Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico (5 page)

“How will I…?” She shook her head as if coming out of a daze. “Okay, this has gone all the way from a one night stand to
what the hell
? But let’s just say you’re serious about this mistress stuff—”

“Pet.”

“Pet stuff, whatever. What’s the deal exactly? How does this work? I come home with you for however long? Back to Russia?”

“No, not back to Russia,” he answered quickly. “My brother wants to me to go to school. Get degree. He has found place for me in a German program. If you agree to this, you will live with me there. You will want for nothing. And if you like, we can send you to the Berlin Arts University for opera degree.”

Her eyes widened. “Me? Singing opera like them ladies on TV?”

The look of wonder in her champagne eyes made an unfamiliar warmness tug on his heart.

“
Da
,” he answered. “You can be even better than those ladies, I think. With right training. If you want.”

“If I want.” She tilted her head, like he’d introduced a foreign concept into her life. “I never thought I’d get any kind of higher education. My grades weren’t that good in high school. All I’ve ever really been good at is singing and cheerleading. But learning to sing opera, that sounds—”

She broke off and looked back up at him. “That sounds like a dream come true. Seriously? You could just…make that happen? Because usually dudes who show up for fights in Greek basements don’t know how to get little nobodies like me into colleges with opera programs.”

“No, usually they do not,” he agreed. “But I can do this for you.”

“Okay,” she said with a slight grimace. “I think now’s the time for me to ask about that big ol’ tiger tattoo I saw on your back the night before last. Is that some kind of mafia tag?”

“No, even if my family was still that kind of family, I wouldn’t have been allowed to get that kind of tattoo, because I am only half.”

“So your family is mafia, but you’re not?”

“No, my family—the Rustanovs—they used to be a crime family, but my brother has decided we should be another kind of family. He wants me to stop using my fists. Get a degree like him in business—learn how to fight in boardroom. But this is not easy for me. Like you said, there is darkness in me. Fight or fuck. Sometimes the fight calls to me. Like siren—maybe you understand.”

Another of her smiles. “Yeah, I get that.”

“And do you understand I can answer siren call here in Greece in dirty basement where my brother cannot see, but not in Germany where everybody can see? So if I go to Germany and do not have fight, I must have fuck.”

She winced a little, but eventually said, “Yeah, I guess I get that, too.”

“Good, then become my pet.”

And again she made him wait, her bruised but still lovely face furrowed in thought.

The need to ride her had become nearly overwhelming. Demanding that he cover her and make her say yes to his proposition while fucking her into the bed.

The Russian Beast was just a nickname. Given to him by a small time criminal in China to promote one of his fights. But in that moment, he could feel a beast inside him panting with the want of her.

“What about my passport?” she eventually asked. “I can’t go to Germany without a passport, and mine was stolen.”

He had an easy answer for that. “This is no problem. My family still has ties to our old world, no matter so many of us have covered our tattoos with suits. We can get you new passport, easy. With whatever name you want.”

“Seriously? You could make me Sirena Gale for real?”

The prospect of changing her name seemed to delight her more than anything else he’d offered her thus far, he noted. And for a moment, he wondered about the life she was obviously running away from.

“The men in my family do not joke, Siren. Especially when it comes to our pets. But I am done with questions and answers.
Da
or
nyet
. Give me your answer now.”

However, she only continued to peer up at him with a bemused smile. “You know what?” she asked instead of answering.

“What?” he asked, not bothering to hide his irritation that she still hadn’t given him an answer.

“I don’t even know your name.”

“It is Rustanov.”

“Your first name.”

“Bair.” His jaw clenched over the name. His real first name, not Boris, his Russian one. He had no idea why he gave her that one. No one called him by this name anymore now that his Buryat grandmother was dead. But when the siren girl asked him for his first name, he’d found himself giving the real one to her without conscious thought.

“Bair…” She repeated the name with a smile on her lush lips. “I like that. You know what else,
Bair
? I never thanked you for saving me from Cyrus and them.”

He grunted at just the memory of it. Coming into that basement after standing outside the venue all night, trying to convince himself not to go in. Because he knew he wasn’t there for the fight this time, but for the fuck. To have her again. Finally giving up and ripping open the door to the underground venue, only to find…

He shook his head. If he’d been even a moment later…it made the Darkness roil within him. Made him want to grab his gun, go back to that basement, and shoot Cyrus and his thugs all over again.

