Page 26 of Ruthless Rustanovs

ALEXEI had not intended for the day to fall apart the way it did.

In fact, when he’d woken next to Eva on the floor his spirit had felt lighter than it had in years.

Somehow, by finally confessing the ugly truth, she had unburdened him.

He’d actually felt a little grateful to her as he carried them both to his bed to sleep for a few more hours, until he woke at five A.M. as was his habit.

Eva looked so peaceful sleeping naked in his bed that he caressed her face, feeling a strange longing to kiss her awake.

But in a rare moment of tenderness, Alexei decided to let her sleep.

He worked out in the suite’s gym, showered, got dressed, replied to a few work emails, all while whistling the tune to an old folk song from his childhood.

When he called his publicist to arrange for a photographer to discretely track their movements during lunch, it hadn’t felt like his final revenge as much as one last thing to take care of so he could finally relax and enjoy the rest of his time with Eva.

The plan was to wake her up, get her downstairs for a romantic lunch which would be snapped by his photog, and then get the pictures published in a few Dallas newspapers.

His publicist had agreed leaking photos of him at The R with a local beauty would be a great was to market the hotel.

Though she had to be wondering why he cared, considering The R was just one of his holdings and while profitable, not so much so that he should take an active interest in its publicity.

Of course, she had no way of knowing his sudden desire to get The R in the trades stemmed more from a personal thirst for revenge than good business sense.

Drummond was a small town. Someone would see the romantic vacation pictures and tell Eva’s Aaron about them. This new plan allowed him to keep his promise to Eva but have his ultimate revenge, too.

However, the day turned sour when he went back into the master suite and found Eva crying, “No!” in her sleep.

She woke from her nightmare with a start and then shrank from his touch like he repelled her.

This told him more than words exactly who her nightmare had been about.

He had meant to start the day off fresh with her but they ended up getting in yet another argument.

Alexei managed to get her downstairs to lunch as planned, but not without feeling a surprising spike of shame for what he was about to do.

Yes, she had treated him horribly years ago and he wasn’t one to let an insult that big go unanswered.

He had a reputation for not just vanquishing but crushing his enemies, and it wasn’t unearned.

While he no longer resorted to violence, he wasn’t above using underhanded tactics if it would help him win a contract, get a bigger percentage in a deal, or outrun his competition.

The reason he had come so far so fast was because he put winning over everything and this philosophy had served him well over the years.

But what he was about to do suddenly made him feel less like winner, and more like a bully. No better than her father who had obviously been using her one rebellion with Alexei to control her all these years.

When she listed her reasons for wanting to move away from Drummond, they sounded like the same reasons she had for wanting to get away from him.

Then when she tried to tell him she’d changed, he’d called her an irresponsible girl which sent her running from the table and made him feel like an even bigger jerk.

She had been right about him needing closure, and maybe she was right about herself, too. Maybe, she had changed for the better, and he just didn’t want to see it like he hadn’t wanted to see that her fun-loving nature was nothing more than fickle immaturity eight years ago.

After a few uncharacteristic moments of indecision, Alexei went after her.

He’d call the photog off, he decided, and they’d talk for real this time.

He was sick of arguing with her and the one thing she’d said about working hard to be a better person had him intrigued.

He wondered if she had actually become the person he thought she was back in the day.

But when he’d reached the restaurant entrance, it was just in time to see her exit the gift shop and scurry into the nearby women’s restroom.

Curiosity convinced him to walk into the small boutique.

“Mr. Rustanov, hello!” the older woman behind the cash register said when he entered. Though all the hotel employees had been informed he was staying on the premises, the cashier was probably surprised he had deigned to step into one of the gift shops. “Can I help you find anything?”

“The woman who was just here. What did she buy?”

The cashier didn’t hesitate to answer, his status as the hotel’s owner overriding any consumer confidentiality ethics she might have had. “A pay-as-you-go phone.”

“I see.”

And just like that, the bitterness he’d thought himself freed of from that morning came back to hang like an acid storm cloud over his heart.

