by Selena Scott
He took a shaky breath, his eyes starting to adjust to the dark. She stared down at him as if she owned him. As if she really was a goddess and he was meant to serve her.
“I – uh - Christos.” He tried to lift his mouth to her again but again she held him at bay.
“I want you so deep I can feel you in my chest. I want your come inside me.”
The beast snapped its leash. With a roar, Anton shoved her off of him. He needed to get the fuck away from her before he hurt her. He needed to shift and sprint and spend the night shivering in the cold, anything to make this need subside.
He launched himself out of the bed, scrambling for the light. But she lunged after him, trying to keep him from clicking the lamp. Her hand arrowed out, and in the dark, she mis-aimed.
The crack of her palm across his cheek was like a gunshot in the dark room. It shocked and stunned them both.
Anton pressed one hand over the place she’d just smacked him.
AJ kneeled on the bed, her hands over her mouth, a look of absolute horror and contrition on her face. “Oh my God,” she let out a sob. “I’m so, so sorry, Anton. I didn’t mean to. I would never hit you in anger. Oh, Anton. I’m sorry. I’m-”
“Stop.” He lowered his hand from his face, breathing hard. Something was exploding in his chest and it wasn’t the monster. It was hope.
“Do not apologize, bahinia,” he said, his voice low and serious and rising with feeling. “That was very good idea.”
“What?” AJ whispered, her hand still over her mouth in horror. “Hitting you was a good idea?”
Anton put one knee on the bed. Fought for a way to explain. “How does your hand feel? Tell truth.”
AJ looked down at the hand that had hit him as if she barely recognized it. “I don’t know. Warm. Tingly.”
He nodded, the hope blooming even harder in his chest. “That is how my cheek feels. Not pain. Not for more than one second.”
“You’re - you’re saying you liked that?” AJ asked, her eyes wide, struggling to keep up with him, to not hate herself for smacking his precious face.
“No,” he stood, fought for the English. “I say that I think I need that.”
“Oh,” her voice was small as she stared up at him from the bed.
“How do I not see this before?” he asked himself. Raking his hands through his hair, over his face, he let out a bark of laughter.
Her smack on his face had immediately silenced the monster inside him. The monster that Anton had so much trouble controlling had bowed instantly to AJ. The beast knew its master. “I already know you own me, bahinia.” He ripped off his underwear, stalked toward the bed, his cock straining so hard for her that it smacked up against his stomach. “I just do not realize you can tame me.”
He crawled over the bed, caging her in with his body. She was breathless, her eyes lit with anticipation, with lust, a healthy dose of nerves.
He dragged her along the bed, so that she lay full out, and the comforter sparked with the mini lightning of static electricity all around them.
“No condom,” he ground out the words through clenched teeth as he loomed over her, his control twisting thinner and thinner. She had quelled the beast. She was the answer. All he had to do was love her. And God, how much he wanted to love her. “I take you bare.”
“Yes,” she agreed and wrapped her legs around his waist. He reared back, torn between touching her everywhere and seeing her everywhere. The first time they’d had sex they’d been cramped and hindered in the front seat of the truck. This time, he wanted her spread over the bed. He wanted every inch of her.
He pulled one of her legs from around his waist and placed her ankle over his shoulder. He was poised at her entrance, one of his fingers lovingly tracing her slit, opening her for him, spreading her wetness.
“Autumn,” he growled, forcing his eyes to focus on her face. Forcing himself to say one last thing before he took her the way he never thought he’d be able to again.
She looked up at him, licking her tongue across her smudgy lips, her hands thrown haphazardly above her head as if she were surrendering to him and not the other way around.
“If I say tame me. You do it. Da? No questions.”
She hesitated, her eyes dilating as she weighed his answer. He was asking her to smack him again. Could she do it? Would she?
He leaned forward over her, taking her leg with him. It opened her up and stretched her and pressed his cock against her pussy, but he didn’t go inside.
