Chapter 39
Irelynn
The Russian Ballet is like watching something from another world. It’s breathtaking and so magically beautiful.
I could have watched the dancers move, their beauty otherworldly, forever. But as soon as it was over, and we’re back in the SUV, on the road that yawns into a dark night, my exhaustion settles in.
I want nothing more than a hot shower, and bed. I want to be tucked in close to Ilya’s broad chest, with Lucy purring nearby.
I want to be home.
Home.
When did Ilya’s house become home? When did the thought of his arms wrapped around me become the thing my heart craves?
Home.
My captor, the man I vowed I would escape from, never stop running from, has become my home.
With the thought comes a rush of hot emotion swelling inside me. I can’t pull the threads of my desires apart. Everything is twisted and wound into the chaos of my complex feelings for him. For Ilya.
And yet, deep in the darkest parts of me, I want to hold true to my promise to him. I want to run from him. I want, deeply, to make him chase me like he vowed he would.
I want to push him beyond his control, to the moment he breaks.
I want him to catch me and claim me.
Yes, I’m most assuredly depraved.
But as the gated entrance to his property appears, and the SUV rolls through, my desire to run—to make him chase, to make him hunt, only intensifies.
Heart slamming in my chest, the SUV carries us up a long, snow-covered driveway. Between the trees, I catch sight of the massive house. Warm light spills from the windows, and lantern-like exterior lights that decorate the manor glow brightly against dark stone.
We roll to a stop outside the front door, and I glance down at the heels I wear. At least they are boot-like in fashion, so my toes won’t freeze and fall off.
I’m crazy for this.
Maleficent trots to a stop next to the SUV, her shadowy eyes and dark, wolflike fur reflecting off the amber lights from the house.
My heart lurches.
Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
I don’t care. I’m doing it.
“I’ll come around for you,” Ilya tells me, his hand on the door handle.
I murmur a non-reply. If I speak, he’ll know something is wrong. Something is off.
He’ll know to be on guard.
I want to take him by surprise.
I get my chance when a man I don’t recognize jogs up to the car, claiming Ilya’s attention. In the passenger seat, Misha says, “Wait here.” And then he’s out and rounding the car. The driver joins, leaving the car running with me inside.
How easy it would be to slip into the driver’s seat and flee.
I don’t want to flee. Not really.
I watch Ilya for a moment, wondering if now is not the time to push him. But he doesn’t look too worried by whatever the man is saying. He looks more annoyed than anything, which might work in my favor. I want him frazzled just enough that he takes me and claims me the way he’s always promised he would.
Who would have thought I housed a freak inside?
I can’t believe I’m doing this…
My hand is on the handle now. It’s trembling. Outside the car, Maleficent is watching me like she knows what I’m about to do. Senses it. And—goodness, I think she’s game for it.
I open the door as quietly as I can, then I step out of the car. My heart is pounding so hard, I can hear every thud, every whoosh of blood, between my ears.
No one has noticed me yet.
“Come,” I call quietly to Maleficent. And then I run.
I’m almost to the corner of the house when a word I recognize as a Russian curse splits the night, and then I hear snow crunching as my captor pursues me. I push harder, faster, thankful for the years I spent running as a way to keep myself fit. Beside me, Maleficent keeps pace. Her ebony hair glows cool under moonlight now, as we crest the trees, slipping under the cover of their foreboding shadow.
Ilya isn’t far behind me, I sense. His hot, heavy, angry breaths taunt me as I push harder through the maze of forest. Maleficent never leaves me, the puff of her breaths steady in the otherwise quiet night, disturbed only by my own ragged gasps and Ilya’s determined strides.
He”s gaining on me.
Anticipation lurches inside my core, a storm.
I feel fingertips graze my back, grabbing onto the fabric of my jacket.
I scream. It’s delighted and fearful at the same time. A rush of emotion I’ve never felt blended quite like this. If I’m not careful, I could grow addicted to this.
“Stop,” Ilya commands.
