by Lora Leigh
He jerked his head back, allowing her to drag in much-needed air for just a second. Then one hand gripped the side of her rear and his hips rolled against hers. The hard length of his cock stroked her swollen clit and sent daggers of brilliant heat striking at her womb.
“I wanted to be gentle.” His voice was a hard rasp as his lips took stinging tastes of her neck. “I wanted to love you, Syn.”
Something clenched and tore at her heart as jagged emotion flooded it.
“Love isn’t always gentle … Oh God … Ivan…” she cried out in shock as his teeth raked the sensitive cord in her neck, as his hand gripped her rear more firmly and jerked her tighter against the length of his cock.
She was killing him.
Ivan felt himself losing all sense of control when those damning words slipped from her lips.
Control evaporated, but the determination to ensure her pleasure, to ensure she knew the ultimate in satisfaction, was instinct.
Before she could erode the last semblance of strength he possessed, he reached out and flipped off the water, then stepped from the shower with her in his arms.
Heated towels hung outside the glass cubicle and he made certain to use them quickly. As he knelt before her, rubbing the thick cotton over her thighs, he found himself pausing. His gaze centered on the silky, bare perfection of her inner lips, slick and shimmering with her feminine dew.
“Part your legs.” He could barely speak for the lust tearing through him. “Now, Syn.”
She trembled, her thighs parting slowly.
“Ivan, I won’t be able to stand.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. “I’ll fall.”
He licked his lips, the thought of tasting her again raging through him like the need for a fix through an addict.
“I won’t let you fall.” He jerked the padded vanity stool from beneath the counter. Damn thing had sat there for years unused. He had the perfect use for it. “Sit, baby.” Easing her to the chair, he urged her to lean back as he lifted one delicate foot to his shoulder.
Shock and need filled her expression. Her green eyes were the color of emeralds as she stared at his lips.
Deliberately, he let his tongue ease out to touch his lower lip and watched her eyes daze, her face flush, as her lips parted to drag in more air. Staring back at her, lust thundering through his system as he sat at her feet, he eased forward and let his tongue slide through the lush, silky juices coating her flesh.
He groaned at the first taste of her. A hint of sweetness and spice, a delicate, intoxicating blend that went to his senses faster than liquor. And made him hungrier, more desperate, for her than ever.
Parting the swollen folds, he let himself take her with ravenous need. His tongue fucked inside her pussy, pushing past the clenched, saturated entrance before easing free of her and licking along the delicate slit again.
Her clit was swollen, her cries meeting each hard thrust of his tongue or suckling pressure of his mouth. Her hands threaded in his hair again, clenched. Her hips lifted to him and her head fell back along the counter as she became lost in the pleasure.
“That’s it, Syn,” he groaned as he eased back and tucked two fingers at the entrance to her vagina. “Come for me, baby. Let me feel how much tighter that sweet pussy can get.”
His lips covered her clit as he worked his fingers inside her, thrusting into the delicate tissue as his cock throbbed, his cum tightening his balls in impending release.
God, she was straining his control. But he wanted her release, her orgasm. Wanted to feel her coming apart around his fingers and against his tongue.
“Ivan.” Her broken gasp was a second behind her ragged cry. “I can’t…” She jerked, shuddering in his grip, her pussy tightening, tension radiating through her. “Ivan…” Her cry was filled with desperation now. “I can’t stop…”
He could feel her fighting her orgasm, just as she had that first night. The first time the pleasure tore through her and stole her senses. And he wouldn’t allow her to stop now, any more than he allowed her to stop it before.
Thrusting his fingers inside her, he curled the tips just enough to reach a highly sensitive spot as he tightened his lips on her clit and held firmly to the hip his free hand gripped.
A low, keening cry filled the bathroom a second before she jerked in his hold. Her pussy clamped around his fingers, milking them as the silky wash of her orgasm flowed around them. Against his tongue, her clit flexed, swelled further, and as he held her to his mouth another cry tore from her. Shudders raced through her; her hands gripped his hair, her thighs clamping with delicate greed on his head.
It was like a drug, making her come. He realized that as he consumed each shudder, each delicate taste and cry that spilled from her. Making his Syn orgasm was addictive.
Journey finally remembered how to breathe, how to process information, as she was carried out of the bathroom and felt Ivan recline back onto the bed, her body covering him, her thighs gripping his.
“Ride me, Syn,” he demanded, his voice a dark rasp she couldn’t help but obey.
She lifted herself until she knelt above him, her hands braced on his tight abdomen as he cupped her rear and lifted her until the broad crest of his cock notched at the entrance of her sex.
Staring down at him, she was entranced by the wicked sensuality in his expression, the pure hunger gleaming in his near-black eyes.
“Take me, baby,” he whispered, black lashes lowered at half-mast, a sexy, teasing grin edging at his lips, belying the bead of sweat easing down the side of his face. “Show me how you want to be fucked.”
The explicit sexual demand was more erotic than it should be.
She eased lower, taking the crest, her eyes drifting closed.
“No.” The sudden pressure at her hips, stilling her as well as his demand, had her eyes opening in surprise, locking with his. “Let me see your eyes. Let me watch your pleasure, Syn.”
