Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho (8 page)

“
S
o
, I stand corrected,” Sola said about ten minutes later, as she poured some of Ivan’s expensive vodka onto a washcloth. “This
is
a little bit like
Beauty and the Beast
.”

She came to stand in front of the entryway’s armchair, where Ivan was currently seated. Such a pretty sight to behold—until she pressed the vodka-saturated cloth onto the ugly mark on Ivan’s chest where the wolf had scratched him.

“Ow!” he yelled, as the alcohol burned into the wound.

“Including the part where you whine like a baby while I try to patch you up,” Sola grumbled.

He sensed she was only complaining because she was still in a state of shock. Once the door slammed behind him, she’d spent nearly a full minute trembling before noting his ripped shirt and saying, “It scratched you. Oh my gosh, it scratched you. We have to fix that!”

She’d pushed him into the armchair, and then burst into a whirlwind of nerve-fueled activity. He’d watched her search the house for a medical kit. When she couldn’t find one, her eyes fixed on the half-empty bottle of vodka next to his usual chair.

“This will have to do,” she muttered to herself.

Ivan had admired her resourcefulness. But even now, for all her snarky comments, her hands still trembled as she applied the damp cloth to the large scratch.

Still, there was a difference between understanding why she was being snarky in the wake of the wolf attack, and tolerating it.

He glowered at her. “I have never seen this movie,
Beauty and the Beast
, but I would not need patching up if you had not gone off by yourself on a full moon night.”

Instead of getting upset, however, she squinted at him with a quizzical smile. “Are you sure you haven’t seen it? Because that line is totally in the movie.”

He huffed in frustration. “Are you done yet?”

Sola stepped back with a frown. “Yeah, I guess I am. I can’t find so much as a single Band-Aid in this house, so that’s pretty much all I can do. But we need to figure out how to cover up that wound. Wait, I think I saw some duct tape in the cleaning supply closet.”

And that was how he found himself fighting off an erection as he watched Sola cover the nasty looking scratch with a dry wash cloth and two lengths of duct tape.

“This is going to hurt like a bitch when it comes off,” she half-apologized when she’d finished applying the makeshift bandage. “But it’s better than taking the chance of it getting infected before we can get you to the town clinic tomorrow.”

“I will not need clinic,” he said, rising to a stand. “Scratch is not so deep.”

“But—”

“If you will excuse me, I will go to bed now. It has been a very long night.”

“Oh, okay, you’re going to bed. Okay…” Her words were agreeable enough, but he sensed disappointment behind them.

“Would you like me to stay up with you?” Then he thought of all his cousin’s wives, and their touchy-feely ways. “Do you need a hug?” he asked her.

“No! Oh, gosh, no,” she said. “Of course not. I’d never ask for something like that from you.”

“Because of
my attitude
,” he said, paraphrasing her earlier words.

“No—” she cut off, obviously frustrated. “You know, I’m a really good communicator,” she informed him. “Actors and techs love me, but with you, I always feel like I’m saying the wrong thing.”

Funny, he felt the exact same way. But he waited for her to finish, wondering where she was going with this.

“I only meant I don’t want to keep you up. That’s all. No judgment or bitchiness or anything. I just think you deserve a good night’s sleep after you, you know, punched—I mean actually
punched out a wolf
to save me. So um, yeah…definitely, definitely go to bed. And um… thank you.”

She stood on her tiptoes and before he could think to stop her, pressed her lips into the side of his face. The ruined side of his face.

He thought he’d been hard before, but her kiss turned his cock into a piece of stone. It ached so painfully between his legs, he had to make himself go completely still for fear of mauling her.

And maybe she felt it too, because her eyes widened a little before she stepped away from him and said, “Yeah…soooo…I think I’ll head upstairs now. First thing tomorrow, I’ll run into town and get you some bandages for that cut. And while we’re on this topic, what kind of place doesn’t have any first aid supplies? I mean, this is ridiculous!”

“You do not have to do that.”

