Page 9 of Ruthless Rustanovs

EVA spent more to get on the last direct flight of the night from Pittsburgh to Dallas than she had on the entire vacation. And she also had to deal with the three-hour drive back to Drummond afterward. But it was all worth if it meant she’d be back with Aaron tonight.

Guilt gnawed at her. She was desperate to see Aaron, to remind herself how much she loved him and what a wonderful life they’d built together.

An image of Alexei lifting her leg around his waist suddenly seared her mind. Without warning, her pussy moistened at just the thought of him bringing her to release with her arms pinned above her head.

Eva cursed herself and her treacherous body but it had always been like that with Alexei from their very first kiss. She could still remember how surprised she’d been when she stopped by his security desk the night before Christmas break.

“Hey, Lexie,” she said, tapping on his business book to get his attention. She’d used this tactic often because Alexei was usually studying whenever she saw him. Unlike Eva who only cracked open her books a few nights before a paper was due.

“I can see you’re studying and I don’t want to disturb you…” she started to say.

“You disturb me every night with the tap, tap, tap on my book while I am attempting to make study,” he pointed out. “I think this is maybe hobby for you.”

She continued on like he hadn’t said anything. “…but I know you’re going to be here all alone over the holidays and I wanted to give you your Christmas present before I left.”

“My Christmas present,” he repeated, his usual scowl deepening even further.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m sick of seeing you sitting around here looking like an angry bear all the time. So, this Christmas I’m going to give you a hug. It’s obvious you need one.”

Alexei looked up at her from his seated position, his hulking body completely eclipsing his tiny rolling desk chair. “You want to give me hug.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“No, we will not hug.”

“Listen here, boy. I am a Texan, born and raised. We do not take “no” for an answer,” she informed him. “You can either get over here and let me give you this hug, or you can argue with me. But if I were you, I’d give in. That way you can get back to your book.”

“I am not boy.” Alexei slammed his book shut and came around the desk to confront her.

“You are friendly,” he said, pointing at her in a way that made his observation seem more like an accusation than a compliment.

“You come here to say good-night and make, what is it called? Small talk every night because maybe you want to be friends. You are not like me. You have many friends. And I see you also talking and smiling to other guard, Emilio, too. Maybe you are girl who does not like when man not friendly to you. But I am man and I do not want to be your friend. No hug.”

For a moment, Eva stared at him in shocked silence. “Okaaaay,” she said, drawing out the word. “I think this proves two things. One, you’re really rude in a way that goes beyond all that stuff I learned in my Cultural Sensitivity seminar and two, you really, really need a hug.”

Before he could offer any more protest, she slipped her hands under his arms which were stiff with his fists clenched at his sides, and wrapped her arms around his wide torso.

She laid her soft head against his massive chest and squeezed as a hard as she could given their size difference and that he was built like a stone statue. “Merry Christmas, Lexie—”

And that was when she felt an insanely large erection press into her stomach. Eva froze, eyes popping wide.

“I told you I do not want be friends,” he said above her, his voice quiet and furious.

For some reason she still felt compelled to cling to him if only to prove her point. “Well, I still maintain that you really needed a hug,” she said from the relative safety of his chest.

They stood like that with her hugging him, him not hugging her back, and neither of them saying a word. All while his erection filled the silence louder than a scream.

“You are adult woman but like kotenok, you do not listen. Like kitten, you do what you want and are surprised when your actions make trouble.”

Eva kept her face pressed to his chest even though the position had become more than awkward by then. “Am I in trouble?” she asked, her voice as shaky as her nerves.

“If you had listen when I say no, you would not know what you know now,” he pointed out.

“Listen more, yes. Less kitten, more listening.” Finally, Eva mustered up the courage to draw away from him. “I’ll keep that in mind for the future, Lexie.”

She began to remove her arms but he kept them pinned beneath his and sternly said, “I do not think you have really learned lesson. I must teach you.”

Alexei lowered his face and kissed her, hard and sure, cueing the all-consuming passion that would become the hallmark of their relationship.

The kiss soon turned into groping, and the groping turned into stumbling into a nearby supply closet where they consummated their fledgling attraction only five minutes after she accidentally found out it existed.

That led to a less frantic session back at his place.

And then Eva lost count of how many times Alexei started more sessions, and how many times he sent her over the edge with his deft fingers, his tireless tongue, and his heavily muscled body that just kept going and going and going…

Eva woke late the next day to a cell phone filled with angry messages from her father.

Where was she? She was supposed to be home at a specific time the night before but she never returned.

Her parents were worried sick. According to the final message, they planned to send her perfect older brother, Steve, to Dallas to make sure she was all right.

She shook Alexei awake and then playfully squirmed out of the way when he reached up to pull her back down onto the mattress. “I’ve got to go, Lexie,” she said. “I was supposed to drive home last night and my parents are mad as a house of cats.”

Alexei regarded her through hooded eyes, heavy with sleep. “This is fine. When I see you next, we will be at your apartment. You will cook dinner for me and I will thank you for food all night long. We will sleep together and next morning, we will fuck again in shower.”

He kissed her mouth which had fallen open with shock and said, “Go to your family. But come home to me, kotenok.”

The ding of the captain turning on the seatbelt light jolted Eva out of her memory.

They were beginning their descent into Dallas.

With another spike of guilt, she performed a mental scrub, wiping away the memory and instead, concentrated on Aaron’s handsome face.

He was the one she loved, the most important person in her life.

Four hours later she arrived home at the sprawling villa she and Aaron shared with her parents.

No one knew she was coming home early, so the lights were off.

It didn’t matter. She had grown up in this place, and she easily picked her way through the living room and up the stairs in the dark.

She took off her heels at the top of the stairs and padded past her parents’ room to the next door.

Though she tried to be as quiet as possible, Aaron must have heard her because he was sitting up in his bed when she peeked in his room.

“Mama, is that you?” he asked, his little voice sleepy but strong in the darkness.

“Yes, it’s me.” Eva walked into the room and turned on the bedside lamp.

He spoke with half-mast eyes, looking just like his father when he was tired. It was eerie because though Aaron inherited most of Eva’s features including her full lips, high cheekbones, and wide nose, his eyes plainly revealed who he really was: the son of Alexei Rustanov.

She hugged him to her with fierce love.

“Mama, I’m sleepy,” he said, disengaging from her overly clingy hug after about thirty seconds.

She chuckled. He’d probably only hugged her that long because he was tired.

Lord knew he didn’t put up with too much affection from his mother when he was awake, especially if they were out in public.

Like most boys his age, he spent a lot of time trying to prove to the world he didn’t need a mother, even if he did.

“Do you want a glass of water?” she asked, though he was already beginning to curl back up under his X-Men sheets.

“No, thank you,” he said. “Night-night, Mama.”

“Night-night,” she said.

She turned off the bedside light and left, but before she closed the bedroom door she looked back at her beloved child and reminded herself how hard she had worked to keep him a secret from Alexei, and of all the reasons she must continue to do so.