by Skye Warren
My mind whirls with visions of him bending over my naked body, fucking me. And suddenly I’m thinking of him in that mask.
He tips his head, seeming to read my mind.
No—he couldn’t.
The men behind him are fighting over who gets him. He’s the biggest, strongest man here, but more, they all sense the animal in him. None sense it as much as I do, though.
“Trust me, liddle r-r-r-abbit.”
He follows the men out the stained glass back door.
The women pepper me with questions. The sheet I’d written up for Brad the security guard has all kinds of facts like where we met and our first date. Since Yuri mocked the sheet, I have to assume he didn’t read it. So I stick to vague facts. I met him out on a walk. He’s very private. His company? Some Russian company I don’t understand. I don’t know outer facts about him, but I know inner facts. He’s possessive and passionate. He’s stubborn. When he decides something, you can’t talk him out of it.
He takes you over like a whirlwind, I say at one point, because that’s how I imagine it would be. Him in his mask. He would penetrate me, press into me, and the hurt of him would be beautiful.
I think they’re all jealous of me.
Well, I’m jealous of me.
He’ll do this and leave.
But I want him to stay.
The men come in from football with rosy cheeks. Bennett has a bloody lip. Winston Mr. Finance is wet head to toe…as if he’d been tackled. Yuri is beaming. Laughing. Getting back slaps.
Bennett storms out of the room.
I pull Yuri to a corner. “Did you do that? To his lip?”
“Of course I did.”
“What?” Playfully, I push him.
He grabs my hand and kisses it. “He calls his people. He learns now that I control his life.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. He makes a call to confirm certain things. Then he will come out here and tell you he’s sorry.”
“What certain things is he confirming?”
Yuri reaches out and touches a button. Scarred, rough hands on smooth pearl. I imagine them on my skin and it’s kind of hot. He drops his hand when he sees me staring at his hand, looking almost sad. Does he think his rough hands are ugly?
And suddenly Bennett is there. He’s not apologizing, he’s fucking begging me. “Please forgive me if I ever made you feel scared, Bianca,” he says. “I want you to know you will never, never, never have anything to fear from me ever. I’m sorry for…” he looks up at Yuri, unsure how to continue.
Yuri’s lips form a snarl.
“I’ve done a lot of bad things,” Bennett continues, “but I want you to know I don’t want anything to ever happen to you. I very much don’t want anything to happen to you ever.” He turns to Yuri. “I can’t help if she’s in a plane crash or something, though.”
Yuri’s voice goes low and scary. “Perhaps you should pray for her then. You pray when she flies.”
“You don’t need to pray for me, Bennett,” I say.
“He needs to pray for you,” Yuri says. It chills me, having that deep, threatening voice turned on me. “He will pray that nobody hurts you ever. He needs to pray you don’t even get a sneeze.” He waves a hand. “Leave us now.”
Bennett slinks off, looking like he’s going to cry.
“What did you say to him?”
“Things.” Yuri grabs his suit jacket. “You’re no longer in danger from him.” He fixes his cuffs.
“Wait, you’re not leaving?”
“He won’t hurt you.”
“You’re leaving?”
He raises his eyes to mine. Tea eyes, deep and brown. And sad. He touches my cheek, making my senses flare to life. “This isn’t my place, Bianca.”
“But…you have to stay for a drink at least.”
He simply buttons his cuffs.
“Nobody will believe you’re my boyfriend if you leave now.”
He narrows his eyes, but somebody puts a drink in his hand.
“There,” I say. “You have to at least finish that.”
He scowls.
I smile at him. A thrill goes through me, because I think my smile does something to him. “Tell me you’ll stay.”
“I can’t.” Deep inside the words, I hear desire. He wants to stay—I know it! Why won’t he stay?
Suddenly Susan’s there, pulling him to the couch. She wants him to teach the aunties a Russian toast. He plays along, eyes on me.
