Page 166 of Ruthless Rustanovs

Sola woke the next morning without her glasses…and without any problem recalling what had happened the night before.

In fact her seriously worked over body gave tender protest as she sat up in what turned out to be her captor’s very large bed.

And though she’d woken up in an unfamiliar room, she easily found her glasses on the nightstand, right where Ivan had put them before angling his head to give her their first waking kiss—at least the first one she hadn’t shoved away from in shock.

Yes, she knew for certain what had happened last night, but she still couldn’t believe what she’d done with Ivan while fully awake…what she let him do to her…how she’d screamed…oh, God, how she’d begged the night before.

No, now in the cold light of morning—no, scratch that. Afternoon. It was afternoon. Already.

She groaned again. Thinking of what she’d done. What she’d have to do now to undo what had happened last night.

Tell me to stop, he’d said. Teasing her all night long.

She should have told him stop last night. Today she definitely would.

After a quick shower and change into yet another set of joggers and t-shirt, Sola did something she’d never done before. She went looking for Ivan Rustanov.

It felt a lot like yesterday’s liquor search, but this time it only took three doors to find what she was looking for. He wasn’t in the swimming pool or in his study. But yes, here he was, in the gym.

He was in a pair of fighting shorts, punching and kicking an oblong red bag with a deftness she’d never seen anyone display outside of fighting films.

The sight of him like this was completely mesmerizing, and for a moment, all she could do was watch the interplay of muscles rolling under his thick arms and broad shoulder blades as he laid into the bag.

A damp heat erupted between her legs as she watched him, warming her core…making her forget for a moment the reason she’d come looking for him in the first place. To tell him last night had been a mistake. One they couldn’t ever repeat, because…

Why was that again, exactly? She struggled to remember her reasons as she crooked her head to the side and watched him work.

But just as she was about to settle down into a full-on stare fest, he came to a sudden stop, head whipping around like an animal that had just scented another in its territory.

“Hi,” she squeaked. “Sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to—”

“Are you okay?” he demanded, voice low and rough as he closed the distance between them, not stopping until he was towering over her, all muscle and sweat.

“I’m fine,” she answered, a little taken aback by his urgent tone. “A little sore, but that’s not why I—”

He cut her off with a bout of language so coarse, she could only assume he was cursing in Russian. “I knew I was too rough with you last night,” he finally said, in English. “I should have held back. You are so small. I should have controlled myself better.”

“No, I’m fine. I promise,” she answered, a little weirded out to be reassuring him that the best sex of her life hadn’t damaged her…right before she told him why they could never have sex like that again.

Ivan didn’t look like he believed her. His light blue eyes gave her another worried scan, and she knew how she must appear to him.

In fact, she’d been a little taken aback by the girls-gone-wild look she was sporting when she saw herself in the bathroom mirror earlier.

Tousled hair, dark circles under her eyes, lips still swollen from his demanding kisses.

That was the last thing she remembered from last night. Falling asleep with him kissing her, still embedded inside her sex, less hard than he’d been before he’d emptied into the fifth condom of the night, but still nowhere close to being soft.

Her cheeks burned with the memory, and her ears rang with all the things he’d said to her. How beautiful she was, how he’d wanted this from the first moment he’d seen her. “Tell me to stop, Sola,” over and over again as he came into four more condoms.

Her eyes couldn’t help but drift down his chest, covered in sweat from all that punching and kicking, only to rise when she heard him chuckle wickedly.

“Oh, I see….” he said.

He moved forward, and she stepped back, only to find she’d placed herself right up against a nearby wall.

Very deliberately, Ivan put one hand on either side of her head and leaned in, lips hovering above but not quite touching hers as he said, “You come to find me for different reason.”

His accent had gone thick again, his voice husky with teasing amusement.

Oh, God, he was bad. So bad. Like the walking, talking personification of the term “bad boy.” But having him this close made her body throb. Made her want things she really shouldn’t want. Again.

“No,” she barely managed to squeeze out, flattening her hands against his chest. “We can’t. I mean, we shouldn’t. Ever again.”

He met her resistance with a hooded look, his crystal blue eyes studying her lazily, even as he said in a hard tone, “Sola, do not play this game with me. You were awake last night. All last night. You let me in, and now you are trying to kick me out? Why?”

