Chapter Thirty-One
April
It was late. So late that all the other employees had long since left the house or maybe fled to their respective wings, I didn’t really know if they went home or lived on the compound, all I knew was that the house was quiet. Completely and totally quiet.
Except for my brain which, of course, refused to stop swirling.
Refused to stop going over worst case scenarios even though the emergency with Jacob had passed.
Each time I thought I was close to sleep my brain would fire up with another reminder that Jacob had passed out because he couldn’t breathe and I wasn’t there.
Or another way in which things could have been so much worse today. It was maddening.
It was terrifying.
Most of all, it was making it damned hard to sleep.
Scratch that, it was impossible to sleep.
After an hour—at least—of staring at the ceiling and counting sheep, counting stars, counting down the days until this baby and this crazy life was out of my life, I got out of bed and…
sat for another twenty minutes. And then I shoved my feet into my slippers, grabbed my e-reader, and went downstairs.
Without the hustle of Igor’s employees the house was eerily quiet, and I found that I liked it.
The quiet.
The solitude.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and a bowl of grapes—already washed, of course—and sat out on the terrace. It was relaxing under the moonlight.
It was relaxing. It should’ve been relaxing.
Jacob was back at home with Kelsie, he’d even sent a text and a photo to ease my worried mind.
It should have worked, and I should’ve been sound asleep in a bed that was much softer and more comfortable than my own.
But adrenaline was a hell of a drug, and it lasted longer and the come down was harder than real drugs.
“Ugh,” I groaned and snatched up my e-reader.
Getting lost in the world of small town romance was just what I needed.
Reading for a while would hopefully make my eyelids tired and droopy, which would—again hopefully—make sleep come easily.
A few chapters later it was starting to work, my lids grew infinitesimally heavier.
Great in an hour or two I’ll be totally asleep.
Still, it was peaceful and that seemed to be enough to quiet my mind and let me get lost in small town love.
Which, of course meant it didn’t last long.
“Why are you outside?” Igor’s voice was low and harsh, he was clearly angry for some reason.
Don’t take the bait, I told myself as I sat the e-reader in my lap before I looked up at him with my brows arched. “I am out here enjoying the fresh night air, or is that not allowed unless I promise the air is for me and not the baby?”
His brows dipped into a frown that was somehow both scathing and confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know what? Never mind.” There was no point arguing the point, so I turned back to my e-reader.
“April,” he growled in my direction.
I kept my focus on the story. The hero and heroine were about to kiss for the first time, and I did not want to miss it.
“April.”
He slid his hands through her hair and cupped the back of her head.
“Hey!” Igor snatched the story right from my hands and that pissed me off.
I glared at him, but I managed to keep my voice even and calm.
“I’m not playing your games Igor. Enjoy the book.
” I stood and narrowed my gaze in his direction before I left him out on the terrace.
I was furious as I stormed through the kitchen and then the living room.
I marched up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door behind me. “Stupid, infuriating man.”
Almost immediately the door flew open, and Igor stood there glowering at me. “April,” he said again, this time his words came out on a low growl.
“No!” I waved my hands in the air, gesturing to the set of rooms I stood in the middle of, like a crazy person. “You don’t get to come inside these rooms without knocking. That is a serious fucking invasion of my privacy.”
“This is my house,” he growled. “The whole damn property is mine,” he emphasized the last word, in case there were any doubts as to that.
“Yeah, you own the place Igor. Congratu-fucking-lations. But this is my room for as long as I am here, which means you need my permission to enter. If that’s changed, then I’m happy to go back to my home where I can do whatever the hell I want!
” I don’t even know why I was arguing with him, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Igor grabbed my upper arms and yanked me close but not close enough to touch. “You are not going anywhere, April.”
I struggled against his grip in vain. “Then get the hell out of my room.”
“No.”
“Igor,” I growled. “Get the fuck out. Now.”
“Or what?” His question was so cocky I found my hands balled unconsciously into fists.
“You can’t keep me here against my will, Igor. That was not in our agreement so show me some fucking respect. Or else.”
His lips tugged into a smile so arrogant, so beautiful that it momentarily hypnotized me and in that brief moment my anger temporarily evaporated. But I was desperate to hang on to it and I reached for it, dug down deep to find it before that smile worked its magic on me. “Or. Else. What?”
I sucked in a deep breath ready to unleash a string of expletives that would even make a man like Igor take a step back.
But before I could expel the breath, Igor’s mouth was on mine.
He devoured me with slow swipes of his tongue across my lips, back and forth coming closer and closer to the seam.
Finally his tongue made it there and teased the seam until it opened and he slipped inside easily.
A groan escaped him the moment our tongues made contact and his arms banded around my waist, dipping me over his arm so he could devour me down to the very depths of my soul.
The way Igor kissed me was alarming and satisfying all at once, like he’d actually missed kissing me.
Not just the act of kissing and touching a woman, but me specifically.
His kiss laid claim to me, mind, body and soul and I let him.
A smarter woman or maybe one with a better survival instinct and not with pregnancy hormones flooding her body might have pushed him away, stomped on his foot and smacked his gorgeous face to make the point that this was not happening.
But tonight I wasn’t that woman. I didn’t do any of those things.
Instead I pressed my body against his, letting his hard chest soothe the ache in my nipples, his large hands on my back set me on fire.
