by J. L. Beck
I’m panting, my entire body shaking, a liquified mess when he pulls his fingers from my entrance and brings them to his lips. He licks the tips before plunging them deep inside his mouth.
“Fuck, Kitten, you’re so damn tight and taste like something I don’t fucking deserve, but damn, am I going to ravage you, like you’re my last damn meal.”
“Please, yes…” I claw at his chest like the kitten he claims me to be. He must enjoy this because he grins, moving from the bed for a moment to dispose of his boxers and grab a little foil packet from the nearby nightstand.
My eyes are glued to his incredibly stiff cock. It’s huge, bigger than I remember it being. My insides tingle at the thought of his taking me, owning my body like no one else has before.
“It’s now or never, Kitten. If you don’t want this, say it, because once I enter you, it’s going to be really fucking hard for me to stop.”
I nibble on my bottom lip, lifting my eyes to his gray ones, not even contemplating my response. “You’re it for me, Ivan. You’re what I want.”
“Good, because I want you, too,” he murmurs, crawling back onto the bed. His huge body looming above mine makes me feel protected, secure, and I know I couldn’t have chosen a better man to give myself to.
“Take me…” I want him so badly I can feel the need in every single pore of my skin. The air is electric between us and when he leans forward and presses his lips to mine, that electric current courses through my body, jolting it, restarting my heart.
He kisses me for a long moment, the sound of the foil packet opening meets my ears, and then he pulls away. He places the condom on the head of his swollen cock and rolls it down each glorious inch of stiffness.
“If I hurt you, tell me. I’ll try not to, but there’s no helping it on your first time. You’re tight as hell, and there’s no changing that, not that I would want to.” He winks at me, and I melt, I actually melt into the sheets beneath me. Spreading my legs wide, he centers himself between them, his thickness probing my entrance.
Air stills in my lungs, and then I feel him moving. One of his hands moves to beneath my head, cradling it, while the other grips onto my hip, holding me in place while he moves forward. I nibble on my bottom lip. His body is strung tight, the muscles flex as he moves, and I lift my hands, touching every inch of his perfectly chiseled chest.
I hope this moment is as perfect for him as it is me. An unknown emotion flickers in his eyes, and then pain seems to contort his features, and I don’t understand why. I almost ask him what's wrong but then I feel the head of his cock slip between my wet folds. He teases me, moving his thickness up and down over my overly sensitive clit.
“Ivan,” I whimper, wanting him deep inside of me.
“Shhh…” he orders, with a pained smile, before bringing himself to my entrance. His hips thrust forward an inch, and the air in my lungs stills when I feel him enter me. I feel stretched and a burning sensation zings across my womb.
Ivan grits his teeth and flexes his hips forward another inch, slowly gaining entrance inside me. My heart squeezes inside my chest as he possesses my body with a gentleness that I never would’ve expected. I cling to his chest, wanting more, wanting him to own me completely.
Lifting my hips, even against his paw of a hand, I urge him forward, making him slip deeper into my channel. There’s a sting of pain, but there’s pleasure, too, and I want that pleasure. I want it so bad I can taste it.
“Slow down, Kitten,” Ivan growls, and I sink my nails into his chest, lifting my hips again, stealing another greedy inch. A hiss escapes his lips as I do this a couple more times, enjoying the pleasure that courses through my veins and the rumble in Ivan’s chest as he disapproves.
Once he’s seated deep inside me, I moan. I feel impossibly full, my channel stretched and filled with every inch of Ivan. He stills, leaving me to adjust to his size but I don’t need that. I just need him. Lifting my hips, I urge him forward, and this time, he doesn’t fight it as if he, too, can’t let a single inch of space separate us.
His head falls into the crook of my neck, and I feel his heated breath on my skin. He’s panting, his muscles rippling underneath my hands. I can feel his cock twitch deep inside me. He’s holding back, and I don’t want him to. I want all of him, the dark beast he claims to be, the gentle giant he is. I want to see and feel each part of the man he is.
