Eileen
Inever thought something like this would upend me. I melt into his arms and welcome his tongue as he explores me, his hands moving up and down my body.
“You have no idea of the power you hold,” he whispers against my lips.
“You’re insane,” I whisper back, yet hungrily welcome another kiss.
We devour one another, the hunger growing stronger with each fleeting second. I breathe him in while his fingers dig into the fabric of my dress, touching me, squeezing me, feeling my body burn against his.
“This is wrong on so many levels,” I gasp as he peels my dress off.
“You can end it anytime,” he says, then bites my shoulder.
My hips tilt forward, and I feel him, big and hard, nestled against my lower belly. Good God, do I need this. I want this. My body and mind have sabotaged me, joining forces for this hell of a ride.
With trembling fingers, I reach up and take off his jacket.
It lands on the floor next to my dress and stiletto heels. I’m not sure when I slipped out of the heels, but I’m losing track of time altogether. He keeps kissing me, tasting every inch of skin he can reach while I keep touching him, feeling his hard muscles against my nimble fingertips. It’s an automatic process, our bodies converging, melding into each other.
“This is crazy,” I manage, standing before him in nothing but my bra and panties.
A smile dances across his tender lips as he looks me over. “And you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“I bet you tell that lie a lot,” I mutter.
He scoffs and kisses me again. This time, however, he’s ravenous. Decisive and dominant. I have no choice but to submit, and I do so gladly. Screw what happened earlier. Screw what brought me here in the first place. Screw it all to hell, because this is happening.
I gasp as his hands come up, taking a firm hold of my breasts.
“No push-up,” he quips, smiling devilishly as he fondles my flesh through the delicate lace. “You have no clue, do you?”
“About what?”
One hand slides around the back and unclasps my bra. It slips off, and I’m left completely exposed under his dark gaze. I tilt my head back, sucking in a deep breath as he comes down and takes my right nipple in his mouth.
“How delicious you are,” he growls and moves on to my left.
Suckling. Nipping. Teasing the hell out of me until I whimper and quiver against him. My hands refuse to remain idle as I clumsily unbutton his shirt. I manage to undress him, and our clothes pile up in silent chaos on the floor.
My panties are the only thing that remains, and they’re drenched.
“This is wrong,” I say again, as if urging my brain to shift back into gear.
He laughs lightly as his hands roam freely over my body. Touching. Feeling. Squeezing. Pinching here and there to hear me gasp against his addictive lips.
“Like a broken record, I swear,” he says.
I hear myself; I know he’s right.
I shudder when his thumbs hook through the satin waistband of my panties. One swift motion is all it takes to leave me completely naked.
“Come here.” He pulls me close, his hard cock throbbing against my belly.
He’s huge, and my core tightens at the sheer thought of all of him inside of me. The rational part of my brain shuts down, leaving the animal within to run wild. I tremble in his embrace, kissing him back with growing hunger, while his hand slips between us. He finds me wet and burning hot for him.
He says nothing, looking deep into my eyes, while his fingers slide between my slick folds. I gasp as he teases my swelling clit with slow, circular motions. Then he penetrates me with two fingers, nearly taking my breath away.
“I told you, you’re into me,” he quips.
“I’ve lost my goddamn mind.”
“He pushes me onto the sofa. I land with a soft thud as he kneels between my parted legs and firmly grips my knees to keep them that way.
“Fuuuuuck,” I groan as he proceeds to furiously eat my pussy.
He kisses and suckles while licking my folds. He focuses on my clit as I raise my hips to meet his mouth. My head falls back as the tension coils, swelling and pushing me closer to the edge.
I listen to his subtle moans mingling, with the drumming of my heart echoing in my ears. He’s enjoying this so much, and it makes my soul catch fire as I give myself to him. He devours my flesh, sucking my clit harder and harder until I finally snap like an elastic band.
The orgasm ripples through me and he drinks me in, savoring every drop of my climax as his tongue ravages my liquid pleasure.
“I need you inside me,” I cry out. “Right now.”
“Right now?” he calmly asks, my juices glistening on his lips.
“Right now.”
The need is unbearable, and I watch with mindless desire as he positions himself between my legs, one hand guiding his cock toward my entrance. I catch the hunger in his dark eyes, the twinkle of precum on the bulging tip of his magnificent erection.
I almost scream when he spears me with his full length.