“Do what? Oh, you mean the bandages?” She shot him a look of exasperation. “Look. Cut the macho guy crap, okay? I want to do it. I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

Sola turned and walked to the stairs before he could argue with her any further. “Good night!” she called down to him, as she ran up the steps.

Ivan didn’t answer. Nor did he move. For a very long time after she left, he remained rooted to the spot. Finding it hard to breathe.

S
upermodels had shown
up without invitation to his after-fight parties and sucked him off passionately as if paying him his due. Groupies in matching lingerie often appeared at his penthouse hotel rooms, seemingly out of nowhere, like so much erotic magic. Back when he’d been Ivan Rustanov, EFC champion, there’d been a constant stream of lovely women. So many, he could barely remember their faces and he certainly couldn’t recall more than one or two names.

Yet he couldn’t sleep for thinking of the kiss one girl had pressed to his cheek. And his daily battle of trying not to wank-off while thinking of her was lost late that night when, after hours of tossing and turning, he flipped onto his back and pushed the covers down with a resigned grunt.

Thoughts of her curvy body sizzled through his brain as he reached under the band of his silk boxers and took himself in hand. What would she feel like beneath all those clothes? Soft, so soft, he imagined. He could almost feel the press of her full thighs around his waist as he thrust into her, and the mental image of him taking one of her beautiful breasts in his mouth very nearly shorted out his brain.

This line of thinking was enough to produce a few drops of pre-cum, making his job easier as his palm moved up and down his rigid shaft—

The click of the door opening froze his hand in mid-motion. He was about to yell at Gregory for coming in without knocking when he realized two things:

One: Gregory was off tonight.

And, two…

Gregory wasn’t standing at the door. But Sola was.

The room was heavily shadowed, but his captive, dressed in a long flannel nightgown that Hannah must have bought for her, was partially illuminated by the light of the full moon streaming through the large picture window.

“My feet are cold,” she said, her voice sleepy and sweet and tinged with a very faint accent he’d never heard in it before. “You have a fire in here.”

He frowned, watching her glide toward his fireplace, holding her hands out in front of her even though his hearth was as cold and devoid of a fire as hers. Gregory hadn’t been there to light it, and Ivan, being Russian and accustomed to cold winters, didn’t really need the extra warmth of the fire to sleep.

But then she stopped. Looked at him frozen in the bed, his motionless hand fisted around his cock. He realized the moonlight must have shown him to her as clearly as it was showing her to him, because she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I am…” he didn’t finish. Couldn’t finish. Could only stare.

And she stared right back, eyes unblinking behind her glasses.

Then she surprised the hell of out him by saying, “Keep going,” her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to watch you…”

The moonlight reflected off her glasses as she moved closer to the bed. “Please keep going.”

He did. Stroking himself slowly under her curious gaze. Discovering in that moment that he didn’t have the willpower to deny this woman…

“Mmm…” she said, watching him intently. “That turns me on so bad. So bad…”

She bunched up the skirt of her nightgown with one hand, and he nearly spilled right then and there when her other hand started moving between her legs.

“No, don’t stop,” she said when his hand fell away from his throbbing erection. “Keep going.”

“I can’t, Sola. The sight of you. It is too much for me to bear without coming too quickly. Like school boy.”

“Oh,” she said, hand falling away from her pussy in disappointment. But then she brightened and said, “In that case, can we have sex? I really want to have sex with you, Ivan. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about…”

Not waiting for an answer, she advanced on the bed. And only muscle memory alone made it possible for Ivan to reach into the nearby drawer and grab a condom. Even so, he barely got himself sheathed before she was climbing on top of him, guiding his steel-hard cock toward the heat of her entrance.

He’d done countless things with countless girls before her. Pussy had come so easily back then. Yet the simple act of her easing her wet, hot pussy onto his straining dick nearly blanked his mind. And he thanked the fighting gods for the discipline Boris had instilled in him, because his physical self-control was the only thing that kept him from blowing his load right then and there.

“So big. Even bigger than I imagined,” she gasped out, her hands splayed across his chest. She started riding him with a moan. As if she’d been dreaming about this. Waiting for this. Just as he had.

