The Siren's Dream Page 14

  “Katya, this isn’t the life I want. One day, I’ll go back to covering politics.”

  “But Dariya—”

  “She won’t need me forever. Eventually, she’ll live on her own, build her own life. I can quit the fucking culture desk and go back to what I’m good at.”

  “Hmm.” She brought her hand to her mouth and might have been biting her thumbnail, though he couldn’t see for sure.

  “Am I sensing your disapproval?”

  “You’re all she has, Nikolai. Even if you wait ten years, you’ll still be her only family.”

  “She’ll make friends, meet a nice boy—”

  “A boy?” She rubbed her pointy, elfin chin. “Listen more closely. She’s dropping hints in the other direction on that subject.”

  “Chert. Really? She likes girls?”

  “I think so.” Katya cast an adoring gaze toward Dariya’s room and it registered like a blade between his ribs. “Just one more reason she needs you. Promise me you’ll keep your culture desk job, keep yourself and her safe.”

  “Katya, I already told Sofiya—”

  “Promise.” She’d flipped on the sex voice and it stroked under his clothes and over his skin like the hot breath of a thousand mouths.

  He wanted nothing more than to strip them both down and take her in every way he hadn’t yet, beginning with over the countertop.

  “Promise.”

  “Katya.” Tension strangled her name in his throat. She asked something impossible, asked him to give up his very soul. “When you talk to me like that, I’ll say yes to anything.”

  Her normally shy smile turned wicked, and a tremor of worry seized him, a counterbalance to the overwhelming desire. It helped him find his mental footing.

  “Why did you become a journalist?”

  He’d told a sanitized version of his story to school children at job fairs, women in bars, his buddies at work. But now, under her spell, she compelled him to speak the raw truth of it.

  “I have to right wrongs. It’s like a compulsion, since my days in journalism school. Sofiya knew it when she got that promise out of me. We both knew I couldn’t report on culture forever.” He fought the siren’s call and just barely managed not to say, even if it kills me. Maybe Tatiana Oburski was right. He did have Batman’s self-destruct instinct. He just lacked the cape and the sexy car.

  “And that’s enough, Katya. Turn off the voice.”

  “Not yet.” The whisper, both melodic and husky, rasped against him, abrading him with hot, rough need. “What happened to turn you compulsive?”

  Vaguely, he understood she was manipulating him, that if she got this out of him, she would try to make him give it up, promise to take care of Dariya. “I’ll tell you in the morning. Right now, we are going back to my room, and you are going to keep talking like that, and I am going to show you how much I like it.”

  Her mouth twisted, and a furrow appeared between her light brown brows. She crossed her arms and rubbed at her triceps, as if suddenly cold. She’d been shivering, teeth-chattering cold before when she’d gone ghost. “Are you okay? Do you need more blood?”

  “I’m fine.” The syllables held not a trace of the siren song. She stared down at her empty bowl. “I’m sorry for doing that to you.”

  “Katya.”

  She glanced up.

  “Come here.”

  Her frown deepened, and she seemed to measure the distance between them across the small table.

  He swung his legs around and sat sideways in the chair. “Here.” He patted his thighs.

  She stared at him with that open-mouthed look, so beautiful, so vulnerable.

  “Please.” He added an extra measure of gravel to his voice and tried to let his need come through on the off chance it might affect her even a sliver as much as her seductive call did him.

  She came, stood before him, offered him her hands, all the while wearing a puzzled look.

  He pulled her down on his lap where his erection strained against his jeans. “Do you feel how much I want you?”

  She nodded.

  “But you felt it before. In the kitchen, when you weren’t talking to me like that.”

  A smile took slow hold of her face as his meaning sank in.

  “I want you—sexy voice or no. Do you understand?”

  She nodded again, wrapping her arms around his head and bringing it to rest against her chest, holding him there.

