by Ana Calin
“Nothing you can help me with.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Tell me.”
I look to Janine and Princess for help. It’s not like them to keep so quiet, but one glance is enough to see they’re stricken dumb, watching the exchange with open mouths, only their eyes moving back and forth from Drago to me.
I sigh. “All right. You’re gonna need some family history in order to understand, so maybe we should all sit down.”
Janine hurries back to the living room ahead of us, checking the windows and snapping the shades shut, then checking the door like a paranoid old lady before bed.
I take a seat on the couch, crossing my knees and my ankles like I’ve been taught, and motioning Drago to an armchair that’s angled to the couch in a perfect way for conversation. But he ignores it and lowers himself onto the couch right next to me, the tension between us thick as smoke until Princess brings drinks from the kitchen. I look all over the place only not at him, but his eyes stay on me, unblinking, the heat from his body touching my skin.
I fold my arms across my chest to give myself some respite from his effect on me while I talk.
“I better start with my parents. Both born rich, both shareholders in multinationals, but Pa was also a scientist, and his dream was to rid the world of disease. He used his labs to make many discoveries in his lifetime, and even cure deadly diseases. But because he was so deep in his work, he neglected both Mom and me, and she finally left with another man. I never judged her for it, but I don’t see her much either. But that’s another story.
“If Dad suffered, I didn’t see it. He buried himself in his work, and had governesses raise me. That’s how I became something similar to a governess myself, and went to France for my studies. Unfortunately, Dad died while I was on my flight from Paris to the States. The only person by his side was Sullivan, who passed on my dad’s final wish to me—that I should not date a man who is not from Darkwood Falls, at least not before the town Council approves of him.”
I steal an apologetic glance at Drago. “I know all this must sound preposterous to you. The world out there thinks this kind of rules are dead, but they still apply in circles such as the elites of this town.”
“I understand.”
I’m surprised at Drago’s steady stare, the complete lack of surprise in his face.
“Now Sullivan, how do I put it, he uses this to manipulate me. He came here to tell me he knew that I’d met someone at Janine’s hotel in the woods, and that he won’t have it. He threatened to tell the people who invest in my dad’s legacy that I went against my dad’s last wish and one of the town’s unwritten rules. As you can imagine, I can’t let that happen. It’s why I asked you to leave, and I’m going to have to ask you again now. Just know it isn’t personal.”
But Drago doesn’t move. Silence fills the room, only the occasional creak of old furniture resounding in the big space. Janine and Princes are holding their breath, too.
“Like I said. I can help you.”
I smile at him like he doesn’t know what he’s saying, then walk over to the vintage liquor cabinet to pour myself something stronger than Princess’s tea.
“Drago, no offense, but you beat people up in cages for money. You play the gigolo for extra cash. I do believe you have the best intentions, but my Dad’s labs need much more than what you could ever make.” I use the softest, sweetest tone possible as not to offend him, but I still cringe in expectation of his reaction. I’m aware what I just said sounded terribly conceited, but it’s just the way things are.
“I can finance your labs for a year if your investors fall off the board,” he replies calmly, getting off the couch. “A year is plenty of time to find new ones, I should think.”
The girls and I watch him as he heads over, the tumbler I intended to pour vodka into frozen in my hand. When he’s close enough, Drago takes it from my hand and starts mixing my drink.
“I can also help you get rid of this stupid town rule. But.” He hands me the drink. “I’ll have something in return.”
“Another night with her,” Princess whispers, drawing both our attention. She stares at us with romance-filled eyes as if she’s watching a soap opera, saying the final line before the characters even get to. Janine giggles, but Drago stays dead serious.
“Yes. Another night.” His smoldering dark eyes turn to me. “Tonight.”
“Wait a minute,” I manage. “How do I even know you can keep either one of those promises? They are both huge.”
He pulls out his smartphone from the pocket of his jeans, and turns away from me, pacing the room while he works on it. The girls stare at me with big eyes.
