d order me to be still, commanding me to relax.” The more I talked, the easier the words came. “You’d penetrate my ass with one finger, opening me up with another.”

“Goddamn, woman!” Another harsh thrust. My words were sending him over the edge—and myself as well. Was this fighter finally on the ropes?

“Then you’d slather lube over your throbbing cock, all over that thick head, giving me no choice but to accept it.”

His breaths were heaving, his h*ps rocking. “You’d be so f**king tight around me, so hot.”

Loving his response, I said, “I’d be nervous, might try to twist away—”

“Then I’d whip those perfect curves until you submitted to me. Because nothing would stop me from burying my c*ck balls-deep between them.”

I moaned, so close to coming but never wanting this to end. “You’d start to move inside me . . . I’d go mindless . . . because it’s you, possessing me completely.”

“Your pretty screams would be muffled by that gag.”

“Oh, God, oh, God.” His sweat-slicked h*ps rubbed my inner thighs, the hair on his legs abrading my calves, adding to all the sensations.

I was panting, hovering on the edge when he said, “I’d pump my hot cum into you, flood you with it . . . never let you forget who you belong to—”

I exploded, arching off the bed. Grinding my br**sts against him, I keened with ecstasy, clenching around him.

I was still coming when his back bowed, his chest rising above me. The muscles in his straightened arms were bowstring-taut. Tendons strained in his neck as he continued to pound those hips. The power in his body was awing, the power he held in check for me.

When he ejaculated, he yelled, “Natalya!” His thick c*ck pulsated as it shot his cum inside me, coating me, filling me up.

Never letting me forget who I belong to.

He collapsed atop me, his body quaking with after-shudders—while I was reset once more.

I was barely capable of moving, of thinking. So I trailed my nails up and down his damp back as he ran his lips along my neck.

I didn’t know how long we lay like this. Once I could process thought again, I reflected on what had just happened, wondering how long a need like Sevastyan’s could stay bottled-up. If he couldn’t fulfill his darkest desires with me, would he eventually go to another?

Would I?

I never would have thought I could come so hard and be so disappointed. During my first night with Sevastyan in that plane cabin, he’d told me, “You weren’t supposed to be like this.”

But I was.

I had “particular interests” as well. And I could now see how well we’d been matched. He’d once been my dream man, one who’d wanted to open my eyes.

Now he was like a mirage. . . .

Later that night, Sevastyan and I lay on our sides, facing each other in the dim light of the room.

Through the open balcony doors, we could hear nighttime Paris awakening. The resident cook had prepared a gourmet meal that we’d taken in bed—between bouts of more lovemaking.

I reached forward to trace a tattoo on his chest. “Sevastyan, why have you been so gentle with me?”

Shrug.

“I’m going to need a verbal answer from you.”

Something in my tone must have alerted him that I wasn’t playing around. He said, “Most women would want a man to cherish them, no?”

“That’s evasive.”

“Very well, then. Do you not want me to cosset you?”

“Up to a point. But not always.” I pressed my lips together. “It’s hard to explain. I want you to be like you were with me those first three times we were together. I want you to be yourself.”

“What if this is my true self?”

“I don’t believe that, especially not after tonight.”

“Couples fantasize and talk about things that never come to fruition.”

Damn, he was slippery. “Why fantasize, when we can have reality?”

His gaze bored into mine. “I will never hurt you. Now, change the subject.”

Discouragement welled—until I realized he’d just given me an entrée. “The new subject is you.”

He exhaled. “I told you that I have difficulty talking about myself.”

“Probably because you never do it. I want to know you, Sevastyan. As well as you know me. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask, considering our circumstances.”

He swallowed. This man had launched himself in front of a hail of bullets to save my life. He’d braved even more to fight off Gleb and secure our escape. Yet he dreaded opening up to me?

How to get him to understand I wouldn’t judge him, wouldn’t run screaming? “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty broad-minded. I wish you could talk to me, confide in me.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re in a relationship. And each secret confided between us is another stone in our foundation. Hey, let’s just start with some soft-pitch questions. If you really don’t want to answer, you can say pass.”

He brusquely said, “Ask.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Used to be blue.” He reached forward to twirl a lock of my hair around his finger. “Now it’s red.”

