phosphenes
(n.) the colors or “stars” one sees when they rub their eyes
MILA
Ronan dropped me onto his bed from a height that made me bounce and fell on top of me. Roughly, lips and teeth ran down my throat, drawing a sigh from me. Even bracing himself on his forearms, he was heavy. The weight was perfect, yet so consuming, a fleeting thought of self-preservation rose to the surface.
Though all uncertainty was forgotten when he pushed my dress to my waist, pressed his face between my legs, and inhaled.
“Fuck, kotyonok.” He pulled my thong to the side and slid his tongue inside me.
I groaned, my hips arched, and my hand found purchase in his hair. My legs fell open farther when he licked up to my clit, a shudder running through me.
“God, yes,” I breathed. My fingers tightened in his hair to hold him right there, but he shook off my grip before moving his mouth back down to my entrance. I made a noise of frustration, which turned into a moan when he fucked me with his tongue.
He pulled back, yanked my thong down my legs, and tossed the fabric to the floor. Gaze dark, he stared at my pussy for a second before pressing his face between my thighs with a masculine sound of satisfaction that broke my body out in goose bumps. When he sucked my clit into his mouth, my eyes rolled back in my head.
“Has anyone else done this to you?” he rasped.
Barely interpreting the words, I shook my head.
He made a pleased noise in his throat and pushed two fingers inside me. “And this?”
Panting, I rocked my hips against his hand, but he refused to give me any movement.
“And this?” he repeated roughly.
I never assumed D’yavol would be one to initiate conversation during sex. Though it wasn’t the Russian kingpin between my legs; it was the man who stole my breath and virginity—and maybe my heart. Knowing I wouldn’t get what I wanted until I answered, I nodded.
“How many men have had their fingers inside you?” he growled.
With a heavy sigh, I asked, “How many women have you done this to?”
He didn’t like the question. Hypocrite.
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Why are we talking at all?”
“Because this body is mine, and I need to know who’s fucked with it.” His fingers were still inside me, and it was seriously distracting.
“Can we have this conversation later?”
“Nyet. How many?”
I groaned in frustration, then rattled off a random number. “Seventeen.”
“Malen’kaya lgunishka . . .” His eyes narrowed. “Seventeen, and not one could get you off?”
“How many women have you been with?” I snapped. “I’m sure I’d need to have a one-night stand every day for ten years to match your number.”
He smiled. “Three thousand six hundred and fifty-two is a sum I could only aspire to meet—that is, if we’re taking leap days into account. If not, minus two, and I may have a better shot.”
Did he just do the math in his head? God, that was . . . hot.
“I have faith in you,” I told him. “But be careful. One of them might end up meaning something to you.” The words seared like acid on my tongue.
He watched me for a second. “Ya dumayu uzhe slishkom pozdno dlya etogo.” I didn’t know what he’d said, but the significance of his voice made my throat thick. The words felt . . . oddly touching in a way, even while he was manipulating me to submit by use of sexual torture.
I didn’t want to tell him about my past. I didn’t want to think about Carter and the one other man I’d let get to third base. The Moorings’ Mila and the Mila lying in D’yavol’s bed were so different, I was afraid if I introduced them, everything around me would go up in smoke.
After a heavy moment of eye contact, he pulled his fingers free and moved up my body.
“I need to know, kotyonok.” He pressed his lips to mine softly, and I sighed into his mouth, tasting myself on his tongue. When he pulled away, I grasped his hair and tried to drag him back, but he caught my wrists and shackled them to the mattress on either side of my head, his gaze suddenly serious. “I need to know everything. Who’s kissed you. What you wash your hair with. How many licks it takes you to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.” His eyes hardened. “And if I have to tie you up again to get the answers, I will.”
It should matter that he’d just threatened to restrain me, but it didn’t. My heart loved everything he said and melted in my chest like chocolate. It was impossible to deny Ronan when he showed his semi-sweet side. And I really didn’t want to be tied up again.
“You first,” I said breathlessly.
By his unenthused expression, I didn’t think he’d actually indulge me, so I was surprised when he said, “What do you want to know?”
Oh, so much. Though now I was being given the green light for my questions, all of them evaded me. It was hard to think with him straddling me, his mouth so close to mine. If he wanted to delve into my minuscule sexual history, he had to be just as transparent.
