Black Knight, White Queen

by Jackie Ashenden

  He could force her if he wanted. Make her give up her need to know. Drown her in sensuality so that she’d forget. He liked control but only with consent. Forcing people to do what he wanted wasn’t what did it for him and never had.

  Ever wonder what it would be like to give up control sometime?

  But he wouldn’t be giving up control here, would he? He would just be letting her have some.

  He tried to relax his tense muscles, rubbed his chest to ease the tightness. “So what, exactly, do you mean by changing the rules, Izzy?”

  “Nothing much. I’m just not going to strip for you and get nothing in return.”

  “You wanted to be here. You wanted to be in my bed.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not saying I don’t. But I won’t be ignored again, Aleks. Not by you, not by anyone.”

  Such a ridiculous statement when she sat there, half naked. How could anyone ignore her? With her cloud of pale hair and determination burning bright in her eyes.

  “I’m not ignoring you.”

  “But you won’t answer my questions.”

  “If your questions were normal ‘getting to know you questions’, then maybe I would. But they’re not. You’re asking things that I wouldn’t tell a friend, let alone someone I’ve only just met.”

  A flush spread over her cheekbones. “And I can’t be your friend?”

  “Why would you want to be?”

  “Because you’re hurting, Aleks. I can feel it. I can see it. And I want to help.”

  He didn’t want to hear that. Didn’t want to be reminded of the pressure in his chest. The pain he’d been shutting out. The grief. A grief about so much more than just the loss of a mentor. The grief for a whole life he’d lost years ago. A grief he’d never let himself feel.

  “No,” he said, his voice gone hoarse. “I’m not hurting, Izzy. I don’t feel anything.” If he said it enough then perhaps it would be true. “I don’t feel a single, fucking thing.”

  Slowly Izzy sat up, tall and straight on her cushion. Unselfconscious about the fact that she was half-naked. Proud as an empress. A queen. “If you don’t feel anything then why are you so bloody angry?”

  Anger. Pain. Grief. Emotions he never allowed himself.

  Ice, Sasha. You have to be like ice if you want to win.

  He’d always been good at hiding those emotions. Suppressing them, forcing them down so no one would ever see them. But she saw. She saw right through him, past the icy control, all the way down to the angry, disturbed little boy he’d once been. Christ, she was like boiling water on a frozen window-pane, melting away the frost for a clear view. Only he didn’t want to see that view. The past was the past and it needed to stay where he’d buried it.

  Aleks looked away, down at the board instead, where everything was simple. Ordered. Where there were rules. Where you couldn’t move back, only forward. Where you knew exactly where you stood and where you had to go.

  “Are we going to finish this game?” he asked. “Because I can end it in two moves.”

  “Okay, I see. You’re going to ignore me. Great, Aleks. So you’re a coward too.”

  The words echoed around the room, burning into his skin like a brand.

  He lifted his head. And suddenly the weight of his anger seemed insupportable. A primitive, basic anger so heavy and so hot that the icy wall he kept between himself and it melted like an ice cube in a lava flood.

  “Take off your fucking trousers, Izzy. Take them off or get out of my suite.”

  She didn’t move, staring back at him. Sparks glowed in her eyes. Then she stood up, pulled the tie on her wraparound pants and pushed them down and off, taking her remaining sandal with them. She wore only a pair of bright purple lacy briefs that covered absolutely nothing, the pale curls between her thighs visible beneath the lace.

  But the look on her face wasn’t one of submission. It was all challenge.