“Can you check your bank account, now?” He tells me in the end.
I hold my hands up, tumbler still in my right. “This is insane. Not even bank automations work at this hour, on a weekend.”
“Just check, Arianna,” he says.
I take my laptop, log into online banking, and here it is—Drago Wolf just wired millions to my account. Freaking millions, using some channel that wired money in real time even on a weekend night. My eyes pop out of my head, frozen on the screen.
“This. Is. Sick.”
Janine and Princess gasp in awe, leaning over my shoulders to take a closer look at the screen.
“All I want is for you to spend another night with me, Arianna,” Drago says, staring at me with hungry eyes.
“Are you... hiring me as a prostitute?” I look up at him as he stops in front of me, holding out his hand. All three of us stare at his wide, rough palm that waits for mine to take it.
“I want us to have a deeply intimate and meaningful night with each other.”
“How meaningful can a sex date be?” This all feels surreal, I can’t believe this incredible man wants me of all women, pays freaking millions to be with me.
“If after tonight you decide you don’t want to see me again, I’ll get out of your life, and you’ll never hear from me again. I ask for a leap of faith, your trust, just this once.”
“A leap of faith, you say? Drago, you beat people up in underground fight clubs, you fuck women for money, and now you wire millions to my account as if nothing. This inspires anything but trust.”
“Arianna.” His dark eyes ripple with a kind of magical allure. It’s the same power he used on me on my birthday, calming me, making me oddly comfortable. “Just this one night.”
CHAPTER VI
Arianna
Drago Wolf, the magnificent beast that my friends arranged to entertain me for my birthday, is now in my bedroom. My heart pounds as I watch him pace in the shadows of my room, his hand sliding over the chest of drawers, the door to the dressing room, and the small round coffee table in the corner alcove.
“This is your reading spot,” he concludes, picking up a self-help book from the small pile.
“My favorite place in the house.”
He looks me up and down. “Speaking of home and cozy corners. You’re pretty well dressed up for a girls’ night at your place.”
“You sound like a jealous lover demanding an explanation.”
“I am a jealous lover demanding an explanation.” He walks over to me. The power I feel radiating from his body holds me in place, unable to move until he’s inches away from me.
“Last time I checked I was single.”
“Last time I checked you were tied to a bed frame, your pussy overflowing for me.”
“Drago!” I turn swiftly, my cheeks burning, but he grips my shoulders from behind and pulls me back against his chest. Oh, God, the feel of those muscles against my back, the open sides of his leather jacket brushing my naked arms, his scent of musk all around me. Is it even normal, feeling so taken with a man? This is starting to feel like a sickness, like an addiction.
“Silk dress, the color of cream,” he moans in my ear. “The fabric flowing like a river over your beautiful tits and ass.” His hands slide over my belly, gliding up to my tits and cupping hard. We bot
h hiss, my back arching to push my chest into his touch, his cock pushing against my butt.
My eyes roll of their own accord as I lose myself to his kneading and his grinding into my buttocks.
“When I saw your ex coming out of your house—” His voice is grittier, his grinding harder, his grip on me more possessive. “And you dressed like this, I had no doubt you must have invited him over. It’s why I barged in like that.” He guides me slowly to the tall mirror across from the bed.
“Look at you,” he hisses. “Every sleazy bastard’s wet dream. Who wouldn’t want their hands on you, their filthy mouths sucking these nipples.” He pinches them only lightly, but enough to make me jump. “Did you invite him here, Arianna?”
“No.”
“Then why so dressed up, huh? I thought girls’ nights were all about teddy bear pajamas, girl movies and peanut butter.”
“Pajama parties are for girls. Women try on clothes and drink wine.”
He grins in the mirror. His interrogation may be infuriating, but the way he stakes his claim on me is rather flattering. I have never felt so desired before, let alone by such an incredible stud that can have any woman he wants.
