Pavel I hear from Kayla Wednesday that she got a part on a series Ensign named. Her joy almost made it worth living with the knowledge that Ensign was still breathing. I had Dima transfer Ensign’s money back to his account although I considered making him sweat for a few more days.
I sent Kayla three dozen multi-colored roses to congratulate her, but the need to tell her in person made me stupid. I’m already on thin ice around here, but I asked Ravil if I could leave early for the weekend, and he flat-out refused.
“Make your choice,” he said.
No one’s going to hand you the life you want. Y ou have to take it.
So I choose.
I fucking choose Kayla. If Ravil wants to kill me for it, he will. But I don’t believe that’s what he has in store for me. He’s showing me how to control my own destiny, the way he controlled his, even while under Igor’s heel.
I knock on Maxim and Sasha’s door Thursday noon. “You done making Sasha scream yet?” I ask when Maxim comes to the door with his shirt off and hair tousled.
“Don’t talk about my wife unless you want to die,” he returns easily. “What do you want?”
“To buy you both lunch.”
“Oh, damn. I sense a pitch coming.”
Y es, I am that douche.
“Pavel’s pitching?” Sasha calls out. “Ooh-I can’t wait to hear it. Do I get to come?”
“I believe you just did,” Maxim brags. “Several times, on my tongue.”
“I did not consent to hear that.” I put my fingers up to my eyes like blinders.
“Of course you get to come, it’s your money, caxapok.”
“Which you control,” she pouts, appearing behind Maxim in a silky purple bathrobe, her red hair in a wild tangled mess from their love-making.
“We’ll be out in thirty,” Maxim promises.
“Yeah?” Frankly, I can’t believe he didn’t already shut me down. The fact that he’s even entertaining my pitch gives me hope.
Maxim smirks as he shuts the door. “Sure. You never pay for lunch.”
I find my own lips lifting a little. Maybe this all could work.
Sasha and Maxim emerge in twenty minutes. Sasha’s wearing a bustier over a long-sleeved sheer top, showing off her brick house body, as usual. Maxim allows it because it brings Sasha joy.
Exuberance for life is her personality, but I’m sure he’d like to kill every man who looks, myself included. Obviously, I take pains not to ever look.
“There he is,” Sasha says as she breezes past the kitchen and catches my arm. “I can’t wait to hear the whole scoop.”
“Don’t touch him,” Maxim minces through gritted teeth, and Sasha flashes a wide grin before she behaves and drops my arm. Maxim, our fixer, somehow managed to tame his rebellious bride but just barely.
We pull on our jackets. “Where are we going?” Sasha asks.
“You pick,” I tell her.
“Let’s walk to that new gyro place. I’m starving.” She throws the door open and breezes into the elevator.
“Cheap date,” I mutter as Maxim and I follow. “I like it.”
“She’s not your date,” Maxim growls.
“Poor choice of words,” I agree.
“So what did you do to the director?” Sasha purrs when we’re inside the elevator heading to the ground floor.
“Don’t ask him that,” Maxim warns, not that I would tell.
“I heard she got a part.” Sasha lifts her brows and a ripple of warning makes the hair at the back of my neck stand. If Sasha put it together, how long before Kayla does?
My heart inexplicably speeds up like I’m in danger. Maybe I am. Danger of toppling this card house I’m trying to construct with Kayla.
Somehow, Sasha reads my alarm. “Ah, so you were responsible. I figured. She doesn’t know,” she assures me. “She thinks she got it on her own. You’d better make sure it stays that way.”
“Y ou’d better-” I start, then modify my tone when Maxim’s nostril’s flare. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Please don’t tell her.”
“Aw, Pavel said please.” Sasha flicks a delighted look Maxim’s way. “Love is changing him.”
I want to deny I’m in love, but I stop myself because it would be a lie. I am in love. That’s the whole point of this lunch. I’m in love, and I’m trying to figure out how to make a life with the girl that stitched the shreds of my soul back together.
The elevator stops on the ground floor, and we get out and walk past Maykl, a bratva brigadier, who serves as a doorman for the building. A very well-armed and protective doorman.
“Sasha?” I try not to say it in a growl.
Maykl jogs to open the door for her.
“I won’t tell her,” she promises, giving Maykl an entitled smile and wave as she passes through.
“She’d be devastated. She thinks she made it on talent, just like she always dreamed.”
“Thanks, man,” I mutter to Maykl as he holds it for me, too. I try to push away the gnawing sense that I fucked up. “She has made it on talent,” I insist when we’re out on the street.
