Page 115 of Ruthless Rustanovs

THEL woke on a pillow, crusty with old tears, to a familiar but long unheard sound. Fists pounding in a steady staccato. The sound of a beast on edge. One who needed to be lulled to sleep.

It all came back to her then. Singing at her sister’s wedding. Bair’s arrival. Crying herself ragged even as she texted back and forth with her sister to let her know she was all right. Go on your honeymoon, she’d insisted. I’m totally fine.

She’d finally gotten her sister off the phone with a promise to text her every single day until she came home. A promise Thel had made, even as she sobbed. Even as she wished she could just go back.

And now it was…she glanced at the bedside clock. Three in the morning and Bair was outside the door, fighting the Darkness.

Like a performer in a well-remembered opera, she got out of bed and headed into the apartment’s main room.

There she found him, in nothing but a pair of fighting shorts, pounding on a red bag.

He must have hung it from a post in the ceiling himself, because it certainly hadn’t been there when they came in.

She watched him work, the huge Siberian tiger tattoo rippling over his wide, heavily muscled back as he mercilessly went at the bag.

“You okay?” she asked after a few minutes of just standing there, awkward as a Scandinavian pop song.

Finding him like this used to be easier. Back when she’d still been so stupidly addicted to the feelings he gave her, she’d just say, “Come on, Beast. Stop fighting that bag and come fuck me.”

And he’d carry her back to bed, and that would be the end of the scary punching bag episode.

But it was no longer back then. Tonight instead of responding to her question, he froze. But only for a nanosecond, until he started pounding the bag again. Thwump! thwump! thwump! without cease.

How long had he been like this, she wondered.

“Bair…” she tried again, crossing the room to stand behind him.

No answer. Just thwump! thwump! thwump!

“Bair…” she said again. This time she laid a hand on his back.

Only to choke on the rest of her words when he turned on her.

“Do not touch me!” he ground out, pushing her into the nearest wall.

But then contrary to his command, he shoved his entire body into hers.

Easily pinning her to the wall as he bent down and yanked up the skirt of her shimmery bridesmaid dress.

There came the sound of her panties ripping, and cold air hit her pussy—right before it was filled with Bair’s enormous cock.

“You still stay wet for me,” he groaned into the side of her face when he was all the way in.

Then he started hammering into her, so relentless with his thrusts, it felt like he was punishing her for still wanting him like this.

Like she’d offended him somehow by being wet and ready when he came for her.

It had been too long. That was the only explanation for how quickly she responded to him. Not caring about how desperate she must look to him as she wrapped her legs around his waist, fingers digging into his hard ass as he pounded into her.

She let out a shuddering sigh. So good. So good. He still made her body feel so good. She’d been little more than a medical specimen for the years they’d been apart. Poked and prodded and medicated by professionals specially trained to handle patients with care.

But the way Bair was pounding into her, it was obvious: he didn’t give a fuck about her comfort, and even less about her care. He fucked her rough and mercilessly. Growling, “You should pay for what you did. I will make you pay!” right before he released into her with one final thrust.

She came, too. She was sure he no longer cared about her pleasure in all of this.

Back in the day, it had been a point of pride for him.

He’d never come himself before making sure she’d been brought to a screaming climax.

But now she could practically feel his cold remove from her, even as he buried himself deep inside her and flooded her womb with his heat.

She came right along with him nonetheless, pussy trembling around his jerking dick as her mind unraveled with pleasure.

“Yes! Yes!” she murmured. “So good! Fuck, Bair, so good.”

Caught between then and now, she laughed and her hand came up like it used to, threading around the back of his neck, to pull him down for a kiss.

But nothing happened. No mattered how hard she tugged, his head did not come down.

And when she opened her eyes to look at him askance, she found them glittering with rage.

The Rustanov perma-sneer etched into his face even deeper than usual as he said, “We did not use birth control.”

“I just got tested this summer, and I’m clean. And, ah…” She thought darkly of the disease that had taken five years of her life away from her, and answered, “You don’t have to worry about me accidentally getting pregnant. That definitely won’t be an issue.”

Still, he set her back on her feet, pulling out of her with a snarl, as if he were disgusted with himself for fucking her.

Though if that was the case, why had he even brought her here in the first place?

Wasn’t that his M.O.? To fuck her silly, then fuck her some more, until she was too sex drunk, not to comply with his every command?

But now he merely growled, “Go back to bed, Sirena.”

Sirena. She hadn’t been called that in so long. And then there was the other half of her name. Just Gale, because Sirena Nightingale felt a little too obvious, even for her, the silly girl from Virginia who couldn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything back then. Including herself.

She felt like a fool as she walked back into her room. A fool for trying to reach him. A fool for once again trying to pull him out of his Dark. She wasn’t a na?ve twenty-year-old anymore, she reminded herself as she closed the bedroom door behind her. She knew better now.

And the sound of the door clicking closed served well to remind her what she’d learned the hard way during her five years with Bair.

She wasn’t currently and had never been anything more than a possession to him.

A songbird he’d decided to keep. And now she’d been returned to a luxurious cage. Just like before.

But this time with rules she didn’t understand. At all. And an owner hell bent on punishing her.