  He hugged her tightly to him, resting one hand on her thigh and fighting the urge to slide it higher, higher, and to touch her through the leggings. When he got her naked, he would go slowly this time, to tease out every little sensation she liked, not only the one that made her come fastest.

  She wriggled, putting her hot center right against his throbbing cock. “Does it go away?”

  He blinked into her face, at the same height as his own. “What?”

  “This wanting. If we have sex again, will it take the edge off the need I feel?”

  Pride blew up in him so big his ribs seemed to rub together, and he slid his hands up under her tunic onto her warm, silky skin. “I don’t know.”

  “But you’ve been with other women. Eventually you were…sated?”

  The simple answer was yes. He’d sometimes even grown bored with the women he’d dated. Maybe it was the certain time limit on his contact with Katya, but he couldn’t imagine he would ever get enough of her.

  She’d caught her lower lip in her teeth, watching him and waiting for an answer.

  “In my experience, desires are usually satisfied, but sometimes giving in inflames them first.”

  “Oh.”

  Chert. She was so adorable.

  He took hold of her chin. “Are you willing to risk that?”

  “Yes.” Nodding, she swiped her tongue over her lower lip. “Maybe it’s selfish, but I want this taste of life I never had.”

  Finally, he let his palm slide up her thigh, curving around and up between her legs to that sweet spot he was dying to touch. She was already damp beneath the leggings as he stroked her, carefully avoiding her clit.

  “What a coincidence. I want a taste too.”

  In her brown eyes, an array of emotions flickered one after another. The suggestion of his mouth on her seemed to trigger something for her.

  “Did Fedir make you come with his tongue?”

  “No. We didn’t…I’ve never…”

  Never? What the hell had been wrong with Fedir? He swallowed the accusation and strived for a gentle tone. “Why not?”

  Her gaze flicked to the floor and she squirmed away from his touch.

  “I didn’t want to.”

  He moved his hand from the apex of her legs to her hip, holding her firmly enough to offer comfort, but not so firmly she couldn’t escape if she needed to. She didn’t even try.

  “Why, Katya?”

  “My parents are…” She shrugged. “I don’t really know how to explain them—immodest…bizarre…” She lifted her hand to her mouth to nibble on her thumbnail.

  Chert. He wasn’t 100 percent certain of what she meant, but he could guess from Mikaiel Dvoynev’s sculptures, and the way he talked about his wife without even a hint at a sense of privacy. That was enough to guess.

  “They’re exhibitionists?”

  “Yes.” The word spilled out of her on a laugh. “And recalling their exhibits sometimes gets in my way.”

  She must have seen something more than the sculptures, but it surely wouldn’t help to drag the details out of her. Even just imagining what she might have witnessed made his skin tense up.

  “But wait—” The sympathetic shudder passing through him called up his own embarrassing memory. A grin swept over his face and poked at her sternum. “You watched me like an exhibit.”

  She looked toward the ceiling, pressing her lips together as if refusing to admit guilt. So he tickled her ribs.

  She giggled. “Okay, okay.
I did. But you didn’t want me to. You weren’t putting on a show. I caught you in a private moment, and it was…” Her cheeks flushed and her pupils dilated. “Hot.”

  God, she was a work of art a million times more glorious than anything her father could sculpt.

  “Will you let me watch you in a private moment, I mean, just between us?”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  “Because you don’t think you’re worthy of display. You think you’re the shadow cast by your parents, and to me you’re the masterpiece.”

  Nibbling her lip, she slid her hand up his arm and stroked it over his head, combing through the hair badly in need of a cut.

  He tugged her lip free of the vise of her teeth. “No pressure, though. We can do whatever feels right to you. I want whatever you want to give, however you need me.”

  She smiled. “With you, I want everything. And afterward, I want you to tell me what happened to turn you into a compulsive super journalist.”

  Before he could argue, she brought her mouth to his and began the slowest, sweetest kiss. Of course, he returned it, making every stroke of his lips and tongue a promise of how he would treat her sweet pussy next.