“Right. I know,” Sasha says quickly. “Kayla’s talented, for sure.” I hear the lack of conviction in her voice and want to strangle her. She’s an actress, too, and she modified her dreams because of her forced marriage to Maxim. Things have worked out for her here, though. She got the leading role in the Anna Karenina musical recently.
I would never ask that of Kayla, though. Her heart is set on making it big.
The sun is out, but the April wind whips off the lake and through us as we walk the few city blocks to the gyro joint. Maxim and Sasha order first, then I place my order and pay and join them at a table.
“So?” Sasha rubs her hands together like she’s excited. She’s making it easy on me, and I’m humbled by the fact that they’re even here listening to me.
I look from one to the other. “Real estate in Los Angeles seems like it’s always a safe bet,” I begin.
Maxim flicks his brows-whether that means he’s in agreement or surprised by the topic, I’m not sure.
“I’ve been doing some research, and the median cost of a home in Los Angeles is 950 grand. The prices have trended upward at a rate of 11. 8 percent year-over-year. I believe that means a large number of residents have to rent. Investing in a small but upscale apartment building could prove lucrative as a long-term investment. I called about one when I was there-twelve units plus a penthouse suite for five million, eight. There’s a pool on the roof.” I take a long, desperate sip of the Dr. Pepper I ordered. My mouth is so damn dry.
“What do you propose?” Maxim asks.
“I have eighty-seven grand saved. That’s not even close to ten percent, but I wondered if you’d either consider financing my mortgage, or becoming an outright business partner with me.”
A server brings our gyros to the table, and we dig in.
“You’d manage the property?” Maxim wants to know.
“Yes.” It’s not completely out of my wheelhouse. I’ve seen how Ravil manages his properties and lent force or muscle or whatever he required when he required it.
“Full-time? On-site?”
I keep myself from flinching at the question. “That’s my idea.”
“Have you talked to Ravil?”
“Indirectly. He told me he won’t let me out. But then he said no one’s going to hand me the life I want-I have to take it. So this is me taking it.”
Maxim’s lips twitch. “Sounds like you could be on the right path.”
A whisper of relief blows over me.
“So?” I look between the two of them.
Maxim turns to look at Sasha.
“Yes!” she exclaims, clapping her hands. “I’m so happy for you.”
Maxim watches his wife with amusement. To me, he says, “You know it’s all contingent on you keeping Kayla happy, right? Because that’s clearly all Sasha cares about.”
I swallow. Not because I don’t want to keep Kayla happy. But because there’s never been a job I’ve been less qualified for. I have the emotional range of an icicle. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I know how to satisfy her sexually, yes. But other than that, I know nothing about keeping a woman. But I nod because that’s what this means. That’s why I need to be in L. A.
Maxim finishes his gyro and wipes his lips with a napkin. “I’ll work on terms.”
I barely stop the sputter of surprised relief coming from my mouth. “That’s it? You’re in? That easy?”
Maxim smirks. “You haven’t seen my terms, yet.”
“Right.”
“Or Ravil’s,” he adds. “You won’t walk free, I know that much. He may want a taste of this venture. Or for you to set up another one on his behalf.”
“Of course. He’s the pakhan.” I wouldn’t chafe against any terms Ravil set up for me. Maxim’s a different story, but at the moment, I’m inclined to feel nothing but gratitude.
This past week my brothers have shown me they are brothers in the truest sense. Not just in bratva business but beyond. It’s more than I ever believed possible.
“Does Kayla know?” Sasha asks.
I shake my head. “Don’t say anything. Not until I’ve worked out the details. -Please,” I add.
Sasha finishes her gyro and crumples up the paper it came wrapped in. “I won’t. And Maxim is right. This all hinges on her happiness. You fuck her over, and I’ll bury you. Understand?” She picks up a plastic fork and points it at my throat.
I’m feeling so light, I actually smile as I snatch it from her hand. “I will never fuck her over.”
Hurting her is another issue.
It’s something I do on a regular basis, on purpose and on accident.
That’s the thing that terrifies me the most.
Kayla I hold the plastic keycard up to the hotel room door and push it open when the lock lights up in green. As soon as I’m inside, I follow orders and call Pavel.
It’s Saturday afternoon and Pavel isn’t here yet because his boss wouldn’t let him come yesterday -I guess he had a job to do. I don’t know-I didn’t ask, of course. Business is off-limits. He called me this afternoon to tell me he was getting on a plane, and I needed to come to the Four Seasons and check in for him.
“I don’t want you waiting in that lobby turning all the men on every time you cross and uncross your hot-as-fuck legs,” he told me. “And I don’t want you carrying your own bag in. Let the bellhop do it. You get your glass of champagne, get in the room and call me when you’re there. Hopefully I’ll be off the plane by then.”