I love having him here, even if he’s away from me, over on the other couch. What if he was a real boyfriend? But I know better. Yuri’s a wild animal. Dangerous to have indoors. Wild animals always follow their nature in the end.
He teaches everyone a toast that I’m sure is scathingly dirty. People are eating it up. I’ve never seen anything like it. Like Yuri.
I sit and watch. His giant hands makes the fine crystal glass look fragile. He could crush it so easily.
He catches me looking. He drains it and sets it down.
Don’t go, I think.
Weirdly, Winston the financial planner is being extra nice to me. Now that Yuri seems to want me, Winston wants me, too.
It’s all about Yuri for me. Yuri standing, about to leave.
Don’t go! But Yuri does what he wants. He touches something in his jacket pocket. I hear the ring of car keys. Or maybe keys to unlock Brad.
It’s then that Winston sits next to me. Close. “You heading up to Beaver Creek this year?” The ski resort. The family has a manor there.
Yuri’s eyeing me. Wanting to say goodbye.
“Maybe,” I smile at Winston, feeling Yuri’s eyes on me.
Winston smiles back. Winston’s a competitive asshole and a little bit stupid. Does he not feel Yuri stewing across the room? Yuri feels like a bonfire to me.
“Remember that one New Years? The blizzard night?” Winston stretches an arm around me. It feels wrong. I should get up. I shouldn’t let Winston do this.
I stay.
People start reminiscing about Beaver Creek.
I can feel Yuri’s eyes on us. When did we get so connected that I can feel him?
Winston’s enjoying the game. He never met a competition he didn’t like.
I finally glance over.
Yuri’s eyes glitter with something…I wouldn’t call it anger. Maybe something more like mayhem. My heart pounds.
Shit.
His voice is low and commanding. “R-r-r-rabbit.”
My whole body snaps to attention. Like there’s a silken line between us and he has only to pull it.
He waits there all steel and roughness, big body barely contained inside a black suit, face wrecked and beautiful, massive fists balled at his sides.
His voice is deep. “Get over here.”
“Excuse me? Are you…”
My words of protest die under the beautiful fire of his gaze. All eyes are on Yuri, but he sees only me. Only me.
“Come, rabbit.”
Everybody’s watching, but I see only him. I hate him. I want him. I should go to him. I shouldn’t.
I tell myself we’ve come this far in the charade. It would be stupid to stop now.
He tips his head down, intensifying his gaze. Heat spears through me. He mine, but he’s totally wild. And just like that first night, something in me rises for him. Something that’s his to command. I stand up from the couch, a small animal on the end of a string he holds in his outstretched hand.
I want him to tell me to do things in that voice. I want him to touch me with that ruined hand.
I go to him. I can feel the attention on us.
When I’m near, he pulls me to him. “Lead me away,” he whispers in my ear. “Take us somewhere. Now, rabbit.”
He doesn’t wait. He pulls me out of the room.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Lead me,” he says, leading me through the empty dining room. “To where I can fuck you.”
I halt as the bloo
d drains from my face.
“Now.” He sets his hands on my cheeks and kisses my neck. He pushes me to a wall and kisses me. I can feel him trembling. Jealousy, desire, wild anger. He’s a fucking typhoon. “Lead me to where I can rip your clothes off, rabbit, to where I can fuck you hard.”
The breath goes out of me. “We’re skipping some steps…”
“You want me to stay and play your boyfriend some more? This is what your boyfriend does now. When another man touches you, I fuck his touch right off your skin. I fuck his fingers off of you from the inside. Do you understand?” He presses his hand between my legs. “If I am your boyfriend, this is mine.”
His questing fingers send waves of need through me.
“You want me to be your boyfriend some more, don’t you?”
I pull away, panting. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I want you to be my boyfriend some more.”
His grin is wicked and gorgeous. “And do what?”
I feel delirious. “Uh…fuck his touch off me?”
He points up the stairs. “Lead me.”
On shaking legs I lead the way up, past the second floor landing. Past the third floor landing. It’s like a crazy dream.
