She nodded, but he strapped the vibrator to her thighs to keep it buried in her pussy. Taking his belt from the top of his duffle bag, he ran his hand across her still red ass before his leather came down hard on her punished bottom. She shrieked while he added a second and third, perfect red stripes decorating her skin angrily, her wet arousal dribbling down her inner thighs.
“Please, sir,” she begged. “I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t… no more…”
With a smirk, he stroked her clit, sending his finger around the hot little nub. It took very little effort to make her scream as she writhed against her restraints as though she had a chance to escape the inevitable. She could take her whipping without complaining, but the sensational force from her orgasm caused her to beg him to stop. He continued to torment her, past her spasms until her overstimulated clit had had enough, and she gasped for breath.
He lowered the table until her head was at his waist and stepped between her outstretched arms. Releasing his cock, he rubbed his hands along his length to bring a glistening bit of cum to the end of his shaft before resting it on her lips. With an eagerness that pleased him, she took him without hesitation, sucking hard as he directed her with a firm grasp on her hair. His muscles shuddering, he roared through the pulsing, filling her with his seed and keeping his cock in place until she’d swallowed to firmly establish himself as her master.
Chapter 13
After the dramatic rise and crash of her endorphins, her heightened vulnerability was likely the cause of her quiet withdrawal, and he wrapped her in a warm blanket and held her to his chest, rubbing her back until she grew more alert. He considered taking her to the sauna to treat both of them, but given her continued reticence, a public display of her nudity might be a challenge for her to embrace. After cleaning and storing his equipment, he slipped the cotton dress over her head to return them to the abandoned first floor.
She’d missed a meal over her little lunchtime excursion, so he ordered from the kitchen; bowls of steaming pelmeni, dumplings filled with spiced ground meat and served with sour cream and butter, a simple chef specialty that was readily available at most Russian banyas.
“These are good,” she said, sitting next to him on the couch with her bare legs and feet tucked underneath her. “But they’re different from Georgian dumplings. Maybe you can get me the recipe so I can compare them.”
“We have several chefs here. Most of them work just a few hours a week in exchange for a reduced membership fee. These are men who wouldn’t have the resources to join otherwise.”
“Are all of your members men?” she asked a little too innocently. “And I assume that none of these women are their wives?”
“Does that matter to you?” he asked with a smirk.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to answer a question with another question,” she said with a sassy grin, but quickly added with her eyes lowered in respect. “And no, sir, I’m not going to pass judgement on people I’ve never met.”
“That’s better,” he said, failing to suppress his chuckling. Her submission was non-negotiable, but her bravery was her true defining factor, the two blending together to a single perfection. “Some of these people are single and just looking for a little weekend fun. Others have been married for years with grown children or even young couples who found a babysitter for a few hours, and yes, there are men who come with their mistresses and leave their wives at home. I don’t need to remind you that discretion is key. Galena signed a nondisclosure agreement, but I think you understand what will happen if you break that rule even without signing one. And if you really want a recipe, I’ll try to find out who made these.”
“I can understand that, but don’t go to too much trouble for the recipe. I make amazing dumplings, if I don’t mind saying so myself. I… I can make them for you, sometime… if you’d like. I would just need some money to buy the right ingredients.”
“I would very much like to try your dumplings,” he said, slipping his hand into the bodice of her dress. She giggled, but didn’t shy away as he took his time exploring her fullness before he removed his wallet from his back pocket. Handing her a credit card, he said, “I’ve been meaning to give you this. Don’t go crazy on me, but use it for groceries or to buy yourself some clothes or whatever else you might want. I know that my kitchen isn’t well equipped, so pick up any pots or utensils or anything else you think the house needs. Just save me the receipts so I know what you’ve spent.”
With wide eyes, she held the card for a second or two. “Thank you for the trust, Pavel. I promise that you won’t regret it.”
“Regret? Why would I do that? I get a home-cooked meal every night, and I’m hoping that you’ll find some more of those nice shorts that show off your ass. You’ve probably got the sexiest legs I’ve ever seen.”
After days of beautiful weather, the brilliant sunshine that they’d begun to take for granted had disappeared behind a growing line of dark clouds swirling in from the west, and fat water droplets decorated the sidewalk with increasing persistence. The wind picked up ahead of the storm front until a flurry of leaves and branches fell from the dancing trees to scatter across the pristine lawn. The rain quickly intensified to pound against the windows, bringing a welcome respite for the dry lawn and flowerbeds and creating a comfortable retreat inside the beautiful room.
The well-stocked bar was given an updated wine selection every month, and he opened a bottle of creamy chardonnay from California. While Russian wines had improved dramatically in the last few years, it was still an inferior product best left behind. After filling two delicate glasses, he sat at the baby grand piano that dominated the southern facing window and patted the spot next to him until she nestled into his side and took her glass. Inspired by her beauty, he began to play a classical Mozart piece that he’d learned as a boy. It had been a long time since he’d touched any kind of musical instrument, and he was amazed at how quickly the skill, and the memories of his childhood at the St. Petersburg townhouse, returned.
