He kissed her. He couldn’t say exactly why. To keep her from thanking him again, or maybe—he did not want to think too hard about this—maybe because he didn’t want her to remove herself from his embrace.
Whatever the reason, his hand came up to her cheek, pulled her closer, and the next thing he knew, he was kissing her. Not a soft kiss either. Not the kind of comforting peck men sometimes gave women to distract them from their hysterics.
No, he couldn’t make that excuse, because when his lips landed on hers, they crashed down hard, demanding… desperate. Don’t cry. Don’t tell me to leave.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t tell him to leave.
But she did go completely stiff, a surprised gasp escaping her lips. He felt her hands come up to his chest, and for a moment he thought she would push him away. But then she moaned, turning her soft body into his and giving him better access to her lips and her breasts, which he didn’t even realize he’d gone after until his hand was underneath her shirt, palming one heavy globe as his tongue ravaged her mouth.
Kissing her was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, like coming out of a Siberian prison to a home cooked meal. Yet he wanted more. More than what he was getting. Wanted… wanted…
Nikolai groaned roughly against her lips. He needed to stop. This was happening too fast and he was a systematic lover. He enjoyed conquering a woman, making her surrender to his erotic assault, sometimes more than once, before he calmly put on a condom and took what he wanted from her with the sure knowledge that she was now fully prepped to receive his larger than usual length. Like a table that had been properly set.
But this kiss… it had him pumping himself against her, his arousal thick underneath his boxer briefs and straining to get out. There came a new feeling in his chest, one he dimly recognized as the opposite of the usual ice he maintained at all time. One that caused a weird tumbling sensation inside his stomach.
He tore her t-shirt, ripping it off her body with one hard yank. She was making him feel. She was making him feel. She was making him…
Slow down, he said to himself, once again trying to rein in the kiss. But it was like trying to stop a forest fire. With a hose.
Both of his hands were kneading her breasts now—no, a trickle of logic couldn’t stop what was happening between them. The only thing that could have stopped him in that moment was if she had told him to stop, that she didn’t want what was happening between them to happen. Only then would he have torn himself away from this kiss, released her bountiful breasts, which seemed to have been made to fill up his large hands.
“Oh God, don’t stop!” She moaned again, pressing her breasts into his hands, her lips into his mouth, her core into his…
He had no awareness of flipping her on her back, of his robe coming off, of removing the barrier of her panties. No memory of getting on top of her.
Later, all he would remember of those moments was the feel of finally sinking inside her, the sound of himself groaning with sweet, aching relief. Because it felt like coming home.
SAM TECHNICALLY UNDERSTOOD what was happening, but then again, she kind of didn’t.
First had come the unexpected kiss from Nikolai right after she tried to put on her big girl pants and stop blubbering all over his robe. Instead of letting her go and running like a man on fire back to his room as she’d expected he would, he kissed her! And then there had been confusion, her mind shorting out as she tried to figure out what was happening.
Then her body caught on fire, a volcano of desperate need forming inside her core, so quickly that she didn’t have time to argue with herself. Her body instantaneously responded to his unexpected kiss with a mind of its own, her breasts swelling, her core becoming unbearably hot. Even her mind abandoned her, screaming right along with every other inch of her, to let this happen. All she needed—and the only thing that would take the nightmare away, was having the Russian hockey player inside of her.
There came a ripping sound and then both his hands were on her breasts, squeezing so hard it caused her pain. But not the kind that truly hurt. It was a sweet pain that tingled all the way down to her core. She could feel his hips pumping against her body as he continued to kiss her, his erection thick and hard as it brushed against the top of her right thigh. But that wasn’t where she wanted him. No, she wanted him somewhere else, and without conscious thought she adjusted herself to get him there, pressing herself into his long length… she let out a shocked gasp. She could actually feel the outline of his mushroom head behind his briefs—that was how hard he was.
Then it was too late. One press against him. That was all it took.
The next thing she knew, her back hit the bed. Her panties were yanked down and then his huge body was on top her and… Oh God… he pushed inside and he was… another cry up to the heavens as she bit down on her lip… he was so thick and heavy inside her wet folds. His large shaft spread the outer lips of her pussy farther apart than she’d ever imagined they could go and he didn’t stop, not until he was all the way in, his balls coming to rest against her entrance as he gave her a moment to adjust to his size.
She didn’t take that moment. Sam was so hot, so wet for him. Instead she shifted underneath him, urging him with a pelvic thrust to keep going. This wasn’t natural, she thought on the razor edge of sanity. She’d never been filled like this before, and it should be hurting. But the hurt never came, only pleasure as he braced himself above her and started moving inside of her.
He was as she’d expected he’d be, despite all his talk about her pleasure the night they met. Rough. He filled and refilled her with slow thrusts, hard and raw. But Sam didn’t mind, couldn’t mind. It felt magnificent, and another moan tore out of her throat when he adjusted and his length began hitting her clit at just the right angle every time he plunged into her.
Apparently, that was the right answer. Sam realized he must have been looking for her hot spot when he was going at her rough and slow. Now he sped up, his powerful boy finding a rough and fast rhythm on top of hers.
