Page 2 of Cruel Demands

“You turned off your location.” He doesn’t say it like an accusation. That’s the awful part. He says it as though he’s reciting facts from a report already sitting on his desk. Like my life is something printed, organized, and delivered to him before dinner.

I still, and the hair on my body stands up as the office feels colder. “You have someone tracking my phone?”

Mikhail’s hand slides over my hip and crawls up my thigh. “I have someone protecting what is mine.” Just his touch is enough to ignite my skin through my tights. When he gets between my legs, he gently prods his fingers into the growing wet spot of my underwear. “I know you went and saw that boy again.”

“Dima,” I correct. I do it because Mikhail knows his name. Everyone in the office knows his name. He refuses to use it because reducing Dima to that boy makes him easier to dismiss.

And because I know correcting him makes him furious.

Mikhail goes motionless behind me. Then he exhales through his nose. He hisses into my ear and clamps his teeth against my neck as both of his hands rip my underwear and tights down to my knees. “You are worried I get his name right, kotik?”

Kitten. He knows it makes me crazy. I groan, and he clamps one hand over my mouth. I can smell my own scent on his fingers, and my eyes roll back as his other hand moves between my legs. I’m still against the door, and I think to myself that if it weren’t such a heavy-duty one it would be rattling with the force of his body and mine against it.

He doesn’t warm me up. He knows I’m already wet for him. He pushes my folds apart and slides two fingers into me, filling me up before I can even answer him or apologize for teasing him. I moan into his palm, and his hand tightens against my mouth as he pumps his fingers into me, his whole arm moving up and down. I want to cry out, but I know I can’t.

“Why do you do it, kotik? I treat you right. I take care of you. I feed you, I gave you a job. And still you run from me and my guards and insult me by seeing that boy. Is it not enough for you? You want more?”

“He’s my coworker.”

“He wants to fuck you.” He says it through gritted teeth, but his thumb brushes my clit.

“He bought me coffee,” I whisper back, breathing heavily against the door.

“In America, this is different?”

“In America, buying coffee usually doesn’t justify armed surveillance.”

His mouth brushes my ear again. “You were already under surveillance.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I know where you went,” he murmurs, dipping his fingers between my legs and gathering the slickness there before circling my clit slowly. “I know where you sat. I know how long you stayed. I know he made you laugh three times.”

The office suddenly feels colder. “You counted?”

I turn around to confront him, and he slams me back against the door, purring, “My men counted.”

“That is deeply unsettling,” I tell him sarcastically even as my knees buckle while he touches me.

“Mm.” He holds me upright against the door, his body pinning mine while his fingers move into me slow, punishing strokes. “And yet you are wet.”

“That doesn’t make it less unsettling.”

“No.” His voice drops. “It means you like it unsettling.” He stretches me out with a third finger, and I let out a cry that earns me a stern shake of the head.

He pulls his fingers out and turns me around, sopping wet with my tights and underwear around my knees, my pussy pulsating and my mouth dripping from my own moans smashed into his warm palm.

I stare at him, unsure of what to do, feeling exposed. He looks me up and down, and I swallow hard, and with a hoarse voice, I say, “It’s enough. I just— He’s a friend. He’s not a threat to you, I promise.”

A smirk crosses his face, the fire that was in his eyes melting away for a moment into amusement. Like I’ve misunderstood the entire conversation. He straightens his tie and lowers his hands to his belt buckle. “I know this, Taylor.”

The words come softly, almost kindly, and somehow that frightens me more than his anger.

I blink at him. “You know?”

“Konechno.” Of course.

He steps forward and lifts my skirt higher, arranging me as calmly as if I am not standing in front of him exposed and trembling, trying to remember which version of myself still knows how to be offended.