He picks up now. “Are you there?”
“I’m here, Master.”
“Strip.” It sounds like he’s in a car. Oh God, I hope he didn’t Uber here and a driver can overhear.
“Are-are you here?”
“I said strip, little slave. The only answer should be yes, Master.”
Excitement flutters in my stomach at his dommy tone. I don’t know why I love to be bossed around so much. Maybe I do need therapy, but at this moment, I don’t care. I’m desperate to be with Pavel again. To have him in charge of me, controlling me, making me submit.
Not that he ever has to make me. I’m not the kind of submissive who requires taming. I’m a service submissive, always trying to please.
“Yes, Master.”
“Good girl.”
“Um, are you staying on the phone?”
“Yes. Put me on speaker while you take off your clothes.”
I obey, dropping the phone on the bed as I shimmy out of the body-hugging sweater dress I’d put on. “All of them?” I ask. I sound breathless.
“Are you wearing heels?”
“High heeled boots.”
He groans. “I’m biting my knuckle, little slave. But take them off. You can put it all back on when I’m done with you. I’ll need you to show me the sexy outfit you picked for me.”
“Yes, Master.” I unzip my boots and pull them off, then strip out of my red panties and bra. “I’m naked, sir.”
“Lie down on the bed, blossom.”
I crawl up on the bed. “Face up or face down, Master?”
“Face… which way do you lie when you touch yourself at home, little slave?”
“Face down.”
“Fuck. Me.”
I laugh a little. It’s not like Pavel to express his torture. He so seldom shows his cards. Could it be that he’s starting to warm up? To open up?
“I want you to lie face down, blossom. Use a pillow if you need it. And I want those fingers between your legs.”
“Yes, Master.” I slide a pillow under my chest and my fingers between my legs.
“Tell me what you feel.”
“I’m already wet, Master,” I confess. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to answer him, but he’s made so many demands of me during our phone sex that I’ve lost some of my inhibitions. I wouldn’t say I can dirty-talk now, but I can at least respond to his questions.
“Good girl. I need you to keep yourself wet for me but do not come.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You keep that phone on, so I can hear you. If you come before I get there, I will whip you with my belt and leave that pretty pussy empty while I fuck your ass, do you understand?”
I whimper because the threat almost makes me come.
“Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, sir. Yes, I understand.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“Um, I’m rubbing my clit with my middle finger, sir.”
I hear a low rumble of approval. Again, that’s new.
“Good. You get that pussy ready for me because I’m going to need to be inside you the second I get in that room.”
I whimper again.
“Do not come.”
“I won’t,” I say quickly. “I’ll be good, Master.”
“I missed you yesterday, little flower. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to take care of your needs.”
“I… I missed you, too.” It’s hard to talk with how turned on I am. Heat swirls in my pelvis, my swelling clit throbs. My slick folds are soaked and plump, greedy for my touch.
No, greedy for his touch.
“Please,” I murmur.
“No.” His voice is sharp. “Do not make yourself come.”
“I won’t. I need you,” I moan.
I hear the screech of brakes and then the slam of a door. “That pussy belongs to me, blossom. I will be very disappointed if you disobey me this time. I mean it.”
I let out a little cry and pull my hand out from underneath me. “I won’t!”
“Did you stop touching yourself?”
“How do you do that?” I ask, in wonder.
He lets out a soft chuckle. I hear the ding of an elevator. Thank God. He’s close.
“I told you to touch yourself, and that’s what I want you to do.”
I moan. “Yes, sir.” I slide my hand between my legs.
Another ding of the elevator, but this time I hear it both through the phone and down the hall.
“Open the door for me.” His command is even softer-a habit he has. The more intense things get, the softer he goes.
I leap from the bed and throw the door open.
His lips slam down on mine the moment he comes through it. It’s a punishing kiss, his tongue lashing between my lips. He slants his head one way, then the other, then back to the first direction.
He walks me backward to the bed, capturing my wrists in his hands. He lifts them over my head, bending to suck one nipple.
“Please!” I cry out. I’m already so desperate to come.
“No.” He sounds so firm it’s almost angry, but I know by the prodding of his thick erection against my belly that he’s in as much pain as I am right now.
He sucks my other nipple into his mouth, scraping his teeth over the sensitive flesh.
“P-please. Pavel!”
His lids droop. “Master.”
“Master!”
He kisses me again, still holding my wrists high above my head. “I love it when you beg, sweet flower. Take my cock out.” He frees my hands and goes to work on my nipples, squeezing and rolling them between his fingertips.