I slow down on the fourth floor landing.
He slaps my ass. “Keep going.”
I whirl around.
Those thick thuggish cheekbones widen in a grin. He simply twirls his finger in the air and points onward.
It’s so fucked up. I want him. I’m doing this—I'm actually doing it. “Nobody’s up here.”
“We’ll stay here, then.” He pushes me into a door, presses my cheek to it. He fits his body behind mine and lets me feel his steely cock. “This is how your boyfriend takes you.”
I gasp as he and runs his hand down the side of my hip, over where my sweater ends and down my pencil skirt.
“Do you think of me, little rabbit?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
I feel the shock still him for a moment. Like he can’t believe it’s true.
“I do think of you. In the mask.”
“You like the mask?”
“Yes.”
He fists his hand into my hair. I can’t tell if it means he’s glad or what. “Do you rub yourself when you think of it?”
“Um…”
He tightens his hold. “Do you? Is that what you do when you look at my picture on your computer?”
I spin around and he lets go of my hair. “How do you know? You spy on my computer?”
He reaches around me and opens the door behind me, pushes me in. “How do you think I knew about the boy you hired to protect you?”
“You have no right!”
“Do you touch yourself, R-r-abbit?”
I back up. “You had no right.”
I hit the far wall in the bedroom and he just plows right into me. He’s a blunt instrument. I wonder if his cock is big and blunt and beautiful as he is.
He makes me turn again to face the wall, pressing me there by my neck. Heat fills me. My panties are soaked. I barely care that he was in my condo, in my stuff. What’s wrong with me?
“Close your eyes.”
I obey. I’ll take anything from him. “You had no right.”
He’s fumbling with something. His pants?
“You’re a veterinarian. You study the animal kingdom. Is it really about right?”
I feel fat fingers undoing my sweater. I open my eyes and turn.
And gasp.
He’s in the mask. I swallow back my shock.
“Like this? This is how you like me?”
“God, yes,” I say before I can censor myself.
He pushes me up against the wall, gathering up my skirt.
It’s the same mask he wore the night he saved me. I study the black circle around his cruel, beautiful mouth, his light brown eyes. “Touch my lips,” he says.
I touch his lips.
I don’t know why it should be so hot, his mouth circled in black. It’s like something got etched into my brain that night. Without warning, he sucks in my finger. Heat surges through me.
“You spied on my computer,” I complain.
“Because you’re mine. Mine to protect.” He pulls my finger from his lips and presses my arm to my chest, backing me to the wall. He begins to explore my body with his free hand, diving between my legs. He grunts at the wetness he finds.
The mask mesmerizes me. “This is crazy.”
His voice is rough stone. “It’s okay to want me like this.”
He opens my sweater and yanks my bra down under my breasts. He pushes my skirt up around my waist.
He’s half unwrapped me--just the parts he wants to get at. It’s dirty. Debasing.
I’ve never been wetter.
“You know how I want you?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer; he just lifts me like it’s nothing and sets me onto a small bed. “Scoot back,” he grates. “Spread your legs. Show yourself to me. Show me what’s mine.”
I spread my legs. Apparently I’ll do anything when Yuri wears the mask. He draws his hands along my bare thighs, a rough drag along tender skin. “Hold yourself open.”
I hesitate, feeling shy.
“Do it.”
I comply. It’s a dirty thing, making me do that. And kind of wonderful.
He drags his fingers through my core. I hiss out a breath as he anoints my nipples with my arousal. He leans in, then, to suck one. A rumble goes through him. It sounds strange and wild and not entirely sane.
I stiffen, remembering what I thought about wild animals.
He pulls back with that look of mayhem in his eyes and pushes my hands away from my sex, like he’s surprised and angry that they’re even there. He presses down on either side of my sex, as if to plump it out. “Like this,” he says.
I shudder and close my eyes as he begins to lick me.