I giggle an anxious sound as I slip out of my jacket and begin to run again. I don’t get more than a few steps before his arm is banded around my belly. Hot breath dances over my ear as he growls, “Enough.” He gives me a rough shake of warning. “You’ll freeze out here.”
I’ve not pushed him nearly far enough to make him take this where I want it to go. Even though I can feel the slam of his violent heart in my back, and the quake of his arms around my belly, he’s not yet at that point of shattered control.
Determined to push him there, I begin to fight in his arms. Slamming my hips back into him, I land an elbow into his side, earning a grunt. And another decadent, animal sounding growl has a shiver pulsing through my body that has nothing to do with the cold. Digging my boots into the snow bedding the forest floor, I try to propel myself from his hold. In response, Ilya swipes my feet from under me and I land, my hands in the icy cold.
I hardly notice the bite of tiny ice crystals in my skin as Ilya drops to his knees behind me. His big hands grip my hips in violent possession that thrills the part of me this dark man awakened when he stole me.
“I told you I’d chase you if you ran,” he growls low. The threat that rumbles like a quake through my body is something I can’t miss.
My core heats.
We’re nearly there.
“Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to put distance between us, Little Blue?” he demands coolly.
“Yes,” I gasp.
“I thought we were getting somewhere. That you were happy.” Hurt taints the anger in his voice.
My heart rattles in my chest. “Ilya.”
Hurting him hadn’t been my intention.
“I thought—fuck—” he bites out as he wraps my hair around his fist, tugging me up onto my knees in front of him. His hot breath sears the side of my neck, and his fingers twist tighter in my hair. “I should punish you.”
“Do it,” I challenge breathlessly. “Punish me.”
With one hand in my hair, holding my head back with an edge of violence, he nips the flesh he’s exposed. With his other hand, he rounds my hip to the soft flat of my lower belly. When his fingers curl his hand into a fist, that he presses into my belly, tugging me forcefully back into his chest—I feel the hardness of his arousal.
My core pulses. My breath catches.
Need drives higher within me. An arc of brilliant flame I have no hope of dousing.
“Did you like it so much when I punished you before?” His hand splays wide, palming my belly in a way that makes me feel deliciously owned, and craved beyond sanity. His lips move against the tender skin below my ear. “Did you like it when I tied you up and made you unravel for me?” He inhales the scent of me deep into his lungs, his hand moving lower over my gown, to the core of me. “Did you like it when I fucked your pink hole with my fingers, my thumb?” I bite my lip to deny him my moan. “Do you crave the hot splash of my cum on your wet little pussy?”
“Ilya—” I gasp, because I’m so wet right now, my arousal is dripping between my thighs.
“Is that why you ran from me, Little Blue? Because you had to know that was what would happen when I caught you. You had to know that I’d punish you.”
Knowing it’ll drive him wild; I angle my head to the side until my lips are a breath away from his. And then, surprising him, I crush my mouth to his. He returns the kiss with a violent one of his own that I break with a punishing bite to his lower lip.
His blue eyes, with that enchanting ring of dark, flash under cool moonlight as he thumbs the lip I bit, his tongue sliding out to soothe the assault. I didn’t break skin, but I surprised him all the same.
Delight and trepidation war inside me.
“Oh, Little Blue,” he drawls in a low voice that would terrify me if I weren’t so turned on. “I’ve warned you not to push me.”
I want to push you.
I want to shove you over the cliffside and fall with you into the abyss.
There’s no coming back from this. There’s no crawling out of this place he’s forced us both to. My heart is in this now, forever stolen.
It’s my turn to cry out in surprise as he shoves me forward, away from him. My hands fall into the snow again as I catch myself, the cut of ice crystals into my palms sharp and painful, before my mind is pulled away from that pain to a new and surprising assault. Ilya’s palm falls sharply against the thin blue satin that covers my ass, the crack of his punishment echoing in the silent forest that swallows the small scream that tears from my lips.
Another crack sounds a moment before a low growl of warning rumbles from the trees. I crane my neck to see Maleficent watching us. I realize then that she will protect me from him, if it comes to it.
“Sit,” I command, eyes locked on her. She obeys.
