by Anna Zaires
Continuing to lick her, I move my mouth lower, to her creamy slit, and dip my tongue inside, tasting her there. She tenses in a different way, a moan escaping her lips, and I capitalize on her growing arousal by carefully rubbing her swollen clit with my fingers. She’s moaning in earnest now, and I move my tongue even lower, to the tight ring of muscle between her ass cheeks.
Yulia stiffens for a second, but I just lick her there, tonguing her back opening and rubbing her clit until she’s panting and gasping, her hips rocking in an instinctive rhythm. I can sense that she’s on the verge, and I ruthlessly push her over, pinching her clit with a firm, steady pressure.
Her body tightens, and I feel the ring of muscle pulsing and spasming under my tongue as she cries out in release. I lick her one last time, depositing as much saliva as I can, and then, using the distraction of her orgasm, I push my finger in again. It slides in easily before her body clamps down on it, and I keep it there, letting her adjust to the sensation as I sit up and shift closer, pressing my groin against her lower body.
Her eyes are wide and dazed-looking, her lips parted as she stares at me, her chest rising and falling with panting breaths.
“I won’t hurt you,” I repeat, keeping my finger inside her as I use my free hand to guide my cock to her pussy. “This is as far as we’ll go today.”
Yulia doesn’t respond, but her eyes close, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as the tip of my cock enters her tight, slick heat. With my finger buried in her ass, I can actually feel my cock pushing into her, stretching her inner walls as I go deeper, and I groan at the exquisite pleasure of it, my balls tightening with explosive need.
“Yes, baby, that’s it. Let me in deeper…” I’m barely cognizant of what I’m saying, my voice a feral rumble in my chest as her pussy sucks me in, engulfing my entire length. “Oh, fuck, yeah, just like that…”
She cries out as I brace myself on the bed and begin thrusting, no longer able to restrain myself. Being inside her is paradise, and I never want to leave. If I had my way, I’d fuck Yulia forever. But all too soon, the pleasure intensifies, turning into razor-sharp ecstasy, and I feel the boil of incipient orgasm in my balls. My thrusting pace picks up—I’m all but jackhammering into her now—and I hear her cries growing louder, mixing with my own grunting groans. My vision blurs, my entire body seizing with intolerable tension, and through the hammering roar of my heartbeat, I hear Yulia scream and feel her inner muscles clamp down on my cock and my finger.
Dimly, I realize she’s coming, and then my own climax is upon me, my cum spurting out into her as my cock jerks uncontrollably, again and again.
30
Yulia
I’m dazed and shaking, my heart rate somewhere in the stratosphere as Lucas slowly withdraws his finger from my ass and pulls out of me. I’m so out of it I barely notice when Lucas unties me, lifts me into his arms, and carries me out of the room.
It’s not until the water spray hits me that I realize we’re standing together in the shower, his arms wrapped around me from the back to prevent me from collapsing. My leg muscles are quivering from being stretched for so long, and my body is throbbing in the aftermath of his dual invasion. Lucas is kissing my neck as he holds me in front of him, and I’m letting him, my head resting on his shoulder as warm water cascades over our bodies.
“Relax, beautiful.” His voice is a soft rumble in my ear as I attempt to pull away. His arms tighten around me, holding me in place. “We’re just going to take a nice shower together, that’s all.”
I know I should protest, push him away, but I don’t have the strength to fight him anymore. Maybe I never did—because fighting Lucas means fighting myself as well. Something perverse in me is drawn to this cruel, dangerous man, has been drawn to him from the very beginning.
Seeing that I’m no longer trying to pull away, Lucas makes sure I’m steady on my feet and carefully loosens his grip.
“Let me wash you,” he murmurs, reaching for a bottle of body wash, and I stand like an obedient child as he lathers my whole body, washing me from head to toe. His soapy hands go everywhere, even into the place his finger invaded earlier, and I close my eyes, giving myself up to his gentle ministrations.
I’ll despise myself for this tomorrow, but tonight, I want his tenderness. I crave it.