  Chapter 15

  Katya went limp. There was something decadently caveman about the way Nikolai carried her to his bedroom, and she gave herself over to it. Whether it was being a ghost, or his big animal appeal, or the sky-high perspective death brought her, desire had finally taken hold of her fully. No thoughts of Fedir or the mara would divert her from this goal. She threw her head back, and he sucked hungrily at her neck hard enough to leave a bruise. Somehow, the sensation dragged at her nipples and tugged at her core.

  The way he lowered her gently onto the bed was not brutish at all. His hair fell into his eyes, obscuring his expression, but he ran his hands down her sides, from her ribs to her hips, like she was a cherished object. Maybe it had been all that talk about her fleeting time with him, or what she’d admitted about her parents. Either way, the tender touch stirred her desire, set her skin smoldering with want about to ignite into need. How had she lived twenty-six years without this feeling—at once mindless and more alive than ever?

  He took hold of her hand and tugged her to sitting, then lifted her tunic off, bending his mouth to her ear. “I want you naked.”

  His hot whisper sent shivers through her. Both the words and his careful caress contained so much solicitude. Somehow, his fingertips posed questions—had he hurt her, was she comfortable with him undressing her, was she certain she wanted this?

  In answer, she stood and peeled off the leggings.

  Then she thought of a dozen photo shoots where her mother had stood just the same way, and she couldn’t resist the urge to hide behind her crossed arms.

  “Katya.” He touched her elbow.

  “I’m not any good at this,” she blurted. “I know, in the dream—”

  “Shhh. No one is watching. It’s just you and me.”

  He moved fast to unbutton his shirt and shuck himself from it, baring his broad chest—not cut, wiry muscles, but big, bulky ones that promised strength without vanity. Then he dropped his pants and bared himself entirely, his thick erection proudly pointing upward.

  She devoured him with her eyes, the sight alone enough to push all anxiety from her mind.

  “What do you want?” he asked, taking hold of his cock and stroking it once as if he knew how tempting the sight was.

  Her lips felt impossibly dry. “You.”

  “How?”

  “Oh God, don’t make me decide. You choose.”

  He shook his head. “In my dream, you knew exactly what you liked.”

  But she’d never wanted anyone like this before, had never plumbed the depths of her desire or explored their possibilities. How could she make him understand what she needed?

  She relaxed her hold on the mara within, let the spirit’s power infuse her until she felt it pouring like liquid energy up her throat.

  “Teach me.” The siren voice was so heady it tightened her nipples and coiled a spring of desire in her core. “Show me everything I missed, while I have the chance to feel again.”

  His pupils grew enormous and dark, and a swallow sent his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Everything?”

  “Yes. I’m at your command.” The irony was not lost on her, even as the sound of her own siren song heightened her arousal past what her panting, throbbing body could bear. She used her commanding power to demand his dominance, his instruction.

  Only the dark rim of blue banding his iris showed, but it flashed brightly, as if he too understood the paradox. He licked his lips.

  “Take off your underwear,” he growled, both an order and a submission.

  First, she took off the camisole he’d given her. Her breasts bounced and then settled. Next, she shimmied out of the panties and laid them carefully on the bed.

  He watched her, his eyes at once dark and bright. What was it about his gaze? It felt so different than her other lovers, like he alone really saw her.

  She stroked the lingerie, modest but lovely and still warm from her body. “Thank you for these. They are”—she choked on the words as she realized their magnitude— “one of the most thoughtful things anyone has given me.”

  “If that’s true, it’s a fucking travesty.”

  She shrugged, which made her self-conscious of the movement of her breasts, but still, she stood there, naked and submitted to his gaze. He stared so long that a hot blush boiled up inside her.

  “Lie down and spread your legs.”

  The command surprised her, and yet it was easy to obey, so much easier than being given a choice.

  “Touch yourself. Are you wet?”

