Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3)

by Catherine Gayle

  My voice caught in my throat, a hard lump that made it impossible to swallow. I licked my lips to wet them, watching his eyes take in my every movement. “You should,” I said.

  “You’d like it too much.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “I probably would.”

  He winked and gave me one sound smack on my bottom, heading toward my bedroom. “Maybe some other time.” He didn’t bother to turn on the lights once we reached my room, leaving nothing but the moonlight to guide his movements as he carried me to the bed, setting me on top of the comforter.

  I trailed my fingers down his chest, itching to fumble with the buttons of his shirt as he backed away, but he brushed my hands to the side and shook his head.

  “Doing this my way,” he said.

  My pulse kicked into another gear, but I nodded.

  Reaching into the pockets of his pants, Dima emptied their contents onto the mattress beside me: several condoms, almost as many dental dams, a bottle of lube, and two neckties.

  I couldn’t catch my breath, like I’d just run a marathon. “You really are going to tie me up,” I forced out, equally exhilarated and petrified.

  He kept his eyes locked on mine. “I’ve got you,” he said.

  Somehow, it was enough.

  He selected one of the ties, a silky sky-blue one, and unfolded it to its full length before kneeling behind me on the mattress. His weight caused the bed to sink, and I fell back into him, too shocked that I was going along with this to keep myself upright. I held up my hands for him, but he slipped the fabric in front of my eyes and tied it behind my head.

  “Oh,” I murmured, more breath than speech.

  Once the tie was secure, he slid his hands down my upper arms, teasing the sides of my breasts with his knuckles.

  I gasped, shocked by how tender I was there, not to mention my massive response to such a simple touch.

  “If you need me to stop, say alyy.”

  “Ally?”

  “Alyy, yes. Means red, so I’ll stop.”

  “Will I need you to stop?” I croaked out as he tugged the hem of my shirt free from the waistband of my jeans and flattened the palm of his hand over my belly. His mouth hovered over the space between my neck and shoulder, not quite kissing me but close enough I could feel every aspect of his breath.

  “Don’t know.” He undid the button and fly of my jeans with his free hand, then slid both his hands down under the band of my panties, stopping when he could cup my lower abdomen. “Moyà,” he whispered in my ear.

  I really needed to learn some Russian. “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Means mine.” He nipped the lobe of my ear, drawing my back against his chest. “All mine.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant me, the baby, or all of the above. All I knew was the possessive tone in his voice stole my ability to think clearly. I pressed my hands over the backs of his and urged him closer, but he growled at me.

  “Nyet.” One at a time, he peeled my hands away. “Doing this my way.”

  Sliding his fingers up my ribs, he inched my shirt up and away from my body while I did my best to be patient and allow him to have his way with me. He tugged the shirt free from my arms before going back to squeeze my breasts through the thin barrier of my bra. My nipples peaked, tightening to hard nubs within seconds, but he kept kneading them, teasing them, tugging them until I cried out.

  “Too much?” he asked, immediately gentling his touch without taking his hands from me.

  “Too tender.” I could barely get the words out from panting. Ever since my accident, my breasts had been more sensitive than before, but this was something else entirely. Was it because I was pregnant? Probably at least somewhat, as they’d even been growing in the last week or two. Or maybe it was the blindfold forcing my other senses to be heightened. Either way, it was more than I had been prepared for.

  “Want me to stop?” he asked.

  “Please don’t.”

  Dima pressed his lips against the side of my neck, tugging down the straps of my bra so he could free my breasts to the chilly air. Every nerve ending in my breasts tingled. Pricked. They were practically begging for his touch, and I was tempted to give voice to the pleas. Somehow, I kept myself quiet and allowed him to do as he would, only writhing against him when I absolutely couldn’t keep myself still.

  “Moyà,” he repeated, suckling the delicate flesh of my neck and rolling my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers until I couldn’t help but squirm, wishing I could really drive my hips into him for better contact.