“I’m only going to say this once, Drago—I didn’t invite Sullivan over, and I didn’t dress up for him. I was raised aristocrat. My governesses had me dress up just to lounge around the house because, they said, ‘you never know who might call’. Mostly the visitors were Janine’s and Princess’s parents, bringing them over to play, but still. My governesses wouldn’t let me look less than perfect even for the newspaper boy.”
“Do you still have feelings for him? For Sullivan I mean, not the newspaper boy.”
“Very funny.”
But how could I have residual feelings for Sullivan, with Drago’s big hands claiming me like it’s his birthright, the silk twisting beneath his palms. I can feel his callouses on my skin through the fabric, and it makes my pussy moisten with need.
“Sullivan hasn’t been in my house for over a year. He came over tonight uninvited, and I told you why.”
His jaw ticks, his smoldering dark eyes drinking in my reflection. “Have you been thinking about me at least a little bit these past few days?”
“Yes,” I admit, my body moving into his touch.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then why ask, if you’re so convinced I didn’t?”
“Because I want you to persuade me otherwise.”
“Can’t you see what your touch is doing to me, Drago? Isn’t that proof enough?” The last word is almost a moan.
Lust ripples through me as I watch us in the mirror, light filtering through the curtains from the streetlamps outside. Beyond the road, the forest stretches thick and large to the foot of the mountain. A feeling buds inside of me, a feeling that this magnificent creature can only come from a different realm, one of fantasy and magic. This power he wields over me, it’s like he controls my mood, but not my thoughts.
“You haven’t even tried to get in touch with me,” he says, one hand snaking down between my legs, the other one cupped over both my breasts, squeezing them together. I twist as his fingers push between my folds through the silk of my dress. The panties underneath are silky, too, the material soon imbued with my juice, and sliding easily.
“Why?” he presses when I don’t reply, too drunk with the feel of him all over me. “Didn’t the night we spent together leave any mark on you? Didn’t you crave more?”
He lifts my dress, his fingers grazing my thigh. I breathe in sharply when he slips his fingers under my panties, right into the slick of my arousal.
“Oh, God,” I moan, resting my head against his chest, his muscled body hard against my back. I ride his hand as his thick strong fingers slide over my nub. He’s gentle, but I can tell he’s holding back his own desire to be rough.
The more he works on me the more I remember of what happened on our first night at the hotel, how he restrained me against the bed frame and thoroughly fucked me.
“I want you to do it again,” I breathe, cupping his hand over my pussy with one hand to press him harder into me, and cupping his cock with the other. I gasp when I feel it through his pants, big and thick, and I remember that it felt like an iron rod inside of me.
“I want you to use me for your pleasure, like a beast,” I tell him. “I want you to use me in a dirty, dirty way.”
His huge cock twitches through his pants. Sweet Jesus, I can’t hold back anymore. I want this man so much it hurts.
I turn around in his arms, looking deeply into his eyes.
“I have to tell you the truth, Drago.” I cup his strong jaw with my hands, his stubble scraping my palms. “I never wanted a man before the way I want you, I never even knew that lust can be so strong, that the scent of a man alone can make me wet to my thighs.” I close my eyes and bend in to inhale his scent, his face bewildered when I open them again. I smile up at him, embracing the truth. “I enjoyed our night together so much that I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t accept that I’d get off on a man using me as his own personal sex slave.” I take a deep breath before I continue. It’s not easy admitting all this.
“I want it to happen again, I want that and more, but in order to give in to such dangerous desires I have to feel safe. I need to know what happened in that hotel room. Because in the morning it turned out I might not have been as safe as I thought. The walls, the bed frame.... Plus that, well, I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like you used some kind of power on me that altered my mood, made me unafraid when I should have run for the hills.”
Drago purses his lips.
“The truth, Drago.”
“The truth,” he slurs. “Not so easy a thing to put into words.”