“How many women have you been with?”
“I have no idea, but I can tell you how many I’ve gone down on.”
“And?”
“Four.”
Oh. That number was a lot smaller than I assumed. Still three more than I’d prefer to think about though. I pulled my lip between my teeth, wondering why he didn’t do it often.
“You don’t like it?”
A smile touched his lips as he kissed the hollow behind my ear. “I like it just fine.”
I shivered. “Then why only four?”
“Because it reminds me of shit I’d rather not think about.”
My chest suddenly filled with unease. His posture was relaxed and unmoving as he trailed his lips down my neck, sucking a spot hard enough to leave another hickey behind, but my imagination spun with a cold reality I found hard to stomach.
“You don’t have to tell me anything . . . but my mind’s thinking up the worst right now.”
He chuckled against my throat. “It’s probably right.”
My muscles tensed. “Ronan . . .”
“Relax. I wasn’t abused. Not that way at least.”
I exhaled, my body slackening, but I was still too disturbed to enjoy the press of his mouth. By the slight pause in his posture, he noticed my discomfort and sighed.
“My mother was a drug addict, kotyonok. Wouldn’t doubt if I was born one too.” He skimmed his lips across my frantic pulse point as if he was trying to reassure me. “She fucked to support her habit and was usually so high she had no idea what she was subjecting her sons to. My brother had it the worst. I just became very familiar with spots that can decently hide a five-year-old.”
My entire body was cold besides the burning in my eyes.
“Your brother was . . .” I couldn’t say the rest, but I didn’t need to.
“Da.”
“And you had to . . .” Watch?
“Da.”
Oh, God. I was going to be sick. How could a mother do that to her own child? The idea of how unloved and scared Ronan and his brother must have felt tore at my heart.
After a moment of silence, Ronan pulled back to see the tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Fuck,” he cursed softly. “I told you, nothing happened to me.”
I shook my head because the fact he could see it that way and be so indifferent to it told me he’d been through things nobody should ever have to go through.
A tear ran over my lips. He licked it away and then kissed me, slow and steady, until I found the will to return it. The stress faded beneath the press of his mouth, a kernel of warmth growing.
He ended the kiss. “Your turn.”
What?
Oh, right. His questions.
“Um . . . two,” I said unsteadily. “Two have touched me . . . that way.”
He made a rough noise. “Dvoye mertvetsov.” Two dead men.
I frowned. “I’m not going to tell you stuff if you’re going to kill people because of it.” Odd I needed to make that clear . . . but that was where I was.
His eyes darkened. “Was one of them Ivan?”
“No.”
The look in his gaze cooled. “Fine. They can live.”
“How noble of you,” I returned drily.
“Keep going.”
After a moment of thought, I said, “Five men have kissed me. When I’m not being held captive, I wash my hair with Pacifica. And it takes me three hundred and eighty-eight licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.”
He laughed at the fact I knew the answer to that question. “Fuck.”
That single word said nothing and everything at once.
“Is your curiosity satisfied now?” I questioned.
His eyes grew heated, then he released his grip on my wrists and ran a thumb across my lips.
“Nyet.”
His touch burned and swelled heat inside me. My breath grew shallow. My chest burned. I was at the bottom of a pool, curly hair floating and aglow. And I no longer cared if I drowned.
“Will you fuck me now?” I asked.
He nipped my throat and growled, “Da.”
D’yavol may have stolen my breath.
But I gave him my heart.
Sweat ran rivulets down my back, my long hair was damp and stuck to my skin, and my muscles embodied jelly, moldable and pliant as Ronan put me through every sexual position known to mankind. We would have gone through three condoms by now—if we were using them at least. Not that I didn’t try to encourage it.
“Wait,” I’d breathed nearly two hours ago before Ronan pushed inside of me. “Condom.”
“You have an IUD.”
“Condoms are for more than birth control.”
“I’ve already been inside you bare. If I have something, you do too.”
“That’s comforting.”
He chuckled roughly. “I’m clean, kotyonok.” Then he filled me so perfectly my eyes rolled back, and my brain shut down.
