Chapter 31 – Poppy
The opening and closing of the door jarred me from sleep. My breath hitched. I lay waiting. The steps retreated down the hall.
Ivan has his guards posted. It’s not an intruder.
I tugged the blanket over my shoulder—or rather, I tried to. It didn’t budge. A moment later, Brady’s toes kicked out and stabbed my thigh.
Good Mother above! Co-sleeping was fun when he was small, but this had to stop.
Heat shimmered through me. There was somewhere else I desperately wanted to be sleeping. I shucked the blanket and jumped out of bed. Screw it, I was done with the distance. I’d said yes. I agreed to stay!
There would be no cold shoulders.
Even if he wasn’t capable of understanding love on a higher, philosophical level, Ivan knew what love was. It was in the way he cared for Brady. It was the combination of small things he did for me.
Maybe, in time, I could show him. Make him understand.
The lessons started tonight.
I tiptoed down the hall, looking into the shadows. Ivan’s door closed right as I stepped into the kitchen. I looked at where the front bedroom branched off the side.
He was home.
I was done avoiding this.
I rushed forward and tried the knob. The door swung open. Ivan was flopped on the mattress, half the duvet pulled over his frame. He stiffened as I closed the barrier behind me.
Pressing the lock was the final step.
“You’d better think long and hard about what you’re doing, Poppy,” Ivan growled. “I won’t answer for what happens if you come this way.”
“I’m done thinking,” I said, feeling certain in my choice. “I’m sick and tired of it.”
Peeling off my shirt, I took a small step forward. The room felt ten degrees colder than the rest of the house. It could be the ancient ventilation, or it could be something unearthly. Either way, my nipples stiffened, tingling at the sudden shift.
The fabric fell to the floor. Buttons clacked against the new wood flooring.
The kingpin’s breath hitched.
Gloom and heavy shadows filled the space. There was only the bead of light from the wall charger casting a faint, blue glow. Like an animal, I relied on my other senses.
“Poppy.”
“Ivan.” I whispered to the edge of the bed. “You were cold tonight. Why?”
He let out a frustrated growl and burrowed deeper into the pillow. I tugged back the comforter.
His body was sizzling hot. I ran a hand down his spine, marveling at the tight, fit feel of him. He might have a few years on me, but this wasn’t a dad-bod. Ivan was cut from stone. Burning hot, strong, living stone.
“You don’t want to be here,” he muttered. The pillow wasn’t helping the thick accent come out any clearer.
I pulled it from his head, debating whapping him with it. Instead, I climbed onto the bed.
“You’ve convinced me, and I’ve changed my mind,” I countered.
Ivan rolled onto his back, watching me through the dark. The harsh blue glow cast his features in an eerie light. His eyes raked over me, the intensity in them making my skin flush despite the coolness of the room.
My breasts felt full. Heavy. They begged to be palmed—to be worshiped.
“Last chance to leave,” he warned, voice husky with restraint.
I shook my head and tucked myself against him. “I don’t want to leave. How can I convince you?”
His voice was broken. Hoarse and full of emotion. “I don’t know.”
Leaning down, I brushed my lips over his shoulder.
“Fuck,” he ground out and surged forward.
One hand captured the back of my neck while the other wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his chest. His mouth found mine in a fierce, hungry kiss that stole my breath. His lips were firm yet soft, demanding everything I had to give and more.
I melted against him, my hands sliding up his bare chest to his shoulders. He tasted faintly of vodka and something uniquely him that made my head spin. His tongue teased the seam of my lips, and I opened for him without hesitation, moaning as the kiss deepened.Ivan growled low in his throat.
The vibration traveled through his chest and into mine, sending shivers down my spine. His hands moved with purpose, sliding across my sides to grip the waistband of my pajama pants. With one swift movement, he tugged them off my legs, his eyes never leaving mine as he did.
Maybe the beast could see in the dark.
It felt like he could.
