Page 3 of Cruel Demands

“Dima is no threat to me.” He says the name perfectly. Every refusal to say it before was deliberate. He wanted me to correct him. He wanted proof that I would defend another man. “You use him to pretend there is a place I cannot reach,” he murmurs. “You sit with him. You smile at him. You say friend, friend, friend, as though the word is sacred.”

His mouth curves. “It is not.”

I should tell him he’s wrong. I should tell him friendship does mean something. That my life does not belong to him simply because he decided to surround it with guards. That Dima is allowed to exist without becoming a weapon between us.

But the words don’t come. Because some terrible part of me understands him.

To Mikhail, Dima isn’t the threat. The threat is the hour I spent away from Mikhail’s eyes. The coffee he didn’t buy. The chair he didn’t choose. The conversation he didn’t control. The laugh he didn’t earn.

Mikhail raises a hand and traces his thumb along my lower lip, his expression almost thoughtful. “You think I am jealous because I worry he can take you.”

He leans close enough that his next words brush my mouth. “Net, kotik. I am angry because you still believe there is a part of you I cannot find—or should not have.”

My pulse stutters. “That’s insane,” I whisper.

“Da,” he says simply. Then his hand drops to his belt. “Bend over my desk.”

I lick my lips, my head woozy with possibility as I watch him pull the belt free from its loops and undo the top button of his slacks. He watches me watching him, satisfaction spreading across his scarred face. Then he takes my hand and pulls me toward the desk.

“Davay.” Move. He presses me down until my stomach meets the cold wood. His palm travels along my spine before he spreads my ass cheeks. His fingers slide inside me again, almost idly, as if he is exploring something that already belongs to him.

He kicks my feet farther apart, and I imagine I have to be dripping onto the floor.

I brace myself, expecting the thick head of his cock, and yelp when his tongue touches my clit instead. He pulls away immediately, his hands gripping the backs of my thighs. “Taylor.” His tone is admiring, almost conversational. “Your pussy tastes incredible. It feels even better. But if you make one more sound, I will not fuck you.” I clench wildly around nothing. He notices. Of course he notices. “I will not touch you,” he continues. “I will not even look at you until you begin to wonder whether any of this happened outside your imagination.”

He lowers his mouth again, breath hot against me. “So shut your mouth, kotik, and take my tongue.”

I bite the inside of my cheek as he runs his tongue slowly along my slit. For a man so rough, he gives surprisingly gentle oral. He laps at me like he’s starving for it, like I contain something necessary to keep him alive. The contrast makes me dizzy.

When he feels my body begin to soften beneath him, he stands and presses the blunt head of his cock against my waiting opening. “And now,” he murmurs, “take this.”

He pushes inside me in one long stroke. My fingers scrape against the desk.

He gathers a handful of my hair without pulling it, simply holding me in place as he drives into me. His strokes are deep and fast, and tears spring to my eyes. When he sees them, he wipes them away with his thumbs with impossible tenderness before he turns my face and kisses my lips.

“Umnitsa,” he whispers against my mouth. Good girl.

Then his grip tightens in my hair. “If you ever correct me on another man’s name again, I will fuck you in front of him.” He thrusts deeply enough that my vision blurs. “And then I will kill him in front of you.”

1

TAYLOR

“When are you going to go out with me, Taylor? Come on,” Petyr says, his voice graveled, a dimple pressing into his cheek.

His words are beginning to crash into each other like waves against rocks as he drinks. His thumb slips into his vodka, and he lifts it to his lips, sucking the alcohol from his skin.

“You know I can’t, Petyr,” I say. “I have to focus on my studies. I have people relying on me back in America.”

A grin breaks across his pale face. “You mean sosredotochit’sya,” he says, drawing the word out slowly like he’s my professor instead of a drunk man with his thumb in his vodka.

“What did I say?” I ask.

“Pritselit’sya,” he laughs. “You said you need to aim yourself at your studies.”

I groan, tipping my head back. “Close enough.”

“Maybe in English. English is forgiving. Not Russian. Maybe you do need to focus, schoolgirl.” He leans closer, his grin getting worse. “So what are you doing out at the bar?”