Sam cried out helplessly, her body meeting his thrusts in a dance as old as time. With past lovers, it had always taken her a while to get warmed up—sometimes too long—she’d missed out on more than a few finales with her grad school ex.
But with Nikolai, she soon realized she wasn’t going to last long. The way he was pumping into her was so incredibly hot. Like having her nightmare flipped over to reveal the most erotic dream. Sam couldn’t believe it. Any of it. That he actually fit, that this kind of pleasure was happening to her of all people.
He said something quick in Russian, lifted one of her legs up and over his shoulder and then continued his relentless drive into her. This made the sex even more intense—an upgrade she wouldn’t have guessed possible a few seconds ago. And the new angle made it so he could go in even deeper, so deep that—
Sam cried out when electric bursts of pleasure started shooting through her core. So sharp, they were almost painful. So exquisite, it took Sam a few strung out moments to realize he must be hitting her g-spot, a place so deep and hidden she’d suspected it might only exist in legend.
But she believed now. Oh God, did she believe. Her hands found his hips and held on tight. To Sam this felt like more than sex. It felt like healing. Like Nikolai had somehow figured out the one way to keep her from completely unraveling after what had nearly happened earlier that night.
The way he moved inside her, like an animal, his strokes, powerful and crude. Yet each stroke took away the ugliness of the nightmare that had brought him to her. Sam had always taken pride in being an independent woman when it came to relationships. The total opposite of her mother, who’d only seemed to exist to be at her stepfather’s beck and call. But in this case, all her independence flew out the window. She clung to him, drawing on his strength, greedily receiving everything he was giving her.
And then she came. So violently, the fiery blast of ecstasy completely seized up her body, making it so she
couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. The sensation was so overwhelming, it almost felt like choking to death. The best way ever to die.
The only part of her she could still feel moving was her core, which squeezed around his thick length with fervor, milking his cock with urgent insistence.
Her mind blowing climax seemed to break Nikolai. More clipped Russian words, and then he lost all control, driving his shoulder into the back of her knee and hammering into her even faster. Like he was running to catch up with her. Getting closer… and closer… until he was right there with her.
It was a strange magic, feeling him come. His strong body jerked above her, then went just as rigid as hers had, right before he released into her with a helpless yell. His eyes were squeezed closed, she dimly noted. As if however hard it had been for her to bear the onslaught of such a pleasurable climax, it had been twice as hard for him.
Obviously she wasn’t the only one who’d been overwhelmed by what had just happened between them, she thought with a small amount of pride, watching him weather the same storm of sensation.
It felt like eons had passed when he finally relaxed, his breath whooshing out as he dropped her leg. But it still wasn’t over. He released her leg, but recaptured her lips, scooping her up so her breasts were flush against his chest as he kissed her with such rough desperation, Sam could tell it had been just as good for him as it had been for her.
But then he said, “Samantha,” against her lips. “Samantha…” Over and over again. Like a prayer.
Sam froze.
She hated being called Samantha. She never allowed anyone to call her that. Not even Josie. No one. Hearing her full name on his lips completely vaporized the cloud of ultimate satisfaction she’d been floating on and she tumbled out of the sky. Falling down to Earth hard as she realized what she’d done. Exactly what she’d done.
She’d had sex with Nikolai Rustanov. Nikolai Rustanov! A man she barely knew and had only met a few days ago. And Pavel’s soon-to-be guardian.
Oh, God! Oh, God! This is bad, so bad.
She pushed against his chest in a panic, desperate to get out from under him. He immediately stopped kissing her, and lifted up.
“What is wrong?” he asked her, his accent even thicker than usual as he pulled all the way out of her. “Did I hurt you, Samantha?”
“Don’t call me that!” she answered, scrambling to sit up. Only to freeze again when she felt something that shouldn’t have been there.
And that was when the real horror of what they’d just done hit her as hard as a tractor trailer with a full load. No, he hadn’t hurt her, but even though he was fully removed from her now, not even touching her, she could still feel him. Inside of her. So much of him that he was leaking out onto her thighs.
Sam cursed and covered her face with her hands. They hadn’t just had really inadvisable hot sex. They’d had really inadvisable hot sex without a condom.
16
Nikolai had assisted in helping his father kill over a dozen men by the time he turned fifteen, but he’d never done anything as hard as listening to his mother cry in their apartment bathroom.
It had been a bad month for Natasha. One filled with a stomach flu that wouldn’t abate. His mother, who had always been a generally healthy person, complained bitterly at first. Not used to being waited on by her sons, who cooked dinner and cleaned while she recovered.
But then the stomach flu, which Natasha had assured them would only last for a couple of days, lingered for a couple of weeks. By the second week of her illness, his mother grew quiet, her complaints coming to an abrupt stop. Eventually she’d called Nikolai into her room while Fedya was in the bathroom. She told him to walk with Fedya to school, but to leave halfway through the day and take the bus to a smaller town about an hour away from theirs. One of the ones the Rustanovs didn’t bother with because it was known as a place where older people went to live out the rest of their lives in cheap apartments. His mother insisted Nikolai must go there to get the test she needed, to a place farther away where no one would recognize him as the bastard son of Sergei Rustanov.