I helped him, kicking them off when they reached my ankles. The cool air kissed my newly exposed skin, raising goosebumps that Ivan traced with his fingertips. His touch was electric. I stopped fighting the reaction and succumbed to the tremors.
This beast was responsible for the unholy obsession in my head. But maybe, just maybe, I worked my magic on him as well. The way his touch seemed to brand my skin was as good an indication as any.
Ivan flipped me onto my back, hovering over me. His hand moved between my thighs, cupping me through the thin fabric of my underwear.
“I’m going to destroy this,” he whispered against my ear, his breath hot against my skin. “By the time I'm done with you, you won’t be able to remember your name.”
“Then do it,” I commanded.
Because if I didn’t show my backbone, I would lose it.
His breath turned to hard rasps, something primal taking over. With a swift, violent motion, he gripped my panties and ripped them clean off me. The sound of tearing fabric echoed in the quiet room. I gasped.
“Just remember, you gave yourself to me, little flower,” he growled, sliding down my body.
Without warning, his mouth was on me, hot and insistent.
I let out a soft cry, my back arching off the mattress as his tongue explored every inch of me.
At last, my breasts found the attention they craved.
Pleasure made my nipples strain to rigid peaks.
My fingers twisted in his hair, holding him against me as he devoured me like a starving man at a feast.
“Ivan,” I moaned, unable to form coherent thoughts as pleasure coursed through my body.
He hummed against me, the feel of him sending shockwaves through my core. His hands gripped my thighs, pushing them wider, exposing more of me.
“Ivan!” I tugged his hair. We’d been here before. I was done playing the first act. I wanted the rest of the promised plot.
He sensed my urgency and rose over me. “I’m only taking you bare. And once you’re mine, there’s no going back from this thing.”
A warning, one last chance to run.
Curling upward, I shoved his boxers down. “Then you’d better give me reason to stay.”
Without another word, he surged forward, his mouth crashing against mine as he positioned his hips between my legs. I felt him against my entrance. He was hard. He was huge. With one powerful thrust, he was inside me.
I sank my teeth into my bottom lip to hide the moan. No easing, no gentleness. Just a raw, brutal collision. My nails dug into the skin of his shoulder. I breathed through the twinge of pain at being forcefully stretched and filled.
“What an interesting surprise,” Ivan gasped.
I didn’t dare move. My body was having enough trouble accommodating him. The sensation was overwhelming. It was the burn, the undercurrent of the pleasure, that made my toes curl.
“What’s that?” I panted.
“I thought you might be a virgin.”
I smacked him. “And you thought slamming into me was the way to fix it?”
Ivan bent and bit my throat. His teeth were hard, and a delicious spark of pain shot down my spine. “If you wanted to be taken by someone who thought you were fragile, if you wanted to have a lazy fuck, you picked the wrong man, little Poppy.”
“Good to know,” I ground out, and now that I was used to his size, I moved against him.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “So tight.”
Well, I might as well be a virgin. Less than four encounters, and none of them as big as him.
I rolled my hips, testing and learning how our bodies connected. Ivan responded with another snarl. It was hard to tell, here in the dark, if it was a man or a beast rising above me.
Ivan’s lips curled into a wicked smile. One I could see now that my eyes adjusted to the low light.
“I’m going to fuck you until their names are erased from your mind,” he growled, his voice thicker with desire.
That foreign accent was guttural and harsh.
I freaking loved it. “I’m going to fuck you until your pretty little cunt remembers only the shape of my cock. ”
His words shocked me, heat blooming across my skin. No one had ever spoken to me like this, with such raw possession.
“You want that, don’t you?” he continued, punctuating his words with a deep thrust that made me cry out. “You want to be owned, claimed, ruined for anyone else.”
A sharp gasp clawed from my throat. “Yes!”
His hips snapped forward again, setting a punishing rhythm that had me wheezing for air. Ivan was merciless, driving forcefully into me, hitting places I never knew existed.
