The Player (The Game Maker #3)

by Kresley Cole

  I gazed down at my ring, and tears welled. There’d been hope in Dmitri’s eyes today, somehow connected to having sex with me. He’d worked and planned, but it hadn’t been enough.

  Dmitri’s hopes had been dashed. That wrecked me.

  Lightning bolts forked over the Pacific. I got under the duvet and waited for rain. Sure enough, it started to fall. Then pour.

  Time ticked by. . . .

  I glanced at the nightstand clock. Only nine? The storm still raged outside. Dmitri still raged on the phone.

  I reviewed what I knew. Physically, he’d been ready, but not mentally. He’d known difficulties might loom, so this must have happened before. His mind drifted when he felt pleasure.

  Benji had once told Karin and me he used to dissociate during sex. I’d looked it up and read cases about sexual abuse survivors who would go into a fugue state of detachment during a sexual encounter, having little to no memory of it.

  Benji’s abuse had been on the streets. Once an orphan in India, he’d fallen into the clutches of a ruthless adoption racket. Shortly after he’d arrived in Nevada, the company had shut down, its victims cast to the winds. He’d been defenseless.

  When we’d first taken him in, I’d overheard my mom and dad talking about me.

  “I’ve never seen Vice so protective of anyone,” Mom had said.

  Dad had grated, “Because no one’s ever needed her—or our—protection more.”

  But I hadn’t been able to do anything to help my new brother.

  Could I help Dmitri?

  When he said his mind drifted, did he mean dissociated? Had he been abused?

  His parents had died when he was young. Maybe he and his brothers had been shipped off to somewhere dangerous in the remote north of Russia. Who the hell knew what could have happened twenty-five years ago?

  This would explain his driving need to be in control. And Dmitri had said his trust had been burned “early along the line.”

  I glanced in his direction. My father was right. Marriage cons could feel real, and right now I wanted to murder anyone who harmed my “husband.”

  When Dmitri fell silent, I sat up. Would he come back to me or should I go find him?

  He returned not long after, much calmer, but he still simmered with . . . something. His hair had dried into tousles—far from his perfect look—but I found him even more compelling this way. He was certainly a mortal tonight.

  What should I say? I settled on: “Hi.”

  He nodded. In a halting tone, he said, “You must be confused about my behavior. You must be anxious.” He sounded as if he quoted someone. Had Maksim told him that? Whoever he’d called was reasonable at least.

  I brought my knees to my chest. “I am.”

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you. We’re going to start over now.” He drew the duvet away from me. “Take off your robe.”

  Huh? He wanted to have sex without any explanation? I was about to tell him we needed to talk, but then he unzipped his jeans and pulled them off. A breath escaped me.

  Dmitri clearly needed to do something other than talk.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for me, stroking the backs of his fingers over my jawline. “When I’m inside you, I want you to look at me.”

  I met his fierce gaze. As if I can take my eyes away.

  He joined me in the bed and drew the cover over us. As he guided me down with him, his hands shook.

  There we lay, our heads on the same pillow. He moved even closer, and the head of his dick skimmed my belly.

  I shivered to feel moisture daub my skin. I was allowing him to begin seducing me. I wanted him to seduce me. My mind might be in turmoil, but my body wanted his.

  He brought our foreheads together. “I would risk anything to have you.” He cupped my face and leaned in, his lips brushing mine. His thumbs rubbed over my cheeks, as if he couldn’t caress me enough, couldn’t feel me enough.

  I threaded my fingers through his thick hair. When he dipped his tongue to mine, the contact was as charged as the lightning outside.

  He stroked my tongue with his, until we were twining them. Deeply. Sharing breaths.

  Oh, dear God, that kiss. I’d known he needed me; he translated that need. He’d given me lifeline looks. Now he was giving me a lifeline kiss.

  And it turned—me—inside—out.

  I wanted to take him in my arms and give and give and give.