It became a battle of sorts. Our mouths warred with each other for dominance, for control. And then our limbs joined the fight, hungry for more brushes of hands, grips, and caresses. Hungry for more, period. So intensely hungry that within seconds we stood face to face, panting and naked.
“April,” he whispered my name and his gaze raked over me from head to toe.
It was such a slow gaze, so achingly slow that I felt it like a visceral touch.
Igor handled me gently as he laid me across my bed and watched me.
His gaze was trained on me while his fingertips danced across my skin, sending shivers up my spine.
The moment his gaze lands on my belly, his eyes darkened, and a raw, hungry look flashed in their depths.
That look turned my insides to mush while my pussy grew wet.
It ached for what I knew was coming. His lips touched my ankle first and he kissed every single inch of my skin until it burned, until I was burning up and on fire to have his touch. “Igor,” I moaned softly.
“April,” he whispered before he kissed me again and there was nothing slow about this kiss. It was hot and fast, so intense that it literally stole my breath before he pulled back with a sexy grin. “I’ve missed you.”
I closed my eyes at those words, determined to let them roll off my back as he kissed his way down my body, kissing my sensitive nipples before he pressed the softest, sweetest kiss on my belly.
And then Igor did what he did best, he made me forget myself.
His hands gripped my thighs and spread them wide.
“You’re so fucking wet for me, April.” One finger slid up and down the length of my slit, teasing me.
Taunting me. “Hear that?” The smile in his voice was audible as he dipped his fingers into the pool of moisture and stroked, finger fucking me until I arched into his touch.
“Igor, please.”
“You want more? Tell me,” he demanded and continued to tease me in short, shallow thrusts. “Tell me what this pussy needs April.”
Dirty man. “I need you to taste me, Igor. I need to feel your tongue on my pussy. In my pussy.”
The next thing I heard was a growl a second before his tongue touched my clit and my hips bucked off the bed.
Igor pushed my hips down while his tongue did wicked things to my pussy until I was so wet I heard his tongue moving through the moisture.
He licked my clit, flicked his tongue against it and swirled around it, teasing me until I couldn’t stand it and only then would he pull it between his lips and suck. Hard.
“Igor, yes!” It was divine and I was lost to the sensation, being pulled under by wave after wave of desire.
He licked me. He sucked me. He teased me.
And finally he fucked me with his tongue until I flew apart, until the mother of all orgasms took a hold of my body and snatched me around the room until my body went slack and a sleepy, satisfied smile split my face.
“That’s the kind of smile I like to see you wearing. Only that smile.”
I heard the smile in his voice, and I wanted to see it too, but I stayed there in the middle of the bed with a smile on my face. I knew it was fear that kept me from looking at him, but I didn’t know if I was afraid that I’d see what I wanted, or that I wouldn’t.
His lips landed on my belly again and then up to my breasts, fondling and sucking them slowly and then faster, with greater intensity.
And then his mouth was on mine, and I could taste myself on his lips and tongue.
It was such an erotic experience that I sucked my taste off his tongue just as his body slid into mine with a soft grunt of pleasure.
“Fuck,” I whispered in his ear before I nipped the lobe, which drew another grunt from Igor.
“April,” he growled as his hips began to move. He fucked me in long slow strokes, each one went balls deep, over and over again as if he was trying to mark me as his.
Don’t be silly, April. This was a physical need. An itch that needed to be scratched. It was just sex. We needed sex not each other. This was a mere convenience—for both of us—a way to scratch this insatiable itch.
Nothing more.
But it was a hard battle to win when he fucked me so beautifully, with such intensity that my heart couldn’t help but get involved and when Igor looked down at” me, brushed my hair from my face and smiled, I knew the battle was lost. I loved him.
He’d claimed my heart as thoroughly as he’d claimed my body.
One hand hooked under my leg to change the angle, and it was so delicious it pushed my body right to the edge of insanity.
“Igor,” I moaned as his pelvis pressed against my clit and sent shockwaves radiating throughout my body.
“Igor.” His name fell from my lips over and over as the orgasm shook my body so intensely he held me while he pounded into me faster and deeper.
Harder and deeper. Just fucking deeper. “Yes,” I hissed out as my pleasure grew and grew, yet to crest.
“So fucking good,” he growled and sat up, pulling my thighs up on an angle that intensified my pleasure even more. “April,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
Higher and higher my pleasure climbed from that delicious angle, from the look of utter erotic anguish on Igor’s face, from the possessive grip he had on my thighs while he fucked me.
It was so intense that another orgasm started before the previous one had crested and I was so lost, so gone, so satisfied that my limbs had a mind of their own. “Igor, yes. Fucking yes!”
One more stroke of his hips and my body was somehow attached to a livewire that made me jerk and shake with orgasmic convulsions.
I clamped down hard around him, pulsing as quickly as my body shook.
“April,” he shouted before his body stilled and flooded me with his seed.
“Fuck, April.” His lips found that spot on my neck just below my ear and peppered my neck with butterfly kisses.
Butterfly. Kisses.
Igor slipped from my body, and I paused, waited to hear him get off the bed and head for the door with his clothes draped over his strong forearms. He got up and slipped into my bathroom for a minute before he returned and spread my legs, wiping me with a warm, wet cloth.
Job done, he discarded the towel somewhere and climbed back onto the bed before he wrapped me in his arms.
In. His. Arms.
My lids were droopy, and my body sagged into the mattress. Finally, wrapped in Igor’s arms. Sleep claimed me.
And he claimed my heart.
Whether he wanted it or not.