Page 159 of Ruthless Rustanovs

“So, I stand corrected,” Sola said about ten minutes later, as she poured some of Ivan’s expensive vodka onto a washcloth. “This is a little bit like Beauty and the Beast.”

She came to stand in front of the entryway’s armchair, where Ivan was currently seated. Such a pretty sight to behold—until she pressed the vodka-saturated cloth onto the ugly mark on Ivan’s chest where the wolf had scratched him.

“Ow!” he yelled, as the alcohol burned into the wound.

“Including the part where you whine like a baby while I try to patch you up,” Sola grumbled.

He sensed she was only complaining because she was still in a state of shock. Once the door slammed behind him, she’d spent nearly a full minute trembling before noting his ripped shirt and saying, “It scratched you. Oh my gosh, it scratched you. We have to fix that!”

She’d pushed him into the armchair, and then burst into a whirlwind of nerve-fueled activity. He’d watched her search the house for a medical kit. When she couldn’t find one, her eyes fixed on the half-empty bottle of vodka next to his usual chair.

“This will have to do,” she muttered to herself.

Ivan had admired her resourcefulness. But even now, for all her snarky comments, her hands still trembled as she applied the damp cloth to the large scratch.

Still, there was a difference between understanding why she was being snarky in the wake of the wolf attack, and tolerating it.

He glowered at her. “I have never seen this movie, Beauty and the Beast, but I would not need patching up if you had not gone off by yourself on a full moon night.”

Instead of getting upset, however, she squinted at him with a quizzical smile. “Are you sure you haven’t seen it? Because that line is totally in the movie.”

He huffed in frustration. “Are you done yet?”

Sola stepped back with a frown. “Yeah, I guess I am. I can’t find so much as a single Band-Aid in this house, so that’s pretty much all I can do. But we need to figure out how to cover up that wound. Wait, I think I saw some duct tape in the cleaning supply closet.”

And that was how he found himself fighting off an erection as he watched Sola cover the nasty looking scratch with a dry wash cloth and two lengths of duct tape.

“This is going to hurt like a bitch when it comes off,” she half-apologized when she’d finished applying the makeshift bandage. “But it’s better than taking the chance of it getting infected before we can get you to the town clinic tomorrow.”

“I will not need clinic,” he said, rising to a stand. “Scratch is not so deep.”

“But—”

“If you will excuse me, I will go to bed now. It has been a very long night.”

“Oh, okay, you’re going to bed. Okay…” Her words were agreeable enough, but he sensed disappointment behind them.

“Would you like me to stay up with you?” Then he thought of all his cousin’s wives, and their touchy-feely ways. “Do you need a hug?” he asked her.

“No! Oh, gosh, no,” she said. “Of course not. I’d never ask for something like that from you.”

“Because of my attitude,” he said, paraphrasing her earlier words.

“No—” she cut off, obviously frustrated. “You know, I’m a really good communicator,” she informed him. “Actors and techs love me, but with you, I always feel like I’m saying the wrong thing.”

Funny, he felt the exact same way. But he waited for her to finish, wondering where she was going with this.

“I only meant I don’t want to keep you up. That’s all. No judgment or bitchiness or anything. I just think you deserve a good night’s sleep after you, you know, punched—I mean actually punched out a wolf to save me. So um, yeah…definitely, definitely go to bed. And um… thank you.”

She stood on her tiptoes and before he could think to stop her, pressed her lips into the side of his face. The ruined side of his face.

He thought he’d been hard before, but her kiss turned his cock into a piece of stone. It ached so painfully between his legs, he had to make himself go completely still for fear of mauling her.

And maybe she felt it too, because her eyes widened a little before she stepped away from him and said, “Yeah…soooo…I think I’ll head upstairs now.

First thing tomorrow, I’ll run into town and get you some bandages for that cut.

And while we’re on this topic, what kind of place doesn’t have any first aid supplies? I mean, this is ridiculous!”

“You do not have to do that.”

“Do what? Oh, you mean the bandages?” She shot him a look of exasperation. “Look. Cut the macho guy crap, okay? I want to do it. I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

Sola turned and walked to the stairs before he could argue with her any further. “Good night!” she called down to him, as she ran up the steps.

