Chapter 23 Mara
MARA
Idon’t even realize what’s happening for a moment.
My eyes are wet and blurred with tears, my throat is burning, my mouth is thick with the taste of his cum, and my scalp is sore from his grip on my hair.
And, beyond all reason or sense, I’m so fucking wet that I can feel I’ve soaked through both my panties and my leggings.
My core is pulsing, throbbing, my clit so swollen and sensitive that I think I’d come if I rubbed the seam between my thighs against it for just a moment.
And Ilya is staring at the door, his face suddenly hardening into angry fury.
I hear the click of heels on hardwood, and I start to push myself up, but Ilya jerks at the knot of hair in his hand, keeping me firmly on my knees between his legs.
I turn around, and my eyes widen as I see a tall, gorgeous woman with pale blonde hair and eyes stalk around his desk and stop less than half a foot away from me.
Her gaze takes it all in—me on my knees, Ilya reclining in the chair with my hair in his hand and his half-hard cock resting against his open zipper as if he couldn’t fucking care less. Her eyes linger on his cock for a moment, and I see a look of pure jealousy burn in her gaze… and anger, too.
Raw, unfiltered anger.
She reaches out, her face a pale mask, and grabs my upper arm, yanking me back as she spits out a string of something in Russian. Her nails dig into my flesh, and I hear her switch from Russian back into English.
“Who the fuck is she?”
Ilya is on his feet in an instant, his grip on my hair letting go as he grabs me and yanks me out of the woman’s grasp, shoving me behind him as he stares her down. Even half-undressed with his cock still out, he’s magnificent in his anger, breathtakingly frightening. But the woman isn’t cowed.
Her eyes lock onto mine. "You," she says icily. "You're the one."
I take a step back instinctively. "I don't—" My mind is racing. Is he married? Is this his wife? Is this even worse than I imagined?
"Don't lie to me." She glares at me from around Ilya as he blocks her path to me. "You're the reason he ended it. The reason he threw me away like garbage."
"I don't know what you're talking about." My voice sounds weak, my throat hoarse from choking on Ilya’s cock. I can still taste him on my tongue. I’m so aroused still that my knees feel weak, and despite everything, I want to know what the pleasure is that he promised me.
A simmering anger burns in my gut… how dare he drag me into whatever this is?
How dare he promise me things after I fucking crawled to him, and then not finish? "I don't even know who you are."
"Svetlana." She spits the name. "His fiancée. Or I was, until you came along."
Fiancée. The word feels like a blow. Ilya has a fiancée. Had a fiancée. And he never mentioned it, never said anything, just kept me here like—
"Svetlana." Ilya’s voice is deadly quiet. "Leave. Now."
"No." Svetlana, to her credit, doesn’t give ground, despite how frightening Ilya looks right now. "Not until you explain. Not until you tell me why you're throwing away two years for this—this nobody."
"I said leave." There’s a cold fury radiating from him. "This is your last warning."
"Or what?" Svetlana laughs, and there’s a touch of hysteria in it. "You'll hurt me? You'll destroy me? You've already done that, Ilya. You've already—"
"How did you get in here?" His voice is still quiet, still controlled, but I can hear the rage underneath it.
"I told the guard I was your fiancée. That I had every right to be here." Svetlana's voice is shaking now, her perfectly lined eyes starting to look glossy as her demeanor begins to crack. "Because I am your fiancée, Ilya. We have an arrangement. We have plans. We have—"
"We have nothing." He cuts her off, his voice brutally cold. "I ended our arrangement. I made that clear. What part of that conversation did you not understand?"
"You can't just end it. Not like this. Not over the phone, not for—" She gestures at me, her expression twisted with contempt. "Not for her. She's nothing, Ilya. Just a passing obsession. You'll get bored with her like you get bored with everything, and then you'll come back to me, and I'll—"
"You'll what?" Ilya takes a step toward her, and Svetlana actually backs up. "You'll take me back? You'll forgive me? You think I want your forgiveness?"
"I think you're making a mistake." Her voice is desperate now. "I think you're throwing away something real for a fantasy. Look at her, Ilya. She's terrified of you. She doesn't want to be here. She's not like us. She doesn't understand your world, your life, what you need—"
"What I need," Ilya says, his voice dropping even lower, "is none of your concern. Not anymore. Our arrangement is over, Svetlana. Finished. Done. And if you ever touch her again, if you ever come near her again, there will be consequences. Do you understand?"