He kept his promise not to hurt me. I’m still vaguely surprised by that. When Lucas tied me up, I thought he’d do something horrible to me—and when he started touching my ass, I became sure of it. But other than the slight burn of the initial entry, his finger hadn’t hurt, and his tongue there had felt… interesting. The sensations had been strange and foreign, but nothing like the terrible pain Kirill had inflicted on me that day.
The water spray stops, and I open my eyes, realizing Lucas turned off the shower.
“Come, baby.” He guides me out of the shower stall and wraps a fluffy towel around me before briskly drying himself. “Let’s go to bed,” he says, stepping toward me. “You’re falling asleep on your feet.”
He picks me up again, and I don’t protest as he carries me back to the bedroom. Even after the shower, I feel like I’m about to fall over. The orgasms Lucas forced on me have depleted me both emotionally and physically, and there’s nothing I want more than sleep.
Sleep will be my escape for the rest of the night, and tomorrow, my tormentor will leave.
He’ll be gone, and if Rosa gave me good information, so will I.
The thought should fill me with joy, but as Lucas places me on the bed and handcuffs us together, happiness is the last thing I’m feeling. Even now, a part of me mourns the fantasy—the man I’d begun falling for before he shredded my heart.
* * *
Lucas wakes me up in the middle of the night by thrusting into me, his thick cock invading me from the back. I gasp, my eyes popping open at the sudden intrusion. I’m not as wet as before, but it doesn’t matter. My body responds to him instantly, my core flooding with liquid heat as he begins driving into me. There’s no finesse to this fucking, no attempt to make it anything but what it is.
A hard, basic claiming.
Our left wrists are still cuffed together, and the room is pitch black. I can’t see anything; I can only feel as he holds me against him, his arm a steely band around my ribcage. His hips hammer into me, and I take him in, unable to do anything else. My breathing quickens, heat rippling over my skin in waves, and my inner muscles begin to tighten.
“Tell me you’re mine.” Lucas’s hot breath washes over my neck. “Tell me you belong to me.”
“I—” The intensity of the sensations overwhelms my sleep-fogged brain. “I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“I’m yours.” I gasp as his cock hits a spot inside me that ups the heat to a volcanic burn. “I’m yours.”
“Yes, you are.” He moves his left hand to my sex, dragging my wrist along with it. “You’re mine and no one else’s.”
“Yes, no one else’s…” I don’t know what I’m saying, but with his fingers touching my clit, I don’t care. Everything about this feels surreal, like some kind of a sex dream. I can feel Lucas’s muscled body surrounding me as his cock pumps into me, and the volcanic heat grows, burning away all thought and reason. Dazed, I cry out as the sensations crest, and then I’m coming, my inner muscles clamping around his hard shaft.
Lucas groans too, and I feel his big body tensing and shuddering behind me. The warmth of his seed floods me, and my sex spasms with aftershocks, sparks of residual pleasure sizzling along my nerve endings.
Breathing hard, I close my eyes, feeling his chest rise and fall against my back as his cock slowly softens inside me. I know I should get up and clean up, or at least reach for a tissue, but I’m too relaxed, too drained by the pleasure. I don’t want to do anything but lie in Lucas’s arms. He seems to be equally unwilling to move, and my lids grow heavy as my thoughts begin to drift. All my fears and worries feel unreal, distant from this moment and from us. In some farawa
y world, we’re enemies and he’s my captor, but I’m no longer in that brutal place.
I’m here, warm and safe in my lover’s embrace.
The veil of darkness wraps around me, and as I sink deeper into the haze of dreams, I hear him say softly, “I’m sorry, Yulia. Do you hate me?”
“Never,” I whisper to my dream Lucas. “I love you. I’m yours.”
And as sleep drags me under, I feel him kiss my temple and hold me tighter, as if afraid to let me go.
31
Lucas
Yulia’s breathing takes on the steady rhythm of sleep, but I’m wide awake, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. Did she mean it? Did she know what she was saying?
