Chapter 5
CARTIER
One moment I want to yell at him that sane people don’t go around trying to strangle every man who tries to kiss a woman’s hand, and the next, his tongue is down my throat, and my inner floozy is screaming at him to kiss me harder.
Because, you know, every heroine of every romance novel ever written has an inner floozy to unleash the instant she meets the hero.
I hear a whimper, and heat rushes through my veins when I realize that it’s me. What is wrong with me? He just tried to throttle a guy to death.
But my body must not have been paying attention, because when he removes my arms from around his neck and pushes me away, the rejection is like getting smashed over the head with a jug of crushed ice.
“I’ll get my driver to take you home.” His voice sounds different, thicker, like he’s talking through a mouthful of hot dog. Or pussy. No, definitely hot dog!
“Home?” I stare at my hands as he drops them like I just stung him with a bunch of nettles. “Why? I thought…”
Fuck knows what I was thinking when I pressed my body up against his, but it certainly didn’t involve going home and explaining to Mika why I can still sit down without wincing after an evening spent in the company of Andrej Ivanov.
He holds my gaze, and I swear that I can see his thoughts chugging around inside his head, but he’s impossible to read.
“I … can’t do this.” He looks away first. But he also looks embarrassed that he lost.
“Okay.” Because what else am I supposed to say to that?
Mika was wrong. He didn’t come to the shelter to fuck me. It was just a game to him. The guided tour, the cocktail bar, the library for chrissakes… All an elaborate scheme to make sure that I fell for the Russian charm so that he could drop me and pick me up whenever the mood grabbed him.
Men and their fucking ego boosts.
“I guess I’ll see you around then.”
I turn around and start walking. I have no idea how far our apartment is from here, but I’ll get a taxi once I’m around normal people again.
I might even charge it to the Ivanovs tomorrow.
Once I’ve had a cold shower and dragged my head out of his privileged, designer-clad universe and back into the real world.
But a strong hand grips my arm and spins me around to face him.
My chest collides with his, sucking the oxygen from my lungs.
I barely get a chance to breathe before his tongue is in my mouth again, and my brain cells are reeling from the feel of his hands on my back, trying to claw their way through my clothes.
This time, I pull away first. I’m breathless. My nipples are hard, and my sex is yelling at me to stop overthinking it and let the man show me what he’s made of. But I’m in control. Barely.
“Whatever game this is…” I manage between shallow breaths, “I’m not playing.”
“It isn’t a game.”
He shakes his head, and there’s something so vulnerable about his dark eyes and the scar on his top lip that I want to trace it with my fingertip and kiss him softly. Only, men like Andrej Ivanov don’t do things softly. I knew it the moment I first saw him.
It didn’t stop me from wanting him though.
He goes to touch me and then changes his mind, and I rub my arm as if I can make the sting of dismissal go away. “I want you, Cartier.” His voice is husky. “I want you more than you realize. More than I even realized until now.”
“But…?” My legs are trembling, but the only thing within touching distance that I could lean on for support is the man confusing the shit out of me right now.
“But…” He releases a heavy sigh. “You don’t know anything about me, the kind of world I live in, the people I’m surrounded by.”
He pauses, but I’m not going to make this easy for him. If he has a reason for leading me on and then dropping me like a pallet filled with bricks, I want to hear it.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Ha!” I shake my head. “Why don’t you cut the bullshit and say what you mean? You want me, you don’t want me. I’ve heard it all before, so if you’re done messing around, I’m out of here.”
I don’t move. The air between us seems to quiver with electricity. I realize that I’ve just made the fatal mistake of threatening to leave without following it through, but I feel rooted to the spot.
“Okay.” He closes the distance between us and holds my upper arms so that I can’t get away. “I meant what I said. I want you more than you will ever know, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone before. But if we do this, I can’t promise that I’ll ever let you go.”
I lick my lips. “What do you mean? You’ll hold me hostage or something?”
It flashes through my mind that Mika knows I’m with him. If I don’t come home, she’ll raise the alert with the cops, and they’ll come looking for me. Everyone knows him. The bouncer outside the cocktail bar will remember us.
It dawns on me then that I’m mentally retracing my steps and searching for witnesses when I should perhaps be running away while I still can.