  “Yes.” She dipped her fingers to her sex and gathered up a bit of moisture, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger to show him.

  “Fuck yourself with your fingers.”

  “God, Nik—”

  “I want to see it, those blue fingernails, your pretty little fingers.”

  The words burned delicious shame into her, and she obeyed.

  “Deeper. Touch your G-spot.”

  “I don’t—”

  He grinned. “Don’t you dare say you don’t know where it is, because you rode me for hours, putting my cock right there.”

  “True, but I can’t reach it like this.”

  “I suppose not, or you women would have no use for us.” He reached out and stroked a thick finger through her folds, swirling it around her clit before bringing it to his mouth. “Chert, Katya, please let me eat you.”

  This was it. Probably her only chance to have a man make love to her like this. She shoved aside the images of her parents. “Okay.”

  He fell on her in an instant, his tongue teasing and flicking all over her lightly, just a tickle of pure pleasure. Her clit throbbed, but he didn’t touch it, just stroked and teased her everywhere. She watched the top of his head to keep herself anchored in the present and not in memories.

  Finally, her body melted through and through. The muscles of her core turned molten. As if he’d read her mind, he slid a finger into her, against that ripe spot she couldn’t reach.

  “Oh!” She bore down on him, tried to take him deeper.

  “Chert. You have no idea how badly I want you squeezing my cock like that. But not yet.”

  He began a slow, deep rhythm, his fingers not at all like his battering ram of a penis. So intense.

  “Oh!” She wouldn’t come just from this. She never did without clitoral stimulation, but God, it was so good, his face so handsome in concentration as he stared at where his finger slid in and out of her.

  He looked up from beneath his lids. “No bad thoughts intruding?”

  She shook her head, the gesture turning into a thrash on the pillow.

  “Good.”

  He lowered himself onto his elbow and brought his face to her sex again, sucking her clit into his mouth.


  A keen escaped her as the orgasm began, but then he slid his finger out of her, cutting it short.

  “No!” The spasms in her center died down, a defeat. She wanted to cry.

  “Shhh. Shhh. You asked for everything.”

  Then his tongue was back on her, lashing her clit, and something else. A caress in a very private place. “Oh!”

  He chuckled and ringed her back opening with one slick finger, a spot far more sensitive than she would have thought. “Nik—”

  He pressed his fingertip inside her there and flicked her clit with his tongue. The pleasure was instant and mind erasing. “Oh God, Nik.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  Slowly, he licked her and slid the finger all the way in, the burn of the penetration offset by the decadent pleasure in her clit. And when he began the same rhythm as earlier, that finger in her secret hole, he still hit her G-spot. The orgasm built from her deepest depths, like no pleasure she’d ever brought herself. He bent and sucked her clit into his mouth one last time, biting it gently. And then she was coming in seismic waves that shook her to the bone, her body so full of him, her heart so sure all of that had been just for her.

  As soon as the last aftershock shook her, he pulled out of her.

  “Need you now.” He rolled her onto her belly and penetrated her in one hard thrust. “Oh, fuck, Katya, hang on.”

  He slammed into her with no mind now for her pleasure, no gentle caresses. He rode her like an animal, stretching her opening raw, pounding her insides so hard and in just the right place until the pressure built and she reached for her clit to ease it, even as she used her other arm to hold herself back from the headboard. No man had ever used her like this, had needed her with such desperation.

  Was this passion a response to her own? She wanted him like this—unrestrained—wanted him not to worry over hurting her, wanted to give him anything he wanted, because this wanting was real, reciprocal, the pleasure of it so close to pain, just as bittersweet as that dinner with him, knowing she could have so few.

  He grunted. “I’m coming.”

  She felt him ejaculate, hot liquid bathing her tired inner muscles. No man had ever come inside her before, but what did it matter when she was dead. The sensation of being filled with a trickle of lava triggered another orgasm, her muscles squeezing in spite of their fatigue.