"Consequences?" Svetlana laughs again, with that same hysterical edge. "What are you going to do, Ilya? Kill me? Destroy my life? I have connections too. I have friends, family, people who—"
"Who will do nothing if I decide you're a problem.
" He pulls out his phone and makes a call, speaking in rapid Russian.
Then he looks at Svetlana, and the expression on his face makes my blood run cold.
"You have two choices. You can leave now, quietly, and accept the generous settlement I've already arranged.
Or you can make this difficult, and discover exactly what I'm capable of when someone threatens what's mine. "
The office door opens, and two men dressed in black tactical clothing, guns on their hips, enter. Ilya speaks to them in Russian, and they move to flank Svetlana, not touching her but making their presence known.
"You're making a mistake," Svetlana says again, but her voice has lost its fury, replaced by something that sounds like genuine despair. "She'll never want you the way I do. She'll never understand you. She'll never—"
"Take her outside," Ilya says to the guards in English. "Keep her in the hallway just outside the door. Don't let her leave yet."
The guards move closer to Svetlana, and after a moment of resistance, she allows them to escort her out of the office. But she looks back at me as she goes, and the hatred in her eyes is so intense it makes me flinch.
The door closes behind them, and suddenly it's just me and Ilya in the office. The silence is deafening.
"Let me see your arm," he says, his voice completely different now. He sounds almost… gentle. Concerned.”
I shake my head, still cradling my arm against my chest. "It's fine."
"It's not fine. She drew blood. Let me see."
He moves toward me, and I back up instinctively, but there's nowhere to go. The back of my legs hits the chair, almost tripping me, and he stops just in front of me, carefully taking my arm and examining the crescent-shaped marks where Svetlana's nails broke skin.
His touch is gentle despite the fury I can still see in his eyes. He traces the marks carefully, and I see his jaw clench.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I should have made sure she couldn't get past security."
“You should have told me you have a fiancee!” The words come out before I can stop them.
"You never mentioned that you have a fiancée.
" I feel more ashamed now than I did before. It was bad enough that I let my stalker fuck me, that I crawled to him, sucked his cock… all of that has degraded me past what I ever thought I would allow… or allow myself to be aroused by. But I’ve never, ever been a party to cheating, with anyone.
"Had. Past tense." He's still examining my arm, his fingers gentle on my skin. "I ended it already. She was an arrangement, nothing more. A convenience."
"A convenience." I laugh humorlessly. "Is that what I am too? Another convenience? Another arrangement?"
"No." He looks up at me, and the intensity in his eyes makes my breath catch. "You're nothing like her. You're nothing like anyone."
"What am I, then?" The words come out cracked, my voice scratching over my abused throat.
"Mine." The word is simple, absolute. "You're mine, Mara. There are no other women. There will be no other women. No one else in my bed, no one else in my life. Only you."
The possessiveness in his voice should terrify me. But it also does something else, something I don't want to acknowledge. It feels… good. It feels like what I’ve always wanted.
To be understood, accepted, wanted, loved completely and obsessively.
Maybe that is what this is. Maybe I’ve always wanted to be owned, and I just never knew it.
"I didn't ask for this," I whisper. "I didn't ask to be yours."
"I know." His hand moves from my arm to my face, cupping my cheek. "But you are anyway."
His mouth comes crashing down onto mine, hot and hard and final. This is the pleasure he promised me, this is…
I can’t think. Can’t breathe. His tongue pries my lips open, slides into my mouth, demands that I surrender. And I arch into him, a moan dragging from my abraded throat, the pain welcome because now I know that pain from Ilya never comes without pleasure, eventually.
I’m beginning to trust him. It’s stupid and foolish and it might ruin my life, but right now, with my pussy soaked and the taste of his cum still in my mouth even as he kisses me, I don’t fucking care.
He can ruin me, as long as he makes me fucking come.
He pulls back slightly, his forehead resting against mine. "I need you to understand something. What just happened—Svetlana coming here, touching you, hurting you—that will never happen again. You're under my protection. No one touches you. No one hurts you. No one."
"Except you," I say quietly.
He's silent for a moment. "Except me."