But they’d already been cleaned up. His brother had made sure of that. Their bodies disposed of by “old friends of the family,” who were more than happy to handle one small time pimp and fight promoter as a favor to the Rustanovs.

There was nothing left to kill. No one left to fight.

Only this girl thanking him for something he would have done again and again if it meant protecting what was his. Even if she wasn’t quite his yet.

“I don’t want your thank you, I want—”

“I know what you want, Beast,” she answered, in that sultry siren way of hers. “But my mama raised me to say thank you. Hey, would you look at that…”

Something else had caught her attention, and her champagne eyes swung away from him as she moved around him. He watched her walk over to the bedroom’s glass balcony doors where snowflakes were now fluttering down on the other side, covering the city and the Acropolis in a thin white blanket.

“It’s snowing!” she whispered, her voice filled with awe. She grinned over her shoulder at him. “Just in time for Christmas.”

Yes, it was Christmas, wasn’t it? In all the turmoil that had led up to this negotiation, he’d forgotten about the holiday all together.

The truth was, he didn’t care for Christmas much. His grandmother had been a strict Buddhist, and during his time away at school, holidays hadn’t been something so much celebrated as waited out.

Other boys went home to their families, while he remained behind. So
nyet
, he couldn’t relate to the wonder in this girl’s eyes.

In fact, his voice grew even harder as he said, “I would have your answer.”

“So you’re not a big fan of snow, huh?” She came back over to stand in front of him, her eyes crinkled with amusement.

“I am from Siberia,” he answered. “Snow…it is not so much big deal as you Americans say.”

She let out a throaty laugh, seemingly endlessly amused by him though he’d yet to make any actual joke.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, it’s Christmas. And it’s snowing, and I like you...”

Once again she reached up. But this time instead of cupping the back of his neck, she took his face in her hands and brought it down, pressing his mouth to the mottled greenish-brown bruise on her beautiful face.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she held him there for a few moments, as if receiving a blessing. Then she brought his face square with hers, and once again pressed her mouth to his. She kissed like she sang her summertime aria. Slow and sure, drawing him deeper and deeper into the song.

He didn’t realize both his arms had snaked around her, pulling her in close. Not until she leaned back to look up at him from inside his embrace. “Yeah, I really like you, Beast,” she said on a whisper.

An impish look came over her expression then. “But look here, I don’t have a Christmas gift for you. How rude.” Her shoulders lifted up and down in faux exasperation with herself. And then that teasing smile of hers, the one he was actually beginning to like, spread across her face, “I guess I better let you keep me.”

I
t was just
a handful of words, and delivered saucily at that. But something changed in the air between them when she spoke them. As if a binding contract had been signed with signatures.

“Take off that shirt, Sirena. Let me see you.”

The command made her feel a little breathless, but she did as he asked. And this time wasn’t like last time. He didn’t turn his back. No, this time he watched her remove the shirt, never taking his eyes off her, not even once.

He watched her and then she watched him remove his clothes. He only looked away when he stopped to pulled a condom out of his back pocket.

Once naked, he stood there for a few seconds, as if he were letting her get used to the sight of him: his huge body, mountainous with muscle, and the thick flesh between his legs…: wide and thick and very, very hard.

“Lie back on the bed,” he said after letting her look her fill.

She once again did as commanded, and was rewarded for her acquiescence when thick fingers found her wet core and began making what had been merely damp, completely wet.

“No, don’t close your eyes, Sirena,” he said when her lids began to flutter closed. “Watch. Watch what I’m doing to you.”

So she kept her eyes open and helplessly watched his fingers pump into her wet core. Slow, then faster, then slow again. Coaxing the orgasm out of her. She came with one long moan, her hips involuntarily arching into his hand as her hands clawed the bed. It felt like her body was melting around his fingers, because of what he’d done to her. What he wasn’t done doing to her yet.

He climbed on top of her, but kept his huge body braced over hers, only letting her feel the full weight of him against her core.

“Mmm, Beast,” she said. Numb no more and loving how he felt between her legs. She rubbed her pussy against his thick erection, the sensation sending sharp thrills through her core. Not quite dry humping, more like wet humping. She could feel herself getting slicker and slicker the more she ground her sensitive clit against his hardened manhood.

He let her enjoy herself like this for a few moments, but then he reared up and lifted her right leg, placing it over his shoulder. She moaned, feeling every inch of him as he slowly drove himself into her.

“Keep watching,” he commanded when her eyes threatened to close again.

So she did. They watched together. Watched his thick, hard cock start to claim her swollen pussy with long, deep strokes.