  I threw my head back and sucked as much air as I could get into my lungs.

  “They’re bigger,” he murmured in awe, his lips finding a home along my jaw. He flicked the tips of his fingers over my hard nubs, and my whole body shuddered in pleasure. “Your tits. All of it. They’re bigger.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Moyà,” was his only reply.

  His. He was claiming me. Marking me with his scent. Branding me with the heat of his touch. I reached behind me and locked my fingers in his hair, dragging his lips to mine so I could kiss him.

  He groaned and complied, his tongue forcing entry between my lips to meet my own, but he pried my hand free from his hair and tugged it behind my back. “My way,” he bit off between fierce kisses. Within moments, he had my other hand behind my back as well, and I felt the telltale sign of him securing the other necktie around my wrists—tight enough to prevent me from using them but not so tight that it caused me any pain.

  Then he got up from behind me, and I fell over from the loss of his support. I tried to straighten myself, to rise to a sitting position, but it was no use. I could only lie where I was and wait for Dima to move me as he saw fit.

  For a moment, I didn’t know where he was, and the anticipation of what he would do next nearly drove me out of my mind. I tried to listen as intently as I could, hoping to glean his location from the sound of his movement, but he was as stealthy as a cat. I never figured it out until he reached for my jeans and tugged them, along with my panties, down to my ankles in a swift move. A couple of quick tugs later, and he had me completely naked.

  “Happy now?” I teased.

  “I always like you better naked.”

  The bed dipped again as he crawled up beside me. He put his hands under my shoulders and shifted me until I was propped against the pillows. Then he put more pillows under my hips, angling my body to better accept his.

  “Hands all right?” he asked once he’d finished arranging me just so. “And your shoulders?”

  “I’m fine.” Fine, if you considered feeling like a blazing inferno of need to be fine.

  Dima settled himself between my knees, and I almost whimpered in the anticipation of being with him. Apparently there was a great deal more anticipation to come, though. Starting with my feet, he massaged and kissed a very slow path up my legs, stopping occasionally to say, “Moyà,” or to ask how much I felt when he touched me in a certain way, how much sensation I had in a particular spot.

  “Just pressure there,” I said, or “Everything, dear God, everything.”

  “Mm,” he said, as though he were trying to memorize every detail of my response.

  He’d barely reached the soft spot on the backside of my knee, and I was already wriggling and begging him to get on with it.

  When he shifted closer to me, his large frame brushing the tender skin inside my thighs, I instinctively tried to reach for him.

  No use. I couldn’t free my arms.

  With just the hint of a fingernail, he traced a path from the inside of one knee, up my thigh, across my belly, then back down my other thigh to end at my knee. “Moyà,” he said again, and something wrapped around my heart and squeezed, stretched, tugged me in a thousand different directions at once. Suddenly, I realized this wasn’t just sex, and I didn’t like it. I wanted everything to go back in time, until it was nothing more than touch. Purely physica
l. Only lust.

  But there was no going back.

  “Dima,” I begged. “Please stop teasing me.”

  “Like to tease you.” For a moment, he didn’t touch me at all. Then his lips pressed to the spot above where the baby was growing.

  I jumped when his tongue flicked out to swirl inside my belly button. The sensation was enough to surprise me on its own, but there was something more. A need to hold him close to me. A yearning for more of his possessiveness. A strange desire to give him so much more than simply control.

  “Like that?” he asked, stopping to shift higher, so his head hovered over my breasts and his long hair hung down to tickle me.

  “Let me use my hands,” I pleaded.

  “Nyet. You’ll grab my hair and rush me.”

  “I just want—”

  “You want to let me do things my way,” he interrupted. “Said you want to give me control. Let me have it. Stop fighting. Just feel.”

  Just feel. He obviously had no idea what he was asking of me with such a seemingly simple request. I’d spent the last four years doing everything in my power to not feel. I wanted all my sensations back, but I’d done everything I could to suppress every damned emotion in me.

