Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
A nya
I still don’t know who the hell this guy really is, but he stays by my side through the worst days of my life. I know he must have paid for Mom’s funeral, though he never says anything about money. There’s food in the house, too. He’s taking care of absolutely everything that needs to be taken care of. He’s taking care of me.
He’s the first man to ever do that.
I can tell this place is beneath him. Everything he’s wearing, the way he carries himself, it all suggests money. A lot of money. And power. I feel poor in comparison. I feel as though I am very shabby, actually.
Grief has clouded my senses and my mind, but now it is time to discover who my furred, fanged knight really is.
“I can feel you lurking, Anya,” he says as I somewhat sneak around the lounge. “What are you thinking?”
“Are you a mind reader?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t have to ask the question,” he says. He is so gruff. When my eyes drop to his hands, I can’t help thinking about how those hands feel when they’re on me.
Every time I’m in this guy’s presence, I get wet. I try to deny that to myself, because I know very well that it’s wrong. I’m not supposed to lust after my mother’s friend. Especially when I really don’t know the first thing about him. I’ve been so focused on myself.
“At this point, I’m almost afraid to ask this question,” I say. “But…”
“Yes?”
“What’s your name?”
He smirks at me. “Alexei. My name is Alexei.”
“Nice name,” I say, not knowing what else to say. “I feel like I should have asked before, but…”
“Is okay,” he says, with the thick accent of his homeland. “You have had many other things to think about.”
“You were my mother’s friend?”
“Yes, we were very good friends in childhood.”
I look at him and try to imagine him and my mother as friends. I try to imagine them as children. It’s very hard. I can see them being friends as adults. My mom has—had—certain traits that I see in him. A certain coldness toward those who are not family, a strength, a pride, a power. It’s hard to imagine either one of them as being carefree or playful.
“Did you used to hang out together, and…”
“We suffered together.”
“Oh. Of course. That makes sense,” I say, inwardly cringing at having made the assumption of happiness. I’ve heard my mother’s stories, and I’ve read thirty percent of a Tolstoy book. I know Russians aren’t given to experiencing easy times. I guess, technically, I am Russian too. I’ve just never felt like it.
“Do you know who my dad was?”
I blurt the question, because it is the one secret my mom made sure to take to the grave, and I know there’s some chance it is actually the man in front of me, which would make my physical reactions to him entirely twisted.
“It is not me,” he says. “I can assure you of that.”
“Okay, good,” I sigh, relieved. “I mean, not that… I mean, if you were… I mean… you’d probably be a very good dad, I’m just really happy that you’re not my dad because…”
“Because every time you come near me, you want nothing more than for me to throw you down and fuck you.”
His words, suddenly crude, make me flush with embarrassment. He knows how I feel around him, I’m sure of it. He’s seen… things. I feel myself blushing bright fucking red, and aim for a retreat.
“Anya,” he says, making me turn.
“What?”
“Stay.”
He says the word firmly enough to make me comply. It’s like his tone hits a portion of my brain that simply shuts the parts down that make decisions for themselves. I know it’s an alpha trait, but the part of me that’s forever human really bristles at having that trick pulled on me. I know he’s going to leave soon. He’ll have to. He’ll have a life to live elsewhere, and then I am going to be here, alone, living without my mom, without school. I’m going to have to try to get a job at the grocery store or something and hope I can make ends meet. I don’t even know if the house is paid off yet. Do I have a mortgage? Are they going to take everything?
“Anya.”
He says my name more softly, distracting me from my internal panic. I look into his eyes and I feel myself start to fall and then that makes it bad all over again. I have got to get a grip.
“I don’t need help,” I tell him.
It’s not true. I need so much help, but I don’t want to ask for it, or acknowledge how much it all means to me. I cook for him, I keep the house clean.
He smiles at me over the coffee I am sure he wishes was better. Mom only ever had instant and we don’t have a coffeemaker.
“I know,” he says in a tone that suggests he doesn’t believe me for a moment. “But I am going to help you anyway.”
