by Vivian Wood
“You’re allowed to have an orgasm with me. I like it. I prefer it.”
Ciara cringes and tucks her compact away. “Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter.”
“I mean it,” I insist, wishing we could go back to a few moments ago when we both felt so good. I wish I’d said something before I touched her, so she’d know I wanted her to feel good. Why on earth shouldn’t she?
She nods without meeting my eyes. It’s not the nod of someone agreeing to something willingly. It’s the nod of someone doing as they’re told, because that’s what they’re paid for. I want to tell her how much I loved seeing her across my lap. Coming on my fingers. It was beautiful. I want to tell her so much but the words won’t come.
Fine. If she wants me to order her, I will.
I hook an arm around her waist and pull her against me. Taking her chin between my thumb and forefinger I force her gaze up to mine. “Say, yes daddy.”
Her eyes are huge and vulnerable and shimmering with tears. She sucks her lower lip into her mouth for a moment, hesitating before saying softly, “Yes, daddy.”
“That’s better.”
I don’t know why I do it, if it’s her quivering lower lip or her prettiness or just the desperate need to taste some part of her, any part of her. But I kiss her. And oh, god, she tastes good. She tastes of me but there’s so much of her sweetness, too. Her lips are plush velvet and they part with surprise beneath my own. A moment later her mouth softens and her arms twine around my neck.
Yes. I need this. I pull her closer, her body flush to mine as my tongue slides against hers.
A moment later she pulls away, breathless, her eyes wide. “Isn’t this against the rules?”
“There aren’t any rules. We can be whoever we want to be to each other.”
She stares at me, eyes wide with astonishment. “Misha. Do you mean that? You’ve never said anything like that to me before.”
I’ve never said anything like that to any woman. I don’t know where the words came from. She’s so close and feels so good in my arms that I feel my cock thickening again. I need more of her.
I need everything.
“I mean it, baby. Do you believe me?”
Slowly, she nods. “I believe you, Misha.”
It’s easy to slip the flimsy straps from her shoulders and push the dress down to her waist. Her breasts are bared to me and for a moment all I can do is stare at her in shock because she’s so beautiful. Slender and elegant with small but full breasts.
“You’re not wearing that bra like I told you to.”
She reaches up and traces a finger around one of her rosy pink nipples, and it tightens. “Do you mind?”
“No, I fucking don’t,” I mutter into her flesh and take her breast into my mouth. I suck hard, and she cries out. I feel her fumbling for something and a moment later she presses a foil packet into my hand. I tear it open with my teeth. My trousers are still open and I’m hard again, and I roll the condom down over my cock. There’s not a huge amount of room back here, not as much as I’d like, but I push Ciara down and tug sharply on her thighs until she’s lying on her back at an angle along the seat. I pull her underwear down and when they tangle with her heels I rip them apart and throw them aside. I’ll buy her some better ones.
She’s spread out beneath me and I hold myself still, poised above her. Drinking in the sight of her body beneath mine, laid open and bare to me. Her ribs rise and fall, her breathing light and fast in anticipation of me. I want to savor this moment forever. The need in her eyes. Her sweet pussy slick with her arousal. I stroke the blunt head of my cock against her folds and her small hands slide up and grip my shoulders.
“Misha, please. I need you.”
Her plaintive begging undoes me. I surge forward and her tight flesh resists my thickness at first, but she’s so wet it’s easy to keep going. As she squeezes my length in her tight heat I groan and brace my hands by her head, giving her a moment to adjust. I feel her tug at the knot of my tie and it slithers loose, and then she starts to undo the buttons of my shirt.
Fuck. No, she can’t see my chest.
I take one of her hands in mine and press it against the leather. She reaches down with her free hand to cup my balls as I thrust into her. The desire to savor her retreats behind a wave of arousal and I pound her hard into the seat. Her slim legs wrap around my hips, urging me on. My mouth meets hers in a bruising kiss and her tongue finds mine. Our lovemaking is animalistic and rough, my ardor not dampened in the slightest by my earlier release. Neither is hers. Ciara’s making mewling sounds in her throat, her eyes wild and dark and cheeks flushed pink.
