Page 2 of Ruthless Rustanovs

He wasn’t a laughing man by nature, but he’d be damned if Eva didn’t make him smile. “In my country, girlfriends do their own laundry and that of their boyfriends.”

“Mmm-hmm…” This time she took his dick in her hand and closed her mouth around it, giving it three languorous sucks before releasing it again. “You probably wish you had one of them Russian girlfriends right now, don’t you? I’m sure they always have clean underwear on under their miniskirts.”

“You are vixen. You should wash own clothes every week as I do. And not wait until last minute!”

Eva took him in her mouth again and suckled him for a few long minutes until he forgot all about the gym.

Alexei clasped her by the back of the head, holding her steady as he pumped into her mouth…

an urgent need building up in his groin.

But she suddenly stopped and pulled away, dodging his seeking hand when he tried to pull her back down to finish what she’d started.

“I think I ought to show you what might happen if you send me off to school with no panties today,” she said before dancing away to open a dresser drawer from which she pulled out a miniskirt.

She turned her back to him and hooked her thumbs into the sides of her bikini bottoms, pushing them down over her hourglass hips and deliciously round derriere before stepping out of them and pulling on her miniskirt.

“Cuz maybe I’m just being silly. I might not have anything to worry about, right?” She knocked a pen off the dresser and gasped with faux innocence. “Oops! I dropped this pen. Better pick it up!”

She bent over at the waist, giving him a tantalizing peek of her glistening wet pussy. “You can’t see anything, can you? Nothing that might attract unwanted attention from a School of Social Work security guard, right?”

Before Alexei could even try to reason himself out of her sexy trap, he was behind her and sinking his dick—still wet from her mouth—into her soaking pussy. “I will do your laundry, kotenok, but only if you promise to be waiting for me in this exact same position when I get home.”

She braced herself against the dresser as he pistoned into her.

“Oh, baby, I will let you do whatever you want to me tonight. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said in such a way that Alexei couldn’t be sure if she was talking about the laundry he’d just agreed to do or the sex they were currently having.

He pulled her skirt-covered hips into his, riding her and loving the way she let her chin drop to her chest in delicious abandonment.

As if his sex was a heroin-like drug that made her loose all over.

The wet sounds of their bodies slapping together filled the apartment until Eva came with a loud cry and he released into her with a stream of Russian words.

She laughed afterward. “I have no idea what you just said, but I for sure agree.”

He pulled out of her but kept a hand cupped over her pussy which was now leaking with his seed.

“When we do this again tonight, one hand will be here…” he brushed his right thumb against her still-swollen clit and took a hold of her left breast in the other, “And one hand will be here. I will not let you come until you are screaming my name. My full name, not pet one you insist on using.”

She laughed again and rubbed her ass against him. “In that case, I can’t wait until you get home.”

He nuzzled his face against the back of her neck, savoring the way she smelled of sex, sandalwood, and him. “I love you very much. You know this, yes?”

She turned in his arms, pulling her miniskirt down before stringing her arms around his neck. “I know this. And I love you right back, baby.”

He kissed her, “Good. I will make you prove tonight.”

But when Alexei arrived home that night, he did not find Eva waiting for him as she had promised. In fact, the apartment was dark and there was no sign that she’d been there since that afternoon.

Alexei reflected back over the day, a sick sense of foreboding churning his stomach.

Eva had not stopped by the school’s security desk to visit him at work as she usually did.

He hadn’t seen her while making his hourly rounds.

He’d even peeked in the window of her conflict resolution class but there was no sign of her.

And later, when he phoned the apartment’s landline to tell her he was on his way home, she hadn’t answered.

During his walk back home that evening, he vowed he would haul Eva to the nearest electronics store tomorrow and get her a cell phone.

Her father disconnected her phone service when she insisted on moving in with Alexei.

But whenever Alexei talked about adding her to his plan, she pointed out that they couldn’t afford it.

Eva hadn’t taken out any student loans because up until her parents found out about him, they’d been covering all her school and living expenses.

When her father cut her off, she missed the deadline to apply for a work-study job.

Eva wanted to get a part-time job but Alexei talked her out of it.

With her summer credits, she only had one more semester to go.

And she had enough to manage as it was with her field-work hours on top of a full class load.

Alexei would just have to figure out a way to add her to his plan.

Maybe he could take on a second work-study job?

For the remainder of the journey to his apartment, Alexei tried to keep his thoughts on solving Eva’s cell phone problem rather than letting them stray into dangerous territory.

Territory that included the type of foul play that got his mother killed when he was four, and his father murdered when he was eighteen.

By the time Alexei arrived at the empty apartment, he’d decided to concentrate on finding Eva rather than allowing panic to take over.

As he flipped on the lights, he focused on the simple gold band he’d stashed in his sock drawer over a month ago.

The cost of the ring was the reason he only had only forty-two dollars left in his bank account until today.

Alexei had planned to take Eva out to a nice dinner after proposing, but this meant he’d had to wait until his next paycheck.

It bothered him that he couldn’t take her out for a decent meal whenever he wanted…

but not nearly as much as it bothered him that he couldn’t provide for her until he completed his program.

In the end, he hoped Eva wouldn’t care about the miserable state of his finances. Knowing her, he imagined the only condition she’d have for him was a promise to do her laundry at least once a month. And that was a condition he’d gladly meet if it meant he could spend the rest of his life with her.

But as he stood in their silent apartment, a new and uneasy feeling came over him.

The two loads of laundry he’d done for her that morning were no longer neatly folded on the small kitchen table where he’d left them.

Usually, he had to badger her into putting away her clothes.

Yet the table was completely clear and the laundry basket was nowhere to be found.

If something bad had happened to Eva, or if he simply got home before her, the clothes would still be on the table.

Something definitely wasn’t right.

Like an actor in a bad romantic drama, Alexei yanked open the top drawer on her side of the dresser.

It was empty. He opened the next drawer, and the next.

Nothing. Alexei threw open the closet with trembling hands, not wanting to believe what he was beginning to suspect.

It was empty, too. Eva’s dresses, hats, and other items were missing, the empty space giving no sign anything had ever been there at all.

When Alexei went into the bathroom, he realized all her toiletries had vanished. Even her toothbrush and dental floss.

Only a few more minutes of frantic searching passed before Alexei discovered the note taped to the refrigerator door. It was written in the loopy handwriting she favored and that he’d always found so endearing.

Alexei,

I can’t live like this anymore. I want my old life back.

My father was right. I can do better than you.

I’ve made up my mind and I know this is for the best. Please take care of yourself.

You’re a hard worker and you can make it if you put your mind to it.

Keep trying to better yourself, and don’t try to find me. I’m so sorry.

Eva

Years later, business pundits would ponder how Alexei Rustanov became such a ruthless businessman. Some would point to the untimely death of his parents, or his temporary estrangement from his Russian crime family.

But Alexei knew the hidden truth: a girl from a Texas small town had ripped his heart out when he least expected it. After that, he found it easy to be heartless.