His fingers tighten in my hair, as he holds my head to his chest, and I can’t take it anymore. I want more. I need more.
“Fuck me, Ivan. Take me how you want to. Own me,” I whisper into his ear, I feel the tension in the air snap, and then he’s doing just as I asked him to. He pulls all the way out of me, positioning his hips as he thrusts back in. Pain and pleasure consume me, coating me from the inside out.
“Is this what you want, Kitten?” He thrusts into me once more, grinding himself into my center, rubbing against my swollen clit.
The motion knocks the air from my lungs, and I sink my nails deeper into his back. He hisses out in maybe pain, maybe pleasure, I have no clue and pulls out of me completely, slamming into me to the hilt over and over again.
Each thrust breaks away the person I was before I came here, before I found him, before I started to fall in love with him.
“Damnit, Kitten, you’re so tight, your pussy is swallowing my cock perfectly. Taking every inch of it like it was made for me.”
“Yes,” I gasp, letting him own me with every thrust. Tears spring from my eyes as he grunts, moving in and out of me at a treacherous pace. My chest expands as I inhale our mingled scents mixed with sex into my lungs. A tightness unravels in my lower belly, and I feel my orgasm building. I’m climbing higher and higher with every powerful stroke he gives me, his body moving against mine in a feverish way. I feel nothing but him in this moment. There’s no one else but Ivan and me.
There’s no bad, no good. No right or wrong. Just us, finding a means to an end. Seeking out what we both desperately want and need.
“I can’t last much longer, Kitten. I need you to come…” Ivan’s voice is rough, gravelly, and it makes me shiver, my hardened nipples rubbing against his muscled chest.
“I’m close,” I whimper, and with uncanny strength, he holds himself up on one arm and maneuvers the other between our bodies, his fingers rubbing against my clit. That, coupled with the deep thrust of his cock, sends me flying over the edge, like a rocket soaring into the sky.
Every muscle inside my body tightens, and my head spins. I can’t tell what’s up or down and frankly, I couldn’t care either way. My pussy strangles his length, quivering with aftershocks of pleasure. A few strokes later, I feel his body tense, his cock throbbing deep inside me, a roar of unbridled pleasure escaping his lips and filling my ears.
My whole body feels like air, as if I’m just floating into nothingness. My body and mind are sated, and my heart feels full, brimming with an emotion I can’t explain.
Thoughts swirl inside my head about Ivan, about all he’s done for me, about what he continues to do, and when I feel the tears slipping down my cheeks, I know I’m screwed. Before I can think about what I’m going to say, the words are coming out.
“I love you.” It hangs in the air between us, and for a moment, I don't think that he’s even heard it until I fell his body tense above mine. A coldness sweeps through me, and I wince as he pulls out, pushing off the bed and away from me.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to do this.”
I blink, the euphoric pleasure easing from my veins, anger and sadness replacing it. His body is turned away from me, but I can still feel the anger and resentment radiating from him just because I said those three little words.
“It’s not like I meant it. People say things in the moment all the time,” I lie.
He turns on me, his face is a mask of anger now, and I see the guilt in his eyes.
God, why did I have to open my mouth?
He takes off the condom, tossing it into a trash c
an near the bed. Rivulets of blood smear against the latex and I know if I look down, I’ll find the evidence of my lost virginity, at the hands of a man I know I truly want, that I truly love.
“You’re a liar, Violet, and you’re a bad one at that. I deal with liars every single fucking day. The worst kind of men you can think of. Don’t lie to me.”
His voice is stern, and I feel like I’ve ruined this entire moment. Maybe even more than this moment. What if I’ve ruined everything? What if he won’t help me after this? He could leave me in the cell for the next eight days and let me go to the auction. There wouldn’t be anything I could do on my own to get out of here. Without him, I’m completely alone and helpless. I wish I could take the words back.
“Feel however you want to feel but it changes nothing. Nothing we’ve done tonight changes anything. It was just sex, Violet. You asked me to do this for you and I did. I gave you what you wanted, and now this…” Ivan seems to grow more agitated as he slips into the bathroom. I hear the water turn on and a second later, he appears in the doorway, a washcloth in his hand, his eyes bleeding into mine.