“I had no idea that you could play the piano,” she said with no small amount of awe. “You’re pretty good at that thing. How long did you take lessons?”
“Most of my childhood,” he admitted. “My father was a man who remained very much in control of his marriage, but when our mother insisted that her sons gain a little culture, we took piano lessons. I was a dutiful child, but it was never my first choice in musical instruments.”
“Oh,” she said with a grin. “What did you prefer? The flute in those monster-sized hands of yours? Perhaps the piccolo?”
“The drums,” he said with a laugh, taking a sip of his wine. “I may have been a musician, but I’m not that much of a music geek. In my younger years, I could pound out a mean rock and roll beat that would have made any American proud to know me. I used to play in a band before my sons were born, but nothing can suck the soul out of your nightlife like a screaming infant. They were damned cute, but, my God, they were gross.”
She spoke with an unusual bitterness. “What about Anton’s mother? Did she take piano lessons, too, or didn’t your parents believe in educating their daughter?”
“That’s a little harsh,” he said, as he began to play a traditional Russian folk song. “I’m sure that you’ll find it hard to believe, but for that time and place, the three of us had reasonably normal and pleasant childhoods. And if you’d ever met my mother, you wouldn’t even have to ask that question. She was a woman who embraced her personal idealism with enough fervor to leave her entire family and move halfway around the world to live in a country that she thought personified utopia. She may have been subservient to my father’s demands, but she had a voice of her own and wasn’t afraid to use it. Katya attended the same schools in St. Petersburg that we did, but a full decade behind us, and she was actually much more talented at the piano than both of us boys put together. She wanted to play professionally from the time she was a little girl, but her husband wouldn’t allow it.”
“Are all of you Petruskenkov men bossy?” she asked sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “At the time of the creation, your family must have stood in line for an extra dosage of some male bossy gene. Has anybody ever successfully refused you something?”
“Cheeky little thing, aren’t you,” he said, kissing the top of her forehead. “But my father used to tell me no quite often, and believe me, I obeyed my father with a great deal of respect.” Pavel stopped to stare out the window. “He was a good man, Zoya, and I miss his strength and his compassion every day.”
“How could two brothers be so very different?” She asked the question softly, then blushed. “I’m sorry, that was a rude question.”
“I was the second son,” he said, shaking his head to return his full attention to her. “And my life was always less restrictive than Damir’s, who was groomed to take control of a large responsibility from a young age. He was…” Pavel stopped to find the right words that could explain the complexity of having Damir for a brother. “He was an angry child, much more like my uncle Gregori than my father. But he was my brother, and there was a time in my life when I loved him unconditionally. If he could return to that single moment when he made his first bad decision, I don’t believe that he would choose the path of drugs and alcohol that ruined his life.”
“He’s done too many horrible things to forgive,” she snapped. “And a challenging childhood isn’t an excuse for any of it.”
“No… it’s not,” he agreed. “It’s just his story. I can’t change his past or his future, but once you’ve given yourself to someone with that level of commitment, some part of you will remain tied to them even after you’ve grown to hate them. I’ve seen what he did to his own children, and I couldn’t save them, not even Luka. I would have brought him with me to America if Damir had agreed. I’m grateful that he’s given me Anton.”
“He never wanted Anton,” she scoffed. “He just didn’t want his father’s family to have him. Besides, I was told that Luka’s a carbon copy of Damir. Why would you bring that kind of anger to your sons’ doorstep?”
“Who told you that? My oldest son and Luka were only a few months apart in age. They were good friends in Russia even if they did, on occasion, fight like enemies. Damir encouraged the battles and he’d punish Luka and his other sons if they ever backed down from a fight. Even with all of that for a father, Luka was, or at least was when his mother was alive, a wonderful little boy full of light and love.”
“Luka shot her,” she said matter-of-factly. “I know that she didn’t commit suicide like most of St. Petersburg believes.”
Even though they had the first floor to themselves, Pavel dramatically lowered his tone. “And who told you that? I was there within a half an hour after it happened because it was my job to clean up Damir’s messes. He was either drunk or high or more likely both, and she got angry enough to fight back when he tried to beat Luka during an argument. He shot her. He blamed her for her own death and made Luka lie about it. Or rather, I made Luka lie about it. That, and the many other horrible things I’ve done working for Damir, will remain a guilty burden that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Her shocked expression caused him pain, but he’d long since learned to accept the condemnation. With the majority of his life spent working to keep Damir Petruskenkov in power, his resume was far from socially acceptable. “I’m not a good person, Zoya,” he added sadly. “You must have known that just by knowing my family. And who have you gotten all of this bad information from? Was it Ana or one of the boys?”