“Even my dog obeys you.” Another crack against my ass has a moan tearing free. “You’ve taken everything. My dogs. My heart. My soul.”
“I’ve taken everything?” I’m astonished. He’s insane with delusion if he thinks that. “You stole me!”
“I’m yours. Apparently, I’ve done a bad job of showing you that you are mine.” His hands gather my gown at my thighs. He shoves the hard swell of his arousal into my ass, demanding, “Do you feel this?”
Oh, I feel it.But I taunt, “Feel what?”
One second, I’m on my hands and knees in the snow. The next, he’s flipped me on my back. At least I’m now mostly sprawled on my fallen jacket, and snow isn’t biting into the tender flesh on my back that my gown has left exposed.
My eyes snap to him, and my breath stalls in my lungs. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face since I took off running. He’s agonizingly beautiful, his dark emotion raw in the shine of his brilliant eyes. His hair is mussed from the run, his broad chest heaving. The ink from his tattoo’s peeks from the collar of his shirt where a couple buttons have popped loose.
He looks like a god of war come to claim his prize. There’s something wild in the depths of his eyes. Something that ignites a fire deep within the core of me, the flames wild and uncontrolled and demanding. It’s a fire only he can sate.
I whimper.
His lips curl into a grin that can be described only as devilish.
I return his grin as I lift my foot and slam it into his chest. He likes this, the fight. The forbidden push and pull. This dark dance we’ve crafted.
The sound of his surprised breath delights me a moment before he grips my ankle in one hand. I lift the other and he catches it before I can connect. I realize the predicament I’ve gotten myself into when he flings my legs wide, shoving his body between them.
My gown tumbles to my waist, exposing me to him. His eyes flash with surprised heat, a strike of lightning in the icy blue to sizzle the shadows that dance around his demons. A ravenous, hungry groan bubbles from the depths of him as his eyes drop to the core of me. I know what he’s seeing. Glistening wet coats my thighs, dripping from me. To avoid lines in my dress, I forewent my panties.
“Hell.” His hands find my thighs, fingers biting into flesh, forcing them wider still.
I shiver now under the darkness of his yearning glare, and the bitter bite of the cold.
“Look at you.” His eyes lift from between my legs to my breasts that spill from the gown with every burst of breath. “The little doe who tried to run.” His hand slides from my thigh to my core. My body jerks when he makes contact. “Caught by the hunter.” His voice is soft now, but it’s deceiving. I can hear the undercurrents of anger, just waiting to pull me into the rapids. His finger slides into my wet. He hisses as I moan. “The things I could do to you.”
He sinks his finger inside, just an inch, maybe two. But my body trembles around him, aching for more.
“Fuck.” His curse sounds on the wings of a dark prayer. “You’re so wet, Blue.”
He plants one hand into the jacket beside my head, his finger stroking in and out of me now, driving me wild with want. With need.
My heart is a crazed thing inside my chest as I stare up into Ilya’s dangerous eyes. He’s peering down at me now with a beastly hunger, pumping in and out—pushing me higher and higher until—no!
He pulls his hand from between my legs, the finger coated with my wet hooks my bottom lip and he demands, an almost cruel edge cutting from his tone, “Suck.”
I don’t hesitate as I take him into my mouth, sucking just as he commanded. Tasting my desire.
Surprise flares in his eyes again, and inside, I dance with glee.
Dragging his finger from my mouth, over my lip and down my chin, he wraps his hand around my throat. Shards of his brittle control break off into the night as he thrusts his arousal into the softness of my core, a guttural groan spilling from the deep of him.
“I could take you right here.” He thinks the words are a threat. They make me shiver, but not with fear. With need. He’s on the edge. “I could claim you.” Darkness bursts from the depths of him. A sentient thing he tries to hide from me. I don’t want him to hide any part of himself. “Steal your innocence.” I want all the parts of him. “Fuck you raw.” Breath shudders from my lungs. He growls low, “Prove to you that you are mine.” His hips thrust into my core again—nothing but his pants separating us. “That no matter how many times you run, I’ll always catch you.”