“You’ve done enough,” I say, knowing I am pushing him away, but not being able to stop. “I appreciate it, I really do, but you owed my mom, not me, so you can go whenever you want.”
His brows lower a fraction. He doesn’t like me saying that. It sounds too much like I’m telling him what to do, and if there’s one thing he does not like, it’s being told what to do.
“I am going to look after you,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do about that.”
“I can run away again.”
I know as soon as those words leave my mouth that they are the wrong thing to say.
“I mean, I could… no! I’m sorry, that’s not what I mean… hey!”
He stands up and somehow grabs me without even having to try. I thought I was trying to evade him, but there’s no way I’m going to get away.
I am tossed over his lap, landing with my hips over his thigh. Next thing I know, he’s spanking me. Hard. His hand meets my rear over and over and over again with a relentless speed that makes a horrible sting turn into a hot, deep ache.
I scream and whine and kick and fight him as hard as I can, but, like every other time I fought him as hard as I could and tried to get away, I fail. There’s no way out of this Russian madman’s grip, and there’s no stopping what he’s doing to me.
“When I tell you what is going to happen, you will accept it like a good girl,” he says, his accent especially guttural on the two g’s of ‘good’ and ‘girl.’
Before this man, I’d never been spanked by anybody. My mother would never lay a finger on me, and she’d never let anybody else do it either. I’m still shocked to my very core at how it feels to be disciplined. I hate it. It really fucking sucks. It hurts and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, which isn’t fair.
What’s even worse is that the pain is very quickly starting to be something else. There’s a heat in my ass that is sinking through my skin, into my flesh, and finding me right between my legs. There’s a tingling right at the apex of my lips as my clit starts to act out at the worst possible time. Every time he smacks me, he jolts me against his leg and I grind myself against his muscular thigh.
I hope he doesn’t notice. It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. It’s not like I want to get myself off. I just can’t help how I respond to the way he is touching me. I don’t feel as though I am entirely in control of myself right now.
I am absolutely horrified when he flips my skirt up and drags my underwear down. I feel it grip against my lips for a moment as my arousal betrays me. As much as I try to clamp my thighs together and avoid him seeing what’s happening to my underwear, I lose that battle too.
He pushes my legs apart easily and runs his fingers along the length of my slit before smacking my now bare ass.
“Wet,” he says. “You like being spanked, little wolf?”
The way he growls the words ‘little wolf’ makes me want to curl up and hide. There’s some tenderness in it, as well as a note of something much more carnal. The way he talks makes my stomach clench and flip. I don’t want to find my captor hot. I don’t want to like him in any capacity, but my pussy is dripping wet right now.
His fingers slide back between my thighs, I feel him part my lips, open me up, and push them inside me. He goes a little way in, then stops as he finds that little point of resistance that comes from being a virgin.
Only my mate will ever fuck me, I have sworn that to myself, and to my mate who I am yet to meet. I have promised that to myself for a long time. I don’t want to risk any of the problems you get when you mate with the wrong person. I don’t want to risk my transformation. I don’t want to accidentally bond with some unsuitable guy.
He pulls his fingers out, then slaps my pussy. I gasp in outrage and also with a fresh rush of desire as I learn that having my pussy spanked feels a lot better than having my ass spanked. My pussy pulses and my hips squirm, and there’s a moment in which I think I might actually come right then and there.
“You are a hungry little wolf,” he says, pushing his fingers back down between my thighs. This time he doesn’t spank me. This time he presses them against the hot little button of my clitoris and rubs it in quick, rough circles. He forces more yelps and whines out of my mouth, making it impossible for me to deny how I am being affected.
“Show me,” he commands. “Show me how you can come for me.” He keeps rubbing me, pausing only to slide down to the entrance of my pussy and push himself inside me just that little bit again. I arch my hips up and back, instinctively trying to get more, wanting him in any and every way I can have him. He makes a little chastising sound and pulls his fingers free, slapping my ass in sharp, short little smacks. I don’t think he’s trying to teach me a lesson anymore. I think he’s trying to make an erotic scene with me, prove to me that I have absolutely no control whatsoever when it comes to him.