  She kicked away her trousers and stood there, hands on her hips, staring down at him. “There. No trousers.” But she hadn’t finished. Unexpectedly, she hooked her fingers into the waistband of her briefs and pulled them down as well, stepping out of them and tossing the fabric behind her. Naked now and yet she made no attempt to cover herself. Just stared at him, her chin lifted.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting naked, Aleks, what does it look like?” She took an audible breath. “Starting with my body. And now that’s done, I’ll bare everything else. You want to know about anger? Let me tell you about mine. I can’t breathe when I talk about Angie because I’m so angry with her. With her choice. For taking her own life without caring how that would affect her friends and family. For being so fucking selfish. For leaving me to deal with the mess. For leaving me without a big sister. For leaving me with parents who can’t seem to understand that they have another daughter who’s still alive. That’s why I’m angry. And I feel it. I feel it all the fucking time!” Her cheeks were flushed, hands curled into fists at her side. “People tell me I shouldn’t feel that way. That I should be grieving for my sister, not be angry with her. But I’m sick of being told what I should and shouldn’t feel. I’m angry and I want the whole bloody world to know!”

  Izzy stood on the other side of the chessboard, burning like a flame with the force of her emotion. Burning like she had on the rooftop the day before in the thunderstorm.

  And somehow he’d risen to his feet too, wanting to stop her. Make her shut up. Because listening to her detail her own pain hurt him in a way he didn’t understand. “Why are you telling me this?” he demanded hoarsely. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Why? Because being angry is okay, Aleks. Your friend Viktor died and you have every right to be bloody furious with him for leaving you.”

  He took a step over the chessboard, closing the distance between them. “You know nothing. I’m not angry with Viktor.”

  Izzy didn’t back away from him, even though she was naked and far less physically powerful than he was. She just looked up at him as if she had nothing in the world to be frightened of, as if the force of her anger could keep him at bay. “Who are you angry with then?”

  Mom. Dad. The family he could have had. The family he’d lost because they couldn’t deal with him.

  He could feel the words pressing against his mouth, but he didn’t want to say them. Didn’t want to acknowledge them. Because after so long and after all he’d achieved, this shouldn’t still matter.

  “I grew up in an orphanage in Moscow. When I was seven I was adopted by an American couple in California. I lived there for six months until the day I threw a glass vase at my adopted mother. It didn’t hit her, but it exploded on a wall and glass went everywhere. She got badly cut.” The facts came out in a flat monotone, because that made them easier to say. Izzy’s gaze widened. “I was sent back to Russia after that because apparently I was disturbed. Because I had attachment difficulties. Because I was too dangerous. Because I got angry.”

  The spark in her eyes faded, sympathy taking its place which was somehow even worse. “Oh…Aleks.” She went to lift a hand, but he sent her a look that made her arm drop to her side again.

  He didn’t want her touch. He felt so full of rage the merest brush of her skin would shatter him, make him explode. “They couldn’t handle me,” he went on. “They couldn’t handle a seven-year-old kid. So they got rid of me. They packed my stuff up in a backpack and sent me back to Moscow, alone.”

  She said nothing, just watched him, her gaze never leaving his.

  “So yeah, I’m angry, Izzy. I’m angry. I’m angry with them. My mom and dad who gave me a home and a family and then took it away because they couldn’t fucking deal with one seven-year-old kid getting angry!” His voice echoed in the room, full of a hurt he’d never revealed to anyone. Never even acknowledged to himself.

  And this time Izzy paid no attention to his warning look. She raised her hands and took his face between them, and there was no time to pul
l away from her. So he had to stand there, the warmth of her palms pressing against his skin, the sweetness of her scent, her naked body so close, and he felt himself begin to tremble. He gripped her wrists hard. “Don’t touch me. Don’t—”

  “Aleks, you’re allowed to be angry.” The colour of her eyes was electric in her pale face. Her voice low and fierce. “You’re allowed to be furious, okay? You were a kid and they should never, oh my God never, have done that to you.”

  He was shaking now, shaking and couldn’t stop. Too much emotion inside him, too much pressure, and he had to get rid of it, otherwise he really would shatter. Would break into a thousand pieces.

  His hands slid down her arms, over her warm skin, pulling her against him. He couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it and for once he didn’t try. He only knew of one way to get rid of the pressure and she was it.