  One of his hands descended to cup between my legs. He found me aching for him and groaned against my lips.

  His broad crown nudged my entrance. This was happening? I could feel his piercing; the metal was sizzling.

  He broke our kiss to catch my eyes. “Are you ready, moya zhena?” He rubbed the head up and down my pussy, spreading my wetness. Again and again, he did this—as if he readied to cross a line but still debated it.

  Every time the tip met my entrance, I tilted my hips to catch him. I was shaking for it, clutching his shoulders. My wedding ring caught my attention, and a sense of déjà vu hit me, as if it had always adorned my finger—and always would. I faced him. “I’m ready.”

  His jaw was set, those dark amber eyes claiming me as much as his body was about to. He held my gaze as he worked the head in. His rigid shaft forced my flesh to yield.

  He gave a shallow pump of his hips, making me cry out.

  So much pleasure. . . .

  A groan rumbled from his chest, and sweat misted his skin. He continued deeper, filling me, claiming me.

  Changing me.

  I was never going to be the same after this. Even in the midst of my chaotic emotions, I recognized that.

  Once he was seated deep within me, we lay frozen like that. He rasped, “Rai.” Heaven.

  I panted. “Yes, it is.”

  “Who would ever want to leave heaven?”

  As in drifting?

  “Just keep looking at me, Vika. My God, the way your body feels . . . we’ll know soon enough.” He moved me to my back, resting between my thighs. His powerful frame loomed over me.

  I tested his command with his first full thrust—because my eyes rolled back in my head. “Oh, my God.” I melted around him, gripping his arms.

  “I need to look into your beautiful eyes.”

  I met his gaze, struggling to catch my breath. “Dmitri.” His name was my plea for more.

  He pulled his hips back, then slowly rocked inside me. “You belong to me now.” His voice was hoarse. “Irrevocably.”

  My back arched, my nipples grazing his dampened chest.

  With his next thrust, he bit out words in Russian.

  My nails dug into his skin. “English, baby. I want to know. . . .”

  “I knew it was you,” he said, his expression half-crazed. He gripped one of my hips, stretching his thumb to rub my clit.

  I whimpered from the added sensation.

  “I knew you’d be my wife. I am obsessed with you, Victoria. Always will be.”

  Right now I understood. He was a dream lover, using his flawless body to deliver pleasure. Maybe I was already obsessed with him too. My hands dipped to grip his ass.

  Still working my clit, he gave a harder thrust. And another. “I would’ve done anything to possess you! Remember that.”

  Every time I thought he couldn’t go deeper, he’d plunge with more force, making me cry out in surprise. I was captivated by the wild look in his eyes and the feel of his ass working under my fingers.

  He clamped the backs of my knees and bucked hard between my spread thighs. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto my bouncing breasts. “Your body drives me mad.” He shoved inside me, stealing my breath.

  My head thrashed. “Ah, God!” I locked my legs around his waist, couldn’t get close enough to him.

  “Give yourself to me.” He clasped my nape and drew me up. “Give me everything you are!” He’d told me he would always want more, that he’d coax it from me. Now he was demanding I surrender to him.

  To this life.

>   He was demanding it with his enthralling eyes. With his unyielding grip on my body.

  “Dmitri!” I fought the pleasure, wanting this never to end. “I’m so close . . . so close!”

  “You wear my ring.” Thrust. “You always will. You’re my wife. Say it.” Thrust.

  Falling deeper under his spell, I said, “I’m your wife.”

  He gnashed his teeth. “Again!”

  “I’m your wife!” He made me say it over and over, till I was murmuring it on my own, mesmerizing myself.

  At my ear, he confessed: “It was always going to be you. Or it never would have been.”

  A sudden scream burst from my lungs. I orgasmed, not just from sensation—but from emotion. My fingers clutched at him, nails digging in.

  “I feel you . . . feel you coming for me!”