“Don’t stop, Misha. Please.”
I’m not going to stop. I want to feel it with my cock, her unmistakable need for me. Strong. Real. In a distant part of my mind I know this is wrong, having sex with her when my brother forced her into this situation. When there’s so much she doesn’t know about me, and there’s so much I do know about her. I can tell myself all I want that I’m helping her, that I’m making her feel good, that she wants this. But I want it more.
Ciara tightens around me by increments and her face tenses.
“Come for me, ljubica.”
She nods rapidly, her eyes becoming unfocused as she nears her peak. She’s crying out my name, her bruised lips capturing mine again. Ciara meets my eyes in the moment before her climax and I know in that instant I want to break every rule with her. Her inner muscles flex along my length and she tips her head back as she comes, baring her throat to me as she surrenders to the sensations. I come a moment later, thrusting all the way to hilt inside her, hard and unrelenting, as deep as I can go.
Ciara’s breathing hard as I withdraw, her color high, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look more beautiful. As I get rid of the condom she sits up and looks around her at the car interior as if she’s just remembered where we are.
She smiles at me shyly. “I guess we got a bit carried away.”
I don’t remember the last time that happened to me and it was fucking wonderful, getting carried away with her. I don’t want to see her cry. I want to know she’s safe and happy, and yet she can never be safe while this debt is hanging over her head.
“I’m going to double your allowance,” I tell her, tucking my shirt back into my trousers and doing them up. Thirty thousand pounds a month. That should mean she’s safer from Damir. But instead of happiness or relief on her face she turns away from me.
“Ciara?”
She pulls the straps of her dress up over her shoulders. “All right, Misha. Thank you.”
But she doesn’t sound grateful, she sounds tearful again. Afraid. Why, because I’ve reminded her of money and that makes her think of Damir?
There have been times when I’ve been angry with my brother but right now I feel like I could smash his head in. I fasten my belt, hiding my angry expression. When I look up Ciara’s wearing her bland, professional face and the light has gone out of her eyes. I reach out to her, wanting to comfort her again, but she puts her hand firmly on my wrist and pushes it down.
“I had a lovely evening,” she says, reciting the words automatically. “I hope you had a good time, too.”
I don’t want these pleasantries. I want the woman who spoke to me honestly from her heart about her life. Who kisses me back with heat and hunger. I wish we could forget the roles we’re supposed to play. I’m taking advantage of her, and the worst part is that now I’ve had a taste of her I know I won’t be able to stop.
“Goodnight, Misha.”
One of her hands is resting on the door handle and despite the slight blur of mascara beneath her eyes and her hair rumpled from the hard sex, she looks like a sleek, beautiful sugar baby again, and a pang of loss goes through me. I want the real Ciara. I want to hear her say my name again like she feels something real for me.
“Goodnight,” I reply, and she slips out of the car and disappears into the night.
I’m too wound up
to sleep, so I go to the office. I work through a backlog of emails, trying not to think about what just happened, and failing.
“Don’t stop, Misha. Please.”
My mind is a vortex of lust, tenderness and guilt. Ciara Alders was never meant to disrupt my life to this degree but opening ourselves up to each other just this little bit has made me realize what I’ve been missing out on all these years.
Now I don’t know what to do. I want to be real with her, but I have to lie to her to keep her safe.
Around two in the morning I remember Bethany’s part in all this, and send her a text. Ciara’s allowance locked in. Thank you for your help. Couldn’t have done it without you. Expect a triple salary this month.
Her reply comes through a moment later. Thank you, daddy.
Ha ha. Go to sleep.
As I go through spreadsheets and answer emails another part of my mind is ticking over with possibilities. Ways to tell Ciara the truth without putting her in danger. Can I do it? She has too much sense to run to Damir and tell him what we’re doing, but will she be able to act naturally around him when she’s giving him money?