  But now they were rushing over me like a rising tide, and I was being pulled under.

  Dima raised himself over me. He settled his hips between my thighs, close enough that the head of his cock pulsed against my flesh, and leaned over me, resting his weight on his forearms. Then he kissed me, long and slow and deep. So deep I felt his damned hand wrapping itself around my heart and making itself at home there.

  I wanted to push him away. To make him stop. To put an end to everything he was doing to me on the inside before I was crushed under the weight of four years of buried emotion.

  But I couldn’t.

  All I could do was kiss him back as desperately as he was kissing me and trust that he could keep me from being washed out in the riptide that was coming for me.

  His tongue slid alongside mine, and he let his weight drop down on me a bit at a time, grounding me with his touch. But it was too late. I was lost at sea. Adrift and being pulled under by an irresistible force. Racked with a grief I couldn’t give voice to, because the words would overwhelm me.

  He slipped inside me, saying, “Moyà,” like he would never let me go, no matter how hard I might try to make him.

  I couldn’t hold on.

  I couldn’t protect myself.

  I couldn’t guard against the painful throbbing of my heart as it burst open and let Dima fill all the cracks, old and new alike.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, his mouth brushing against my ear as he surged home inside me again and again. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.” He removed the tie from my eyes and swiped the tears from my cheeks, kissing my drenched eyelids.

  He did have me. All of me. Every broken mess of an inch.

  “Moyà,” he said again as he came, shattering the last veneer of my resolve.

  His.

  I feared he was right.

  I STAYED WITH London a lot longer than I’d intended to. I had to, after the way she’d responded. She gave herself over to me completely. Allowed me to worship her body and give her pleasure the way I wanted to. She fell apart in my arms, and then she let me put her back together.

  I didn’t realize until I finally had her in my arms again just how badly I needed to keep her there.

  “Moyà,” I’d called her multiple times. Mine. London. The baby. I wanted them both to be mine. I wanted it so much I’d do just about anything to have them.

  But right now, I had to get home before Svetka woke and realized I’d left her alone. I forced myself to separate myself from London, untangling my limbs from hers.

  She rolled over with me, her body lax and limp after all the many times we’d fucked tonight. Her eyes shone in the moonlight. Tears. There’d been more than a few of those over the course of the night. Strangely, holding London while she cried had felt similar to watching Joyce take her first steps on her new leg. I didn’t know what to make of the tears, but I also didn’t get the sense they were entirely bad.

  I kissed her again, lingering over the way she softened under my touch. “Have to go home,” I said when I broke apart from her.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I don’t want you to go, either.” She hooked a hand around the back of my neck, sinking her fingers into my hair to keep me with her for a moment longer.

  “Svetka will wake up and wonder where I’ve gone…”

  London nodded and kissed me one more time, hard and fast, before releasing her grip on me. She blinked, and then the softness was gone from her face. It was like she’d been wearing a mask, but once I’d blindfolded her, the mask had slipped away. And now she was settling it back into place.

  However much I might want to stick around and find a way to get her to dispense with the mask again, I couldn’t. I got out of her bed and drew on my clothes before going back to the living room to move her wheelchair within her reach.

  “I’ll call you,” I said.

  She nodded and rolled over.

  Right about now, I wanted to kick myself for not having more time to stay, so I could get to the bottom of what had come over her. I couldn’t, though. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do right now but go back to my place and get Svetka ready for the moms’ trip to California. “Lock door behind me.”

  “I will,” she said. “Go on.”

  So I left.

  Svetka was already up and making tea in the kitchen when I walked through my front door. She poked her head around the corner and raised a brow. “With your girlfriend?” she asked me in Russian. “Why didn’t you bring her to meet me? I could make her tea.”

  “There’s no time to make her tea right now, Svetka.”

  She patted me on the cheek. “Matushka. And there is always time to make tea for your girlfriend.”

  “Maybe when we come back from California. Today, we need to get to the airport.”