Did she know it was me she was saying it to?
I want to shake her awake and demand answers, but I resist the impulse. I don’t know what I would do if Yulia told me it was Misha she was dreaming about. The mere thought of it burns me like acid. If I found out she meant the words for him…
No. I can’t go there. I don’t want Yulia looking at me like I’m a monster again.
Tightening my arm around her ribcage, I brush my lips across her temple and close my eyes, trying to relax. It was most likely a slip of the tongue, something she mumbled by accident, but even if there’s some truth to her words, why should I care? Sex is what I want from her, sex and a certain basic companionship.
Just because I want Yulia doesn’t mean I need her love.
Forcing my breathing to slow, I will sleep to come, but the thought that she might love me is like a splinter in my brain. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to let it go—or to suppress the warm sensation that accompanies the idea.
It’s an illogical reaction on my part. I know better than anyone how meaningless those words are. My parents used “I love you” as a platitude, as something to say to each other and to me at social functions. It was part of the glossy façade they presented to the public, and I’ve always known not to take them at face value. Same with the women I’ve slept with: more than one of them had used the words casually, throwing them out like one might say “hello” and “goodbye.” There’s absolutely no reason for me to latch onto this one mumbled phrase from Yulia—a phrase that might not have even been meant for me.
Unless it had been meant for me. Is that possible? It wouldn’t be casual for Yulia, that much I’m sure of. Given the circumstances, if she did fall in love with me, she’d resist letting me know for as long as possible—which means she probably didn’t realize what she was saying.
Fuck. Clearly, I can’t let the matter rest. If Yulia loves me, I need to know, so I can stop obsessing about it.
Sitting up, I lean over her and turn on the bedside lamp.
She doesn’t so much as twitch at my movements. Her lips are slightly parted, and her lashes form dark crescents on her pale cheeks. With her face relaxed in sleep, she looks impossibly young—an innocent worn out by my harsh demands.
I watch her for a few moments, then reach for the light and turn it off. Lying down, I mold my body against her slender form from the back and breathe in the sweet, peach-tinted scent of her hair.
Soon, I promise myself as I close my eyes. When I return from Chicago, I’ll question her and find out the truth.
My captive’s not going anywhere, and two weeks is not that long to wait.
* * *
The chirping of my phone alarm drags me out of deep sleep. Suppressing the urge to crush the offending object, I reach for the nightstand on my right and turn off the alarm. Yawning, I take out the key I keep in that drawer and turn back to face Yulia—who woke up from my movements this time and is regarding me with a sleepy, half-lidded gaze.
“Hi, beautiful.” Unable to resist, I unlock the handcuffs and pull her into my lap. She’s soft and pliant, her skin deliciously warm as I hold her against me, and I have to fight the urge to throw her down for one last fuck. “I have to go,” I murmur instead, kissing the top of her head. There are so many things I want to say to her, so many questions I want to ask about last night, but I settle for saying, “Be good with Diego and Eduardo, okay?”
She tenses slightly, but I feel her nod against my chest.
“Yulia, about last night…” I slide my fingers into her hair and gently pull on it, needing to see her face, but she refuses to meet my gaze, her eyes trained somewhere on my chin.
I sigh and decide to let it go. Now is not the time to get into what Yulia may or may not have said to me when she was half-asleep. “I’ll miss you,” I say softly instead.
Her lips tighten, her gaze dropping even lower, and I remind myself to be patient. I can wait two weeks. Brushing another kiss over the crown of her head, I reluctantly shift her off my lap and get up, doing my best to keep my eyes off her naked curves.
Diego and Eduardo will be here in ten minutes, and I still need to shower and get dressed.
32
Yulia
“Yulia, you’ve already met Diego, and this is Eduardo,” Lucas says, gesturing toward two young guards. “They’ll be watching you in my absence.”
I prop my hip against the kitchen table and nod at the two dark-haired men, keeping my expression carefully neutral. Diego is taller than Eduardo, but they’re both muscular and in good shape. Handsome in their own way, though I much prefer Lucas’s fierce, Viking-raider looks.