“Promise me,” he growled. “You tame me.”
“Yes,” she whispered, helpless to deny him. How could she? She would give him anything. Everything. “Yes.”
And with that, not taking his eyes off of hers, he pressed forward. Slow, but unstopping, he fed her every inch.
AJ’s eyes instantly went blind. She wasn’t sure if she’d slammed them closed or if it just felt so good her body could only handle so much at one time. But she’d never felt anything like this. Not even the first time they’d done it.
Nothing was as good as Anton inside her, unconflicted. He was giving her everything. Holding nothing back.
And how could he? She’d never been more beautiful to him than when she arched her back against the bed, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her lips were a gorgeous, gasping smudge on her face as her breath came out in stuttered puffs.
Her pussy was so wet that he could feel her on his thighs, on his stomach, and it made him growl, push into her even deeper. She was so tight that he worried for a moment about really giving it to her, but then she was moving her hips on her own, fucking him from below.
That about did it. Rearing back onto his haunches, Anton planted a kiss on the arch of her foot next to his ear, grabbed her ass in both hands and slammed into her. His mind might have been telling him to take it easy, but his body easily took over. He set up a brutal rhythm, fast, unrelenting.
AJ screamed his name and every time he pulled out, her pussy clamped down on him, as if she were trying to keep him as close as she could.
“Oh, God!” she screamed, grinding her clit against him as he leaned down over her and planted his hot mouth on her neck. He rolled her skin with his teeth as he plowed into her and when he tore his face away, his eyes were completely black, dilated and gone.
“Tame me,” he growled roughly. “Now.”
Without hesitating, because she would do anything for him, anything to give him that breathless freedom he’d had in his eyes when he’d first crawled over her, AJ swung the flat of her hand toward him. It was a messy smack that caught his cheek and mouth and had his head whipping to one side.
But when he looked back down at her, he was smiling a feral, satisfied grin and she felt his cock swell inside her.
“Good girl,” he growled, pulling out of her.
Before she could protest the loss, he’d rolled her over, onto all fours, and was pressing into her from behind.
“This is what you ask for, no?” he said, his breath hot at her ear as he fell over top of her like an animal. “You say ‘I want you to push me down on bed and fuck me from behind, Anton’. You say this to me.”
“Yes,” she moaned, beyond turned on, her body trembling with the weight of him, with the glory of him buried inside her.
“You say to make you take me. Even if you are tight. No?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a breathy, desperate plea and he knew she wasn’t going to last long.
He shifted, putting his knees on the outside of hers and closing her legs, his cock still buried inside her. It made her impossibly tighter around him. So tight he had to fight his way in and out of her. His breath hissed out of him.
“Oh God. Anton,” she moaned, her arms quivering so that she fell forward onto her elbows, buried her face in the crook of her arm. “I’m gonna- I’m gonna-”
“I know, bahinia,” he growled, reaching underneath her and teasing at her tight, throbbing little clit. “I know. Let go. Give it to me. Come all over it.�
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And she did. Her entire body tightened and strained as he rutted in and out of her. She squeezed him like a vice and his vision went blurry. His arms gave out, too, and he gave her his weight as he fell forward, fucking her into the bed, her ass still in the air for him.
He buried his face in her hair as the static sparked and stung their sweaty, naked skin. Their bodies exploded and melted and meshed together. He gave her everything. Emptied every bit of love that he had inside of her.
CHAPTER TEN
Danil raised an eyebrow at Maxim as they both watched Anton slouch over Danil’s computer, sipping absently at a beer.
Emin came in through the front door, stomped snow off his boots and shucked off his coat. He stopped cold when he looked up.
“Is he whistling?” Emin asked his brothers in Belarusian as he stared incredulously at Anton’s back.
“Da,” Maxim answered, sipping his own beer as he reclined on Danil’s couch. “And using a computer.”
Emin lowered himself down next to Maxim and snagged a beer from the coffee table. He raised the same kind of eyebrow that Danil just had. They shrugged at one another.