“Look at you,” he murmured roughly, a hand tangling in my hair while the other gripped my hip hard enough to bruise. “So fucking perfect, taking my cock. You were made for this.”
I felt like we were made for each other.
But I didn’t voice that secret. I didn’t want to break the spell by talking about the past or future.
There was only the present. Him and me. Tied together in this most intimate way.
The intensity built between us like a gathering storm.
My body arched into his, seeking more of that delicious friction.
The muscles of my thighs strained to hold onto him.
Our bodies collided together, my nipples aching with every pass.
Words fell away, unnecessary in this covenant of flesh and desire.
Each thrust sent lightning through my veins, my nerve endings singing with sensations I’d never known existed.
Ivan’s eyes locked with mine, dark and fathomless in the dim light. Something primal passed between us. We shared a silent conversation more honest than any we’d had with words. His jaw clenched, muscles rippling across his shoulders as he claimed more of me with the deliberate movements.
I answered his unspoken demands with my body, rising to meet him, my fingers digging into the hard planes of his back. I lifted my legs, hooking them around his back. The angle changed, and I bit my lip again to stifle a scream as he hit something exquisite inside me.
That made him chuckle with impish glee. Pulling my hair, Ivan forced my neck to the side. He bent and kissed my neck, tasting the thunder in my pulse.
“I own this sweet pussy,” he growled against my throat.
My body convulsed.
Filthy. Absolutely filthy.
And I loved it.
The idea of him marking me pushed me to the edge. I wrapped my legs tighter around his back, holding him in place. It was a silent invitation that I was ready.
“Fuck, yes, just like that.” Ivan slid a hand between us, pinching my clit. “Now show me how you come.”
I did.
My entire body—and probably my soul—shattered into a million pieces, pleasure coursing through me in waves that seemed endless.
Ivan growled as I clenched around him, his rhythm becoming erratic, desperate.
With a final, powerful thrust, he ripped himself away.
His heavy cock fell on my stomach. Hot ropes of seed shot over my skin as his body went rigid.
The convulsions continued deep inside, but at the same time, my pussy wept at the loss.
That beautiful seed, spreading over me. It didn’t feel right.
It belongs inside me.
He told me once that he wanted to put a baby in me. Fill me up with his seed until I was pregnant. So why this? Why did he deny us when the opportunity was right here?
Ivan reached between us. His finger trailed through the mess.
I lay there panting. Watching. It was as if he were drawing a rune. Perhaps writing magic on my skin.
That was what I told myself to stave off the rush of sadness that was quickly following on the heels of pleasure.
“I already consider you mine, Poppy,” Ivan breathed, looking up through the curtain of hair that fell against his face. “But there are things that need to be done. Things that need to be arranged before I make this permanent.”
What things? I wanted to scream at him!
He must have sensed it. An easy observation, since I was suddenly trembling. “I’ve marked you as mine. But it won’t be nature that solves our problems and binds us. It will be me—and you. Only then will I give you this thing your body craves.”
The idea of such an intimate connection made me delirious, sweetening the pleasure.
I felt him pulsing against me, the sensation triggering a delicious aftershock.
Ivan’s weight pressed me into the mattress, but I didn’t mind. There was something comforting about being pinned beneath him, claimed and marked.After several minutes, he went to rise.
“Where are you going?” I scrambled to catch him.
He paused. “I’ll be right back.”
I shook my head. “Stay.”
He frowned. His nose scrunched. “Don’t you want a warm towel to—” he gestured to my body. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Stay,” I insisted. If I wasn’t running from the idea of us, he wasn’t either.
Ivan grunted and rolled to his side, pulling me against his chest. His fingers traced lazy patterns on my back. I cast my lot with him. Whatever happened next didn’t matter. I was his, and he was mine.
But the words failed me. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So I lay there, hoping the choice I made and the confession of my body were enough.