by SR Jones
“You have your own personal Rottweiler now, darling.” He brushes my hair from my face and scowls. “I prefer you with your hair up. You see all your astonishing bone structure that way.”
“My head is a bit sore,” I say absentmindedly.
A dark smile stretches across his thin mouth, and he digs his fingers into my hair and pulls hard.
“Ow,” I exclaim without thinking that Bohdan might hear.
“Go and pull your hair back. You look untidy. I hate untidiness.”
“Okay,” I say hoping he’ll let go, but he doesn’t. He takes a harder grip and pulls my head into him.
“Don’t think I’ve not seen the way you’ve been looking at your guardian angel,” he mouths into my neck, his lips hot, damp, and repulsive. “I see you.”
“Send him away then,” I say. It would be for the best. Save me from myself.
“I would, but I enjoy seeing you make such a fool of yourself. You think a man like that is going to notice you?” He gives a vicious tug to my hair, making my scalp burn.
I want to tell him that man has most definitely noticed me, but I don’t say a word.
“You’re not good enough for him. He’s very handsome. I think he broke his nose recently, as it’s still got the scar across the top, but even then, he’s still too good looking for you. A man like that? He’ll have had hundreds, maybe thousands of women. Lilliana was eating him up at dinner the other evening. He’s not going to be interested in some skinny ginger woman with no tits to speak of.”
He lets go of my hair but not before he bangs his fist against my head. Fucking bastard. I don’t look at him because I just want this to stop. I want him to go on his business trip, so that I can screw the man he says won’t even look at me.
Three hours later, and with Jasper finally gone, I’m lazing in a hot bath filled with a musky rose-scented oil. I bought it whilst performing in the Middle East, and it’s such a luxurious scent. The rose is the top note but then there’s a base note of oud that comes through, heady and sensual.
I swish my arms through the water. I’m about to cheat on my husband. It’s for the second time, but the first I was hardly in my right mind. Now, I’m calculating and purposeful. He’s been cheating on me for years. We don’t love one another. In fact, it’s safe to say we hate one another with a destructive force. He hates me because I’m the one who is famous. I’m the one loved and revered. He also hates me because he needs me. Without me there is no fabulous lifestyle and secondhand fame.
Slipping a finger through the water, I part my folds and touch myself. I rarely do this. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with it, but because I hardly ever feel in the mood.
Now though, a man with blue eyes, full lips, and a beautiful wildness has made me want all the things I’ve spent years burying under fear and sadness.
When we did what we did the other day, I didn’t get a chance to explore. I want to tonight.
What if he turns me down?
The thought has my stomach sinking. I’m so down after the horrible scene with Jasper that it will be seriously hard if Bohdan does reject me.
I push the thought aside. Fortune favors the brave after all. Pulling on the silky camisole top and silk panties, I admire myself in the foggy mirror. The silk is a dark grey, and it looks nice against my pale skin. I rub body lotion enriched with the same scent as the bath oil over my arms and legs. Then I take the band out of my hair, letting it fall down my back. My teeth are cleaned, and I’m all clean too. Now I want Bohdan to make me dirty again.
I smile at myself in the mirror and realize what a rare feeling it is for me to smile this way. It’s normally only something I do when I’m performing, and I’m in that perfect moment of flow.
Smoothing the camisole, I take a deep breath and walk to the door, opening it. I pad across my bedroom, out into the hallway and to the next door, Bohdan’s room. I hesitate outside it. Do I knock?
What if Jasper has put cameras in the rooms? I doubt he’d go so far, but who knows. Do I care anymore?
I’m standing in my hallway, and I might as well be holding a grenade and deciding whether to take the pin out or not.
With a step forward and my hand on the door handle, I detonate the explosion and step into Bohdan’s room.
He’s asleep, with a book over his chest and the bedside light on. He’s wearing reading glasses, and something about that hits me in the gut. The glasses lend him a slightly vulnerable air, and with his mussed hair, and his softly parted lips I feel something beyond lust. This is the boy I knew. This man here is the one who offered me safety and comfort during some very hard times.