“I didn’t mean it, Ivan. I swear I didn’t,” I reply hoarsely, as he walks over to the bed and kneels down on it. I hiss at the contact of the warm washcloth against my overly sensitive pussy as he gently wipes away the blood and evidence of our sex.
“Stop,” he orders, and I feel the fresh tears slipping down my cheeks. I’m an emotional mess right now, wearing every single feeling I have on my face. He only looks at my face briefly before he gets up and pulls on a pair of boxers. I watch him through my tears as he gets out some clean boxers and a shirt, tossing them in my direction.
“Get dressed.”
Panic clings to me. Is he really going to send me back downstairs? “Please, Ivan, don’t do this. I’m sorry. Please… don’t bring me back downstairs. I’ll sleep on the floor if you don’t want me in the bed, just please don’t make me sleep in the cell again.” I might be pathetic sounding right now, but I don’t care. The fear of being locked in that cell for the next week is so overwhelming that I would do about anything to avoid it.
He turns back to face me, and I try to blink the tears away, but all it does is makes some more roll down my face. His gaze softens, his anger level dropping from a nine to a seven.
“Just put some clothes on and lie down,” he orders before walking out, slamming the door behind him, leaving me cold and alone.
I sob into the sheets, pain radiating out of my chest. I want this to be a lasting memory but all I can think about is forgetting this night, forgetting how I ruined us.
Chapter Twelve
Ivan
Three fucking words. Three little words strung together. To some, they meant nothing, but they left me with a hole in my fucking chest. It wasn’t the words that hurt me, it was the meaning behind them, and what they meant to her that bothered me.
I grit my teeth and clench my fists tightly, the muscles in my forearm burning with a need to destroy. Why did she have to say those three fucking words? I let the tension inside my body spiral out of control as I grab the bottle of whiskey from the counter and pop the cork off. With no care for a glass, I take a huge gulp straight from the bottle.
The amber liquid burns in the back of my throat, and I relish in that burn as it settles into my stomach. Warmth pools and spreads out across my insides, and I take another drink, and then another, drowning my pain, my past, and a future I’ll never have in the warmth of whiskey.
It would be so much fucking easier if she saw me as a monster, as the fucking man giving her a death sentence, but I’m not even doing that. I’m saving her, setting her fucking free, and when all this is over, I’ll be nothing but a black stain on her heart, a dark memory from her past that she doesn’t want to remember. My grip on the bottle of whiskey is hard enough to shatter it, and I swallow around the bile that rises in my throat at the memory of losing my sister.
I saved Violet to make up for failing my sister, but I didn’t really save Violet. I didn’t fucking save anybody. She loves me. She fucking loves me, and that’s not saving her, that’s condemning her to a life she’ll never be able to escape from. Everyone who ever loved me is either dead or wishes me dead. I destroy anyone who gets close to me, and I’ll destroy her, too, if I don’t let her go.
“Roman…” I called out for my brother, but he wouldn’t look at me.
He hated me as much as I hated myself.
“You killed her, Ivan. You killed our sister.” Tears filled his blue eyes, and I swallowed around the guilt and shame that coated my insides.
“I didn’t mean for her to get hurt.” I pleaded with him to understand, for anyone to understand. I was so alone, so broken, that parts of me wished it was me who had been struck by a car that day instead of Mira. I deserved to die, not her. She was young, beautiful, and had a long life ahead of her.
“All you had to do was be a brother.” Roman shoved against my chest, and I let him. He pushed me, his fists slamming against my chest. We were both the same size now, and if I wanted to, I could probably stop him, but I didn’t want to.
I wanted to die. I wanted him to hurt me.
“All you had to do was watch her, and you didn’t. You let her die, you killed her…” Each word came with a punch, and I didn’t even realize I was crying until the tears started to fall.