“What do you like to read?”

Still gazing at his twirling finger, he said, “History papers. On women and gender.”

Clever. “Have you been to prison?”

“Twice. Neither time for too long. Paxán got me freed quickly enough.” A flash of anguish crossed his face.

I forced myself to continue. “Those tattoos on your knees . . . you’re a vor yourself?”

He dropped my lock of hair. “Yes.” No explanation. No unpacking.

“Are you the head vor of Paxán’s syndicate now?”

“Depends. I don’t have enough information to answer that yet.” He was starting to shut down again.

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No.”

“Any family living?” I asked.

“None.”

“What were your parents like?”

“Pass.”

“Is there anything you’ll tell me about your past? Look, I don’t need to know things you did for your job, but I want to know about your childhood.”

“Why is that so important to you?”

“I’m a historian, Sevastyan—I’m going to want to know your history.” I scrambled for another question. “When did you know what your particular interests were?”

He shrugged again. “That’s behind us.”

I murmured, “Don’t say that. You opened my eyes to all these new things”—for some reason, he flinched at that—“and now I want more. I can’t go back, Sevastyan.”

“Since you’ll be only with me, you’ll have to.” The walls were coming up.

“Don’t close me out.”

He curled his finger under my chin, all tenderness, even as he said, “How could I close you out when I never let you in?”

As he rose to dress, I recognized a harsh truth: for Sevastyan, confiding in another would be akin to stepping off the trestle.

Which meant I was falling in love with a man who would never be emotionally available to me.

Corner, meet Natalie.

Chapter 31

Pressure.

I’d felt it at Berezka, still did. But over the last week, it’d transformed into something different: the pressure of two people who wanted each other—but no longer fit each other.

Because sexually, he’d changed himself; and emotionally, he remained the same.

I sensed it building inside him, inside of me. Some precipice loomed.

This morning, I was alone in the town house yet again. Sevastyan had gotten a text about two hours ago and rushed off to some undisclosed location. Another meeting he won’t explain.

He had them daily, sometimes twice a day. I figured he was working long-distance on syndicate business.

After all, a multimillion-dollar operation had recently lost its leader, and I guessed the bulk of responsibility had fallen to Sevastyan. I could handle his long hours, but his secrecy grated on me. When would he trust me?

Maybe he was trying to shield me? Plausible deniability? If so, I knew nothing.

I was on the outside looking in, just like I’d been at Berezka. . . .

He’d taken me out to sightsee a couple of times, but his thoughts had been preoccupied, his piercing gaze assessing potential threats. Still Paris had been amazing, and I’d been able to check off dream destinations in my tourist guide.

I’d climbed the Eiffel Tower, sighed over the Arc de Triomphe, shopped for souvenirs along the Champs-Élysées.

Though he was convinced the danger to me was in fact dwindling each day, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to let me go anywhere without him. So I was stuck here when he left to attend to whatever business he wouldn’t tell me about.

When I’d informed Sevastyan that I needed to go shop for a new phone, he’d brought one back for me. When I’d told him that I wanted to go out and buy more clothes, he’d simply reordered much of what I’d left behind at Berezka—garments, cosmetics, shoes, hosiery, and of course lingerie.

He’d even started buying me jewelry. “Shouldn’t I be paying for this?” I’d asked him. Shoulders gone tense, he’d replied, “You think I can’t provide for my own woman?”

Though we had a maid, a cook, a driver/butler/guard who could procure anything from a replacement birth-control patch to Le Chunky Monkey, this lap-of-luxury mansion was a gilded cage.

As usual, I was watching the feeds in the panic room, viewing Parisians going about their daily lives. This room was my favorite. I guessed I kind of liked spying on people. I’d imagine stories for their lives, speculating on what they might be talking about.

Or maybe I was just going crazy.

With a groan, I put my head in my hands. I was bound to a man who’d given me a glimpse of my true nature only to deny it. A man who wouldn’t confide in me.

A man I still didn’t know.

We were both dealing with our grief—separately—and seemed to be living satellite lives. If he was here, he was often on the phone with the mysterious Maksim. I’d overheard him saying enigmatic things like “Protect it with your life” and “She is with me.”