My hands fly up to grip the lapels of his jacket, and Ilya tenses because I know he thinks I’m going to push him away. Fight him again. And he’ll let me. He won’t take this part of me until I ask him to. I know this like I know I love him. All the dark, gritty, terrible parts of him that somehow grasp at good for me.
I don’t push him away, though. I pull him closer. The pressure at my neck increases as I lift my head and slam my lips into his. He groans into my mouth, a raging, feral sound that I swallow.
It’s not a nice, tender kiss. It’s bruising, hungry pressure. Teeth clink, tongues tangle, breaths shared, messy. Like us.
He tears his mouth from mine, “Fuck, I could sink inside you now. You’re fucking ready.” Even as he says the words, he’s pulling away from me.
I know this is the moment. The last moment I have, to make him take me, claim me. Possess me.
His honor is catching up with the crazed demon I called to the surface when I ran from him. If I don’t act, he’ll push away, gather me into his arms, and bring me back to the house.
My fingers tighten in his jacket, refusing to let him move away from me. Both hands are planted on either side of my head now, his chest heaving as ragged breaths spill from his lungs.
I suck in the taste of him, my eyes pinned to his devilish blues as I say quietly, but firmly, “Stop threatening me, Ilya, and take me. Make me yours. Claim me.”
“Irelynn—”
“Do it,” I dare. “Fuck me raw. Show me who I belong to.”
His eyes snap wide, an animal sound tearing into the space between us even as his body stills above mine. His eyes search my face for a lie he won’t find.
I’ve made my decision. My body has swayed my heart and it’s overtaken my mind. He’s all that remains. Loving him is all that remains.
“Irelynn,” my name is a protest wound up in a plea that tumbles into the space between us before he crushes his mouth to mine again. The cold nips into my flesh as his hands work between us, frantic and unhinged. This desire is a band pulled tight. We’re seconds from the snap. From chaos.
A shiver throbs like a pulse through my body. I rebel against the cold, driven by my hunger for him as he shoves at his suit pants.
His arousal lands against me, thick and hard and so, so hot. Nerves erupt like fireworks inside my body as he pushes forward into me. He groans. It’s just an inch, but it’s enough to stretch me more than I’ve ever been stretched before. He’s—really—big.
I gasp, sucking icy air into my lungs as my boots dig into snow, pushing myself away from this invasion I sense on instinct will be brutal. It’s two months of tension, pulled tighter and tighter—and this is the snap, the backlash, and the aftermath all rolled into one climatic moment.
“No, you don’t, Little Blue.” He drops from his hands to his elbows at the side of my head, crushing his chest to mine as he twists my hair into one big, tight fist, pulling my head back. His other slides under my neck, anchoring my body into place as he drops his face into the nook of my neck. “No more running.”
I moan as he rocks his hips in and out that decadently painful inch, before he takes another. I gasp, my hands gripping his back for purchase—anything to hold onto.
“Ilya,” I cry.
“We’ve danced around this for too long.” Teeth nip my skin, a path of burning sin to the vicious kiss in which he claims my lips. “Mine.”
Anchoring me to him, kissing me with unhinged longing, he thrusts. It’s not gentle and soothing, like I always thought I wanted my first time to be. It’s not slow and careful. It’s brutal, hinging on violent—and it’s everything I know now that I need.
He tears through the thin barrier that held my innocence like he tore into my life.
Wrenching my mouth from his, I scream into the night. He roars a sound of animal pleasure as he bottoms out inside me, entirely sheathed. The sting of his invasion is sharp, but it has nothing on the violent fight my soul gives in one last attempt to avoid capture by his. It’s a futile fight, my heart has already bargained away my soul.
Rooted deep, Ilya stops moving to plunder my mouth. Only when my legs loosen around him again, my body learning the feeling of his as it fills mine, does he move again. His mouth on mine, he pulls back and thrusts in hard. I whimper a sound he devours again and again as he thrusts again and again, driving me higher and higher until I feel like I might split at the seams.
This isn’t soft and slow. It’s quick and primal. His hand tugs at my hair as his other holds my jaw now, his tongue fucking my mouth just as he fucks my pussy.
