20. Ruslan
Ruslan
By the time we return from the shoot, images from the magazine session are already circulating online. In the elevator, I caught glimpses of them on stranger’s phones, splashed across their social media feeds.
The chemistry. The tension.
The way Emma looked at me.
It’s all too believable.
She stalks into the suite ahead of me and immediately kicks off her heels hard enough that one nearly hits the sofa. I close the door slowly behind us.
Silence stretches, dangerously taut.
Emma turns sharply toward me, curls slightly disheveled from the evening wind outside. “What exactly are you doing?”
I loosen my tie without answering.
“No,” she snaps. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing where you shut down and act like nothing happened.”
I glance toward her calmly. “You will need to be more specific.”
Her eyes flash. Good; anger is easier to manage than hurt.
“The photos,” she says. “The mixed signals. The way you’ve acted for days.” She folds her arms tightly. “One second you’re touching me like you’re obsessed with me, and the next you barely look at me.”
I say nothing. Mostly because she’s right.
The problem is that I no longer fully trust my own instincts when I’m around her.
Ever since Andrei’s warning at the restaurant, suspicion keeps scraping against desire.
Every time Emma looks at me, I want two contradictory things at once: to pull her closer or interrogate her until the truth falls out.
Neither option feels safe.
Emma laughs sharply when I remain silent. “Wow. Okay.”
She turns away, pacing once through the suite before facing me again. “Do you know what this feels like?”
I already know the answer.
“Andrei.”
There it is.
Her voice hardens around his name. “You pull me close when it benefits you, then suddenly shut me out when you’re done pretending.”
“That is not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
I exhale slowly through my nose. The smart decision would be to distance myself. The smart decision would be to ask questions, dig into her past, and protect myself before this entire situation turns into weakness.
Instead, I find myself staring at her mouth. At the fact that even furious, she still looks painfully beautiful standing in the middle of my suite wearing a luxury sweatsuit and anger.
“Ruslan.”
The warning in her voice barely registers, because suddenly the restraint is too exhausting.
“You are comparing me to him,” I say quietly.
“If the shoe fits—”
I cross the room before she finishes speaking. Emma inhales sharply as I back her against the edge of the desk, one hand braced beside her hip. The anger between us crackles instantly into something hotter.
“You think I touch you because it’s convenient?” I ask softly, letting my fingers drag up to her waist. Seeing her in those clothes today, beautiful on her body, only made me want to tear them off her.
“I think,” she says breathlessly, “you don’t know what you want. And this might be…a bad idea.”
The words are like a punch, but I’ve taken punches before.
My hand slides against her jaw, fingers tightening slightly as I tilt her face upward. “I know exactly what I want.”
“Revenge.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I should step away.
Instead, I kiss her. Hard.
All the frustration of the past several days crashes loose at once. Emma gasps against my mouth before kissing me back just as violently, fingers tangling immediately in my shirt. She grips so hard a button actually pops off, and I fight the urge to laugh.
The kiss turns rough almost instantly, the bruise on my jaw aching when she holds my face and slots her mouth over mine. It’s dominant, and I’m surprised to find that I like it. She bites my lower lip hard enough to sting, and something darkly possessive twists through my chest.
Mine.
She pulls away with a gasp, as if she read my mind.
But it’s worse than that.
“Yours?” she half-growls, and the sound is so unexpected it sends a shock of desire right to my cock. A dark throb, a want so deep it feels like fate. She’s inevitable.
We’re inevitable.
Fuck. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
My jaw clenches, responses racing through my mind, but before I can come up with anything, Emma shoves my chest. Hard.
I fall back onto the couch, the trousers I wore out this morning pulling tight across my thighs. Looking up at Emma, she’s like a goddess.
A very angry, sexy goddess.
“I want to make one thing clear,” she bites out, striding once. Twice. Standing between my splayed legs. “I am not something you own.”
A frisson of competitiveness goes through me. Before I can stop the smirk uncoiling across my face, she sees it and scoffs.
In seconds she’s straddling me. Her hands fist hard in my shirt as her mouth crashes onto mine; possessive. Almost painful, with her teeth pressing into my lip.
“Blyat.” I hiss, already rocking my hips up toward the heat between her legs. Her teeth scrape against mine before she pulls away again and stands. Both of us are breathing deeply.
“Where—” I start, but she reaches out and clamps a hand over my mouth.
“Shut up.”
It’s tempting to sink my teeth into the soft skin of her palm. Instead, I can only stare as she fumbles with her free hand at the button and zip of her pants, shoving the dark satin down over her thighs until she can step out of it.
Underneath is just a black, lacy thong. She’s already so wet that her pussy practically gleams, the gusset clinging to her core.
“Fuck,” I repeat, this time in English. The words are muffled against Emma’s hand. Apparently convinced I can be trusted to shut up, she pulls her hand away and kneels between my legs, making quick work of the belt and pulling my trousers down my thighs.
It’s uncomfortable; there’s not much range of motion, but she’s moving too quickly for me to say anything, my chest swelling with the unfamiliar sensation of being the one out of control.
Emma raises herself up, climbs onto my lap, and braces one foot against the ground. The other knee is buried in the couch next to my thigh. She lines herself up with my cock, warm hand tight around the shaft, and plunges down onto me.
Everything goes black.
Blood rushes in my ears.
Without realizing it, I grip her hips so tightly that I’ll probably leave bruises in that plush skin.
When my vision swims back, her mouth is over mine again. Claiming. Demanding. Tongue pushing between my teeth, sweeping over the roof of my mouth and the seam of my lips. It’s messy and hot, sloppy, her soaked pussy squeezing the head of my cock as she rides me shallowly.
I try to use my hold on her hips to force her down. Bury myself in her. But Emma moans a warning, yanks my hand with one hand until I curse and obey, letting her take control.
The breath comes out of my pants. My thighs are shaking with the effort not to fuck up into her as she slows her pace, but drops down further, pussy making obscene noises as she gets wetter and wetter.
“I’m not yours,” she gasps shakily, dropping down completely, making my vision bleed black again.
All I can do is nod. Her knees are clamped around my hips now.
I squeeze her ass, then bury my face in her tits, perfectly framed by the v-neck blouse that falls away in satin almost as soft as her skin.
Her tits are warm, gorgeous, full, suffocating me until all I can see and hear and smell and taste is Emma, Emma, Emma.
“Fuck, Rus,” she stutters.
It’s in that moment I realize I’ve been saying her name out loud.
Like a mantra. But the sensation of her is so overwhelming that I don’t care.
I want to die like this. Buried deep inside her, balls tightening, struggling to breathe as she clutches me to her chest and rides me like it’s our last night on earth.
She grinds down once, twice, clit dragging against my clenched abdomen, and then she’s coming. “Fuck, Rus—”
Her pussy pulses around my cock. It’s too much; the heat and the pressure, the feel of her owning me with her fingers in my hair and her tits shoved in my face. I follow quickly, spilling rope after rope of cum into her, hips finally jerking up to pound away at her haphazard rhythm.
When it’s over, we’re both boneless. Emma leans against me, chest heaving, and I can feel the sheen of sweat under my clothes.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. An embarrassing amount of time before losing myself like that, but it doesn’t matter—she got off. She cried your name out when she came.
A deep, warm satisfaction settles in my chest as I wrap my arms around her waist and let my cock soften inside her. We stay like that for a while, neither of us willing to talk about what just happened.
I thought she was rejecting me when she said I am not something you own.
But this, what just happened between us, felt like Emma Pierce staking her claim. And no woman has ever claimed me before.
I hate how much I want it.