Chapter 12 Raisa
RAISA
Iwasn’t handling this well.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for seeing the man I’d once loved again. I missed him and hated him. It was a toxic mix that didn’t guide me into any other behavior than being combative.
That was how we were. We drew out the best and worst in each other despite the short term of our relationship. Right now, I was too defensive to serve the purpose I’d come here for.
I’d only come here to get help. I could no longer protect Lev on my own, and I needed Ivan’s help.
But I wasn’t in any position to ask for anything.
I’d stormed here with Lev with a chip on my shoulder for how Ivan had broken it off with me.
Too much old pain and hurt resurfaced, making me defensive.
At the first sight of Luka’s stern expression and lack of welcome, I knew I was walking into the enemy’s territory.
Which was ironically my best chance at having protection for my son.
Alone in this room with Ivan, I spiraled even further. Memories of private moments bombarded me. Recollections of past intimacy and secret smiles and touches tormented me.
I couldn’t go back there. There was no way I could trust him with my heart again.
Yet, with no one else watching us as he scowled at me, cornering me against the walls, I was taken back to the excitement of what it was like to be the sole object of his attention.
To when we were young and carefree, without any excuses not to touch and kiss and—
No. Hell no. Stop it. Get a hold of yourself!
“How the fuck could you hide my son from me all this time?” he demanded in a low growl.
“To keep him safe,” I shot back, as if it should’ve been obvious. “And what is it to you, anyway? You walked away from me.” I pointed at his chest, jabbing my finger at the hard wall of muscles there.
He snatched my hand, his eyes lighting up with anger. “If I’d known—”
I tugged free from his hold, not trusting how right it felt to have his hands on me at all. It was a heady experience to be under his direct gaze, a sinister one at that, but to feel him? That was too much.
“What? If you’d known I was pregnant, then what? You’d keep me as a side piece while you fucked your girlfriend? You’d make me be your mistress while—”
He stepped into my space. Letting out a growl, he set his hand on my neck. A slight squeeze was all it took for me to understand how unhinged he was. How close he was to losing control.
I swallowed hard, hating how having his hand on my neck like this led to some of the hottest sex I could ever experience.
No. No! We are not going there. I couldn’t be so dumb as to ignore the warning bells in my mind and cave to lust. It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be fair, how easily I could surrender to the memory of him.
He’d cheated on me. He left me. He never sought me out. For that trifecta alone, he had to be the enemy where my heart was concerned.
“Why did you do that to me?” I demanded, keeping all the heat in my tone and in my glower because if I cracked, if I let him detect how he’d hurt me, I’d never reclaim any authority or power in this exchange again.
I couldn’t let him see how much he’d broken my heart.
“Why did you deceive me and sleep with her? Why did you leave me for her in the end?”
We’d faced so many odds. If we wanted to be together past that summer when I was supposed to be off studying at university, we could’ve tried to fight the Mafia politics that were certain to stand between us.
But he hadn’t even tried.
“You are in no position to just show up and demand answers. You are answering me. You are telling me everything that has happened since the last time we saw each other.”
“Me?” I shoved at his chest, incensed all over again at the mere possibility he could think he was a victim and deserved answers, not the other way around. He had no damn right to act like I’d wronged him. He cheated. He left. All I did was survive.
“You'd better start talking now, Raisa, so help me God…” He shook his head as he tightened his grip on my neck slightly.
And damn it if his dominance didn’t turn me on.
I had to hate him now. Nothing else would do. I couldn’t live with the oxymoron of loathing him and desiring him in the same stroke of a second. Fate couldn’t be that cruel.
“No. You answer me. Tell me why I wasn’t good enough to fight for. Tell me why you had to go to her instead of—”
“I didn’t.”
I pushed his chest again to no avail. He didn’t budge. So furious and feeling out of control, I lifted my hand to slap him again for lying like this.
“I didn’t choose her,” he insisted as he tugged me closer. Holding my hand out, stopping the slap I intended for him, he pulled me to him with his fingers wrapped around my neck. He didn’t wait. He didn’t ask.
Forcing me toward him, he secured me under his control until we met in the middle.
With our lips. He crushed his mouth against mine, stealing my breath and silencing me at once.