  I writhed beneath him, pleasure coursing through every inch of me. In those shattering moments, I was his.

  Connected to him as I’d never been to another.

  I’d barely drifted back to reality when he commanded, “Cross your arms over your chest.”

  I didn’t ask, only obeyed.

  He grabbed my wrists and trapped me with my own arms. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. This was bondage—without leather or chains. Just a man taking his pleasure.

  Once I was positioned as he desired, Dmitri Sevastyan started . . . to fuck.

  He rammed his massive body between my thighs, using his grip on me for leverage. Pistoning his cock inside me from hilt to tip, he pounded my pussy.

  I’d never felt anything so deep, as if he were taking my virginity. “What’re you doing to me?”

  He seemed to cling to the last of his control. “Fucking—my—wife.”

  “Ahhh!” I came with a scream. He slammed me harder. I came again.

  He was railing my mind blank, long-dicking me into oblivion. Only one thought remained: I’m his.

  Over the sounds of his skin slapping mine, he bit out, “Uhn! About to give you my cum! Fucking worth it—”

  His body froze. A guttural yell broke from his chest.

  Our gazes locked. His was anguished. I don’t think he breathed.

  Then he began to ejaculate.

  With his first searing jet, he heaved in air. Hips jerking uncontrollably, cock pulsating, he gave a frenzied roar: “VICTORIA!”

  He plunged furiously, his yells matching each new flood of semen. His release pumped on and on . . . until my body had drained his.

  A last groan passed his lips. A shudder down to his bones.

  Lost, he rasped, “Mine.” Then he collapsed atop me.

  We lay for some time, catching our breath. My heart raced; his pounded in answer.

  “Hurting you?” he asked.

  “Uh-uh.” Hurt? I floated. “That was more than just sex.” My tone was awed.

  He rose on straightened arms. Lids heavy, he looked as drugged as I felt. “Still here.”

  My chest squeezed when a tear tracked from one of his eyes. “Baby?”

  “You.” His throat was working, as if he was getting control of his emotions. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”

  I felt alarm. “What?”

  “Everything.”

  I was trying to sort out my confusion when his lips curved fully, showing off even white teeth against tanned skin. His first real smile with me.

  I sucked in a breath. His eyes turned molten gold, and he looked . . . jubilant. As if we’d pulled off the greatest coup ever.

  Deeper under his spell. “Better?”

  “Best. A world away from the past.” His cock pulsed inside me, already beginning to harden. His jubilant look changed, darkening. “Which means I have a lot to make up for, wife. . . .”

  CHAPTER 24

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  Rain pattering against the windows woke me. Disoriented, I gradually remembered where I was.

  “Dmitri?” No sign of him. The bedside clock read quarter to four in the morning.

  He’d taken me numerous times, until I’d passed out with him spooning me, still inside me.

  Feeling a tendril of unease, I rose and donned a robe. When I didn’t find him anywhere on the second floor, I hurried downstairs.

  From the kitchen, I spied a shadowy figure across the windswept field. Lightning flashed, illuminating the scene.

  Dmitri?

  He was half-dressed, standing at the cliffside. What the hell was he doing out in a storm? I rushed toward a pair of french doors.

  I’d never asked him about the scar on his arm. Had he been suicidal? Was he still?

  Heart in my throat, I tore open a door and raced headlong into the rain, shielding my eyes.

  The idea of losing him . . .

  The winds howled and waves crashed. The ground vibrated beneath my feet with each impact. Thunder boomed.

  He stood too close to the edge; sea spray flung by the waves lashed his ankles. He wore only jeans, his chest bare. He tilted his head back, letting the rain beat against his face, and opened his arms wide.

  I blinked against the pelting drops, disbelieving my eyes.

  He was . . . smiling.

  “Dmitri!”

  He lowered his head and turned to me, offering his hand.

  Though I was nervous about the drop-off, I took it. Over the wind, I cried, “You don’t need to be out here.”