Oh God, she didn’t know if she could do this. She didn’t know if she could keep her eyes opened. But the pressure holding her still eased, allowing her to work the engorged head deeper inside her, and what she saw in his face had a whimper escaping her.
He wanted to watch her pleasure, but did he know what he was showing her? He stared at her the same way Tehya’s husband stared at the wife he loved. His expression absorbed, a glimmer of some inner flame making his eyes brighter.
“Ivan…” He promised her whatever she wanted, whatever she needed. Was she bold enough to demand it now?
Rising and lowering, she took him deeper, fighting the need, the hunger.
“I love you, Syn…” He whispered the words.
She stilled, his flesh locked halfway inside her, hard and throbbing, his body tense as he held back and waited.
“Take what’s yours, love,” he invited her, his accent thick, his voice rough. “Take all of me.”
“I love you…” The words wouldn’t still, wouldn’t hide. But she knew what he didn’t; it was no illusion.
But at the whispered vow his hips jerked beneath her, driving the hard wedge of flesh deeper, harder, before he stilled again.
“Ride me, Syn…” A grimace pulled at his expression. “Now, damn you. Fuck me, baby. Give me you.”
She was lost.
Staring into his eyes as a cry left her lips, she took him. All of him. Her head tipping back in ecstasy as the fiery pleasure and pain of the hard impalement tore through her.
“Look at me,” he snarled, gripping the hair at the side of her head and pulling her head back. “Let me see your love, Syn. Let me see it.”
The demand was low, intense. Tortured.
Opening her eyes, she stared down at him as his hands cupped her rear, moving her, taking her as she took him. Just his gaze locked with hers, his erection thrusting inside her. Hard muscles flexed in his arms, his powerful shoulders, and his abs. A sheen of perspiration covering both their bodies as he drove her higher into a pleasure that only built and built. A pleas
ure that bordered pain, bordered pure rapture.
“Love me, my Syn,” he groaned as her whimpers turned to cries, her nails digging into his shoulders. “Sweet Journey. Love…”
Her orgasm exploded in a wave of such intense ecstasy, she knew she gave him far more than her heart. It was never an illusion for her, he realized as she watched him, felt his cock drive to the hilt as the blast of his release filled her. Deep, powerful pulses of heat filling her, extending her pleasure, and owning her.
This man owned her, and God only knew if her heart could survive it.
“I love you. Oh God, Ivan, I love you…” She collapsed against his chest, shuddering, tremors wracking her body with each wave of sensation tearing through her.
Finally, sated, limp, and exhausted as she lay against his chest, she closed her eyes and let herself just exist within the illusion.
An illusion he allowed.
“I love you, my Syn…”
* * *
She was asleep.
Ivan stared at Journey’s still features, tracked her deep breaths, and rose wearily from the bed.
Fuck. Where was his mind? What the hell was he allowing in this fucking illusion he was destroying himself with?
Dressing, he slipped from the bedroom, restless, plagued by more questions than answers and a deep, heavy certainty that something was changing within him. Something he didn’t recognize.
“There you are.” Ilya met him at the bottom of the stairs, alert, armed. “I wondered if you’d show up.”
When at the house, he always went through it with Ilya himself every night, just to be certain everything was secure before he turned in to sleep.
And now to ensure his Syn was protected.
Was there any way to protect her from him or the situation? he wondered as he went through the house with Ilya checking windows and doors before he rejoined Journey in the bedroom. If he were a man in love, he told himself, then her protection would be more important than bringing down the two Taite patriarchs.
And he found himself wishing he could protect her from it. He didn’t believe in love, had never allowed himself to be weakened by the belief in it, but with Journey he found himself questioning his plans.
If he dropped his need for vengeance, it wouldn’t affect his safety either way, or his daughter’s. But if he dropped it, Journey would never be safe. Whoever hunted her now wouldn’t stop until they killed her, and he had no doubt the threat against her involved her grandfather and her father, in some way.
Pausing at the French doors leading to the patio and pool, he found himself staring into the night, actually contemplating the pros and cons of just having them killed. It would be difficult, the chances of failure were higher than he liked, but he could have it done.
And if he failed he’d lose the backing of the covert agency that so often covered his ass since those bloody years in Russia.
“She’s safer here than on other property you own.” Ilya spoke behind him, his accented tone quiet.
“True.” Sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he let his gaze continue tracking the night rather than meeting that of Ilya.
“You’ll break her, Ivan,” Ilya warned him. And trust Ilya to never allow a man to forget who and what he was.
“Her conditions,” he reminded his assistant. “There are no lies between us.”
That was the problem with friends such as Ilya. They didn’t sugarcoat a damned thing.
“You slid that ring on her finger easily enough,” his friend grunted. “Where’s your mind, Ivan? To allow her this illusion is cruel. You’ll walk from her as you have from every other woman in your life with the exception of your daughter.”
Would he? Could he?
As he stared into the night he realized he’d been giving Journey far more of himself than he’d ever imagined possible. And it had begun further back than the night of her father and grandfather’s arrests. It had begun when he glimpsed her discomfort at that party so long ago, and the fact that he’d only wanted to ease it. She’d been a child, but the fear, social unease, and desperation to escape that filled her young face had caused his chest to ache for some reason.