He’s also the one who betrayed me, but right now I can’t bring myself to care. It was a long time ago, we were young, he was drunk and plied with drugs. I feel a sense of lightness as I let it go for now.
Walking toward him, I sit on the bed and tap on top of the book. “Bohdan?”
He awakens immediately and reaches under his pillow. I swallow when he takes out the gun, but as soon as he focuses on me, he relaxes.
“Shit, Dasha, don’t creep up on me like that; it could be dangerous.”
“Sorry.” I bite my lip, suddenly unsure of what I’m doing here, and of how to proceed.
He takes in my appearance and licks his lips as he places the gun inside the bedside drawer, not under the pillow. “Did you come in here because you needed something?”
The question is loaded. I nod, unable to put it into words.
“What do you need, beautiful?”
I shrug.
God, what happened to my voice.
“Do you need to forget?” he asks.
I nod.
“To feel good?”
I nod again.
He comes close and lifts his hand to tangle it in my hair. Unlike Jasper’s cruel hold, Bohdan’s is firm but tender too.
“I’ve got you,” he says, and then he kisses me.
It’s deep, and it seems full of emotion. I tell myself I’m being a stupid woman and imagining things, but it feels as if Bohdan kisses me as if his life depends on it. His hands sweep down my arms, and then up my side, slipping over the silk of the camisole.
“I like this,” he says.
Is it sexy? It’s classy, but that’s not the same thing necessarily. Maybe Jasper is right, and Bohdan likes women with big boobs spilling out of sexy, lacy bras. He’s taking a trip down memory lane with me, re-experiencing that rush of first love, but it doesn’t mean I’m someone he’d be attracted to if we didn’t have our history. I stop his movements for a moment and pull my mouth free of his.
“What’s your type?” I ask.
He frowns. “Sorry?”
“Women, what type do you go for?”
“You. You’re my type.”
I make a lame joke. “Oh, you’re a smooth talker. Seriously, though, what’s your type. “
“Seriously, though, you are. You’re stunning.” He skims a hand down my arms again, his fingers leaving goose bumps in their wake.
“I’m skinny,” I say.
“Delicate,” he replies.
“Ginger hair, and most people don’t like that.”
“Red hair, and lots of people love it.”
“Pasty skin.”
“It’s like fucking porcelain, Dasha. Where is this shit coming from? You’re beautiful. You’re talented. World famous in your field. Why the downer on yourself?”
I shrug. “I know I’m not most men’s type. I’m classically beautiful, facially; I know that. But I’m not sexy. That’s okay. It’s never bothered me before, but now, tonight, I want to feel sexy.”
“Dasha, I’m not saying empty words here. You’re the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. You were the moment I saw you again when you were sixteen, and you had that gorgeous red hair falling around your shoulders.”
Him mentioning that moment brings up another woman over him, sucking him, and I wasn’t sexy enough to stop him looking elsewhere,
was I?
He must read some of my thoughts in my face. “Dasha, I’m so sorry about what I did. I have no excuse except to say I was fucking wasted. Beyond anything I’d been before. I got drunk and someone gave me something, and I didn’t realize it was ecstasy. I was not in control of my faculties. It’s not an excuse, but the truth. I wish you hadn’t seen it.”
He knows I was at the party due to a very acrimonious phone call we had afterward. Acrimonious on my part; he was fucking off his head still.
I nod and try not to cry because damn it I don’t cry when my husband beats me and covers me in trash, so why am I wanting to now?
“But what I did,” he continues, “it was all on me because I was fucked up, and it felt good for a brief moment in time. It meant nothing, and the woman, I can’t even remember what she looks like.”
I can.