  “It is a good storm, love.”

  I put my palm on his warm chest. “You’re not cold, but you’re shaking. Why are you shaking?”

  “I don’t know how to describe . . .” His accent was thick. “I feel . . . I feel . . . so much. And it is all new to me.” Were tears tracking down his face, or were those drops of rain? “I keep thinking about the word disintegrate. To cause to fall apart. I was integrated for more than thirty-two years, and now I am something else.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He clutched me close, then tilted his head back again, basking in the storm. “I feel skinned alive. Raw and exposed.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  He lowered his face, meeting my eyes. His lashes were spiked with moisture, his black hair whipping across his cheeks. “It is pure. I live anew now.”

  Were these mad ramblings? Or was he baring his heart? Why couldn’t I make sense of what he was saying? “I want to understand you. Help me!”

  “I planned for this night; I prepared for it. Yet in the back of my mind, I feared my past would win—as it always had before. But I had a wife, a responsibility. Sex was no longer about me; it is about us. And I cared more about your pleasure than I cared about registering my own. If I drifted for a time, you probably wouldn’t know. If I stayed gone, you would be taken care of.”

  Stayed gone? As in, losing touch with reality permanently?

  “I stopped fighting it.” He covered my shoulders with his big hands. “For the first time in my life, I—let—go. My struggles ended. Because of you, I had courage. I stopped trying to bandage my mind and said, ‘Let it fucking bleed.’” His hold on me tightened. “But it didn’t, Victoria. My wounds were seared and closed.”

  When a towering wave broke before us, he looped an arm around my waist and moved us back from the edge. “You trusted me, and I trusted us.” He traced his thumb over my bottom lip. “Moya zhena, my beautiful wife. We can begin.”

  At that, this man, my husband, kissed me.

  And I could taste the last of his tears.

  CHAPTER 25

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  Dawn neared when we began to doze off. After his catharsis in the rain, Dimitri had brought me inside, making love to me again.

  Now I lay with my head on his chest, listening to his lulling heartbeat as he stroked my hair. I could have pressed him for answers, but my instinct said to share these hours with him in peace—without dredging up the past.

&nb
sp; Reading my mind, he said, “In time, I will tell you everything.”

  “I know you will.” Had he been somewhat crazy tonight? Yep. But I would roll with it for now, letting him set the pace.

  “You have an idea though.”

  I nodded against him. “If you mean dissociate when you say drift, then yes.”

  He tensed beside me, then seemed to make an effort to relax again. “Da.”

  So he had been abused. My heart ached for him. “Is there anything I shouldn’t do? I don’t ever want to hurt you or remind you.”

  “There’s nothing you could do. Just . . . just do not leave.” He was such a complicated, intriguing man. Sometimes all dominant and in command; at other times vulnerable.

  I’d known Dmitri Sevastyan for a mere four days. As he’d said, there was a difference between being wed and being married. I’d committed to one, but not to the other.

  Could I, given time?

  Over the day and night, I’d come to five conclusions.

  One: I would never be more attracted to, or sexually satisfied by, another man.

  Two: His past only amplified my feelings—because he was working so hard to achieve a better future. In spite of everything, he did still hope.

  Three: Though Dmitri’s mental issues had probably heightened his infatuation/obsession, it was possible he could grow to truly love me.

  Four: He desperately needed someone to look out for him.

  Five: Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t shed my jadedness overnight.

  At length, I told him, “When you wake up, I’ll be here.” After I’d gotten some sleep, I would wrestle with my ever-growing feelings—tenderness, gratitude, protectiveness, guilt.

  “That’s enough. For now.” He stroked my hair till I was almost asleep. “Vika?” His breaths were deep and even. He was about to nod off as well. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m honored to be your husband.” He dozed off.

  You beautiful, fucked-up man.

  In sleep, he clutched the ends of my hair, as if he wanted to leash me to him.

  CHAPTER 26

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