To Have and to Master

by Sparrow Beckett

  “So you think you can do something,” he gestured to her, “so people stop thinking I’m her father?”

  Everly burst out laughing. “Her father? Oh, that’s gotta hurt. Of course I can do it. I’ll have her looking like your type in no time.”

  “Absolutely not,” he commanded, surprising Varushka with the sternness. Did he talk to all women that way?

  Everly’s brow furrowed. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  Softer, he explained, “No. I like her the way she is. Just a little more grown up. Not like my usual type, please. I don’t think the club-girl look would suit her.”

  Varushka didn’t recognize the term “club girl” so she turned to Kon and asked in Russian what it meant.

  “An American term,” he answered. “Don’t worry about it.” With a smile, he pushed the hair back from her face. His tenderness made her feel safe and protected.

  Everly sighed loudly, then looked back and forth between them. “You know, when you have secret conversations in Russian, you’re going to make people think you’re talking about them.”

  He chuckled. “She asked what ‘club girl’ meant.”

  “Oh. That means—”

  “Everly,” he interrupted sharply.

  Her eyes went round.

  “I don’t need you corrupting my good little girl.” Was he teasing? In a lower voice, he told her, “I won’t hesitate to call Ambrose if your brattiness starts rubbing off on her.”

  Everly swallowed hard, glared, then smiled winningly. “I would never do that, Kon.” She saluted. “Brat’s honor.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Ambrose is a saint.”

  “There was nothing saintly about him this morning.” Her smile turned sly.

  What in the world were they talking about? Most of the words were foreign to Varushka but Kon sounded vaguely threatening. Did American men often take their friends’ women in hand?

  With a heavy sigh, he turned for the door. “You two have fun. Everly, the sink is clean if you need to do any washing.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing.” She followed him toward the door. “She’s in good hands.”

  Varushka trailed behind. At the door, Kon turned, then closed the distance between them. He stared down at her. “Do you have the phone I gave you?”

  She nodded.

  “You remember how to call me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t hesitate to call if you need something, okay?”

  “Yes, Sir.” The word slipped out again, despite him having told her she didn’t need to call him that. Yet every time she did, he got this funny look on his face. It was both amusing and hot.

  He cursed again in Russian, inhaled a deep breath, then kissed her forehead. If he didn’t start kissing her in more interesting places soon, she’d start calling him Papa. She got the feeling he was afraid of shocking her, or maybe scaring her. True, he was intimidating, but she couldn’t deny it sent a thrill through her. Was there something wrong with her? She’d never felt that way about a man before. And she barely knew him. Even a glowing recommendation and good reputation could be false. Perhaps she shouldn’t be too eager for more than a small kiss now and then.

  Everly closed the door behind him. Varushka felt like a mouse trapped in the cage of a hungry cat. Everly turned and grinned madly. “So . . . what color should we do your hair?”

  Varushka’s eyes went to Everly’s colorful streaks. She scrunched her nose. It looked pretty on the girl but didn’t fit Varushka’s simple style.

  Everly looked her over, walking a circle around her. “Hmm. I think we should keep it natural. It’s such a pretty color. Maybe we’ll just add a few highlights and lowlights to make it more . . . interesting.”

  “O-okay.” She had no idea what the girl was talking about. The word “natural” seemed good though.

  Everly stopped and crossed her arms, then narrowed her eyes. “I’m thinking long layers and maybe we’ll straighten out those waves. I’ll give you some product, teach you how to use it. Konstantin will love it.”

  That was all that mattered. She grinned.

  Soon after, she found herself seated on the kitchen stool while Everly painted her hair and wrapped it in tinfoil. The smell burned her nose and she fought back a moment of panic, wondering if her fancy product was going to make her hair fall out. Everly chatted about all sorts of things—life in America, how she knew Konstantin, her husband called Ambrose. The abundance of information was making her dizzy. Or maybe it was the goop she’d put in her hair.

  It didn’t help that many of her words were unfamiliar. Maybe Konstantin had a point about practicing English more.

  “You don’t talk much,” Everly finally said, pausing for a breath.

  “Sorry. I don’t speak good English. I don’t want to sound . . . dumb.”

  “Meh. Lots of Americans sound dumb even in their own language.” Varushka laughed along with her, not sure why she’d make fun of her own country. “So, how are things with Kon so far? Do you like him?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think he likes me.” She dropped her gaze to her hands in her lap, trying not to show too much sadness.

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  “He seems upset people think I’m his child.”

  “Well, I’m fixing that.” She stepped around Varushka, then stood in front of her. “That has to sit for a little while. Then we’ll rinse you out.”

  A little while? Maybe she should find something to clean. Sitting around waiting for her hair to do . . . well, whatever it was doing felt too unproductive. If she was going to impress Konstantin, she had to make herself useful. Besides, sitting idly around a house made her uncomfortable.

  “Maybe you should sit on his lap and call him Daddy.” Everly winked. “He might be into it.”

  Into what? She laughed when Everly did, despite not understanding. Americans had a strange way of being funny.

  Everly gave her a sidelong glance. “Have you two . . .”