“Oh, fuck, that’s good,” she moaned. “So good, Ivan.”

He’d never heard her curse before, even at her angriest. And the filthy word following from her bowed mouth did something to him. Turned him on so bad, he had to close his eyes against the sight of her. Close his eyes and think of the most boring things possible: opera, winding sports tape around his hands, burpee drills. He’d been dead inside for so long before this moment, but now he was dangerously aroused and having to resort to the tricks of his youth to keep from coming too quickly. As she ground herself on top of him, he could do little more than lie there, his whole body tense with the fight to stay there with her and not come too soon.

However, his white-knuckled fight was abruptly lost when she arched forward and kissed him. Control became impossible then, and every part of his body rushed to fulfill his own greedy desire. His hands found her silky curls, his hips rolling up into her faster and faster with a mind of their own. And his mouth…he inhaled her, swallowing her kiss whole, as he entwined her tongue with his.

Thank God their first kiss unhinged her, too. She soon became like a maniac on top of him, hips grinding and grinding, until just a few moments later when she came with a helpless scream as his hard mouth plundered her much softer one. Her pussy milking him so wet and hot, he immediately flooded the condom with the load he’d been holding back for days and days. From the very first moment he’d met her.

She giggled against his lips as they came down from the orgasm together.

“Ohhhh, that was even better than I thought it would be, Ivan,” she told him in a soft sing-song voice. “So fucking good…”

She rubbed her face into the ruined side of his, like a cat saying thank you. Then she said, “My feet are warm now. Good night.”

With that, she climbed off of him and left the room without another word, the door clicking closed behind her. If not for the distinct smell of sex in the room, he would have thought she’d been a dream. Maybe even a hallucination.

But he could still smell her on his skin. Still feel her there, too. Even after he showered the next morning, reluctantly washing off her scent. He’d been lackadaisical about his hygiene regimen in the years since the bomb. But that morning, his desire not to smell the next time he saw her won over his desire to capture what had happened between them.

However, he needn’t have bothered with a morning shower. Like the rest of the town, she didn’t come out of her room all morning. He found himself lingering in his vodka chair, pretending to read a book about Nikola Tesla while he waited for her to emerge.

But she never did, and finally he retired to the study, deciding he needed a drink of vodka even earlier than usual. Just a few moments after his first pour, Hannah showed up at his study door with a large bandage.

“Sola said you might be in need of this, sir. I had the town nurse look for one and bring it up to the house as soon as I heard.”

“It was only a small scratch,” he answered. But he took the bandage from Hannah, who continued to eye him warily, despite the fact that he’d nearly forgotten about the scratch in the first place. He’d removed that silly bandage Sola had made for him less than a minute after going up to his own bedroom, and he hadn’t thought much about the wound since.

“You saw her?” he asked, curious to hear news of the woman who’d come to him last night but hadn’t come out of her room all day.

“Yes, I just checked in on her and she told me all about the wolf attack.” Hannah wrung her hands. “Are you
sure
you’re all right, sir?”

He shrugged. “Yes, I am fine.”

“And it was just a scratch?” Hannah asked worriedly. “Not a bite? You’re sure?”

“
Da
, just a scratch, but thank you for the bandage. Was Sola okay—I mean, after the attack?”

Hannah frowned at the change of subject. “She seems fine, sir. Tired, and she mentioned being hungry, but then she said I should check with you first. Something about you banning her from the kitchen?”

His brows pulled low. Did she really believe that ban was still in place after what they’d shared last night? The thought of her not eating all day tore at his heart.

“No, I did not mean—it was a misunderstanding between us. You can bring her a meal. That is fine. Of course it is fine. ”

Hannah started to go, but then turned back to tell him, “And by the way, my mate—I mean, Gregory—is feeling a little under the weather today. I hope you don’t mind him taking a sick day. I know we never discussed that before…”

“It is fine,” he answered, before she could continue.

But still Hannah fretted in his study doorway.