He fills me to the hilt; and it’s as if he was designed for me specifically, a perfect match. He stretches me beyond my wildest dreams. He kisses me deeply and slowly, as he moves. I moan as I welcome that first thrust. Then the second.
By the third, I’m holding onto him, my fingers digging into his sculpted, broad shoulders. He holds me by the hip with one hand, while the other fondles and squeezes my breasts. The rhythm intensifies between us. He goes deeper and harder, and I feel like I could break in two from the pleasure. He pounds into me like a beast, and I take it all, clenching tightly around his gargantuan cock, while the pressure builds and builds.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he says and kisses me, suckling on my lower lip as he fucks me harder and deeper. My screams of raw pleasure are muffled by his lips as a second orgasm approaches.
Faster.
Harder.
Deeper.
“Come for me, baby; that’s it,” he says.
I know he can feel me coming and he’s going all in. Every thrust feels like he’s going to break me, but I fucking love it, I need it. My release comes with a cry of pleasure and a shudder. I glaze his cock as he lets himself go and fills me with his hot seed. I feel his heat filling my pussy.
He holds me tight, his lips pressed against my forehead as I cry out. I welcome the last of his thrusts while digging my nails into his rock-hard buttocks, reveling in the sensations that come over me. The afterglow sets in before I remember who I am or where I am, and what I probably should not have just done.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” his words drip into my ear as he nibbles on the lobe.
We stay inseparable for a while. Complete strangers who cannot refrain from this madness. Soon, I feel him getting hard again. Wrapped in the wet warmth of my tender pussy, my captor is ready to take me again, to claim me.
And I’m going to let him.
Sunrise finds me splayed over his enormous bed, his gloriously naked body next to mine.
I keep going over what happened and how it happened, none of it making a lick of sense to me. My current predicament is obvious, though. Undeniable. I just spent the night in the company of the man who more or less abducted me from my engagement celebration. We screwed each other’s brains out until we were too tired to even get out of bed, and I enjoyed every goddamn second of it.
“I don’t usually do this,” I mumble, my face half-submerged into the soft satin pillow. “I really don’t.”
“Even if you did, it wouldn’t be a crime,” he replies, still groggy and in the process of regaining full consciousness as well.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
Slowly, I roll over to look at him, only to end up wrapped in his strong arms again, my body hot and sizzling against his. And just like that, all the engines fire again, both of us damn near ready to repeat the activities of last night.
“This. Often,” I whisper.
His lips stretch into a lazy grin, the fine lines around his eyes crinkling as he gazes at me. “What are you trying to find out?” he asks.
“Anything. I don’t even know your name.”
“We agreed to leave things that way for your safety.”
I can’t help but sigh. “Yeah.”
There’s a lot I wish to say, but I can’t find the words. Not in this condition. Not with my body spent from the insane amount of sex, not with my mind frayed from the events that brought me here in the first place. The sudden violence, the kidnapping, the escape… the fact that I found myself inexplicably drawn to this dark, dangerous man.
Funnily enough, I feel safe in his arms, and I instantly felt safe last night in his presence.
Ridiculous.
His phone rings as my lips part to ask him another question.
He kisses me, ever so softly, then moves to answer the phone. He sits on the edge of the bed, and I can’t see his face, only the splendid muscles on his broad back. His massive frame and chiseled shoulders. The faint scar on his lower back that is shaped like a half-moon. I reach out and run my fingers over it.
“Fucking finally,” he says. “Where is he?” He pauses as the guy on the other line replies. “Good, so you got my message in time, but you couldn’t be bothered to text me back. You fucking lunatic.”
I’m guessing he’s speaking to Andrei.
“What happened?” I whisper. He stays on the phone, the muscles stretched across his shoulder blades tensing.
“You do whatever you want with him, Andrei, but call off the hit on her, alright? Tell your boys to back off and forget she exists,” he commands.
A wave of relief washes over me upon hearing that.
He shakes his head. “No, that’s all you need to know right now. We’ll discuss the details later, but I want you to promise me, swear to me, that she’s off-limits. Good. Thank you. And don’t kill that sorry son of a bitch yet. We’ll figure out something else.”
He sighs and sets the phone down. “That stubborn ass.”
“I get to go home?” I ask, my voice hopeful.
A peculiar disappointment ties a knot in the back of my throat. Not the feeling I’d expected when finding out I could leave.
My ridiculously handsome captor gets up and turns around in all his naked glory, the look on his face telling me everything I need to know.
