Chapter 23
ANNA
With my lips pressed against his chest, I raised my eyes to his and nodded before moving down another inch.
His hands tangled in my hair, not pushing me, pulling me, or pressing me closer to him, but simply stroking my hair, petting me, creating a warm, soft sensation that started in my chest and spread through my body.
I kissed further down, licking the long, chiseled line of his abs, memorizing every inch of him with my mouth and my fingertips—every ridge of hard muscle, every scar.
When I got to the waistband of his pants, I dropped to my knees between his thighs. With my hands resting on his knees for balance, I shifted them over the top of his thighs. Muscles contracted beneath my palms, his expression intense and focused.
His cock twitched, and his eyelids grew heavy.
“Can I?” I asked with my hands on either side of his waistband.
“Please,” he said, and I had the strange feeling that was the first time he had ever uttered that word.
I ran my fingertips over his pants along the ridge of his cock while my other hand pulled his zipper down.
He lifted just enough for me to slide his pants and boxers off at the same time.
He kicked them out of the way and lay back on the bed, his almost completely bare body framed only by the shirt draped over his arms.
I still knelt on the floor between his legs, and my hands went back to his thighs, sliding up, careful not to touch his hard cock.
I leaned forward tentatively and licked the base of his cock, just above his balls, then dragged my tongue all the way up to the head, where I wrapped my mouth around it.
An animalistic groan ripped from his chest as I licked again, paying more attention to the dark red tip.
I’d never done this before. I’d had boyfriends, yes. They weren’t like Darius. I’d only had clumsy groping sessions in a closet, stolen kisses, and rushed, mediocre fucks that were nothing like this.
I liked this.
The way people talked, I thought that getting on my knees would make me feel dirty, but it didn’t. It made me feel strong and in control.
Darius Ivanov, the head of one of the largest and most deadly Russian mafias in the world, was staring at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
His breathing was shallow because of me. His fingers dug into the bed and into my hair because he was losing control.
I was giving him this pleasure, and I did it not because he was controlling me, but solely because I wanted to.
How was that supposed to make me feel dirty?
Darius remained patient, watching me as I explored his body.
I licked another long stripe from the base of his cock to his head, savoring the salty drop of pre-cum before sucking the tip in between my lips and then sliding my mouth down slowly.
Even here, he tasted clean, like expensive soap and warm spices.
I sucked, my tongue teasing, my lips pulling more and more of him into the back of my throat.
“Fuck, maya soloveyka,” he growled.
Encouraged, I moved a little faster and pushed a little further down, beyond my comfort zone. Pushing down until my shoulders jerked and my throat tightened as spittle formed in the corners of my mouth.
“Songbird, I want more of you, but if you keep doing that, I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you everything you deserve tonight.”
I sat back on my heels, and he leaned forward. His warm hands wrapped around my upper arms and pulled me to straddle his lap.
Then his mouth fell on mine. It wasn’t a kiss. He was devouring me.
My heart leapt, and I melted against him. His hands trailed over my back down to my ass and squeezed. Jumping a little at the sting from my earlier spanking, I relaxed back into his touch almost immediately.
Reaching between us, I gripped his hot, hard cock and stroked him a few times before lining my body up with it.
He kissed and laved along my collarbone, taking his time, lingering over each spot he kissed. Then his hands tightened around my back, but he still didn’t rush.
The head of his cock pushed against my entrance, stretching me open as I allowed my body weight to slowly push him deeper and deeper inside of me.
His hands stayed on my hips, waiting for me to find a rhythm that worked for me.
I hovered over him, feeling safe in his arms, feeling bold from his breath coming out in short pants against my breasts as I rocked against him.
Feeling seen by the way he looked at me.
..like he saw my cracks, the broken pieces of me, every flaw, and still thought I was beautiful and worthy.
I leaned down and kissed him again, the kiss soft and reverent.
It wasn’t a mechanical movement of lips, tongue, and teeth but an expression of something deeper, something more.