He waited for her outside the restroom. And waited.

And waited. At first, he had only been annoyed.

Obviously, they would need to set some ground rules for the next few days.

No more lying, no more sneaking off to make calls to her boyfriend.

But as the minutes ticked by he grew angrier and angrier.

Who did she think she was? Keeping him, Alexei Rustanov, waiting while she talked to her boyfriend on the phone? By the time she emerged from the bathroom forty minutes later, he was quaking with fury.

“You were on the phone with him,” he said, his voice tight with accusation.

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough. While he had been considering ways to forgive her and get to know her better, she had been whispering sweet nothings to the man she really loved.

He kissed her, long and hard, giving the photog plenty of time to snap his fill of pictures.

The fact that she kissed him back, matching him in passion, made him despise her all that much more.

How could she talk to her boyfriend one moment, and then turn around and kiss him as if she burned for him in the same way he burned for her?

He broke off the kiss with an angry, “Let’s go.”

He took her by the hand, another romantic gesture meant for the photog, and guided her to the elevator. But once they were ensconced back in the penthouse, he all but flung her into the master bedroom.

“Strip.”

“Alexei…”

“Shut up. You’re back on yes-no punishment. Now strip.”

Setting her jaw, she kicked off her flip-flops and peeled off the simple yellow sundress she had chosen from the closet of clothes he’d provided for her. Then she stepped out of her panties and jerked off her strapless bra.

If he hadn’t been so consumed with anger, he would have chosen that moment to tell her she had been very wrong earlier.

His reaction to her wasn’t purely based in revenge.

Her dark chocolate body, the breasts, the hips, the ass, the way she shifted from foot to foot, waiting for his next instruction—it called to him in a way no other woman’s body ever had.

“Lie down in the middle of the bed.”

She did as he said with stiff movements.

“Now close your eyes.”

The sight of her naked and prone caused his cock to pulse in his underwear. He took himself out and said, “Picture me. Not him. Not any man you might have been with before. Just me.”

He lightly stroked himself a couple of times, giving her a chance to get the picture fully in her mind. “Now imagine me touching your breasts. Put your hands over your tits and imagine they are mine.”

With awkward hesitation she laid her hands on her chest and rubbed her breasts.

“As you know from experience, I would do a better job than this. Squeeze them, flick your nipples.”

She did and to his delight, he watched her two black cherry-colored nubs become hard under her ministrations.

“Do this until it becomes uncomfortable for you in other places. Do this until you become wet, and then stick two fingers in yourself. These are my fingers and I want you fuck them.”

He guessed she was already wet because no sooner were the words out of his mouth, she easily inserted two fingers into her own slit.

“Now, you may talk but only to say my name. Say it now.”

“Alexei…” Her hips bucked on the bed. And his hand began stroking himself with a mind of its own. If there had ever been a sight hotter than Eva masturbating on his bed, Alexei had yet to see it.

“Yes, fuck my fingers, let them make your sweet pussy come, and say my name again.”

“Alexei…” She opened wider with two more fingers, sliding them in and out of her tunnel while her hips jutted back and forth.

Pre-cum appeared on Alexei’s dick and he quickly used it as lubricant for his now-frantically stroking hand. He only stopped long enough to climb up on the bed and kneel beside her curvaceous, writhing body.

“Use your other hand to rub your clit and come for me. Let me see you come, Eva. Keep saying my name as you do.”

His words sent her over the edge. “Alexei! Alexei! Alexei!” Her back arched, and all self-stroking stopped as she came with one last long, helpless cry of his name. “Alexei!”

“Open your eyes,” he said as soon as he was done.

She opened her eyes which were still glazed over with the orgasm she’d just had, and without him having to command her, she knocked his hand away and replaced it with her own before taking him into her mouth inch-by-inch until her pretty lips met her hand at the base of his dick.

He used one hand to hold her head steady as it bobbed up and down on his cock and the other to lift the fingers that had just been inside her to his lips. He loved the way she tasted, always had, and he greedily sucked her essence from her fingers until he released into her mouth.