“Hello,” I say, figuring I have nothing to lose by playing nice.
“Hi, Yulia.” Diego grins at me, showing even white teeth. “I have to say, you look much… cleaner today.”
His grin is contagious, and I find myself smiling back at him. “Showers have been known to do that,” I say wryly, and he laughs out loud, throwing his head back. Eduardo chuckles too, but when I sneak a glance at Lucas, I see that his face is dark, his eyebrows pulled together into a frown.
Is he jealous of the guards he himself chose?
“You remember my instructions, right?” Lucas snaps, glaring at the two men, and I realize that he’s indeed displeased with them. “All of them?”
“Yes, of course,” Eduardo says quickly. Diego’s grin disappears, and both guards stand up straighter. “You have nothing to worry about,” the shorter man adds.
“Good.” Lucas gives them a hard look before turning to me. “I’ll see you in two weeks, okay?” he says in a softer tone, and I nod, trying to avoid meeting his pale gaze.
I have a terrible suspicion my dream last night might not have been entirely in my imagination.
Lucas pauses for a second, as if he wants to say something, but then he just turns and leaves, walking out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, I hear the front door close.
My captor is gone.
“So,” Diego says cheerfully, bringing my attention back to him. He’s grinning again, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “What’s for breakfast?”
* * *
I make an omelet for myself and the two guards, being careful not to do anything suspicious. They may seem friendly, but I don’t mistake their smiles for anything but an amicable mask.
Nice guys don’t work for illegal arms dealers, and these two have a good reason to hate me—if they know about my role in the plane crash, that is.
“So, Yulia,” Eduardo says, gobbling down his omelet with evident gusto, “how did you learn to cook like this? Is that a Russian thing?”
“I’m Ukrainian, not Russian,” I say. Though the difference in my hometown region is slight, I prefer to think of myself as belonging to the country of my employers. “And yes, it’s somewhat of an Eastern European ‘thing.’ Many people there still regard cooking as a necessary skill for a woman.”
“Oh, it’s necessary, all right.” Diego forks the last bite of his omelet into his mouth and glances longingly at the empty frying pan. “Should be mandatory, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Sure. Just like cleaning, laundry, and taking care of the kids, right?” I give the two men a syrupy-sweet smile.
“If a woman looked like you, I’d
do the laundry,” Eduardo says with apparent seriousness. “But cleaning… I guess help with that would be nice.”
I laugh, unable to help myself. The guy’s not even trying to conceal his chauvinistic views.
“I think what Eduardo’s trying to say is that Lucas is a lucky guy,” Diego says diplomatically, kicking the other guard under the table. “That’s all.”
“Right.” I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m sure that’s it.”
“You bet.” Diego winks at me and gets up to throw out his paper plate. “Eduardo’s just spoiled,” he explains, returning to the table. “First his mamacita babied him, then his ex-girlfriend.”
“Shut up,” Eduardo mutters, glowering at Diego. “Rosa didn’t baby me. She was just good at domestic things.”
“Rosa?” My ears perk up at the familiar name.
“Yeah, she’s Esguerra’s maid,” Diego says. “Sweet girl. Way too good for this guy here”—he jerks his thumb toward Eduardo—“so she dumped his ass months ago.”
“Oh, I see,” I say, trying not to appear too interested. If Rosa had dated Eduardo at some point, that explains how she knows about their poker games. “Does Esguerra have many servants?”
“Not really,” Eduardo answers, getting up to throw out his empty plate. He’s frowning; I guess the memory of being dumped by Rosa is not a pleasant one. “We should get going,” he says abruptly, then glances at me. “Are you almost done with your food, Yulia?”
I nod, consuming the remnants of my omelet. “Yes.” I carry my plate to the garbage and dump it, then wash the frying pan and place it on a paper towel to dry. “All done.”
“Good.” Diego smiles at me, his dark eyes gleaming. “Then go use the restroom, and we’ll take you on your morning walk.”