I want to come. I want to feel an orgasm running through me. I want some kind of release. I need it. I need it so badly I don’t care if it makes sense or not, whether I should let a complete stranger finger me or not, whether I should hate him for abducting me and spanking me or not.
But he’s not going to let me. The second I start to get close, his fingers move away from both my clit and my hole. He goes back to spanking me, more forcefully this time, his palm landing hard and fast once more. My feet drum against the seat as I try my best to maintain some kind of composure.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting me?”
“I’m not hurting you,” he says. “I’m giving you what you need. I’m showing you what your body is capable of—a little of it, anyway. You might be a sweet little wolf, but you are waiting to become so much more.”
He pushes his fingers back into me and the pad of his thumb finds my clit. He presses firmly against that sensitive little bud and works the tips of his fingers in and out of the entrance to my pussy. He is fucking me with a swift and dominant demeanor, using me how he wants to, preserving my virginity by the finest of threads as I start to buck and writhe under his talented touch.
Then, just as I feel like my orgasm is inevitable, every muscle in my body going tight, my toes curling, my breath coming in short, sharp rasping gasps—he stops.
“Fuck you!” I curse as he rubs my hot ass instead of my pussy.
“You would like that, wouldn’t you,” he rumbles down at me. He is almost twice my age. Fucking him would be a terrible thing to do. It would be so inappropriate. My mate is someone closer to my age, I am sure. It’s not a much older man from another country.
“No!” I lie with an exclamation because I have to.
He starts spanking me again, those short, sharp slaps that pepper my ass with the tingling results. I am glad for the excuse to stop talking. I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to say anything at all. I just want to fucking come.
I can’t say that, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to let him know. Giving him the satisfaction of my orgasm feels like a surrender, even though he’s not actually letting me do that.
“Oh, my fucking…” I curse as his fingers find my clit again. This time he doesn’t rub. This time he slaps, the tips of his fingers making contact with wicked precision.
“Stop!” I wail. “You have to stop!”
“I’m not going to stop. I’m going to punish you like you need to be punished. You are badly disciplined. You are spoiled. And you do not listen. You might want to orgasm, but I won’t let you. I will keep you right on the edge until you start behaving.”
“Never going to happen.”
He laughs, a rough sound, and he starts going between my ass and my pussy, spanking both with those harsh slaps designed to make me swell and ache. I know my pussy isn’t getting any less wet. I am absolutely soaked. Those expensive pants he’s wearing will probably be ruined with how wet I am making them.
How embarrassing. Whether I get to climax or not, he has humiliated me deeply. He has shown me that he can wind me up into this state of insane need. I want to push my hand down between my legs and make myself come, but the second I try, he grabs my wrist and pins it behind my back. I thought I was controlled before, but I am more controlled than ever now.
“I need to explain something to you,” he says. “Listen carefully.”
I don’t really have any choice.
“You are my mate,” he says. “You are my fated mate, a person created for me. Your body was made for mine. I have tried to avoid the realization, but I cannot. You are mine. And you will be coming home with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m taking you back home,” he says.
I squirm up on his lap, which I’m surprised he lets me do, but the notion that I’m going to be taken to what is to me a foreign country just because he says so is too much.
“I don’t want to go to Russia. No offense, but I don’t think Mom brought me here just so I could go back there.”
Also, he’s a stranger, and his assumption that he can just take me to another country is wild. Even in the midst of the most intense sadness I’ve ever felt, that feels insane.
He might be insane. I should consider that. The hotness and the sadness might be getting in the way of me noticing if he has some truly unhinged traits.
Alphas are sometimes quite odd, I’ve heard. Trent was actually pretty normal, but he’s a very small fish in a very big pond. Alexei is a much bigger fish in a much bigger pond. He might be one of the biggest fish on the planet. So saying no to him, that’s probably not an option.