Kissing me like he wanted to rage and vent all his anger by locking his lips against mine, he growled.
Then he grunted. With a rough inhale through his nose as he reared back to stare at me, he showed me the glittering fury he couldn’t hold in any longer.
And I was no better.
Just that touch of his wicked mouth on mine, and I was gone.
Need swamped me. The past swirled in my mind, reminding me how good it was to be his and to feel all of him.
His mouth brushing over mine possessively like now, as he lunged in for more.
His fingers curling over my neck as he constrained me and kept me where he wanted me.
His dick, hard and pushing against my stomach as he pinned me to the wall.
He consumed me. This desire lay dormant and stagnant all these years as I hid and stayed off the radar of any Mafia man. But with one touch, one kiss, I unraveled.
There was no stopping this. No way to slow down this lust for this one man I’d missed and scorned for too long. Kissing him frantically, I tried to crawl up into his strong arms. Clinging to him as he grabbed my thigh and picked my leg up, I wished I could feel his bare skin flush against mine.
Lit up with a fire that only he could put out, I was tossed into the storm of needing him now.
I didn’t care how full of contradictions I was at this second.
I didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t been with Serena when he was supposed to be exclusively with me that summer so many years ago.
I didn’t care for his attitude like I was the bad guy in this war between us.
He’d wronged me.
It was his fault Lev didn’t have a father all this time.
I had every right to loathe this man, but at the same time, I was acting in the extreme of lusting for him so acutely that I barely registered us tugging our clothes off in a mad rush.
I was supposed to be wary and only ask this man for security for our son, yet I was focusing on nothing more than kissing him.
I could only funnel my efforts into freeing his dick and stroking it until he growled against my mouth.
“Fuck. Raisa. Fuck.” He could barely speak, panting for air as he shoved my pants and panties down my legs. The fabric clung to one ankle. Our shirts were bunched up but still on. I couldn’t slow down enough to shove his jacket fully off his shoulders.
All that mattered was kissing him and tasting his spicy command. The only thing I could do was close my eyes under the bite of his teeth on my lip as he turned us, carrying me to the bed.
I slammed down and the breath was pushed out of my lungs. He didn’t give me a chance to fill them with much air as he followed me down with his body, hovering over me and pushing me into the mattress.
Then before I could finish looping my arms around his neck, he lined his big dick up to me and nudged in. And then some more. Another inch. Going slow was not a possibility. I was too rabid for him. I was too famished for him to fill me like he used to.
Completely. Deeply. And so thoroughly that thought and speech weren’t happening.
Blanking out at the pure bliss of Ivan sinking all the way into me, stretching my pussy with that delicious bite of pain, I closed my eyes and let the rest of the world fade away.
The worry about keeping Lev safe. The wonder of what the Rivera Italians wanted with me. Why they sought us now and saw me as a target. How they found me. Where I could go next. If Luka would ever let me have security. If my father was truly dead.
All those question marks swirled relentlessly, but as Ivan pulled out then slid back inside me, over and over with a dizzying speed, I gave up on everything but pursuing the allure of relief.
My orgasm was right there. Within reach.
Surrendering to just feel, to experience this release and bliss of nothing but an endorphin rush, I held on tight and stopped fighting it.
I stopped fighting him. Like this, I could only go along for the ride and trust he would make me feel so good.
“Raisa.” He grunted, straining over me as he worked to make me shatter. Returning his hand to my neck, he pounded into me with such a steady, slick tempo. Under his wicked stare as he watched me, I listened to the suctioning sounds of my arousal. “Fuck…”
He tightened his fingers ever so slightly. The pressure didn’t hurt, but the expression of his power and dominance over me like this was too much to handle.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I cried out and came. Waves of pleasure crashed through me, shredding my soul and making me soar with the sweetest ache of euphoria.
It’d been so long—as long as it had been since I’d seen him and made love with him—that I felt this all-consuming sensation of both flying and falling.
Under the threat of passing out from coming so hard, I could only kiss him back weakly.
Regret would come swiftly. I knew it would. But for the moment, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.
As he thrust into me twice more and flooded me with his hot cum, I held on to his back and tried to convince myself this was a mistake that I would never repeat again.