  “I’m ready as soon as I have some tea. I made bread. We’ll take it on the plane.”

  Leave it to my Svetka to think she needed to make me bread to take on a chartered flight with the team.

  PETRO’S MOTHER SPOKE a broken form of English that was only moderately worse than my own, so she’d been acting as an interpreter for Svetka and Alexei Petrov’s mother throughout the trip. The three of them had been having a blast together. For both Svetka and Mrs. Dragomirov, this was their first time ever in America, and they were doing it in style.

  Svetka hadn’t had a passport when we’d had our accident, so she’d had to stay at home and worry from halfway around the world. We’d made sure she got one as soon as possible after that, but this was her first opportunity to use it.

  I’d hardly had time to talk to London at all since we’d left. I called her when I could, but she seemed distant and the team was keeping us busy. Plus, Svetka was occupying the remainder of my free time, and since I rarely got the opportunity to do anything for her, I was trying to make the most of it.

  I couldn’t help but worry that I’d made a huge mistake with London before leaving, though. Maybe her tears had been more than I’d thought they were. Maybe I hadn’t made it clear enough that she should stop me if she needed me to stop. Maybe she hadn’t really wanted what she’d said she wanted. Maybe… There were a thousand maybes racing through my head, but until I got home and was able to see her again, face-to-face, I doubted I’d know just how bad things were.

  In the meantime, the Thunderbirds had gone all out to make sure this trip was special for all of the moms, and for the guys, as well. There was a dinner at an expensive restaurant in LA, a shopping trip one afternoon on Rodeo Drive, a bus tour of all the celebrity mansions, a stop at the Walk of Fame, and even a day at the spa getting massages, facials, and pedicures. In the middle of all that, we’d lost a game to the Ducks by an embarrassing margin
and lost another to the Kings in overtime. Now we were flying up to San Jose for the final game of this trip against the Sharks.

  Razor and his mother were facing me and Svetka, which I supposed was fitting since Razor had married a Russian bride. Drago, Petro, and their mothers were across the aisle from us, so we formed a bit of a Russian contingency.

  “You’re the one Tori’s been telling me about, then?” Mrs. Chambers said, eyeing me.

  “What Viktoriya’s been telling you?” I asked cautiously.

  Svetka perked up upon hearing Viktoriya’s name. She had apparently decided to adopt Viktoriya as a daughter, even if she couldn’t arrange for either Sergei or me to marry her. She’s a good Russian girl, Svetka had told me after their garage sale excursion. She’d make a good Russian wife. I had to remind her she was already someone’s wife. She’d waved a hand like it was nothing, but she’d let it go. Probably because she knew enough about London to know I had someone else I wanted in my life, anyway.

  “Just that you look out for her,” Mrs. C said. “Treat her like a sister.”

  “Just do what’s right,” I mumbled. I didn’t like this kind of attention. I didn’t want people treating me like I was doing something special when, really, I was only doing what a decent human being would do.

  “There aren’t a lot of people in this world who would do what’s right for someone who’s walked a few miles in Tori’s shoes. So that means I like you.”

  I tried to shrug her comment off, but she didn’t seem ready to let it go.

  “She tells me your girlfriend is in a wheelchair.”

  Svetka perked up again at hearing girlfriend. That was one of the words she’d had Petro’s mother teach her, apparently. She sat up straighter in her seat. “You know Dmitri’s girlfriend?” she asked Mrs. C, speaking in Russian.

  Mrs. C looked at me expectantly, waiting for translation.

  “She wants to know about Dmitri’s girlfriend,” Mrs. Petrov put in before I could respond. “Is she good girl? Will she cook for him? Be good mother for his babies?”

  I blanched at the word babies, hoping no one would notice my reaction, since I hadn’t told a living soul that London was pregnant with my child. The last thing I needed right now was for Svetka to learn about the pregnancy, since London and I were still working out what kind of relationship we were going to have going forward. Nothing was settled. Nothing was a given.