It ends here.
“You’re free to go. I’ll have a car waiting for you downstairs,” he says. The tone of his voice is different. He sounds cold. Professional. Back to how he was when he first took me.
He’s accomplished his mission, so there’s no reason for him to be nice to me anymore. Oh, God, what a fool I was!
“So, that’s it, huh?” I ask, quick to cover myself with the corner of a blanket.
He gives me a confused look. “You were so eager to leave last night. I can now grant you that wish. A ‘thank you’ would suffice. I’ll hit the shower in the spare bedroom. Feel free to use the master bathroom.”
All I can do is watch him walk away and disappear into the other room.
The ghost of his hazel-green eyes lingers while I take a deep breath and try to figure out what to do next. My phone is in the living room, along with my clothes. My heels. My purse.
My dignity.
Right there on the floor.
I feel used, but I wanted this. Hell, I wanted more. I couldn’t get enough of this man whose name I still don’t know.
Hence the sting—the sense of rejection.
There’s no use in talking about it. What happened, happened, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I muster the strength to get up and turn on the shower. I wrap a towel around myself and retrieve my items from the living room. Ten minutes later, I’m dressed. I slip my phone back into my purse. The battery died overnight, so I don’t have to worry about a throng of messages and missed calls just yet.
“There’s a black town car waiting for you downstairs,” my captor says as he escorts me to the elevator. He’s wearing grey slacks and a black shirt. I still can’t take my eyes off him, still can’t help but wonder. “Thank you,” he adds quietly.
“For what?” I whisper, blinking back tears I didn’t even realize had formed.
“For trusting me. You’re going home safely. You’re going to be alright. Pretend you never saw anything in that back alley, and you’ll keep being alright,” he says.
“Is that a threat?”
“Not at all. It’s my advice to you. You’ve got enough time on the drive over to your place to come up with the perfect excuse for last night’s disappearance. But if you so much as hint at the truth to anyone, I’ll know. The kind of people you don’t want to see again will know. And I can’t promise I can save you a second time.”
The words hit hard and deep.
The man from last night, the man who claimed me and consumed me, is long gone. My kidnapper is back. The cold glare. The tight lip. The merciless tone. It was just an unexpected dream that reached its expected end.
I give him a slight nod and step into the elevator, catching one last glimpse of him before the doors close with a delicate chime.
I doubt we’ll ever see each other again.
By the time the black car pulls up outside the Donovan mansion, I’ve already cried my heart out and come back to my senses.
“Thank you,” I tell the driver as I get out and turn around to face what comes next.
Ugh, they’re both home.
The car drives off.
“You can do this,” I tell myself. “Come on.”
It feels like a walk of shame, but I manage to fish my keys out of my purse and slip through the service gate, giving one of the bodyguards a slight nod as I make my way up the stone path. “Morning,” I say and give him a wave.
Fuck, these heels are even worse the morning after. I damn near sprain my ankle, but I manage to reach the ground-floor hallway of the mansion without having to explain myself to the security staff. I stop by the kitchen door, catching a whiff of sausage and scrambled eggs. Voices trickle in from the breakfast room.
They’re both home. Just as I suspected. There’s no way I’ll make it upstairs before they storm out of the breakfast room to question me, so I might as well get it over with before the outside bodyguards reach my father on the phone, informing him I just got home.
I straighten my back and take my heels off.
“Where the hell have you been?” My father’s voice thunders across the room as I open the smoked glass door to let myself in.
“Good morning to you, too, Daddy,” I mutter, then give my stepsister a slight nod. “Morning, Ciara. Sorry I ran off last night. Doubt you missed me, though.”
Ronan Donovan coughs a few times, his face red with anger as he sits at the head of the table. Ciara raises an eyebrow at me, but says nothing, fork mindlessly wandering across her plate of French toast.
“Dammit, child, I had half our fleet out looking for you throughout the night!” my father snarls. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Well, I should apologize, first and foremost. My phone battery died and—”
He cuts me off. “Bullshit!” he yells, slamming his fist against the table for good measure, the plates, glasses and platters clattering from the aftershock. Ciara and I are both startled but not surprised. Ronan Donovan is renowned for his volcanic temper, especially when it comes to his daughters’ safety. We’re not scared of him, though. He’s never given us reason to be. “Where were you?”