I moved faster, and that now-familiar pressure built slowly in my core as I leaned forward, using his body to brush against my clit with every pulse of my hips.
This time, I wasn’t afraid of it or overwhelmed by it. I savored every single moment.
Hands and mouths explored each other, learning every single inch, finding not only perfection, but also perceiving the flaws and how they made us better.
For once, my mind was quiet. The drama, the threats, the pain and suffering — all of it belonged outside of this room. In this room, in the dim light, it was just him and me and the sound of our joined breathing.
The pressure built. I leaned back on pure instinct, placing my hands on his knees behind me, and took him at a different angle, forcing a new, sensational pressure in the most incredible place.
His hands skimmed over my breasts and down my sides. While one hand guided my hips, the other flattened low on my stomach, his fingers stretching from my belly button to where his thumb slipped between my pussy lips and drew slow, lazy circles over my clit.
I didn’t last long. Soon, my thighs were trembling, and my chest rose and fell with every shuddering breath I took. Once my pleasure came to its peak, Darius wrapped his arms around me and turned us over, laying me flat on the bed.
My head rested on silk pillowcases that smelled like him.
His cock was still buried inside of me, but he stopped and picked up my hand from the bed. He placed a kiss on my inner wrist before putting my hand over a star-shaped scar he had that was camouflaged in the chess piece tattoo.
Leaving my hand there, he grabbed my other arm, placed another kiss on my inner wrist, and laid that hand over the Roman numerals tattoo, where the slight ridges of another scar lay.
Questions burned on my tongue. When? How? Why?
But I swallowed them down.
This wasn't an invitation to ask. It was an answer to something unspoken between us. He'd seen my scars—the ones I'd tried to hide, to erase, to pretend never existed. And now he was showing me his own.
Not with words. Not with explanations or justifications.
Just…proof that he understood. That he carried his own damage. That he wasn't standing in judgment of mine.
With my hand still on the chess piece, I pressed a kiss to the puckered scar under the Roman numerals and slowly moved up his neck. When I shifted to kiss his lips again, I swore I saw something impossible flash through his eyes.
Vulnerability.
He kissed me again and slowly pushed us both over the edge to another mind-shattering orgasm.
After, I lay on the bed next to him, my head resting in the crook of his shoulder, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Reality was seeping in, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. I wasn’t sure if I should stop it.
The sex we just had wasn’t like the other times; it wasn’t hard fucking, a power play, complete domination.
It was intimate, deeply intimate, and in most ways, it was far better than the mind-numbing, screaming orgasms he had forced from my body before.
These were coaxed, gently pulled, but they didn’t leave me feeling hollow and used.
Instead, I felt connected, safe, and even cherished. That was something I couldn’t afford to let happen. I could recover from a quick fuck. I could recover from being used and abused; women did it every single day.
But how was I supposed to recover from my assailant offering the closest thing I had ever felt to love?
"Can I ask you something?" Darius shattered the silence with his low, dark, rumbling voice.
"Since when did you need permission?" I asked.
"My question isn't business, it's personal," he said, as if that made a difference.
Putting that damn collar around my neck may have been business for him, but every moment since those diamonds were fastened around my throat had felt very personal to me. Not to mention lying naked in this bed, my head on his chest and my arm slung over his waist.
"Go for it," I shrugged.
"Your mother, does she always talk to you like she did at the Kennedy Center?"
I bit back a frigid, brittle laugh.
"No," I answered honestly. "Sometimes she can be far more...cruel. We were in public, so her temper was under control."
"She tried to hit you," he said slowly, like I had forgotten.
"She tried to slap me," I corrected. "It was calculated so if someone were to snap a photo, it would look like a proud mother patting her daughter's cheek."
It was true, she had become a master of manipulating poses, learning how to cause the maximum amount of pain without outward signs. The few times she slipped, she paid off the reporters for the photos.
"She called you a whore and other things a woman should never be called, especially by their mother."