There’s one other, more selfish, consideration. Ciara doesn’t seem to be someone who easily forgives. She was able to cut her parents out of her life and I’m afraid she’ll do the same to me if she knows the truth. I don’t want to be cut out of her life, not when I’ve just started getting close to her.
“Mikhail. You look like shit.”
I look up from my keyboard to see Damir standing in the doorway. Two visits in two days. He really is wound up lately. They sky has lightened while I’ve been sunk in thought and work, and glancing at the clock on wall I see that it’s a quarter past eight in the morning.
I button my jacket, hiding the smears of Ciara’s makeup on my black shirt. “Good morning to you, too.”
“All-nighter?” he asks, and doesn’t wait for a reply. “Alders’ daughter came to see me yesterday. She gave me money.” He practically spits this, as angry as a snake.
So I was right, she was terrified last night because of Damir. I clench my hand around my empty coffee cup, trying to keep my voice steady. “Good. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“You said she didn’t have any money,” he seethes.
He better not have fucking touched her or I’ll kill him. I swear, I’ll kill my own brother.
“Maybe she made some more.”
“How did she—”
“Damir,” I say sharply. “This is the opposite of a problem. You wanted her to pay off her debt and she’s doing it. Now get the fuck out of my office, I’m busy.”
A dark look crosses his face. I never speak to him this way and I can see he’s wondering what’s got into me. If he can still trust me. Unease slithers down my spine as I wonder what he’d do to Ciara if he finds out I’m the one giving her money. I wonder what he’d do to me. It’s been a long time since we’ve sparred and while I’m bigger than he is, he was always lightning fast. And he fights dirty.
A moment later his expression clears. “Still having girl problems? You always did care too much. Poor little Misha.”
His laughter rings out, cruel and loud, and he walks away.
Chapter Eleven
Ciara
Whore. Hooker. Ho. Tramp.
Morning light is burnishing my bedroom ceiling and I lay on my back and watch it brighten from peach to golden. Nothing could have prepared me for how it felt to be in Misha’s arms last night. My hands all over his body. His all over mine. That carnal yet tender expression in his eyes that seemed to say, We’re made for each other. The moments we were able to be real with each other were perfection.
So I have to keep reminding myself what I am. A sex worker. This is purely a fantasy, and it’s his, not mine. I can’t afford to get caught up in it. I have my own life to lead, because in his I’m just a prop. I press my fingers to my lips, feeling their tenderness. I’m tender at my core, as well. Misha is big all over and he was ferocious as we had sex. I wanted him to be ferocious. I needed him to obliterate everything but him, and for a little while he did. I felt safe. Cared for. Protected. Adored. I got lost in the fantasy, and then…
“I’m going to double your allowance.”
I came back down to earth with a sickening thud. He’s not my lover, he’s my sugar daddy, and if he knew even a tiny part of the reason I need him then he’d dump me so fast my head would spin. If I keep crying all over him and being a downer he will dump me. I’ve got to stop being so weak.
My allowance came through about thirty minutes after I got home last night and I sat at my laptop and stared at the numbers in my bank account. Thirty thousand pounds. I know I did a very stupid sugar baby thing by sleeping with him before I got my allowance, but thankfully it turned out all right. Misha is the real deal.
One strange thing, though. The money came through from five different bank accounts, with no single transaction higher than eight thousand pounds. I presume that’s to get around our banks automatically flagging the transactions for investigation. I read about that on sugar baby blogs: big transactions can look like money laundering, and I’m pretty sure it’s tax evasion. My conscience twinges at that. I should by rights be paying tax on the money he’s giving me, but this is where things get messy, legally speaking. I don’t like it, but at the moment, what do I dislike more: possible tax evasion, or feeling the cold sting of Mr. Ravnikar’s blade at my throat?
No contest.
I go downstairs and make some toast and a cup of tea, and then I come back up and search for the address of the building that Misha and I had dinner in last night. I try searching the address plus “Misha” and “Misha Smith”, though I know that’s probably not his real last name. I try “John Smith” as well, but that unsurprisingly turns up nothing. I search everywhere for the name of the company that did the property development but don’t find it. I suppose he showed me that building and not any of his others because he knew his name wasn’t attached to it. Or maybe he was lying about having had anything to do with it. It doesn’t really matter. His thirty thousand pounds are real enough.