I work the buckle on his belt, my fingers shaking. Opening it, I unbutton his trousers and lower the zipper. His cock bulges through the gap, straining to be free. I push his boxer briefs down to wrap my hand around it. “Master, may I please suck your cock?”
I revel in the shudder that runs through him. The surge of his cock in my hand.
“Wet it.” The command is gravelly and deep.
I drop to my knees, gripping the root of his cock. Licking my lips to moisten them, I stroke his cock from root to tip then slide his mushroom head into my mouth. I take him in slowly, tasting a drop of his salty essence as I swirl my tongue on the underside of his length.
He weaves his fingers into my hair, more a caress than domination, but then his words rasp out harshly. “That’s enough.”
I pop off immediately, my gaze flying to his face to see if I displeased him.
The hunger I see there makes my heart pound. He’s starting to show himself to me. That, more than anything he’s ever done, thrills me the most.
“Show me how you touched yourself before I came in.”
I stand, my fingers curling between my legs, but he shakes his head and lifts his chin toward the bed.
“I-I was like this, Master.” I crawl up on the mattress and lie flat on my belly, my hand under my hips. Knowing he’s watching makes it a different game. I part my legs wider to give him a view, arch my ass in the air.
I’m impossibly wet, dying to have him inside me.
“That’s pretty. Gospodi, that’s fucking beautiful, Kayla.” He climbs over me. “I spend every weekend memorizing how fucking gorgeous you look when you’re obeying your master.”
My body hums everywhere with the thrill of his praise. I hump my hand, showing him how much it turns me on to please him. To have him watching me.
I hear the jingle of his belt and the rustle of his clothes, and then he climbs over me and drags the head of his cock through my juices. He rubs around my clit and my toes literally curl, arches lifting with pleasure.
“Thank you for taking care of my pussy until I got here.” He shoves in with one smooth motion, burying himself deep.
I cry out, arching with the delicious pleasure of it.
“I’m going to spend the rest of the night keeping her wet and satisfied myself.” He eases back then shoves in deep again.
I moan softly. Everything feels different tonight. Pavel is different-less reserved. His passion isn’t so restrained and leashed. I roll my hips back to take him deeper.
He picks up speed, his breath already ragged, his need obviously as desperate as mine. He leans on one hand beside my head and holds my nape to keep me in place with the other as he rides me hard and fast.
“Pavel… Master,” I gasp, already hurtling toward a finish.
“You’ll come when I do,” he rasps, and I can tell by his roughened voice how close he is.
“Yes!” I cry out.
He arcs in and out of me rapidly as the room spins. I want it to last forever. I need it to come to its finish. My muscles tighten around his cock.
“Don’t you come without me,” he warns, pumping faster.
“I won’t,” I promise, but it’s not one I’m sure I can keep. But it doesn’t matter because he’s almost there. His strokes grow rough and wild, and then he shoves in deep and shouts.
I come, squeezing his cock with my inner walls in tight little pulses as the waves of bliss roll out from my core to my fingers and toes.
Pavel covers my body with his, kissing the back of my neck, his hot breath feathering over my ear.
“I missed you,” he says.
That’s twice he’s said it now. The man who communicates nothing of his own feelings with me.
I’m freefalling into love with this man who I can’t have a future with. This man who lives with Sasha and is moving back to Russia.
The heartbreak when this ends is going to be exponential.
I hope I’m strong enough to withstand it.
Pavel I bury my face in Kayla’s hair and breathe in her spring flower scent. Soon, if things come together, these moments with her won’t feel like stealing. Like another law I’ve broken. It’s starting to feel possible that Kayla could truly be mine. Not just my submissive but wholly mine.
The more I let myself see the possibility of that happening, the lighter I feel.
It’s crazy, this sensation of floating.
Kayla’s phone rings and she moans. “Sorry, Master, I didn’t turn my ringer off.”
I nip her ear. “That’s because you were talking to me with it,” I remind her. “Do you need to check it?” I reach with my hand. It’s somewhere on the bed near our knees. Finding it, I check the screen as I hand it to her. “Jagger Mason.”
“Nope,” she says, swiping left across the screen. I ease out of her, and she rolls over beneath me.
“Who is this man I have to kill for having your number?”
Laughter lights up her pretty face. “Oh my God, did you just make a joke?”
I toss the phone away from us. “Depends.”
She keeps smiling. “He runs the promotions that we work. I already told him I couldn’t work tonight. I don’t know why he’s calling.”
“I could kill him for you,” I offer.