“Why not?”
“First, because you wouldn’t believe me, and second because it would drive you away.” He puts his hands over mine on the sides of his face, pushing my palms to his hot skin. Those smoldering dark eyes take possession of mine as his face seems to grow fuller, his bones harder and more pronounced, his stubble stinging my palms. I want to withdraw, but he doesn’t let me, keeping my hands in place.
“I will have to work my magic on you in order to help you understand and accept the truth.” His voice is now a low rumble, almost like an animal’s. “I will have to show you the truth, because telling won’t do much.”
A feeling of calm washes over me as Drago bends down and closes that sexy mouth on mine, his lips hard, his stubble scraping my skin and inflaming my desire. My head swims with how much I want him. For a moment I wonder how it would be if he and I became a couple, but then I strike it out of my head—I can’t possibly be considering a relationship with a man I know nothing about, except that he’s shady and dangerous in many ways.
“Relax,” he says among slow, sensual kisses. “My power influences your mood, but not your thinking. I’m not manipulating you. What I’m doing works simply like those pills they give you at the hospital before surgery so that you don’t panic.”
So he’s admitting that he has some kind of supernatural power. I should be freaking out right now, especially since I feel its effects so very clearly, but I don’t. I accept it as if it’s the most natural thing.
Drago kisses his way down my neck softly, every touch of his lips on my skin making my lids flutter. I lick my lips, my chest rising and falling, the blood pumping faster through my veins. Still, I don’t move at all as he continues down to my collarbone and my chest, enjoying the feeling of his hot, wet lips pressed to my body and then peeling off only to go down to another spot, not missing an inch. No one has ever kissed me like this before. It even feels like he loves it, like it gives him more pleasure than it gives me.
“You’re a goddess,” he slurs as his hands brush the silk dress off of me, along with my bra and panties, his touch sending a rush of energy over my skin. Before I know it, my clothes are pooled at my feet, while Drago takes a few steps away from me to admire my body. He looks at me like I’
m something to eat, breathing hard. I think I hear a faint growling deep in his chest.
“Wait here,” he says, and walks into the dressing room. I wait naked in the middle of my room, standing between the bed and the high wall mirror, looking at myself. Now that I felt Drago’s desire for me, I don’t find myself as flawed as I used to.
Drago comes back with two of my bathrobes—I have a whole collection of them—and holds them out to me.
“These look older. Do you still want them, or can you do without?”
“I guess I can do without,” I breathe. “Why?”
Then, right before my eyes, he tears them to pieces. He grabs a chair from the reading table in the alcove, and places it in front of the mirror.
A strange sensation sparks down in my nub and rushes from there to the rest of my body, sending a crimson color to my skin. Drago licks his lips. I can see his handsome face in the light filtering from outside—he’s deeply in lust, already imagining all the things he’ll do with my body, and I’m looking forward to it like it’s candy.
“Please,” he invites. “Take a seat.”
I lower myself on the cushioned chair, naked and vulnerable while Drago is still fully dressed, even though bare-chested under the leather jacket. He hunkers down in front of me.
“Arianna,” he says in his deep alluring voice that sends calmness through my veins. “I promise you that you are perfectly safe with me. I would rather slit my own throat than ever hurt you, so please, whatever happens, trust that you’re safe, protected. Still, if any of this makes you feel uncomfortable, if it worries you even a little bit, tell me to stop and I will, no matter how crazy horny I am.”
I swallow and nod, my eyes hanging on his with anticipation. Drago may not be the first man in my life, but he is the first to show how wonderful this can be. He may have taken me like a sex slave the last time, but I felt it was emotional for him, not just physical, which is more than I can say about Sullivan.
Drago walks around me using the strips of my torn robes to tie me to the chair. My heart thumps inside my chest, not because of fear, but because of the anticipation. Is it going to get as dirty as last time, or even more so? The idea makes me outrageously hot.