Getting the test hadn’t bothered Nikolai. Much like when he accompanied his father on hit jobs, he froze himself on the inside, divorcing his actions from his emotions. He’d refused to feel anything as he did exactly as his mother said. He delivered the test to her in a white paper bag and he’d watched her disappear with it into their shared bathroom with the dispassion of a morgue clerk.
However, the scream that came from the bathroom a few minutes later, followed by wild sobbing and a long wailing, “Nyet!” —those sounds he’d never forget. He could still hear them sometimes, when things got too quiet inside his head.
And he could hear them now, over two decades later, as he once again stood outside the bathroom door, this time dressed in the Polar robe he’d so quickly discarded in order to get Samantha underneath him.
Samantha hadn’t been nearly as dramatic as his mother, merely covering her face before running into the bathroom without a word. The shower had come on just a few seconds after the door closed behind her. But that hadn’t been enough to keep him from going to the door, from standing outside of it like her useless dog. He looked over his shoulder at the digital clock on the bedroom’s nightstand.
She’d been in there for over twenty minutes, the shower running at full blast. Meanwhile, he’d been standing there, trapped in the memory of what would turn out to be the death nail in his mother’s coffin.
Just as he was thinking of going to check on her, the shower finally stopped, and soon after he could hear her moving around, probably drying off. Nikolai drew himself up and waited. But then, nothing. Everything went quiet. And somehow that made it even worse than the wild sobs that had come from his mother.
He knocked on the door. “Samantha, come out,” he commanded.
“No thank you, and please don’t call me that,” she answered through the door.
He didn’t pound on the door, but his voice was fist enough as he said, “Come out and talk to me. I will wait here for you and this will be hard to explain to boy when he wakes up.”
There were a few moments of silence, during which he could almost see her on the other side of the door, weighing her options, maybe wondering whether he was serious about standing out there until Pavel woke.
He was serious. Dead serious. And perhaps she sensed that, because a few seconds later the door opened and she reappeared, now dressed in a red bath towel, her long twists pulled into a large ball on top of her head. And holy shit, as his American teammates might say, but he was glad to be wearing a robe, because his cock responded badly to the sight of her in a bath towel. He was once again achingly hard and ready to take her again. Despite the circumstances, despite the fact that he’d already had her and she should be well on her way out of his system. With other women, he’d had to resist the urge to move to another room when it had been too late to send them home for the night. With Samantha, he had to resist the urge to reach out for her, to unwrap that towel from around her body, and once again bury himself in her warmth.
He forced himself to focus on her face. And was surprised to find she wasn’t crying like his mother had that fateful night. In fact, her expression was totally composed, a serene work of art that put him in mind of vintage photos of Mother Teresa.
“Hi,” she said, her voice calm and soft. “Sorry about that. It took me a while to clean up and process my thoughts.”
“Over twenty minutes,” he said.
“And I apologize,” she answered automatically. “For everything. I’m fine now. You don’t have to worry, though it was considerate of you to do so. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep before Pavel wakes up.
Nikolai stared at her. It was like she’d pushed a personality button, one that made every carefully considered word that came out of her mouth sound calm and gracious.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“You are upset.
About our sex… without condom.”
He was upset, too. A man in his position—the owner of a team, and formerly a hockey player who’d been targeted by groupies and gold diggers alike. He’d never in his life, slept with a woman without a condom and he was deeply disturbed he’d been so caught up in getting to her, to getting inside her, that he’d violated his number one rule.
“I’m sorry,” he told her now.
“I’m sorry, too,” she answered. “But what’s done is done. I don’t need to talk about it and you don’t need to worry about it.”
The words, obviously meant to be reassuring were anything but.
His eyes narrowed. “If you are pregnant, what will you do?”
His question caused a momentary crack in her calm façade and she shifted in obvious discomfort. “First of all, I’m not pregnant.”
“You cannot know this,” Nikolai said.
“I’m not,” she insisted, her voice pleasant but tight. As if all one needed to keep from getting pregnant was the right attitude and the right tone of voice. “But if I was, it would be my choice.”
Nikolai’s heart constricted with the thought of her…
“And your choice would be what?” he asked, needing to know.
She averted her eyes. “Well, if I was—which I’m not, but if I was, I’d, um… I’d, um…”
Nikolai braced himself to hear the ugly truth.
“I’d have to… keep it,” she said quietly.
Nikolai stared at her, his mouth open.
“I’m over thirty now and though I fully support a woman’s right to choose under any circumstance at any age, I—I…” Somehow this part seemed harder for her than her fierce defense of abortion rights. “When it comes down to it, I want to be a mother. I have for a while now. And if you want to be a mother like I do, you don’t exercise that option.” She glanced up at him, then quickly looked away. “No matter who the father is.”
Conflicting emotions collided inside of Nikolai’s chest like gladiators in an arena. On one hand, joy that she would go through with the pregnancy no matter what. On the other hand, it was clear she was upset that he was the father.
HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER Page 10