“It means that you’ll be mine, Cartier.”
My brain seems to hit a brick wall. “Yours?”
“I want you so fucking much that it hurts. That guy back there, I’d have ripped his throat out if he refused to apologize to you.”
“But—”
“You need to understand that I protect what’s mine with my life.
” His fingers entwine with my hair, and he tilts my head backwards.
I have no choice but to peer into his eyes while my heart tries to escape.
“I will do whatever it takes to make you happy. I’ll treat you like a printzessa. I’ll give you the world, Cartier.”
“But…” Jeez, think Cartier. Use your fucking words. “We only just met.”
He licks my face, his tongue trailing a damp line to my ear and nibbling on my lobe. Every part of my body tingles.
“I want you. I want to fuck you in every way imaginable, and then I want to lick you all over and start again.”
My pulse is racing so fast I think I might have a heart attack. His tongue is in my ear, and it’s difficult to think when that’s all I can feel. “Do you say this to every woman you meet?”
His face is in front of me, his eyes dark and serious. “I’ve never said this to anyone before.”
A thrill runs down my spine and settles between my legs. The man is possessive to the point of being psychopathic. He’s already proved that he’s aggressive. And there was clearly tension between him and the mayor earlier at the refuge.
But I’ve never been wanted this way before…
I find myself murmuring, “I want you to fuck me in every way imaginable,” before I can stop myself.
“You’re sure about this?” His lips brush mine, and my arms are already around his neck.
“Are you going to fuck me or are you just going to talk about it all night?”
Andrej doesn’t miss a beat. He picks me up as if I weigh nothing, wraps my legs around his waist, and covers the distance between us and the back wall of the warehouse in two sure strides.
He explores my mouth with his tongue, while his hand snakes underneath my top and frees my nipples from my bra. His touch ignites something inside my core, and my body’s instincts take over. I grind my pussy against the bulge in his pants, whimpering when I feel its solid length.
“Tell me you want me, baby.”
“I want you.” Breathless. Every nerve ending sensitive to his hands on my nipples as if he’s sending shockwaves through me.
“Say it like you mean it.” He pinches my nipple while his other hand slides inside my pants and down to the damp between my legs.
I gasp. “I want you, Andrej.”
“Fuck, baby, my name has never sounded so sweet.”
“Andrej.” I try it out again, the sound dripping off my tongue like I’m melting on the inside.
“You’ve got me, Cartier. I’m going nowhere.”
He untangles my limbs from around him and sets me down on the ground.
Then he kisses me hard on the lips until my brain cells are swimming.
I run my fingers through his hair. This is how it feels to want someone so badly that you know you’ll never get enough.
You’ll always want more. Always crave their touch.
I don’t even realize that he’d unzipped my pants until he drags them down over my hips, taking my panties with them, exposing my sex to the night sky and the river behind the warehouse.
“Andrej, people will see.”
“Let them watch, baby. They’ll see the most beautiful printzessa in the world getting pleasured by her man.”
His breath tickles my lips. My pussy is throbbing with the anticipation of what comes next. This is every steamy scene I’ve ever read in a romance novel being brought to life through a man I just met.
I must be crazy. I’m not drunk, so insanity is the only explanation.
That’s my girl. Mika’s voice pops into my head unbidden, and I can’t help smiling to myself.
“Mine, Cartier.” Andrej pinches my bottom lip between his front teeth. “No backing out now.”
Holding my gaze, he crouches in front of me, dragging my pants down to my ankles and gripping my thighs. His eyes caress my sex, and when he looks back up at me, they’re darker, almost black in the shadows behind the warehouse.
“Even more beautiful than I imagined.”
A tiny voice inside my head – the voice of reason – yells at me that he’ll say anything to get what he wants. And the crazy part of me that’s high on personalized cocktails and being worshipped by a man who would kill to protect me beats it senseless with a wieldy historical romance novel.
This is everything I’ve been waiting for, everything that I wanted my first experience to be, and it’s happening right here, right now, with the hottest man on the planet.
I don’t bother pinching myself. I’ve made it this far; I’m not talking myself out of it now.
Andrej’s tongue slides between my folds, and I feel my eyes rolling back in my head. “Sweet fucking Jesus,” I whisper to the sky.