Ivan didn’t answer. Nor did he move. For a very long time after she left, he remained rooted to the spot. Finding it hard to breathe.

Supermodels had shown up without invitation to his after-fight parties and sucked him off passionately as if paying him his due.

Groupies in matching lingerie often appeared at his penthouse hotel rooms, seemingly out of nowhere, like so much erotic magic.

Back when he’d been Ivan Rustanov, EFC champion, there’d been a constant stream of lovely women.

So many, he could barely remember their faces and he certainly couldn’t recall more than one or two names.

Yet he couldn’t sleep for thinking of the kiss one girl had pressed to his cheek. And his daily battle of trying not to wank-off while thinking of her was lost late that night when, after hours of tossing and turning, he flipped onto his back and pushed the covers down with a resigned grunt.

Thoughts of her curvy body sizzled through his brain as he reached under the band of his silk boxers and took himself in hand.

What would she feel like beneath all those clothes?

Soft, so soft, he imagined. He could almost feel the press of her full thighs around his waist as he thrust into her, and the mental image of him taking one of her beautiful breasts in his mouth very nearly shorted out his brain.

This line of thinking was enough to produce a few drops of pre-cum, making his job easier as his palm moved up and down his rigid shaft—

The click of the door opening froze his hand in mid-motion. He was about to yell at Gregory for coming in without knocking when he realized two things:

One: Gregory was off tonight.

And, two…

Gregory wasn’t standing at the door. But Sola was.

The room was heavily shadowed, but his captive, dressed in a long flannel nightgown that Hannah must have bought for her, was partially illuminated by the light of the full moon streaming through the large picture window.

“My feet are cold,” she said, her voice sleepy and sweet and tinged with a very faint accent he’d never heard in it before. “You have a fire in here.”

He frowned, watching her glide toward his fireplace, holding her hands out in front of her even though his hearth was as cold and devoid of a fire as hers.

Gregory hadn’t been there to light it, and Ivan, being Russian and accustomed to cold winters, didn’t really need the extra warmth of the fire to sleep.

But then she stopped. Looked at him frozen in the bed, his motionless hand fisted around his cock. He realized the moonlight must have shown him to her as clearly as it was showing her to him, because she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I am…” he didn’t finish. Couldn’t finish. Could only stare.

And she stared right back, eyes unblinking behind her glasses.

Then she surprised the hell of out him by saying, “Keep going,” her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to watch you…”

The moonlight reflected off her glasses as she moved closer to the bed. “Please keep going.”

He did. Stroking himself slowly under her curious gaze. Discovering in that moment that he didn’t have the willpower to deny this woman…

“Mmm…” she said, watching him intently. “That turns me on so bad. So bad…”

She bunched up the skirt of her nightgown with one hand, and he nearly spilled right then and there when her other hand started moving between her legs.

“No, don’t stop,” she said when his hand fell away from his throbbing erection. “Keep going.”

“I can’t, Sola. The sight of you. It is too much for me to bear without coming too quickly. Like school boy.”

“Oh,” she said, hand falling away from her pussy in disappointment. But then she brightened and said, “In that case, can we have sex? I really want to have sex with you, Ivan. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about…”

Not waiting for an answer, she advanced on the bed. And only muscle memory alone made it possible for Ivan to reach into the nearby drawer and grab a condom. Even so, he barely got himself sheathed before she was climbing on top of him, guiding his steel-hard cock toward the heat of her entrance.

He’d done countless things with countless girls before her.

Pussy had come so easily back then. Yet the simple act of her easing her wet, hot pussy onto his straining dick nearly blanked his mind.

And he thanked the fighting gods for the discipline Boris had instilled in him, because his physical self-control was the only thing that kept him from blowing his load right then and there.

“So big. Even bigger than I imagined,” she gasped out, her hands splayed across his chest. She started riding him with a moan. As if she’d been dreaming about this. Waiting for this. Just as he had.

“Oh, fuck, that’s good,” she moaned. “So good, Ivan.”