“It should have been me, Roman. It should have been.” At my words, the punches stopped, and I blinked away the tears staining my vision. Roman looked me straight in the eyes, my little brother, the last person I had in my life to protect.
“I hate you, Ivan. I hate you,” he snarled, and I knew he meant every single word he said.
When I come to, there are tears on my cheeks and my entire body shakes with anger and sadness. It’s been years since I cried, since I fucking let the feelings unravel inside me, but vowing to help Violet, seeing her struggle and be attacked, brought those feelings closer to the surface.
“Fuck her,” I growl, chugging the rest of the whiskey in the bottle. I’m angry... so fucking angry. I’m on the verge of exploding and even through the fucking haze, I know I still want her. Even when I shouldn’t, I still want her. I want her to love me, because I want to love her, too... and maybe in some way, I fucking do.
I don’t know. I let the whiskey burn me from the inside out, drowning out my emotions. Every single fucking thought fades as the alcohol takes over my body. I throw the bottle against the wall, listening as it hits, shattering into a million pieces in various directions. I grab the next thing I see and toss it against the wall…
I didn’t save her... I didn’t… Like a tornado ripping through a small town, I destroy my apartment. Nothing matters. Nothing. I grab a bottle of vodka and start chugging it. It burns my insides and makes my eyes water but I don’t care. I just don’t want to feel anymore.
A gasp fills the air… and I know who that gasp belongs to.
“Go the fuck away,” I growl, keeping my back to her. I don’t want to see her face, the pain in her eyes. She broke us. Ruined this fragile moment, a moment I gave her because she begged for it. I should have known better. I should have kept my dick in my pants.
“Ivan.” Her voice cracks something inside of me, and I hear her small footfalls moving behind me. What the fuck is she doing? Why isn’t she listening to me?
I whirl around, anger pouring out of me, like lava erupting from a volcano. She’s picking up all the shit I’ve broken, the shit I wanted to break. She’s trying to fix things that can’t be fixed and for some reason, that makes me angrier.
“I said to fucking go away.” I stumble over to her, feeling pieces of glass imbed into the bottoms of my feet. I feel the skin slice, but I don’t feel pain. I feel nothing. I am numb. Broken.
Violet gazes up at me, her bottom lip trembling, fear taking root in those deep blues of hers. I can’t image what she’s thinking right now, how she’s feeling?
I tell myself not to care when I g
rab her by the arm and force her to stand, failing to notice the broken glass shards in her hand. My movements jostle her, and when I hear the cry of pain fall from her lips, I stop, releasing her instantly. Our eyes meet, and we both look down to her hand at the same time where a piece of glass has pierced through her skin and is now sticking out.
“Shit…” Within half a second, I am completely sober. At the sight of her blood, anger is replaced with worry. Blood starts to drip from the cut, sliding down her wrist and onto the hardwood floor beneath our feet.
“I’m sorry,” she barely gets out, her eyes misting over. Fuck, she’s going to cry again. I’m such an asshole. She just wanted to help, and now she is sorry because I hurt her.
“No, Kitten, don’t be sorry.” Picking her up by the hips, I walk her to the kitchen. Shoving shit out of the way as I go, I sit her on the kitchen counter. Her fragile body starts to shake, and I know I have to do something. “I’m going to get the first aid kit. Please don’t move.”
I walk over the broken glass, not caring about anything but Violet in this moment. I walk into the bedroom and then the bathroom, grabbing the first aid kit. I jog back into the kitchen and see her body swaying, her head against the cupboard behind her.
“You still with me, Kitten?”
“Yes.” Her eyes go wide as they drop back down to her hand. Her face is pale, and she looks like she might throw up. “Why did you destroy your house?”
I want to laugh. Even when she’s hurting, she’s still trying to figure me out, trying to piece me back together.
“Me destroying my house is the least of your worries right now. I need to get this glass out of your hand and stitch you up.” I’m focused, determined. I’ve cleaned many wounds in my days. I’ve given many stitches; hell, I’ve stitched up myself, but I’ve never done this for a woman before.