“Because last night was a mistake,” she admitted. “A mistake I can’t repeat.”

He continued to study her so intently that Sola felt trapped, not just by his body, but also by his intense blue gaze. “You were not born here, but I can see you are a very American-style girl. You try to follow the rules and deny yourself all the time. Ice cream. Pleasure. Me…”

He cupped a large hand around the back of her neck, stroking the side of her face with his thumb as he asked, “Why is this, Sola? Why do you pretend you do not want me after spending whole night in my bed? You are a surprising woman, but this is not kind of surprise I like. I will not be toyed with, Sola. Not after last night.”

“I’m not…” she stopped, finding it hard to breathe, much less form coherent sentences with him so close. “I’m not trying to tease you.”

“Then why do you try to make me believe you do not want me?” he asked, his voice low and fierce. “Why do you keep running, even after I have you?”

“Because I want you, but I don’t want to want you,” she admitted, looking up to meet his angry and confused blue gaze. “I shouldn’t want a guy like you.”

“A guy like me.” He seemed to be sampling her words in his mouth and not liking their taste. “What kind of man do you believe me to be, Sola?”

“Dangerous,” she answered frankly. “Last night you made me want things, but now, in the light of day…”

“…you can see my face.”

“No! Look…I really don’t care about your face,” she reminded him, voice weary. “But I do care about your heart. You’re not a nice guy, and I…don’t want to be with someone else like that again.”

“The last guy you were with—he was not nice guy.” An observation, not a question, and against all possibility his voice had become even harder, his eyes even more intense in their demand for answers.

She shifted inside his wall trap, hating how awkward it felt. That he wouldn’t let this go, even though he’d already gotten what he wanted from her last night. Total surrender. Wasn’t that enough?

“Anyway…” She looked to the side, no longer able to bear the weight of his angry stare. “You told me to tell you when to stop, and I’m telling you now. Stop.”

For a moment he said nothing. Just continued to lean over her, silent and still as a marble statue.

“You are right,” he said after a long while. “I am dangerous man. Bad man. I put your teacher in cage. And I made you stay here when I should have let you go. For that I am sorry.”

Sola’s heart stopped. The last thing she’d expected to come out of this conversation was a sincere apology. “Th-thank you for saying that,” she said.

“No, do not thank me, Sola. Tell me to stop again.”

She stared at him, not understanding.

“Tell me to stop, Sola,” he repeated, his voice little more than a gravelly command.

“Stop?” she said tentatively, doing as he asked but feeling terribly confused.

His response came swiftly. A sneered, “Nyet!” And in the next moment, his lips crashed down on hers.

It was like being thrown into an emotional tornado. Around and around went her feelings: surprise and wrong and confused and wrong and hot and wrong and sweaty and wrong and hot…sweaty…Ivan. Nothing but Ivan.

Then he began stripping off her clothes as he told her in a rush, “I never promised you a yes for your stop. The time for asking me to stop was before I met you, Sola, and now…now is too late…too late…”

He had her naked in an instant, and he fell to his knees, locking his lips over her pussy. Her sex, so tender this morning, flamed anew with the first touch of his mouth, the lips of her mound tightening as he lapped at her with his tongue.

The first orgasm came quickly and violently, tossing her over a cliff without a care for anything she’d said before.

“No, I will not stop,” Ivan informed her as he stood and wiped her essence off his mouth with the back of his hand. “I cannot stop. I am past stopping.”

She shook her head, heart constricting at his words—only to be cut off when he lifted her off her feet, spreading her legs wide around his waist as he pinned her to the wall.

“Do not tell me to stop. Do not tell me to stop… ”

His voice was little more than a guttural whisper now, desperate and unhinged as his mouth moved over her neck, her bare shoulders, her chin, all the while repeating, “Do not tell me to stop…”

She wanted to push him away. Knew she should try again to explain in a calm voice why this was such a bad idea…and she would have if he hadn’t captured her lips again, devouring all her sensible words and thoughts before she could get them out.

“I need inside you,” he said, his accent raw and low as he reached down between them and pulled himself out of his fighting shorts.

And instead of protesting as she should have, she opened her legs wider, groaning when he lifted her up and then oh-so-slowly pushed himself into her. Inch by excruciating inch.