She giggles. The musical sound enters my chest and ricochets, lighting every dark shadow there.
I smile down at her, drinking in all her sweetness.
Her phone rings again.
“I’ll kill him now,” I tell her, reaching for it. The screen reads, Kimberly.
“It’s Kimberly. Your roommate, no?”
She frowns and reaches for the phone, so I climb off her and hand it over. She sits up, the furrow between her brows deepening as she answers the call. I go to the bathroom to wash my hands and face.
“Oh God,” Kayla moans into the phone, walking toward the bathroom door. “I don’t know, I mean, Pavel just got here, and he only has one night. Let me ask him.”
As I dry my hands, I hear the tinny sound of Kimberly’s voice from the other end of the phone.
“Why do you have to ask him? Is he really that controlling? Come on, you’re a grown up. You can make this decision on your own and tell him what you decide.”
I’m not one to take criticism personally, so I wouldn’t give a shit, except I see the effect of Kimberly’s words on Kayla’s face, and I want to punch the wall. She’s gone pale, her eyes round. She appears almost sick to her stomach. Christ, does she think I’m too controlling?
I guess I am because I step into her space and cup her elbows. “Tell her you’ll call her back,” I murmur.
“I-I’ll call you back,” she says into the phone.
I hear Kimberly protesting, but Kayla ends the call, looking at the phone, almost as if she’s frightened of it.
“What’s going on?” I take the phone from her and set it on the bathroom counter.
“I guess the event they’re working tonight is going to be slammed, and they need more help.
Kimberly says Jagger said if I don’t show up tonight, I’m fired from doing any more promotions with them.” She peers up at me, as if gauging my response.
I try to gauge hers. “But you don’t want to work tonight.”
She spreads her hands. “Well, no. I mean, you’re only here one night. This is our time together.”
“So, you’re not going,” I say. I’m her dom, and she’s looking to me to make this decision. If it helps to make me the bad guy, she can; I definitely don’t give a shit.
But her expression grows more distressed. She sags. “I don’t know, I don’t want to let my friends down. I mean, I think one of the reasons they don’t like you is because they miss me. I never work with them anymore.” She blinks back tears.
“They don’t like me?” Fuck, why is this the first I’ve heard about it? Of course, it’s totally my fault. I never made the slightest attempt to ask about her roommates. Or meet them. Christ, I could have made an attempt. I’ve never even seen her apartment.
That suddenly strikes me as a major omission. How many others have I made?
I shake my head. “Nevermind.” I hold her shoulders. “What do you want to do, Kayla? I’m a big boy, I won’t sulk if you need to go to work. I can drive you there-I rented a car this time.”
She gives me her big eyes. The ones that lock onto my face like I’m the god who just lit the moon.
“W-would that be okay? I mean, you flew all the way out here, and now I’m ruining-” “It’s not ruined,” I interrupt, brushing her hair back from her face.
Hope sparks behind her eyes. “You could hang out there-I mean, if you want. It’s a private event at a nightclub, but I’m sure I could get you in. Or, that would probably be boring for you-” “Sure.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “You’d come?”
“Of course. I want to see you work.”
“Great!” She’s happy now. Lit up like a Christmas tree in pure, unfiltered joy. She reaches for her phone to call her roommate back.
Something I know so little about but is starting to seep in. It makes Kayla happy to get to go to work and have me come along. No, that’s not it. It’s about her being a pleaser. She’s happy because she didn’t have to disappoint me or her roommates.
I wonder if she even knows what she really wants.
I make it my purpose to figure that out. That’s what a good dom does. That’s what a boyfriend does.
She and Kimberly make arrangements, and she agrees to meet them at the venue in forty minutes.
I catch her with my arm around her waist as she lunges for the shower. “No, blossom. If you’re going to be out serving other men tonight, I want you smelling like my cum.”
Her breath catches.
I slap her bare ass. “I want my handprints on your skin and your pussy sore enough that you remember I’ve already been deep inside you tonight and by tomorrow morning, I’m going to turn you inside out.”
She lets out a soft whimper of desire, and I nibble her ear. “I love you,” I murmur.
There. I said it. It’s the truth, but it was hard for me to admit out loud the first time. Now I’ve owned it, just like I own her.
She whirls in my arms but buries her face against my chest, like it’s too intense to look at me. She bites my pect, and I full-on chuckle.
Me.
Chuckle.
Love is definitely changing me.
“Get dressed.” I tell her, gently nudging her away. I give her ass another hard slap because I meant what I said about wanting my prints on her.
Not that I don’t always want them there.
Soon, if I can make it all come together, she will wear those prints every fucking day and night.