“You left to get some fresh air,” Ciara says, annoyingly calm, “and then, nothing. Paddy couldn’t find you. The poor man is sick with worry, still out combing the city looking for you. Daddy, by the way, you should call him and let him know she’s safe.”
“I ran into an old friend,” I say, trying to keep myself cool in the face of what I know will be a blistering lecture. “We got to chatting, and next thing I know, we were at another club, downing shots and having the time of our lives.”
“And you didn’t think to call Ciara?” my father snaps, still boiling.
“My battery died.”
“It was rude and inconsiderate. I was worried.”
I roll my eyes, having a hard time with this mask I’m supposed to wear while we’re all in the same room. After last night, I guess I have grown tired of putting up with certain behaviors on my stepsister’s part.
“Oh, please, you were busy dancing and celebrating your engagement. I felt like I wasn’t the best company for that, so I decided I was better off celebrating elsewhere. As you both can see, I’m safe and sound.”
“This sort of behavior is beyond shameful,” my father says. “You’re a Donovan, Eileen. Act like one.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
“What more do you want me to say?” I snap. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. There was plenty of drinking involved. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. There, happy?”
“Daddy, the tabloids will have a field day with this. It’ll ruin my engagement announcement,” Ciara whines, giving him the puppy dog eyes and the pout that usually get her whatever the hell she wants. “You need to do something about it,” she adds. “Get ahead of the press somehow.”
“Nobody snapped any photos of me,” I tell her. “You’re safe, Ciara. You don’t have to worry about any of that.”
She gives me a dirty look with her narrow, beady eyes. God, she looks so mean sometimes. “On second thought, Daddy, Eileen might be right. She’s not the interesting daughter, after all. The paparazzi were all too busy hounding me last night.”
“Ciara, honey, even if there were issues, I would fix them, you know that,” he gently tells her. “As for you, Missy, you’d better be freshened up and looking perfect in less than thirty minutes. Your fiancé is coming over to meet you.”
“Wait, what?”
It’s as if the sky has just fallen on me. My shoulders feel heavy. My knees feel weak. My stomach is growling.
“Sergei. He’s on his way over. We scheduled this days ago. You knew about it,” my father says, leaning back in his seat with one eye set on his plate.
“Daddy, you can’t. I haven’t even consented to the engagement.”
“Here we go again,” he grumbles, shaking his head in disappointment. “We had this conversation already, Eileen. I thought you understood what’s at stake here.”
“I do, but—”
“Then go upstairs and wash away the shame of whatever you did last night,” he shoots back. “Wear something pretty.”
“You can borrow one of my perfumes,” Ciara adds with a pleasant smile, which means something unpleasant is about to follow. “I’d let you borrow one of my floral dresses, but I doubt any would fit you.”
“Oh, for—”
“Eileen has plenty of beautiful, custom-tailored dresses,” my father interjects. “Perfect for her gorgeous Irish figure,” he adds with a smile.
At least he never teased me about my curves. He loves me. All of me, albeit in his very stern and obtuse way. But he loves me. I don’t like that he never rebukes Ciara about any of her weight-related jabs, but he’s always had to keep the peace between us, especially after Ciara’s mother abandoned them both.
“For the record, I’m still not okay with any of this,” I mutter.
“After the stunt you pulled last night, Eileen Fiona Donovan, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you’re okay with,” my father replies. “Now, go get ready. I’ll have the kitchen prepare you a plate when you come back down. We’ll be done by then, anyway.”
I stomp up to my room to change.
“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Eileen. Ronan has told me so much about you,” Sergei Kuznetsov says as we shake hands in the tearoom.
His touch makes me recoil, and I wonder how much of this reaction is instinct and how much is simply me being against anything that my father tries to shove down my throat.
“Likewise, Mr. Kuznetsov,” I reply with a pleasant smile.
“Sergei, please. We’re going to be family soon enough.”
Shivers— and not the good kind—travel down my spine at his words.
He’s not a bad-looking man. On the contrary, I’ll bet he’s broken a string of hearts before ever setting foot in this house. Tall and athletic, Sergei appears to be a regular at the gym—or at least some sport that involves plenty of running. His shoulders are broad, and the custom, dark blue suit he’s wearing falls elegantly over his muscular frame. His eyes are a cold blue, and a lock of blonde hair rests on his forehead.
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Thank you for taking the time to come visit,” I force myself to say, motioning for us to take our seats at the table by the window, where our staff has already set up a lovely tea service.