  The breath went out of her as Aleks pulled her into his arms. She felt the tension in his whole body, felt him shake as he ran a hand over the bare skin of her butt, fitting her tightly against him. It made her ache for him. For the poor kid who’d been sent back across the globe because the stupid, insensitive, dick-heads who’d adopted him couldn’t handle who he was.

  For the man who clearly didn’t know how to cope with the weight of all the emotions inside him.

  Her own anger had gone, drowned in sympathy and hurt for him. All she wanted was to help, and if she was what he needed then she’d let him take her.

  She didn’t protest when he gripped her chin in his hand. When he kissed her, tasting his anger and his desperation on her tongue. He’d given her a little piece of himself and that had changed things.

  Izzy rose to meet his kiss with her own, her arms tightening around his neck, her mouth opening beneath his. Aleks kissed her like he was dying and she was his last reason to live.

  Desire flared hot between them. He held her so tightly the button of his jeans dug into her stomach. She gasped, pushing her hands between them, panting as she began to undo his fly for him.

  “Izzy…” His voice changed into a groan as she got his jeans open, her hand slipping inside his boxers, fingers circling his cock.

  God, he felt so hot. An intoxicating mixture of hard and smooth, his skin like velvet. She gripped him tight, let her hand move.

  “Stop it,” he growled and grabbed her wrist, forcing her hand away.

  “Let me, Aleks. Let me do something for you. Please.”

  “No. I need to—”

  Izzy dropped to her knees in front of him. Then she looked up. His eyes had gone silver, molten with heat. She put a hand on his abdomen, spread her fingers on all that smooth skin and firm muscle. “I want to do this for you. Let me.”

  His throat moved. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too…much. You’re too much.”

  She stroked him. “Afraid I’ll make you lose control?”

  “Yes.” His voice had deepened even further, but he didn’t look away from her.

  “You’ve done that once before,” she reminded him gently. “And nothing bad happened.”

  “Apart from using no protection.”

  “But that won’t matter now.” She lifted her other hand, ran her fingers down the hard length of the erection that pressed against the denim of his jeans. Felt him shudder. “Let me, Aleks.” And then, softer. “Trust me.”

  He said nothing for a moment. Then suddenly his hand covered hers, pressing her palm against the fly of his half-open jeans and holding it there. “I’ll give the order… Do it.” His hand fell away. “Suck me, Izzy. Now.”

  Izzy shivered at the demand in his voice. “Oh God, yes.”

  Her hands fumbled slightly with the remaining buttons but she eventually got them open. Then she pulled down his boxers, taking the hard length of him in her hands, smooth and hot against her palms. She gripped him, touched her tongue to the head of his cock. Licked him like a cat. He said something in what sounded like Russian, and his fingers were in her hair, tangling in her curls almost painfully tight. The little bit of pain sent heat through her, and she shivered again, leaning forward to close her lips around him.

  Aleks cursed. At least it sounded like a curse, sharply bitten off and guttural as she began to use her mouth. The hands in her hair tightened, controlling her movements. Slowing her down.

  She closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensations. The salty taste of him in her mouth. His fingers in her hair. The movement of his hips as she began to work him in earnest. The sound of his breathing, hoarse and ragged.

  She gripped his thigh with her free hand, digging her fingers into the firm muscle, exerting more pressure.

  “Harder,” he growled. “Faster.”

  And she obeyed because the sounds he made, the very tightness of his grip let her know exactly what she did to him. And she loved it. Loved every second of it.

  “Izzy…” Her name was a hoarse sound, his body tightening beneath her hands. His fingers in her hair were painful but she didn’t stop. Didn’t pull back. Gave him everything she had.

  “Ah, fuck…Izzy…” he gasped out harshly, his body stiffening as the orgasm took him.

  And she loved the sound of that too. Loved the taste of him. Loved the way she’d dragged that cry from him.

  His hands were still in her hair, and when she looked up, she saw he had his head back, his eyes closed, the long, powerful length of his body shaking. The expression on his face was one of utter abandon. She rested her cheek against his abdomen, just watching him, committing to memory the look on his face. The one she’d put there.