He stops. “No,” he booms. “Watch me, rabbit. Look at who does this to you. In the mask.”
I look down as he hooks my legs over his shoulders. And I can’t see his face. Just the mask.
I feel vulnerable and scared and safe, all at the same time.
He presses and squeezes my pussy as he licks me, and I’m gone, shuddering with a powerful orgasm.
Yuri
She’s coming down from her orgasm, and her body is calling me, a hungry fire between us. Furiously I pull away and unbutton my slacks and shove them down.
It’s just the mask she likes, a dangerous role-play. I’ll take the crumbs. When you’re an orphan, you’re happy for the crumbs.
I grab her ass and pull her to me, skin like fucking silk. I drink in her softness, abrading her with bumpy scars and chest hair and the rough fabric of the mask. I devour her lips with mine. “I need to be in you.”
“Fuck me, then. Do it, Yuri!”
It’s the rough man in the mask she wants, but never mind. Just another version of stealing mail.
With her other hand she grasps around the back of my head. “I want you,” she whispers. “I don’t have a condom…”
I put my forehead to her chest and feel her heartbeat.
“It’s okay. You can pull out or something.”
I stare down at her stunned.
She’s so hot for the man in the mask that she’s willing to go without a condom. She thinks the rough killer in the mask wouldn’t have a condom.
I put my hands around her cheeks. I’d love to take her like that. To feel her without a barrier.
But she’s mine. Mine to care for.
And I have a condom, because I’m not really him.
But I know what it’s like to want oblivion. This I can give her.
I push her down on the bed and pull a condom from inside my pocket.
She’s surprised I have one. The masked man is a bad man in her fantasy, I guess. I have to think of something—something hard and cruel.
“Beg,” I say. “Hold yourself open and beg—do it!”
She draws up her legs, splays them to either side, this woman so smart and prim. She places her hands on either side of her pussy.
“Move it, touch it, make it feel good. I want to see you making it feel good or I won’t fuck you.”
“Fuck,” she says, closing her eyes. “Fuck me.”
“And watch me, too.”
She watches me, massaging herself. It’s the best I can do, to force her out of her comfort zone. I will not fuck her bare.
I roll on a condom. “Hold your knees by your ears.”
She complies, showing me herself so lewdly. She’s beautiful. I don’t want to hit her, but I do—I strike her ass, reminding her I’m still that bad man, even if I wear a condom. I strike her once, twice.
“Omigod,” she says. “Ow.”
I go to her, and take hold of her knees.
She touches the back of my mask as I fit the hard knob of my cock into her.
“Tight,” I whisper. “He takes you now.”
“Omigod, yes.”
I push a little ways in. “Do you feel him?”
“Oh, god, Yuri.”
I go in an inch more. “So tight.” I push in a little more, claiming her.
“Wait—Yuri.”
I pause, my thickness swelling her tight channel, half in. “What?”
“Can we…do you mind…” She grabs the fabric at the top of my head and begins to pull.
Every atom in my body freezes.
“Can I take it off?” she asks.
I think I’m not understanding her. “You want me to take the mask off.”
“Is that okay?”
I swallow. “Go on, then,” I grate.
She pulls it off, pulling half my hair with it. Like I care.
She tosses it and slides her hands on the scruff of my cheeks, petting me. “Yuri,” she whispers, soft like heaven. “Like a Russian bear.”
She wants to fuck me? It’s too much to take in. Suddenly, insanely, I want the mask back on, want to be on the outside of the bakery again, an orphan looking in. Where I’m used to being. Scrabbling for crumbs.
“That’s better.” She looks unsure. “Right?”
“It was a bit warm.” I rub my scruff across her tender cheek and down her neck.
Her shoulders curl in with the sensation. She whispers something I don't understand. No matter.
I fuck her hard and fast so she doesn’t see the emotion in me. I make it good, thumb on her clit, ripping another orgasm from her. I make her come hard before me. Her pussy like a pulsing fist gets me off.