My father and Ciara join us, both of them quiet as they watch our interaction. It makes me feel like I’m some sort of exotic animal at the zoo, and they’re introducing a new male to my enclosure.
“For you, Eileen, I will always make time,” Sergei replies in a soft-spoken tone. I offer a nod as I pour a cup of tea for him, then for myself.
Ciara clears her throat, lips curled into a smirk as I look at her.
Calmly, I set the teapot down. “Here, help yourself,” I say to her, then let my gaze wander over to my father, before letting it settle back on Sergei’s handsome face. “So, I understand you’re handling your family business now?”
“That’s right, I recently took over the corporation,” he replies, adding too much sugar for my taste to his tea.
“How did that happen?” I ask.
“Two of my brothers went back to Moscow. My younger brother passed away shortly after my father, leaving me to manage the US-based businesses on my own.”
“They went back to Russia? Was the US mob corruption too much for them?”
“Eileen!” My father scolds me, but Sergei just laughs.
“I’ll be honest, Eileen, it’s refreshing to meet a woman like you,” he says.
“She’s one of a kind, isn’t she?” my father adds.
Ciara rolls her eyes. “So, when’s the wedding? It can’t be too close to mine.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you,” I mutter.
Sergei shrugs. “We’re just sitting down for tea. I’m sure Eileen doesn’t want to be rushed into a life-altering event.”
His Russian accent is slightly more pronounced than my captor’s. I spent the single most incredible night of my life with that man, and I don’t know his name.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” I say. “People need to get to know each other better before they marry, right?”
“Oh, I have no doubts about the marriage part. Ronan gave me his word, and I gave mine. It’s happening. But I want it to happen as smoothly and as beautifully as possible, so we can both enjoy our wedding day and the years to follow,” Sergei replies.
My stomach is riddled with knots. Why does he make me feel so uneasy?
There’s something beneath this pleasant surface of his. A dark shadow that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I don’t see myself spending the rest of my life with this man. I barely see myself spending another hour in his company, but the dance must go on, per my father’s order.
“When does Ciara wish to marry?” Sergei asks Dad.
“We haven’t decided yet,” Ciara says. “Before the end of this year, for sure. So you two can get married next summer or maybe next winter.”
“Thank you so much,” I reply, not skimping on the sarcasm.
She gives me a hard look, but she cannot hit back, not without drawing Daddy’s ire.
“We’ll have plenty of time to make our own arrangements,” Sergei says, glancing my way. “You’re more beautiful than what I saw in the magazines, Eileen.”
“What magazines?” I ask, somewhat befuddled. “I’ve become quite adept at avoiding cameras, in general.”
“Elite Monthly maybe?” Ciara suggests. “I think that’s the last time my sister actually sat down for a photography session.”
“It could be. My assistant did a wide internet search as soon as Ronan reached out with his marriage suggestion,” Sergei replies, then looks at me again. “Beautiful, indeed.”
I lower my gaze. “Thank you.”
“Eileen here isn’t exactly camera-friendly, but she’s whip-smart and insanely ambitious,” Ciara says. “If you want to make her happy, buy her food, books, and that lovely commercial space up on Huron Boulevard.”
“A commercial space?”
“She’s just kidding,” I say and laugh nervously.
My father gets up. “Well, thank you for coming by today, Sergei. Shall we move to my office to iron out the details of this marriage then?”
“Shouldn’t I be a part of that conversation?” I ask, every goddamn alarm bell ringing in my head as I look up at them.
“Oh, it’s nothing to concern yourself with, Eileen. This is the business side of the arrangement,” he replies.
“And I’ve got a fitting to get to,” Ciara stands, perky and bright-eyed.
“You don’t even have a wedding date,” I mumble.
“What can I say? I’m excited!”
Sergei chuckles softly. “You have yet to tell me the name of your betrothed, Ciara.”
“It’s not something we wish to publicize just yet—” my father is about to explain, but my sister cuts him off with the enthusiasm of a little girl who just stumbled into the land of endless candy.
“I’m marrying Anton Karpov!”
For a moment, I can almost feel the air in the room shifting. The darkness that settles over Sergei’s face is brief but telling. Whoever this Karpov dude is, Sergei clearly hates his guts. It’s the first time I see a crack in his mask, and it’s unsettling.
“Congratulations are in order then,” he says, his tone flat.
Perhaps these wedding deals that Daddy made might not turn out the way he hoped.