He sighs. “There’s been a lot of women, Dasha. I’ve got to be honest with you before we go any further. I’m clean. I use condoms, and I get tested, but I’ve not been exactly celibate since we last saw one another. But the only woman who ever meant anything was you. That’s not me spouting flowery bullshit. It’s the truth. I thought of you nearly every day. You’re one of the few people in this world to really know me. I also thought you’d betrayed me in the worst way. So, you see, I’ve spent years loving and hating you in equal measure. Some days my hatred for you was white hot, on others my love for you was as deep as the ocean, but through it all you were never nothing.”
Holy crap. What do I say to that? I’ve thought of him too, obviously, but not every day.
He looks at me. “I’ve been thinking about what we’d do if you were pregnant, and I don’t want you stuck in this loveless marriage.”
His words hit me hard. He thinks I can get pregnant?
“I’m not pregnant. I’m on the pill,” I lie.
“Birth control isn’t always one hundred percent. All I’m saying is I thought about it, and if you were—”
“Bohdan,” I interrupt testily. “I’m not fucking pregnant.”
He laughs. “Okay, Dasha. I’m not trying to get you pregnant. I’m trying to tell you something else. It made me realize that I don’t want you to have to spend your life living with a man you hate and who hates you.”
“So you’re offering what? A new life with you?”
“Maybe.”
“What?” I shake my head. This is insane. This is also everything I could ever want offered on a plate, but I can’t go and just be with Bohdan. If he helps me leave Jasper, I need to be alone. I don’t know who I am anymore. Plus, it’s hardly sane what he’s proposing. We don’t know anything about one another now. We only know each other as the past versions of ourselves.
“I can’t talk about this,” I say. I start to get up from the bed, hating the feeling of panic gripping me.
“Okay, it’s okay. We won’t talk. You came here looking for something. Let me give you that, Dasha.”
The way he says my name is so seductive. Not quick and irritated, the way Jasper does, but heavy, drawn out. Daaaassshha.
“I want to give it to you too,” I say.
He pulls me into him and kisses me, and it’s where I need to be. The talking, the feelings, the past, none of it matters when he’s kissing me.
His fingers trail down my arm and take the right strap of my camisole with them, exposing my breast. He looks down and murmurs, beautiful, before kissing his way down my neck, down my throat, onto my collarbone and then over my breast. He takes my nipple into his hot mouth and tugs on it.
I cry out and pull his head into me, needing more.
His hands skim up the back of the silk camisole, and his callouses catch on the material. He’s not a man who has manicures like Jasper, but a man who uses his hands.
When he takes it off, I help by lifting my arms over my head. Every single touch is amplified. The silk against my skin, my hair brushing my back when it falls into place. The way his fingers skate over my skin, setting nerve endings alight. It’s all so wonderfully heightened.
It’s not long before he has me completely naked, and he crawls over me, staring down at me as if he’s taking in every inch of skin. Then he moves down my body and parts my thighs.
He looks at my pussy and glances up at me, his expression ravenous. “I have dreamed about tasting you for fifteen fucking years.”
With those words, he parts my folds and sucks my clit into his sinfully clever mouth.
I arch off the bed and cry out at the sensation. It’s too much, and I start to move away, shocked by how intense it feels after so long of not being touched. Bohdan grips my hips firmly and holds me in place. He licks at me, and sucks at me, and then he pushes his tongue inside, and I explode. I come so hard, I find it hard to catch my breath.
Bohdan looks up at me, and there’s such a fierce expression of male arousal on his face that I could come all over again.
“I want to taste you too,” I tell him.
“Be my guest,” he says as he crawls up the bed.
Then he takes my mouth in his, and I taste myself on his lips as he kisses me hard and deep.
It’s a kiss that says we’re only just getting started.
Chapter Seventeen
Bohdan
I was going to leave after she ordered me to. I had decided I ought to, for her and for me.
Somewhere along the way, as the hours passed, I changed my mind. I’ve come to understand that nothing will drag me away from here or from Dasha. She’s mine on an elemental level. We were always meant to be together. One lost boy and one lost girl who found one another three times.