I sensibly write down all my expenses for the next three months and add on a little extra for my sugar baby budget, because I can’t keep borrowing clothes from Sloane. There’s a lot of money left and it’s tempting to withdraw it all and take it round to Mr. Ravnikar now. But that would be stupid. He might become suspicious about where I got this sort of money or demand that I deliver such a sum every few days.
No, it’s smarter if I drop around a few thousand pounds to him once or twice a week and pretend it’s all I have. That way my bank will be less likely to be suspicious about the transactions and Mr. Ravnikar will presume I’m working as a stripper or shoplifting or something.
One thing’s for certain: I’m not getting in another elevator at Ravnikar Enterprises. Even if he calls me up to the fiftieth floor, I’m taking the stairs.
When I’ve finished my breakfast I reach for my phone and think for a moment. I’m onto a good thing with Misha and all the crying and emotion I showed last night was probably off-putting for him, despite the sex that came after. I should try and clear the air between us.
I text him, Thank you for last night, and my allowance. Sorry that I got emotional a few times. I shouldn’t have put that on you.
His reply comes through a moment later. Don’t be sorry. You were beautiful. Go and buy yourself something nice and enjoy your day.
I remember how he ripped my G-string apart in his haste to get it off me and I draft a few flirty responses in my head, finally settling on, I guess I should buy myself some new underwear ;)
I should be sorry about that. I’m not.
I laugh to myself. I want to ask him when I’ll see him again but it’s ridiculous for me to be the needy one. I put my phone down firmly and congratulate myself on my sensible decisions this morning.
Ciara the sensible sugar baby. That’s me.
I shower and dres
s, take the Tube to Oxford Street and wander in and out of the stores. I haven’t been shopping in ages and I get so bewildered by all the choice that I end up buying nothing except a matte pink lipstick and a takeaway coffee. I’m about to get back on the Tube when I remember the underwear I didn’t buy and head back to the nearest department store. I make a bee-line for the basics, but then the high-end items catch my eye.
I’ve got some cash and someone in my life who would probably appreciate expensive French lace. Why the hell not? Thirty minutes later I’m the proud owner of two new bra and underwear sets, one in black lace and one in cream. I get both the briefs and the G-strings that go with them.
When I get home I notice I have a text from Misha. Lunch tomorrow?
Damn, I wish I’d known about this earlier when I was on Oxford Street. My ripped jeans and faded t-shirts won’t cut it at any restaurant he’ll choose. Sounds lovely, I reply, gnawing on my lip.
He sends me a pin drop and a code to use in my taxi app so the charges go to his account. This man thinks of everything. As I sort through my wardrobe I anticipate his lips against my cheek and his large, warm hands as he—
Stop it. Keep this professional.
I anticipate his large, warm hands as he pays with his credit card for our lunch. Better.
I consider texting Sloane but as lovely and helpful as she’s been I can also feel that she’s about to boil over with questions I can’t answer. I also don’t want to go out again. There are websites that do same-day online delivery so I go to my laptop.
Two hours later there’s a knock at the front door and I accept a large black box and take it up to my room. Even the packaging is luxurious and I sort through black ribbon and layers of white tissue paper to get to my purchases: two silk blouses, a pair of cropped trousers, a pair of artfully faded but smart skinny jeans, and some wedge espadrilles. Everything fits and looks neat and attractive. Problem solved. I’d forgotten how easy things are when you have money.
I spend the evening reading the biography of a human rights lawyer and eat a carton of supermarket soup, and then get into bed. I’ve kept intimate thoughts of Misha at bay all day, but as I close my eyes I remember the feel of his strong chest beneath my hands, his bold kisses, the firm thrusts of his cock. I’ve never felt so swept up by a man and the things he does, and I certainly wasn’t expecting that from Misha.