  His fingers relaxed and when he looked down at her, meeting her gaze, she saw something had changed in him. She didn’t know quite what it was but the rigid tension, the sense that he’d been desperately holding back, had gone.

  He pushed her hair back from her face in an oddly tender gesture. “You’re very good at that.”

  “Yeah. It’s a natural talent.”

  Dark brows descended. “Oh really?”

  “It’s a joke, Aleks. Man, you really need to learn about humour.”

  He gazed down at her, studying her, his fingers drifting to her mouth, tracing the curve of her bottom lip. “I don’t need humour. What I need is to be inside you.”

  The gentle touch sent shudders through her. “I need that too.” She nipped the tips of his fingers playfully. “Scarves again?”

  He shifted, hauling her up from her knees and into his arms. “No scarves.” Aleks pushed her hair out of the way and bent his head, kissed her throat, then bit the side of her neck where she was sensitive, making her tremble.

  “Why not? I like the scarves.”

  His hand slid from one hip up over her stomach to cup her breast. “Because I want you to be able to touch me.”

  Izzy sighed, all the air in her lungs escaping as his thumb stroked over her nipple. “Oh yeah, I can do that.”

  And then she couldn’t say anything else as his mouth closed over her breast and she was lost.

  Aleks opened his eyes into darkness, unable to say what had woken him. The bedroom was quiet, only the hum of the air conditioning making a sound. He rolled over, already reaching for Izzy. Only to find she wasn’t there. Puzzled, he sat up and looked around, but the room was empty.

  He slid out of bed, glancing at the clock to check the time. Nine p.m. Maybe it was hunger that had woken him up. He and Izzy had spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, doing nothing but having lots of sex before finally falling asleep around five.

  Maybe that was where she’d gone. To get something to eat. She couldn’t have left surely?

  The thought made him feel antsy.

  He crossed the room, going out into the lounge. And stopped.

  Izzy sat cross-legged on the couch, the blue silk wrap she’d been wearing earlier swathed around her body like a sarong. She was bent over something, her hand moving in quick, sharp movements. Sketching again from the looks of it. White-blonde curls drifted eve
rywhere, a sharp contrast against the blue silk.

  The antsy feeling faded away. Good. He wasn’t ready for her to go just yet. The tournament began in another day, and he liked the idea of her staying on till then.

  Going over to her, he pushed her hair over her shoulder so he could see what she was doing. She didn’t look up, still absorbed in her task, but she turned into his touch like a cat being stroked. It made him feel good, so he left his hand at the top of her spine.

  She was drawing someone. Someone he recognised. Him. His head tilted back, his eyes closed and the expression on his face… It was abandoned, full of pleasure. Release. Jesus, he was even almost smiling.

  “That’s…”

  “You?” Izzy said, adding some shading near his throat. “Yes. It is.” She glanced up at him, a glint in her eyes. “That’s you losing control.”

  The intimacy of the picture made him uncomfortable and yet he couldn’t seem to stop looking at it. “Today?”

  “Yeah. I watched you. You looked…amazing.” Her voice had roughened. “I just wanted to draw you. Capture that look on your face.”

  “Why?”

  Her pencil slowed. Stopped. “Because you never show emotion, Aleks. You’re always so detached. And yet when all that drops away you look…well, you look like that.” She tapped the picture with the end of her pencil. “It’s like you’ve got all this heat inside you that you’re afraid to let out and I don’t understand why.”

  He slid a hand under the blue silk at her back, stroking down her spine. “Control matters in chess. Emotion has no part to play. It’s logic. Strategy. Play too angry or too happy and you lose concentration. Your focus. And that can lead to mistakes.”

  She leaned back against his hand, into his touch. “But life isn’t chess, Aleks. Just because those people couldn’t handle your temper, doesn’t mean you have to keep every other emotion locked up forever.”

  No, but it was safer. Because then when everything you’d come to love was ripped away from you, it didn’t hurt as much. “It’s got nothing to do with that.”