“How’s Glory doing?” Danil asked. He was finding himself more and more curious about what it would be like for his wife to be pregnant. He often found himself daydreaming about Dora with a belly as pregnant as Glory’s. He would have to buy her a new bomber jacket to fit around her, he thought with a little smile.
“Ah, happy as always,” Emin said, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes. “Her feet hurt her, but she doesn’t complain.”
“Ivy and I are-” Maxim started but was cut off by Anton speaking English and surprising them all.
“What is this word ‘fetish’?” he asked, looking up from whatever he was reading on the computer. “Oh, hello, Emin.” He hadn’t even realized his third brother had arrived.
“Uh, fietyš,” Danil translated the word ‘fetish’ into Belarusian for Anton. Danil raised his eyebrow even further, looking around at his other two brothers.
“Ah,” Anton said, ducking his head and starting to whistle as he scrolled through the article.
“Well, like I was saying,” Maxim continued. “Ivy and I are thinking about trying for number two. Linc’s been asking about a sib-”
“And this word ‘bondage’?” Anton interrupted again, looking at Danil for the translation.
“Zaliežnasć,” Danil translated, his mouth falling open. “Anton, what are you reading over there?”
“Nothing,” Anton waved his hand at his brothers. But they couldn’t help the sleazy smiles they all passed around.
“Whatever makes him whistle,” Emin said, tipping back his beer and closing his eyes again.
***
AJ was doing a little whistling herself as she let herself into her house after class the next day. There’d been a cold, February rain all day, she’d forgotten her laptop at home, and had been late to class. She didn’t care. This was still going down as one of the happiest days of her life.
She’d wanted to hug herself the entire day. Anton had fucked the shit out of her last night. And it had been everything she had ever wanted. Her life felt good. Complete. She, for the first time in her life, had true hope that they could actually be something real.
She flung her bag down and tossed her coat on the hook, paused when she heard someone else whistling in her house. She’d forgotten that Anton’s construction job was ending early today. She practically danced to her bedroom.
AJ stopped short in the doorway, her eyes goggling, when she saw him leaning over her desk, using her computer.
That was happening a lot today.
“You know how to use a computer?” she asked him incredulously.
He spun her desk chair to face her, laced his hands behind his head with a huge grin on his face. “I am bear, not caveman. I have been googling.”
“Oh?” she asked, thrilled and warmed and giddy over the smile on his face. She’d never seen him look so happy. Or so free.
“Da,” he reached for her and tugged her on his lap. “Danil kicks me off his computer because I ruin his cookies he says. I do not know what that means.” He scooted the chair in so that they could look at her laptop together. “But this is okay, because I use yours.”
AJ’s eyes widened when she saw the site that he was on. “Holy crap.”
“Da,” he agreed. “I learn very much today. All the ways you can rule me.”
AJ’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “You, uh, want me to do this to you?”
“Not all,” he answered quickly. “Not that. Or that.” He pointed to two pictures that made AJ’s eyes wide.
“Thank God,” she muttered.
“Da,” he agreed. “I show you this to say that it is possible. You and me. And sex.”
“Right. You mean that people do this kind of thing all the time. Slap each other in bed.”
“Right,” his eyes were very serious. “But I will never slap you. Ever. Or hurt you. Ever. But I need for you to hurt me sometimes.”
She turned to face him in his lap. “Look, Anton. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to do whatever you need. Seriously. It’s pretty much a dream come true for me. But, just, can I ask why? Why do you need this? Is it a kink? Or…” she trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
Anton closed his eyes for a pained second. She could see him warring with himself. She recognized the shame and sadness, she’d seen it from him for years.
“Anton, there’s nothing you could say that will turn me away. I-”
“Say that you marry me.”
“What?” AJ gasped, her vision going blurry and then hyperclear. This was different than when he’d brought it up last night, as a bargaining chip. This was him actually asking her.