What are the odds? I believe in God. I believe he has a plan for us. I think his plan for me always was Dasha. He just waited until the right time to bring her back into my life.
Now, I’m able to save her. She says she can’t be with me, but that’s bullshit. She can love me. I’ll shower her with love the way I used to shower her with magic pixie dust, and she’ll be mine.
I smile to myself in deep satisfaction as she takes me in her mouth. She is greedy, licking and slurping at me, and I know if I let this go on for too long, I’ll come down her throat. Whilst it’s not a terrible thought, I want to come in her tight pussy. I push her off me, and pull her in for a kiss, before arranging her under me.
Last time we fucked it was hard, fast, brutal even. This time, I want slow, sensual, skin on skin. I want to make her feel so damn much her barriers start to crumble. We’re bare again because she says she’s on the pill. I’m clean, and I know she must be after being basically celibate for the last few years.
I kiss her as I enter her, and she sighs into my mouth. Her arms come around me, and her small breasts brush against my chest.
Once I’m seated as deep in her as I can get, I begin to move. She hitches her hips after a few strokes and tries to speed us up. I pull my mouth from hers and look deep into her eyes. I see desire, longing, but also fear.
She wants this hard and fast, I realize, so she doesn’t have to feel anything deeper than a good orgasm.
I keep it slow, resisting her efforts to turn this into just another fuck. She turns her face away, hiding from me, so I kiss her throat, her neck, her ear. I kiss across her cheek, then claim her mouth.
Everything I feel for her I put into this kiss. All the emotions of the past, all the years spent hating her as much as I loved her, I pour it all into the place where our lips meet. She matches the feeling, but when I pull away again and look at her, she turns her head.
I’m in heaven, but I want her there with me, fully with me.
“Look at me,” I demand.
She doesn’t move, so I gently take her chin in my hand and bring her face around to mine. I hitch my hips searching for that spot inside her that will drive her crazy.
After a couple of angle changes, I hit her right, and her mouth falls open as she drags in a gasped breath.
That’s it, baby, I think.
I bet fucking Jasp
er couldn’t find her g-spot if she drew him a map, back when they were still screwing.
Her eyes widen as I hit that spot repeatedly. She’s panting now, and her eyes aren’t hiding from me; they’re wide and fixed on me as I fuck her so good, she’ll fall in love with me.
“Oh God, I’ve never … this is … I think I’m going to… Bohdan,” she calls out my name on a pained cry and digs her nails into my back as she comes hard. She soaks me with her release, and I experience a primal sense of triumph.
I fall over the edge, adding my seed to the mess between us.
I hold her tight and drift to sleep with her in my arms.
At some point I wake up to find her all warm and naked next to me, and we make love again. And for me, it is making love. I’ve always loved her, I suppose, but I hated her too. Now the hate has gone, and all that’s left is a need to make her mine.
I want to bring my lost girl home, to live with me on Corfu, where we can bathe in the sun and swim in the ocean. Who cares if she can’t dance professionally there? I’ll build her a fucking studio and let her dance for me every damn day.
Drifting in and out of sleep with her in my arms, I dream of sun, sand, and sea, and Dasha with me all the time. At some point, I rouse myself enough to realize I ought to tell her to leave my bedroom, but then she makes this cute little snuffling sound and snuggles into me more.
My eyes drift closed once more.
**
“Well, this is unexpected. I don’t know what to say. Dasha, wake up, you cannot behave this way.”
I jerk awake at the voice that most definitely does not belong to Dasha, crack open one eye, and see her mother stood in the doorway of the room, her face disgusted.
Dasha squirms next to me as she sits up, rubbing her face as if she can rub the opium of sleep away. Her face falls, and she turns to the doorway, horror on her face.
“Mother. What are you doing here?”
“Jasper asked me to come check on you while he is away. He’s worried about you. Now I know why. I checked your room and when you weren’t there checked the others and this is what I find?”