I’d poured my heart out to Jess about how much I missed Paxán, but Sevastyan was the only one who could truly understand. I’d even told her about Filip. Her assessment: “If he was toxic in life, he’ll still be in death. I forbid you to think about him. You’re lucky to be alive.”

Not lucky. Sevastyan had kept me alive.

Jess had also been ecstatic that Sevastyan and I had slept together. “You lost your skin tag! Now you enter into the fun stage of your life.”

“Fun?” Not so much right now. If Sevastyan and I were going to have a viable relationship, we needed to work at it. But whenever I wanted to talk about his past or his thoughts or, God forbid, his feelings, he clammed up.

No true intimacy. No progress toward sharing.

And though the sex was always pleasurable, it was growing less satisfying. He dreaded hurting me or leaving a mark, and I could sense he was just as frustrated by his self-imposed limitations as I was.

Sooner or later he’d go to another to have such deep-seated needs met, unless I could entice him to partner with me. Sevastyan had told me he’d be my last; he’d made no such assertions about himself.

I felt like I was the one with a countdown clock. Tempt him before he strayed.

Emotionally stunted, sexually frustrated. Our two hurdles seemed to be growing taller and taller. . . .

Rising from my command central, I made my way to the bed. As I stretched out across the counterpane, I wondered if he was watching me.

The idea made me shiver. Maybe I should show him what he was missing whenever he left me behind.

He’d watched me masturbate once before, but I hadn’t been able to appreciate it then. Now?

Even if he wasn’t watching, I could pretend he was. Win-win.

Excitement rushed through me as I slipped off my shoes and hose, blouse and skirt, leaving me in only my underwear—a bra and panties cut from transparent nude material.

Lying back once more, I traipsed my hands up to my br**sts to give them a squeeze, pressing them together and kneading them hard—like I knew he wanted to do to them.

With a sigh, I drew off my bra, twirling it on my forefinger before slingshotting it toward the camera. Breasts bared, I used one hand to tease my ni**les, pinching them as he had; my other hand descended down my torso, dipping into the silk of my see-through panties. I left them on—because Sevastyan would still be able to watch my fingers stroking.

The phone beside the bed rang.

Flashing a smirk at the camera, I answered with, “You’ve caught me at a bad time, babe, ring you back in a sec?”

He sounded like he was calling from the car. “Stop what you’re doing, you little witch,” he grated in Russian. So our driver couldn’t understand? “I’ll be home in five minutes—you will wait for me.”

“Or what?” I gave my cl*t a defiant stroke that made my h*ps roll. “You gonna make me sleep with the fishes?”

“Do not test me, pet.”

I put him on speakerphone. “You left me home all alone. What’s a girl to do?” Stroke. “Don’t you want to know what I was fantasizing about? It’s you, f**king me senseless.” Stroke. “Oooh. Wait, you don’t do that anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You told me on the plane that women look at you and know they’ll get f**ked hard. I’m not seeing it.” Burn!

I could all but hear him grinding his teeth as I continued to finger myself. “Natalie, you are not to come by your own hand.”

“Was that in a rule book or something? I missed our relationship orientation. Come on, play along, Sevastyan. Ask me if I’m wet. No? Then I’ll have to show you.” I raised my knees to my chest, then slipped my panties to my calves. When I rested my legs on the bed, I spread my bent knees, giving Sevastyan a clear view of my soaked curls, which I continued to lazily pet.

He hissed in a breath. “Cease what you’re doing now.”

“Or you’ll punish me? If a dominant like you doesn’t want to see such disobedience—you should stop watching.”

“I’ll never stop watching you. This started with me watching you.”

“That’s right. This is the second time you’ve leered at me masturbating.” Stroke.

“That’s not what I meant. Damn it, woman, you do not want me to lose control.”

“Oh, but I do!” Looked like it was time to bring my A game. Did I have the nerve to do this? What choice did I have? I was playing for keeps. “What if I did . . . this?” I went to my hands and knees before the camera, so he could see everything. I spread my knees, panties tight around my ankles.

“God almighty.”

His reaction and this bare vulnerability—this exhibition—made my mind spin and my body heat, as if my arousal had just downshifted to rocket forward. Apparently I was an exhibitionist—my blood coursed from the thrill.

No longer was this a game; I was desperate to come.

When I bucked to my fingers, he made a choked sound, then bit off some French command to the driver. Probably to go faster, because a series of angry horn honks followed. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

I was lost to pleasure, flicking, flicking. . . .

“Then put your finger inside for me,” he said in broken Russian. “Be my good girl, and f**k yourself with it.”

With a cry, I snaked my forefinger along my cl*t toward my opening, curling it between my lips; his heavy breaths on the speaker filled the room, arousing me even more.

When I penetrated myself and began to pump, he rasped, “I’ll show you hard.” The call disconnected.

Only a few seconds after, I heard him downstairs, his boots pounding up the steps to this floor. And for the first time I realized . . .

I should be afraid.

Chapter 32

I drew my fingers away, turning over on the bed. I’d just raised myself up on my elbows when he reached the threshold, seeming to take up all the space in the doorway.

I gasped at his appearance. His unsmiling lips. His clenched fists. His eyes glazed with sexual hunger.

When his straining erection jerked in his pants and a spot of pr**um dampened the material, I couldn’t stop a moan.

He looked . . . undone. Much as he had that first time he’d watched me in the bathtub.

Like he wanted to eat me up, bit by bit.

He strode toward the bed with a predator’s gait, big hands unbuckling his belt—as menacing a gesture as I’d ever seen.

I steeled myself as he reached for me.

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 c*ck 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 h*ps shoved forward, sending his c*ck deeper than it’d ever been.

My cry was drowned out by his triumphant roar as he began to f**k.

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 br**sts. The way his sac swung up to smack my wet cl*t 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 f**king.

The idea of him using my limp body like this, a plaything for his lusts, hurtled me closer to the edge, my cl**ax 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 f**k?” he bit out, pummeling his c*ck inside me. “Then show me how you like it! Come again, pet . . . come all over my stiff cock.”

He ordered; I obeyed.

My pu**y 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 h*ps 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 Paxán’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 my twisted imaginings.”