Now, I was on my back with my legs over his shoulders while he fucked me so hard I’d feel him next week. My moans trembled with every thrust, my nails digging into his thick thighs. He was less human and more like D’yavol when he fucked. He seemed to have a never-ending stamina and a criminal sort of purpose, as if he was taking something he shouldn’t but relishing every moment of it.
He slowed his pace and rasped, “What are we on?”
Releasing a tortured groan, I tossed my head on the mattress. “No . . . I can’t. Not again.”
He pushed my legs off his shoulders, came down on top of me, and nipped my neck. “I think you can.”
With a sigh, I turned my head to give him more access. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
I felt his smile. “Right now, I’m getting paid to fuck you.”
“Like a salary sort of situation?”
He chuckled. “Da.”
The sound of his laugh did such heavy things to my chest, I turned my head and caught his lips with mine. He groaned into my mouth and fucked me slowly. My fingers traveled down his back, infatuated with the feel of him. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough—no matter how much I touched him or how close he was.
“What are we on, kotyonok?” he asked against my lips.
“Four,” I answered reluctantly. He’d made me count every orgasm he gave me, and I knew I wouldn’t survive another. “I’m a virgin. I can’t handle any more.”
“You’re no longer a virgin. I had the proof of that all over my cock.”
Who said romance was dead?
He sucked my bottom lip and released it with a graze of teeth. “You denied me this pussy for weeks. I’ve got time to make up for.”
“I’m too young to die,” I groaned. “I’m only twenty.”
He stilled, then a darkly amused gaze met mine. “Fuck. I forgot how old you are. I really don’t need the reminder right now.”
“Does it bother you?” I asked, my nails running down the length of his back.
His eyes dropped to half-mast. “Not enough.” He punctuated the statement with a deep thrust that made me groan. A rough palm found my breast and squeezed.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, sighing when he sucked a nipple in his mouth. It was so easy to forget everything with him inside me. But I wanted to be more than just another woman in his bed. I wanted to know him inside and out. Because he was so much more than a single shade of black or white.
“Were you so gray at twenty?” I asked. The words shouldn’t make sense—wouldn’t make sense to anyone else—but it only took Ronan a couple of seconds to understand my meaning.
“Nyet.”
I shivered at the darkness and truth in his voice. If he were twenty now, things would have gone very, very differently for me. I’d never had a problem with his age, but now I appreciated his experience even more.
His mouth traveled down my neck, leaving a hot, wet trail behind, while he leisurely fucked me as if he had all week to do so.
I tried to blink through the haze of pleasure. “Were you in prison then?”
“No. I was released when I was eighteen.”
“When did you go in?”
“Fourteen.”
“What could you have done at fourteen?” I asked, aghast.
He smiled against my throat. “I cut off a politician’s cock and shoved it down his throat.”
I swallowed. I really shouldn’t have asked that question. My body should be primed and ready to run for the hills after his answer. But I already knew Ronan wasn’t Prince Charming. I somehow also knew the man he killed had deserved it and probably more.
Bracing his hands on either side of me, he pushed up so he could see my eyes. “What? No comment about my blackened soul?”
I held eye contact for a moment before saying softly, “No.”
He didn’t look happy with my answer. “You really shouldn’t be letting me fuck you.”
I realized he did feel guilty for taking something he thought he didn’t deserve. The more he said, the harder I fell. I should shut my mouth and let him force another orgasm from me, but I suddenly needed to give him something I’d never given anyone else: the truth.
“I always knew, you know . . .? I always knew the man my papa was.” My throat felt tight. “He killed someone—a woman—when I was little. I saw her lying in her own blood. And I forced myself to forget because I didn’t want to believe it. But I never really forgot; I just got good at lying to myself. I’m not the angel my papa calls me . . .” A tear ran down my cheek. “I’m not even a good person.”
“Kotyonok . . .” Ronan chuckled. “My dick’s inside you, and you’re crying about your papa.”
It sounded a little silly when he said it like that.
“I was just—”
“I know what you were trying to do. And it was sweet. But there’s still a big difference between you and me.” The nautical star tattoos on his shoulders glinted black in the sunlight. “You’ll never ask me for more than I can give.” Darkness clouded his eyes, and his hand collared my throat, a thumb running across a hickey he’d put there. “I’ve already taken everything you have to give.” I held his gaze, my heart a battering ram pounding against the wall of my chest. “And now, I’m going to take a little more.”