“Say you will be my wife. No. Wait,” he tossed his head to one side. “It is not fair to ask before I tell you truth.”
“Anton-”
“Quiet. I tell you now.” His eyes were fierce, deep brown and burning. She could see fear there, true fear that she would turn from him.
Taking a deep breath, AJ turned so that she straddled him in the chair, facing him fully.
“Navuka did not only torture me,” his voice was quiet. “They experiment.”
She gripped his hands in hers; it was almost as painful to hear it as it was to say it.
“They turn me into monster. Real monster. There is so much anger when I shift to that beast. I cannot control it. I do not know what it will do if it comes out. It scares me.”
AJ fought to keep her face neutral, but on the inside she screamed with anger and pain for Anton. Those fucking bastards. They’d tried to destroy him. His words fell on her and slowly the puzzle pieces started clicking together in her mind.
“That’s why you were so upset when you didn’t remember biting me during sex. You thought it was the beast.”
“Da,” he nodded, his eyes so sad and sorrowful. “It lives in here,” he patted his chest. “And sometimes when I have passion for you, I fear it will come out of me. Shift me. Hurt you.”
“It was coming out last night, but it went away when I slapped you,” she realized.
“Da,” his eyes lit when he realized she was understanding. “You are the master of it. It will bow to you.”
“Wow.” AJ turned her head and caught sight of herself in the mirror that hung on the back of her door. Plain old AJ. Nice little face. Dirty blonde, blunt haircut. Curvy little body. But nothing that screamed ‘goddess’. And certainly nothing that screamed ‘sex goddess’. But. You know. Gift horse.
She looked back down at Anton who was staring up at her as if she held the keys to his entire future. He was so gorgeous with his gold skin, deep brown eyes, James Dean hair.
“I understand,” she said. “And, God, I’m so sorry they put you through that. But it doesn’t scare me.” And then, cocking her head to one side, she shrugged. “What you’re asking me to do, it doesn’t seem so hard
.” She wiggled a little when she felt Anton’s cock harden underneath her. “Okay. You’re the expert, you have to teach me what to do.” She twisted in his lap to look back at the laptop screen.
He leaned his forehead against the back of her neck and let out a breath. It felt like he’d been holding that breath for ten years. She’d never know how much it meant to him that he’d told her his deepest secret and she’d shrugged her shoulders, asked how she could help. What had he done to deserve her?
AJ scrolled down the page, skimming the articles. “Did you pick a safe word yet? That seems like step one.”
He chuffed out a little laugh. “We don’t need safe word because you cannot truly injure me. Pain is different for bear shifters -wait. You know what safe word is?”
She turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I know what a safe word is. I have a kindle, Anton.” She turned back to the screen. “And we need a safe word. I’m not going to beat you unless we have a safe word.”
He rolled his eyes where she couldn’t see. “Fine. Then word is ‘grizzly’.”
“No,” she shook her head. “It’s gotta be something we’d never say otherwise during sex.”
He raised his eyebrows and turned her by her chin. “When would you say ‘grizzly’ during sex?”
She gave him a look. “Anton, you are a grizzly bear. You don’t think that might come up? Some sort of ‘fuck me like a grizzly’ situation? ”
He experienced the brand new sensation of a full-on belly laugh at the same time as his cock hardened even further. God, he loved this woman. His gorgeous little super freak.
“Okay,” he chuckled. “Then safe word is ‘google’.”
“Perfect!” she grinned at him. “It seems like google is your new best friend today.”
“Da,” he said. “First I google and then I go to sex store.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You went to a sex store?”
“Da. I got you present.” He nodded toward her bed where a little wrapped box with a bow sat on her pillow.
AJ stood on jittery legs, both nervous to see what was in the box and also beyond giddy that Anton had gotten her a gift. He’d been bringing little things home lately, with his construction paycheck, but it was all mostly pregnancy related. This was, like, a real gift.