“Ivan, you’re too hard for her…” Ilya continued, his voice low.
“Leave off.” He didn’t want to hear what a bastard he was where women were concerned. He knew. “If I rescind the deal she’ll run. She’ll die. You know that.”
And that he couldn’t bear, though why she mattered more than other women he’d slept with he had no idea.
“You forget her cousin,” Ilya reminded him. “As she said, they can hide her.”
He turned to face his friend then, mockery twisting his smile. “She would never be satisfied with that. She’s found her independence; being hobbled would only see her boredom pushing her into trouble again. Tell me you don’t already suspect it yourself.”
Ilya shook his head at the claim. “I don’t know, but I saw your face when you gave her that ring. You’re risking not just her, but you. And when you risk yourself, I become concerned.”
Tilting his head, he stared back at Ilya curiously. “And how am I risking myself?” He was almost amused by the claim.
“You’re going to allow yourself to believe this illusion while spinning it for her,” he charged. “That’s dangerous.”
Ivan snorted at the claim. “I’m too old for fairy tales, Ilya.”
“No doubt her cousin’s husband, Jordan, told himself this as well even as he sank within it.” Ilya moved to the bar and poured himself a drink. “Her cousin Tehya has even that hardheaded bastard whispering of love and cooing at their child now. The thing about fairy tales,” Ilya warned him, “is how easy it becomes to believe in them.”
Ivan simply stared back at him, weighing his words. It wasn’t the fairy tale that held a man though, he thought. It was the hunger to fill the night, to find a measure of peace, to know one woman as he’d never known another. To know that one woman who pulled at him as no other ever had.
“Fairy tales or not,” he finally said softly, “there’s no way to pull her out of this, and no way to truly protect her until it’s dealt with. You and I know that well. Where a threat exists, the potential for discovery rises by the day. And of all of us, she’s innocent.”
Journey, his little Syn. Perhaps the play on the assumed name she’d carried wasn’t so far off. She was a woman to tempt a man to sin. To tempt a man to forget the lessons life had taught him.
“Beware the fairy tale, Ivan,” Ilya warned him then. “For both your sakes.” Nodding at him, the other man finished his drink before turning and heading through the house to his suite and the woman tangling not just his life but also his emotions into knots.
Beware the fairy tale. Because for the first time in his life, he was beginning to wish it wasn’t just a fairy tale.
chapter ten
She hated being on display.
Journey had always hated the times her parents demanded she make an appearance at whatever party or function and play the perfect daughter. She’d sworn when she left she’d never allow that again.
Now she wasn’t just allowing it, but she’d also helped Ivan plan it. For his vengeance. For her dream.
Was the illusion of being loved really worth it? she wondered as she allowed him to help her from the back of the limo several evenings later outside the exclusive Manhattan restaurant.
She was aware of the flash of lightbulbs, the questions the paparazzi were throwing out to him that he ignored with such arrogance.
Placing his hand possessively at the small of her back, he led her through the door held open by an impassive doorman.
“Mr. Resnova. Miss.” The maître d’s cool expression was belied by the curiosity in his brown eyes. “Your table’s ready. If you’ll follow me.”
Turning sharply on his heel, he led them through the tables as though every head weren’t turning to watch their progress.
Journey gripped the small silk cl
utch she carried, all too aware of the whispers following them. The whispered, “Taite brat…,” probably hurt the most though.
No doubt Ivan had heard it, if the tension in his big body as they stepped to their table was any indication.
Nothing could overshadow the knowledge that they were all but rubbing Stephen and Craig Taite’s faces in the fact that she now belonged to Ivan. Not the expensive silk of the short green slip dress, designer shoes, expensive jewelry, or simple diamond on her finger could make her forget why she was there with him.
“I feel like an oddity in a freak show,” she muttered after the waiter delivered Ivan’s vodka and poured her wine before retreating.
“The most beautiful oddity,” he assured her softly with a subtle toast of his glass. “And the most unique.”
“But still an oddity,” she sighed, refusing to glance around the room.
They were there alone, the only two in the room, as she repeated his warning to herself as she looked up at him.
“In the best of ways, perhaps,” he acknowledged. “What makes you an oddity is what makes you the most desirable woman in this room though. A genuine heart, Syn. There are so few of those in the world.”
She felt her lips part in surprise at the obvious sincerity, or his perfect portrayal of it; whichever the case might be, she couldn’t help but believe him.
Besides, he called her Syn. He always called her Syn when he was being particularly honest or when he touched her. When he possessed her.
How was she going to survive without his touch when this was over? she wondered. She hadn’t known how deep her feelings for him could possibly go. But she found herself wishing this was more than an illusion, more and more.
“I remember the first time I saw you.” Leaning back in his chair, he sipped at his drink once again. Placing the glass back on the table, he gave her a rather mocking smile. “I felt like the most depraved animal.”
“Really?” She couldn’t stop the grin that touched her lips as he held her attention.
She knew now what he meant when he said they were the only ones in the room.