“I never met any of the boys,” admitted Zoya. “Ana is so angry that she’s turning bitter, and Damir isn’t doing anything to support her. She doesn’t even have a picture of her mother to remember happier times. His housekeeper revealed all sorts of secrets when she was trying to justify her existence.” She also surveyed the empty room before lowering her voice. “Jelena says she is married to Damir. Did you know that?”
“Good,” he said dryly. “I’m surprised, but they deserve each other. I remember her from his wedding, and even then she was a shrew. I’m sorry to hear that about little Ana, though. I have some photos of Nina around here someplace. I’ll have some copies made and see if I can’t convince Jelena to give them to her. Damir’s older sons have always been more challenging than either her or Luka, but none of them deserved the life they’ve been given.”
“Is that why you left Russia? To protect your sons from all of that?”
He trusted nobody with the truth, but she deserved some version of it. “I’ve done a lot of horrible things to protect my sons, and there is no limit to what I will do in the future. They may not be as heartless or as tough as Damir’s boys who will inherit the real power, but I was determined that they would be happier, even after losing their mother. America gave us the chance to put a little distance between me and my brother and allow them to live a relatively normal childhood.”
“How did she die, Pavel? I’ve seen the picture in your bedroom, but she already looked ill in it.”
“Cancer,” he said, the pain still as fresh as it was the day he’d lost her. “It started in her breast and spread before we could stop it. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost five years. Yuri was only a toddler, and his memories are insignificant, just a glimpse or two of her at standing by the window or smiling at him before she tucked him into bed. They don’t represent the truth of what she stood for, and even Slavic is forgetting.”
He retrieved the wine bottle from the bar and refilled both of their glasses. “This has been an interesting conversation, but it’s been all about me. When are you going to trust me enough to tell me about you?”
“What makes you think there’s anything else?” she asked, shifting away from him.
He arched an eyebrow in displeasure, and after only one session in the dark dungeon she returned to his side without any sass. “I’m here to protect you, Zoya,” he said. “I can’t do that if I don’t understand what happened in St. Petersburg. You need to trust me to do more than deliver simple sexual gratification.”
She didn’t meet his eye, but looking away didn’t hide her pain. He returned to the classical piece he’d started with while she took her time finding her own answers, speaking slowly. “Those first few days in New York, I admit to a pretty serious lack of trust in your judgement, but more recently, I just didn’t want to bring the ugliness here. My father was a simple farmer in South Ossetia, but the war tore apart our family and drove the last of us to Batumi. There, your brother took me from our small apartment by force. He paid my father to ignore the kidnapping, and his men drugged me to get me to St. Petersburg on his private plane. At your family’s townhouse, he raped and beat me… and shared me with his friends for months until he grew tired of me and sent me to you with Anton and no money so that I had no options. And that’s my story. All of it.”
The depths of his brother’s dysfunction had been embedded into his life for so long that he had no sense of shock or surprise, but his anger brewed from a bitter darkness. He didn’t trust his voice because if he released that fury, he would surely frighten the little thing who’d already suffered so much. He stood to watch the rain, forcing deep breaths into his lungs and slowly finishing his wine.
Turning back to her, he found her in tears sitting on the piano bench. He should have guessed that there was more to her than a willing whore who’d lived to appease Damir’s cock, and his own treatment of her since she’d arrived in New York had only exacerbated a horrible experience.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. He returned to her side and pulled her close, wishing he could hold her until her past dissipated into the category of a bad dream. She choked a little, but gave into his embrace, settling her head on his shoulder with more quiet tears. “I handled that very badly,” he said. “But controlling my temper can be a challenge. This isn’t your fault and don’t think for a second that I’m angry with you. I wish I had the words to make it better or
to even excuse my family’s role in your misery, but there’s no excuse for any of us, not even me. I vow to do everything in my power to keep you from going back to him, but your father was a fool, Zoya. He should have fought for you.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” she defended loudly, wiping her eyes. “You don’t understand true poverty. I… I’d hoped to write to him and see if he is well, if I could use your address for the return mail.”
Pavel remained firm. “But I understand firsthand when somebody fucks up and destroys a life. You don’t owe your father any respect, and as long as you’re in my care, you won’t deal with him either. I’m not going to allow him to hurt you again, but if you give me his name, I’ll look into his welfare for you.”
He prepared to deal with her temper, but her deep sigh of relief made it clear that she was ready for somebody else to make that difficult choice. “I… I’m okay with that,” she said slowly. “At least for a little while. It might be selfish, but I think I just need some time to focus on my own needs without taking on his, too.”
After what his family had done to her, they owed her a great deal more than what they’d delivered, and it was no surprise that she wanted to be on her own. He’d made the mistake by stopping Marie from exploring her own needs, and he wasn’t going to repeat that with this beautiful young woman who had her whole life ahead of her. Reaching into his back pocket, he prepared to show her the advertisement for the Upper East Side apartment that he’d gathered from the last edition of the New York Times.
“Pavel?” she asked before he could hand her the envelope. “Can I use the credit card to buy paint for your kitchen?”
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