This time I couldn't hold back my laughter. It poured out of me in icy waves.
"It's not funny." He rolled over to look me in the eye. The concern reflected in his eyes only made me roll mine.
"You're worried that my mother called me a whore, when you have been treating me like one?" Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes as I laughed harder. "You call me a whore and a slut while you are fucking me, but you take offense when someone else—"
Peals of laughter swallowed up the rest of my words. The hypocrisy was breathtaking.
Darius went still as he waited for me to finish.
When I finally got myself under control and caught my breath, he rolled over so he was on top of me. His cock lay heavy on my lower stomach as he sank some of his weight onto me, pressing me into the mattress, calming me.
His fists wrapped around my wrists and he held them above my head.
The light was low, but I could still see the blue of his irises shining down at me.
"I call you those things in the heat of the moment because I know they are not true. You don't carry yourself like a loose woman who would spread her legs for just anyone. We may not have known each other for long but know that I see you."
"What does that even mean?" I rolled my eyes again.
His grip on my wrists tightened.
"It means that I fucking see you. I know that you don't just give in to anyone.
You aren't like your mother, who is willing to use your body and others to get what she wants.
When I call you a slut it's because I love how you melt under my touch.
You fight the desire with everything you have, but when you finally give in, you are breathtaking in your sensuality.
I have never seen a woman so raw and who wears her emotions so plainly on her face. "
My heart pounded faster as I parted my lips to catch my breath.
"I call you those things because that is what I want you to be, but only for me.
I see the naughty girl who has been locked away for so long, she is crying for attention.
She wants the sting of my hand on her ass, the shock of pain as my teeth sink into her flesh.
I see the moment you give in to the pleasure, the pain, and the need. "
His cock hardened against my stomach, and my core was getting wetter.
He leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Your submission has become my favorite drug, and I need it to breathe.
So know that when I say dirty things to you, when I call you a slut, a whore, or anything else, I am only pushing you deeper into your head, coaxing out that neglected part of you that needs to be a bad girl. "
He brushed his lips against my ear, sending shivers through me.
"Do you want to be my bad girl, maya soloveyka? The entire world sees you as a lady, a refined, modest woman, but do you want to be my little slut?"
His words unlocked something in me, a yearning that I had denied for years. His hands locked around my wrists, his weight holding me down—all gave me permission to give in to the darker impulses I didn't know I had until I met him.
"Say it, my little nightingale. Tell me how you want me to fuck you like I own you. Tell me how you want me to teach you the things you didn't even know you wanted. Beg me."
"Yes," I gasped. "Please."
He took my lips in a punishing kiss, and I instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist, my heels digging into the firm muscles of his round ass as I pushed my hips up, begging for more.
"Good girl," he growled against my lips as he took me.
This wasn't like the times before. It was hard and deep, but also slow and methodical. His thrusts weren't about racing to fill me with cum, or even to punish me while pushing me toward my own orgasm. They were about being thorough, showing me what he knew I needed and how my body was made for him.
When I came, it was with a scream and lights dancing in front of my eyes. He followed me over with a roar, and this time, when he rolled over, he held me to him, so I was resting on top of him with his cock still stretching me.
His hands traced the lines of my spine, soothing me, letting me relax around him.
“Darius?” I asked.
A low sound of acknowledgment came from the back of his throat, just enough to tell me he wasn’t asleep yet, but he would be soon.
I was either going to ask about the scars on his tattoos or for him to share a piece of himself with me.
I wanted to know the man who had taught me so much about myself in the last two days.
The man who had attacked me and then taken me apart, and the only man to have ever looked past my mother’s vitriol and power plays to see the real me.
But I couldn’t make myself do it.
Instead, I asked the only question I really needed the answer to. “Tell me that this wasn’t just part of the plan.”
I closed my eyes as tears filled them and took a shuddering breath.
Because his silence was the only answer I got, and it spoke volumes.