The snow-covered earth at my back is unrelenting as Ilya pounds into me. His hand moves down over my chest to palm my breast, his lips hot on my throat. The sharp sting of his teeth grazing soft skin the prelude to his wandering hand finding the pearl between my legs. He circles my clit with his thumb as he thrusts deep into me, kissing a searing path back to my lips.
His thrusts take on a violence that rocks my body, but the hand he tangled in my hair pins me in place. Sensation floods every inch of me. Heat bubbles and boils beneath my skin until I feel as though it’ll melt me from the inside. Pleasure on the edge threatens to rip me apart at the seams as he fucks me closer and closer to oblivion.
My body inches up the jacket as he pounds relentlessly into me, but the hand in my hair anchors me violently in place until my neck is arched back, his face in the hollow. Sparks fly inside my core, threatening an eruption as he circles my clit once more with his thumb, before he pinches the bud between thumb and finger, rocketing me over the edge.
Eyes burning wide on the dark blanket of sky that yawns over us, stars wink as my orgasm crashes violently through me. Wave after wave crash inside my core as Ilya pulls every drop of pleasure from within me, calling it to the surface as though it’s anchored to a thread he commands. As the final waves crash through me, Ilya’s thrusts become quicker and more erratic. Restrained grunts of pained pleasure escape the vault of him as he buries choppy breaths into my throat. With one last violent thrust, he buries himself deep inside me. So deep, I can’t help but cry out in the same moment he releases a deep groan of pleasure as hot ribbons of release fill me.
We stay like that, a tangle of limbs wrapped in pleasure, blanketed beneath a cold, starry night. It’s Christmas Eve in America, a night intended for saintly recollections, and I’ve just given my innocence to a devil of a man.
I want to cry and laugh all at the same time. Instead, I lay still in the aftermath of this wicked claiming, lost in the shock that is my suddenly, eternally bound heart. And my soul—my soul is defeated—forever ensnared by the sticky web of his own.
I’m not sure how long we lay like that, before Ilya’s fingers loosen in my hair. Then, with his hands on either side of my head, he pushes up. The loss of him from inside my body is jarring and a little painful. I feel terribly exposed by him as he gazes down at the mess of us. I would close my legs, but he’s still kneeling between them, forcing them apart.
His eyes drop. I watch as his impossibly hard jaw hardens.
Anger flashes in his eyes and my heart flutters in warning. Slowly, breath lodged in my lungs, I let my eyes drift down with his. My breath hitches at what I see. His still mostly hard cock, all velvety skin and thick, protruding veins, is coated in ribbons of milky white and red that shimmers under the white moonlight.
The evidence of my virginity, right there for us both to see.
Ilya grips his thick cock in his big fist roughly, angrily, before he shoves it into his pants.
He pulls me up, standing me in the snow before he shakes out my jacket with a violence that truly terrifies me. He’s a coiled beast of a man. Rage, I do not understand, crackles under the surface of his skin. It bleeds into the cold night air, threatening to scald me.
I flinch when he steps closer, and that rage only flares hotter. Dipping my face, I try not to cry as I stare at the snow. Ilya throws my jacket over my shoulders, and then he shoves my arms into it like I’m a child incapable of the task. I don’t fight him. My mind whirls with confusion as I replay everything we did. All that I felt.
Why is he so upset?
With my jacket on, he lifts me into his arms bridal style, and begins his march back to the house. Beside us, Maleficent trots close.
My control over my emotions shatters as a hot tear sears my cheek. My body must shake, or maybe I’ve gasped in sharp air, because Ilya glances harshly down at me only to let a dark sound of anger bubble up from the depths of his chest at the sight of my tears.
We break through the trees, and I see the men we left waiting outside. My face flares impossibly hot before I twist in Ilya’s arms to bury it into his hard chest. I can’t look at the men now. I can’t meet their eyes, knowing that they know what we did.
Surely, they heard us.
Regret, like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life, floods my breaking heart, drowning the organ in the sorrows of a splintered soul.