If my mom were alive, she wouldn’t think twice about telling him to fuck off. She would tell him that I have my own life to live, and he has no right to interfere. She’d tell him that I was brought to America to live free, and all the rest of it.
He wraps his hand around the back of my neck and uses it as a grip. Electricity zaps between us. I feel my knees getting weak as an arousal so intense I barely experience it as desire overcomes me. I feel like I’m going absolutely insane with need around him, and that’s not okay.
I pull away from him, entirely freaked out. I start to cry simply from being overwhelmed, grabbing at my underwear to pull them back up, trying to get some semblance of dignity back.
“This isn’t what Mom wanted,” I sob. The words don’t match my feelings, but they provide some kind of cover for the absolute torrent of desire and emotion that is coursing through me. I know I should go to college. I should make my mother proud. But all I want to do is fuck this man who is damn near twice my age and has an uncanny ability to make me feel safe.
I hear him sigh, and I fear that I have disappointed him, but what he says next is soft and understanding.
“I will make you a deal,” he says. “If you go to college, live out the best life you claim to be able to live, the life your mother wanted you to live, then I will leave you be. But, if you fail your classes, or stop attending, I will come for you.”
“You’re not my father.”
The words come out of my mouth almost reflexively. I blush having said them because I know they make me sound young and immature. I want so badly for Alexei to take me seriously. I want him to look at me like a woman. I want him to…
“I know,” he says. “The things I will do to you when you either finish college, or drop out again, are things no father should ever do.”
I feel myself blush bright red. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” I mumble under my breath. Does he know what he’s doing to me? Does he know how I crave him? How I taunt him to punish me because that’s the only way I get to have physical contact with him? I hope not. Right now, Alexei is the only person in my life who has any kind of close authority. He doesn’t feel like a father, but I never knew my dad, so this might be the closest thing. Trust me to make something twisted and weird.
“I speak the truth,” he says, that deep voice and thick accent doing nothing to make his words any less hot.
I pull away, turn, and run, actually kind of run away from him. He lets me go and I escape to my bedroom where I start packing. Then something hits me, a little practicality I’d almost forgotten.
I sneak back out to the kitchen, where he remains in the chair that he makes look as though it was designed for a child. This man is just so very large. Again, I feel a tingle of excitement running through me at the sight of it.
“Yes, Anya?” He acknowledges me again.
“How am I going to go back to college? I dropped out.”
“Do not worry,” he says. “There will be a place for you.”
“But I lost my scholarship…”
“There will be a place for you,” he repeats.
“You really don’t need to do this for me,” I say. “I know it’s not what you want. I know you’d rather I came with you now. I know…”
“Let me tell you what I know,” he interrupts me. “I know you’re going to be tempted to roam again. You’re still unmated, and that will make you want to wander until you find the right cock for you. But, Anya, you have already found your mate. I am your alpha, and anybody who touches you will die, do you understand?”
“I don’t want anybody else to touch me,” I mutter under my breath. “I want you to…”
“I know what you want,” he says. “But once I take you, I won’t be able to leave you alone. I will be inside you day and night, and you will be working through the difficulties of your first shift. It will not be anything you can study through.”
His words make me tingle with excitement. I want to feel that all so badly, but I know he’s right. This isn’t the right time. I want to make my mother proud, and I want to actually get an education for myself too. Once I’m his, I’m not going to be doing anything other than getting fucked and having babies.
Alexei
My cock is throbbing with the effects of having had Anya squirming semi-naked over my knee. Holding back my need to mate her is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I can be patient. It would be good for her to get her education, and even better for her to have the chance to grieve her mother. She is so young, and in such a delicate condition mentally speaking. I want to give her time to recover. Russia is no place for the weak.
I also want to give her the chance to prove that she wants what she wants. Her mother would have wanted her to have an education, to have choices that she never had. I am honoring Lilly’s memory by delaying my own gratification.
I am being a good man.
And I am avoiding taking the sweet, sweet virginity of a young woman half my age.