“Well, you can’t have me! I’m not some company you can just take over. I have a life and people I care about and you are pushing buttons so hard right now.”
In the furious silence that followed, the waiter arrived with their steaks. But perhaps sensing the tension at the table, he set their plates in front of them and made a hasty exit.
After the waiter left, Alexei picked up his fork and knife and said, “I am a man of my word. I will cease pushing your buttons now per our agreement.”
So she had won, but it sure didn’t feel like it when she picked up her own steak knife and fork. They proceeded to eat their dinner, neither of them offering words to fill the awful silence. And though she couldn’t say for sure that Alexei didn’t enjoy his steak, she knew hers tasted like rubber in her mouth.
Chapter Eighteen
THEY didn’t order dessert. Alexei had not been kidding when he said he didn’t want to pretend with her anymore and he had no desire to extend the awkwardness of their dinner. They rode back up to the room on opposite sides of the elevator, both of them keeping their eyes glued to the numbers lighting up on each floor until they finally hit the penthouse.
When they entered the suite, he said, “I have a business email to send. Meet me in the bedroom. I expect you to be naked when I arrive.”
He didn’t turn around to see her reaction to this order, but heard faint surprise in her voice when she said, “Okay.”
After she left, he pulled out his smart phone and sent a text message to Emilio. “Cancel my morning business calls. And make sure I’m not disturbed for the next twenty-four hours.”
He hesitated before typing the next bit. He didn’t want to break his promise, but if he was going to kill the Dallas Times story as he planned to do the next morning, he’d need a Plan B for going to battle with a man who had so far proven to be staunch competition. Also, he was no longer in the habit of not getting what he wanted, and it felt like Eva was leaving him no choice with this Aaron business. In the end, he sent a second text message:
“Also, get me everything you can on her boyfriend. I only have a first name. Aaron.”
With those messages sent, he powered the phone off and headed back to bedroom.
He found Eva on the bed, naked as commanded, but with her knees curled up to her chest and her chin pressed into the valley in between them.
He started to shrug out of his suit jacket, but then on second thought…. “You will take my clothes off for me now,” he told her.
He enjoyed the sight of her unfurling herself from her miserable position and crawling toward where he stood at the edge of the bed before situating herself in a seated position. The bed was just high enough that he could stand easily in the V of her legs, which sent a spike of heat up the shaft of his penis when her naked stomach rubbed against it as she pushed the white jacket off his shoulders.
But then she unbuttoned his shirt, so quickly and efficiently, that he bit out, “I see you’ve done this before.”
She looked away from, the sensual light in her eyes fading. “Since you seem intent on making this a pushing buttons sort of night, let me just say I’m sure there are things both of us have done before. And I’m sure your Ms. Threesome knows her way around a button-down shirt herself.”
He smiled, liking her show of jealousy, because at least it proved she cared a little bit, also because he couldn’t imagine commanding Caroline to undress him. With her, there was no back and forth. It was more like a business transaction, in which one party used all the tricks in her bag to satisfy the other. Their dynamic was nothing like his and Eva’s.
“Let us start over,” he said. He wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hello.”
“Hi,” she answered, the sensual light coming back on when she looked up at him.
“I am sorry about dinner,” he said.
She let out a short laugh, laced with relief. “I’m sorry, I’m not really laughing. It’s just I’m not used to hearing you apologize.”
“No, I suppose I have never apologized to you for anything before.” With slow deliberate movements, he stepped away from her to divest of his pants and underwear. And he could not help but smirk a little when her eyes went straight to his very erect cock.
He gently pushed her shoulders, so she was lying on her back. “I am apologizing now.”
In a punctuation of this statement, he bent and dipped his head between her thighs, giving her one long lick from the bottom of her vagina and raking his tongue across her clit on his way to the top. He lapped at her juices, reveling in the way she tasted, delving his tongue deep inside her and swirling it around. It felt like a triumph when she grasped him by the hair and arched her hips into his month.
“Baby,” he heard her whisper. “You are so forgiven.”
For a while there was only the sound of him licking up her liquid desire, which only caused her to release more of her wetness into his greedy mouth, until she began to buck forward with her . He placed his hands on her hips, holding her still, so he could continue administering the most intimate of kisses as she cried out with pleasure.
When she was done, he repositioned them on the bed, with him on top, bracing himself on his forearms above her. “Eva, put me inside of you.”
She reached down and wrapped her hand around his cock, guiding it into her slick passageway, opening her legs even further so he could sink in all the way to his balls.
“The way you let me all the way in makes me want to fuck you like this all night long,” he told her, before leaning down to take one of her hardened peaks into his mouth. He laved it at the same slow pace they were moving together on the bed. They both seemed to understand there was something different about tonight. Neither of them would rush, and they would take the time to feel and appreciate the sensations they were giving each other.
“The way you suck on my breasts makes me want to let you,” she told him.
He switched breasts and did the same to the other, before saying, “You like the way I handle you. I am glad.”
“Mmm, so good,” she said, like sex with him was a hedonistic form of the dessert they had just skipped.
He took a moment to admire her, feasting on her pretty face, on how sexy her dark body looked moving against his, before coming down to his elbows, which sent him into her even deeper.
She sucked in her breath and then moaned it out. “Oh, baby.”
He laid his forehead against hers, going even slower than before, just trying to make it last as long as possible. Forever if he could. “I’m not trying to take you over like a business,” he whispered against her ear, “I do not just want you. I need you in my life.”
“Alexei…” he heard her say, a sharp warning in her voice.
“You were young when you left, but what you said before is right. You have changed. I can see that now, and I love the person you have become.”
Now she began pushing at him, her hands shoving against his chest, “Alexei, no, don’t got there—“
“I am not giving you Drummond Oil because I want to own you but because I am in love with you. I love you, kotenok. I love you.”
“Drummond!” she said, gasping out the word. “Alexei, get off me. Drummond!”
It took a moment to realize she had just said the safe word he’d given her at the beginning of their two weeks. He immediately stopped moving above her, but she continued to shove at him.
“No, stop. Get all the way out. Let me go!”
She was almost hysterical now, yelling the words at him. And she continued to shove at him even as he pulled out and gave her enough room to sit up in bed.
He reached out, the need to comfort her greater than his confusion, but she slapped his hands away and screamed, “Don’t touch me!” Then she just sat there trembling while she clutched at her heart.
It looked like she was on verge of a heart attack, which made Alexei desperate to ease her pain.
“What did I do?” he asked. “Whatever is, I am sorry and I will fix it. Just let me help you.”
This time when he reached for her, she let him enfold her rigid body in his arms, and eventually she stopped trembling and her breathing gentled.
“I am sorry I upset you,” he said when her body relaxed from what he could only assume had been some kind of panic attack.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice hoarse. “It’s just I don’t know what to do and it’s tearing me apart.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“You don’t. You really don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I am not the beast you think I am. I understand it is hard for you, that all of this is hard for you. Protecting your town and trying not to feel guilty about Aaron. It is hard for you to accept my love.”
She pulled away from him, “I hate this version of you. You’re not like the Alexei I used to know. I could somewhat trust him. But you’ll do anything to win. Say anything to win. And I hate it.”