  Varushka felt her cheeks burning. It was forward of Everly to ask, but how did a girl make friends if she didn’t confide in people?

  “Have we shared a bed? No. I don’t think he looks at me that way. He treats me like a child. Not a wife.”

  “He’s protective. Most Doms are.”

  Doms? She gave Everly a puzzled look but the girl just smiled. She’d have to ask Konstantin about that word later.

  “Did Kon tell you anything?” she asked. “About what he likes?”

  Varushka shook her head. She may have been sheltered, but Antonia had told her enough about what men liked. Her cousin was much more brazen. She’d even told her she watched pornography—though Varushka had a hard time believing her.

  “You should ask him.”

  She bit her lip and Everly smiled. “You’re adorable. No wonder he feels so protective of you. But you don’t have to be embarrassed. Konstantin is . . . well, he doesn’t mind that sort of talk.”

  “I couldn’t . . .” Her face felt as though it were on fire. “That would be . . . I just couldn’t.”

  “Well, okay.” Everly shrugged. “But you’ll never know what he likes unless you ask.”

  According to her mother, it would be Varushka’s wifely duty to learn what her husband liked in bed and provide it. Would Konstantin force her to . . . Flashes of the graphic things Antonia had told her circled in her mind, making her grimace. Would he force her to do things that made her uncomfortable? So far, he’d taken care to make her feel at home. Surely, he wouldn’t push her.

  Hopefully sex in the dark under the covers was all he was “into.”

  Everly washed Varushka’s hair over the kitchen sink, then dried it. She gushed about how the new color added something called “depth” and “layers.” How could hair be deep? Unless she’d misunderstood the English word.

  After she fiddled with it for a long time, Everly finally let Varushka look in the mirror. She almost didn’t recognize herself. The orange mes
s she was used to wrestling into braids was striped with yellow and red, then combed neatly into straight pieces that framed her face. It looked odd and unfamiliar.

  Everly moved in behind her. “A little mascara and lip gloss and no one will mistake you for Konstantin’s daughter.” She chuckled. “Is it okay? Do you like it?”

  Varushka considered it for a moment. How funny that a simple hairdo could make her look so unlike herself. But she couldn’t deny a tiny bit of giddiness starting in her belly. For the first time in her twenty-one years, Varushka looked . . . sexy.

  “Konstantin will like this,” she said confidently, forcing herself to believe it. Added with the new clothing, she looked every bit the part he probably wanted her to play. A cultured American woman.

  They talked for a long while before Everly left. The hairdresser was easy to like, and she told her a few amusing stories about Konstantin, but Varushka got the impression she was being tactful in how much she said.

  She wondered how much Everly didn’t say.

  * * *

  They were already falling into a pattern. Varushka would wake when Konstantin’s alarm sounded, make him breakfast, keep him company until he left for work, then wander the massive, empty house, unsure of what to do with her day. Konstantin had shown her how to change the channel on the television, but she generally left it on the channel where people cooked.

  She’d dusted every door frame, done the breakfast dishes and prep work for supper, tried to read an English book from Konstantin’s bookcase, inspected the grounds, and gone for a long walk. After more indoor wandering, she came across Konstantin’s basket of laundry. A basket of laundry shouldn’t have caused so much excitement, but she was a desperate woman.

  With a feeling of satisfaction, she added her own dirty clothes to the basket, and went into one of the guest bathrooms that had a smaller tub. In the laundry room she found soap, but she didn’t trust the modern washing machine Konstantin had in the basement to do a good job. She had washed everything in the tub and was wringing a pair of Konstantin’s jeans when she felt a gentle hand stroking her hair.

  “What are you doing, little bird?”

  “Just finishing the wash, Sir.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. He didn’t seem angry, even though he’d told her not to do housework. That was a relief.

  “I thought I told you to relax. If you keep doing the dishes and the laundry, the cleaners won’t know what to do with themselves.”

  “I don’t know how to sit around. It feels like wasting time, and wasting time is bad. Besides, television here is confusing. I don’t understand the jokes on the shows, and I never liked watching the romances that play during the day.” She didn’t bother to mention her family didn’t own a TV. She only ever watched when she went to Antonia’s.

  Varushka shook out the jeans and hung them over the shower’s grab bar. There had been a stain on them from some kind of food, but they were clean as new now. His machine would have made it worse.

  Smiling kindly at her, he dried her hands with his T-shirt, then pulled her into his arms. She managed not to gasp in surprise. He stared down at her like he was thinking about kissing her.

  Konstantin, with his sinful good looks, had tempted her into all sorts of fantasies. It was frustrating that he wouldn’t even kiss her.

  She wasn’t sure what the rules were for her anymore. There’d always been an expectation that she’d save herself until marriage, but then her parents had shipped her off happily enough with no further admonitions. There were no chaperones here.

  He hadn’t tried anything with her, but he was so dangerous. And so, so pretty. Did American girls initiate closer contact? When she’d tried kissing him back in the village it’d embarrassed her enough not to again. But maybe that was what he was waiting for?

  Disappointingly, he let her go and led her into the room with the blaring television and the many sofas. He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.

