I get a few strange looks because I’m in street clothes. A pink polka-dot ruffled tank top and cutoff jean shorts. My sandals have rhinestones on them. So I might stand out from the glittering jewels and ball gowns. But even if I were dressed right, I have no desire to gamble. I definitely have no desire to strip. In fact the only thing I want…
The only thing I want is Ivan.
That is the sad truth. I pass by a wall made of mirrors and see myself walking by. I look…young. Is that why he calls me his little girl? But I am a woman. I have the breasts and the ass to prove it. And what’s more, I know how to use them. No matter what I do it’s never enough.
I’ll always be a little girl to him.
I cross my arms as if they can be a shield against these people. Against myself. I don’t want to see what I look like. I don’t want to see how young I look—because I am young, compared to these people. Compared to how I think of myself. I’m nineteen, significantly younger than Ivan. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t take me seriously. Maybe that’s why he can never see me as his equal.
Instead of remaining in the front rooms, I check in with the concierge to claim an empty back room. I can stay here until we reach the other side. I lie down on the bed and drift off to the faint rhythm of the river, dreaming of blood and poles and gray eyes.
A knock at the door startles me awake.
I reach for the door. “Is it time to go—”
My question gets caught in my throat as I look into the gray eyes of my dream.
“Where were you planning on going?” Ivan asks.
Oh shit. “What? How did you…?”
He gives me a dark look, pushing his way into the room and locking the door behind him. I can’t help but swallow hard, fear and anticipation warring in my chest. He found me, again. He’s going to punish me. God help me, the first feeling I have is relief.
“Fedor wants to fuck with me,” Ivan bites out, his tone making it clear that Fedor relayed our entire conversation. “But he doesn’t want to start a fucking war. He’s not stupid. He knows that if he helped you get away, I would never rest until there was nothing left of him.”
I shiver at the certainty in his voice. “But…why?”
“Why?” Ivan’s laugh is a cold, hard sound. “Fuck if I know why, little girl. You’re more trouble than you’re worth. Except I can’t seem to let you go.”
You’re more trouble than you’re worth. The words bang around in my head, an echo of everything I ever heard as a child. “I want to leave,” I say, backing up. “You can’t keep me against my will.”
His expression is unforgiving. “Watch me.”
I close my eyes, feeling hot tears of frustration slide down my cheeks. “Stop it, Ivan.”
He crosses to me in long strides, taking me by the back of the neck. His touch is not painful, but it is firm. “I’m not going to stop. Not until you’re begging me. Not until you’re so wrapped up you never even think about leaving me again.”
I stare into those pale eyes, wondering at the depth in them. Wondering at the heat.
Before I can figure anything out, he gives me a rough shove toward the bed. “Strip,” he says.
This is familiar ground. And so I walk this ground with a strut, giving him a little show as I tease down the shorts and my lacy tank top. You’d think a man would get bored with having seen my body—any woman’s body—so many times. But the repeat customers at the Grand prove otherwise. As do the icy flames in Ivan’s eyes.
“On the bed.” His voice is guttural now. He’s really pissed, and he’s going to fuck me to show just how much. I’m a little nervous. After all, I remember from my first time how much it can hurt. But I want this too, because it means he cares. Doesn’t it? Or maybe that’s just what my mother told herself every time she went to pray.
Subdued, I scoot back on the bed and wait for further instructions.
When he comes close, he puts his hand on the crown of my head. It feels like a benediction, even as I can sense the fury rolling off him in waves. “You keep leaving,” he mutters. “What is it you hope to find?”
I know what he wants. He wants me to give him something specific, something material. Buy me a pony and I’ll stay your docile little girl forever. Except I can’t be that docile little girl. And the more he pushes me to stay that way, the more I sink comfortably into the role, the more sure I am that I will have to leave. A man as powerful as Ivan isn’t easy to trick, but one of these days he won’t be looking—and on that day I’ll leave. And I can’t deny, as I look into his eyes, that I will forever be sad when he doesn’t follow me.
Two fingers tap my thighs. “Open.”
I tremble, spreading wide. “What are you going to do?”
Though the answer seems obvious. He’s going to fuck me, and it’s going to hurt.
And it seems like that’s what will happen when he answers, “I’m going to give you what you deserve, little one.”
He climbs onto the bed between my thighs. He’s still fully clothed, with his dress shirt and jacket—and his pants completely buttoned. Then he bends down and licks my pussy. I almost shoot off the bed in shock. My body was bracing for pain, but it can’t handle this pleasure. I would probably roll right off the bed, but Ivan’s hands catch me and hold me down.
He licks my clit until I’m panting—and he’s panting too. I can feel his hot breaths against my clit between the tender, tortuous licks.
“Ivan,” I whimper. “Please.”
His eyes meet mine across my body. Then he’s—thank God—tearing off his jacket, his shirt. He’s undoing his pants. I only have a second to take in his strong body, his terrible scars, and then he’s on top of me, inside of me.
His cock doesn’t hurt like before. It’s still an invasion, a fullness, a stretch. But without that biting, lingering pain. And I realize now that he’d been holding back, to an extent. I realize it because he doesn’t hold back now. He pounds into me, fucking me with everything he has.
He’s fucking me for his pleasure, not mine. I’m not sure how I know that. Something about the rhythm of it. Or maybe the way his eyes are closed, focused on the sensation in his cock instead of how I’m feeling. It makes me hot to think of the pleasure I’m giving him, makes me hot to be used like an object to get him off. My pussy is pulsing with it, but it’s not enough to come.
Ivan stiffens, and I know he’s coming inside me. His face is beautiful like this, carnal and raw. He looks like an avenging angel, and I push my hips into him, giving him a final squeeze. He gasps and bucks one last time.
Then he pushes off me, rolls over so he’s facing away, and pulls up the sheet. “Good night,” he says, still breathless.
For a minute I can only lie there, legs still spread, pussy still hot with arousal.
Then I sit up. “What?”
He sounds both amused and tired. “Go to sleep, Candy. We’re staying the night.”
“I don’t mind staying the night. I mind…I mind you leaving me like this!”
He looks at me over his shoulder, expression appreciative. “It wouldn’t be a punishment if you liked it.”
I should be pissed, but instead I just feel desperate and horny and deeply regretful. “Please, Ivan. Please…Daddy. I’m sorry I ran away. I won’t do it again.”
His eyebrows lower. “Don’t lie to me, little one.”
I drop my gaze, because we both know I can’t promise that. “Please let me come. I…I need to. It hurts in my private place.”
“Show me,” he says softly.
I put my hand over my pussy and give him my most sorrowful expression. I don’t have to fake it at all, because I feel sorrowful. I can’t believe I hurt him that way. And I can’t believe how turned on it made me to have him use me with no thought to my pleasure.