  “What did you do today?” he asked, as she sat on the couch leaving room for at least two more people between them. He stretched an arm across the back of it, and Varushka was tempted to move into the crook of his arm and wondered how he’d react.

  “Nothing, really. I prepared supper and put it on the stove and went for a walk. I did a lot of thinking.”

  “Oh? About what?”

  “About things Everly said when she did my hair last week. I really like her. She said some things, though, that made me confused.”

  “Well, we can’t have that.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket glanced at it. She inched closer while he was distracted and froze when he laid the phone on the table and turned back to her.

  He arched a brow at her, as though he’d noticed she’d shifted closer, and was amused.

  “If you’re busy, I can talk to you about it later, Sir.”

  “No, I’m not busy. What did she say that you found confusing?”

  “Well, I told her that you still haven’t kissed me, and that I wasn’t sure if you didn’t like me, or you didn’t want to frighten me,” she confided.

  Konstantin smiled enigmatically. “What did Everly say?”

  “She told me you might like it if I sit on your lap and call you Daddy.”

  He coughed and covered his face with his hand. Carefully, she inched closer.

  “No.” His smile was crooked as he looked at her again. “That’s not something I’d like.”

  Now they were so close that their thighs were touching. Close enough to kiss. “I’m harder to scare than you think,” she said shyly. “I may not have been with a man, but I’m not stupid. I know how it all works. My cousin, Antonia, told me all sorts of things.” She did her best to look cool and worldly like Everly.

  It was true. Antonia had told her what she’d heard being with a man was like, how it hurt the first time, but was fun after that. Varushka got the impression that most of Antonia’s information came from television, especially when she’d told her about ridiculous things, like how men enjoyed putting their privates in women’s mouths. American shows always liked to shock people, but surely regular people didn’t do things like that.

  He was looking down at her, and again she got the impression he may kiss her, but then nothing happened. Again. If they were ever going to do anything interesting again, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She did her best to give him one of the smoldering looks women gave the camera in the music videos she’d seen, hoping it would tip the scales in her favor.

  “Are you okay?” He was frowning and blinking at her. Not the reaction she’d been looking for.

  She sighed. “Other than the fact that the man who’s supposed to marry me won’t even kiss me? Yes, I’m fine.” Enough was enough. She craned her neck, but even sitting he was too tall for her to reach his lips with her own.

  “You’re sure you want to try kissing me?” He looked like he was going to laugh, which was annoying. “You don’t want it to just happen naturally?”

  “Quit being difficult and lean down.”

  The laughter was gone from his eyes. “Don’t try to boss me around, little bird. You won’t like what happens.” There was a chill in his soft voice that made her heart race.

  A threat? He didn’t seem the type to beat his wife. “Oh? What won’t I like?”

  “If a woman I’m dating talks back to me, I’ve been known to put her over my knees and spank her.”

  Varushka looked at him incredulously. “Why?”

  “My woman will be obedient and polite to me, or I’ll put her in her place.” The narrowing of his eyes told her he meant it. Spanking? That was hardly serious enough for the gravity he seemed to be giving it. What was the big deal about a childish punishment?

  “Either she’s obedient or you’ll punish her like a little girl? It hardly seems like much motivation to obey you.” She shrugged nonchalantly, pretending not to notice the irritation in his gaze. It was interest, at least, even if she wasn’t sure it was the t
ype of interest she wanted to encourage.

  “Have you ever been spanked?”

  “Never. I’ve always been a good girl.”

  His chuckle was dark, and she got the impression they weren’t talking about the same thing.

  “Well, come sit on my lap, good girl. You can try out kissing and see if you like it. But whatever you do, please don’t call me Daddy.” He leaned back against the couch to give her access to his lap.

  Did she dare? If she didn’t hurry, he might change his mind, and now that she was so close to a breakthrough, she was excited and curious to see what all the fuss was about.

  With her heart in her throat, she climbed carefully onto his lap, trying not to squash him. “Like this?”

  He put his hands behind his head as though he was ready for a nap. “Yes, that’s fine. Go ahead and try what you want.”

  Of course he wouldn’t make this easy on her. Undeterred, she leaned closer while he watched her. She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m pretty sure at least one of us is supposed to have their eyes closed. Since I’m the one kissing you, I should probably have mine open so I don’t miss.”

  He snorted but she glared at him until he obeyed.

  She shifted closer and pressed her trembling lips against his. They were warm and smooth under hers. It was nice, but she was fairly certain he was supposed to move his lips too, or something.

  When she backed off, he opened his eyes. The jackass was still smirking.

  Before he could stop her, or push her off his lap, she mashed her mouth against his. The feeling of her teeth pressing against his through their lips was uncomfortable, but she’d be damned if she was going to give up as easily as he seemed to hope she would. Was she that awful at it? Even though the possibility stung, she was determined to impress him.

  He buried a hand in her hair and controlled her with it, so that she wasn’t being so rough. Being held that way made her insides feel like jelly. He kissed her then, long and sweet, until she was breathless. His tongue swept the seam of her lips and she recoiled.