She sucked in a shuddering breath. So good. So good. He made her ache, made her feel like the least numb thing in the entire world.

“Sirena, look at me.”

She did, her eyes lifting to find his gaze sharp on her face. “You understand what is happening
,
da?
You are mine now. You belong to me.”

She nodded. Silently. Helplessly. Yes, she was truly Sirena now, and this man was claiming her as no other ever had.

Her hand wrapped around his neck and she pulled him down for a kiss, entwining his tongue in hers as his hips rolled within her. Yes,
his
,
his
,
his
...

Her kiss seemed to enflame him. The cool commander disappeared and he groaned her new name into her mouth, long and pained.

His strokes went harder then. Faster and wilder. A beast undone.

But she wasn’t scared. She held onto him, her only port in this storm. And when they came, they did so together, shouting to the universe that had made them and miraculously brought them together on this Christmas day.

No, she didn’t regret this decision, she thought as she came down from the heavens. She’d given herself to him as a Christmas gift, but afterwards, as she fell asleep wrapped in his huge arms, she couldn’t help but feel it was she who’d gotten the best gift of all.

One Russian Beast to amuse her, to protect her, to make her feel things she’d never felt before.

Y
ears later Bair
would still remember the feeling he had falling asleep with Sirena in his arms on Christmas morning. The sudden notion that he finally understood what Christmas was all about, all because Sirena, the ring girl-nurse-waitress-maid had agreed to be his pet. It was as if a light had been turned on inside his dark heart, and in those moments, her agreeing to belong to him had felt like the best gift he’d ever received.

Yes, years later he’d still remember exactly how taking possession of her on Christmas morning had felt….

And then he’d curse himself for falling for her siren song.

“
I
guess
I better let you keep me.”

Five years after uttering those words, she wondered if she’d ever forgive herself for saying them. She understood why she’d done it. Why she’d agreed to not only sleep with, but be kept by, The Russian Beast.

But understanding why you did a thing and not hating yourself for doing it were two separate things entirely.

And she hated herself as she waited in the narrow hallway for her sister. Hugging the package she’d found outside Willa’s apartment door to her chest, like it could protect her if he found her. Like anything could protect her if he found her.

She remembered with a shiver the story he and his brother had “discussed” in front of her a few years ago at a Berlin nightclub Alexei had recently acquired.

She hadn’t liked Alexei from the start. Mainly because he’d shown up to his first visit at the ridiculous large apartment he’d bought for them in Berlin with two hookers as a housewarming gift.

“So you are not a very good pet,” he’d observed with a sneer when she’d refused to let the scantily clad women into the apartment with him.

He’d told the girls to wait for him in the car, but after they left, he told Bair, “I would think you would want better pet, Boris,” as if she weren’t standing right there. “She is not very grateful. All you do for her, and she won’t do such nice thing for you?”

Alexei hadn’t been any more respectful that night. He had Bair halfway into a third bottle of vodka of which she hadn’t been allowed even a sip, and they’d been talking in Russian the entire evening, while she sat beside Bair, sober and bored. Thinking about an Italian aria she needed to have completely ready for class the next day, only to be jerked out of her zone by a male waiter asking in English if she wanted anything to drink.

His eyes had lingered on her, even after she answered “No” with the siren switch completely set to off. And she could tell by the squeeze of Bair’s large hand on her thigh that he wasn’t happy about the exchange.

There’d been a moment of tense silence, and then Alexei had said in his aggressively perfect English, “You remind me a bit of our cousin Nikolai’s mother, Sirena. She was like you. So
pretty
.”

Technically it was a compliment, but it certainly didn’t feel like one accompanied as it was by a dark sneer. The Rustanov sneer, she’d started calling it, after finding out it was a trait he and Bair had in common.

“Remember that story, Boris?”

Another squeeze of her thigh, then Bair had answered, also in English, “Yes, I do.”

They went on to “discuss” in her native language what had happened to their cousin’s Nikolai’s mother, after she’d gotten pregnant with another man’s baby. She’d tried to get rid of it but ended up dying in the attempt.

Bair had finished the recount with a shrug. “If she had not died that way, she would have died when Uncle found out. And he would have found out.”

“Remember what happened to the first man he caught her cheating with?”

“Not officially,” Bair had answered, “but I hear the fish could tell me the whole story.”

Alexei had burst out laughing at Bair’s answer.

And Bair was always insisting he didn’t know how to joke,
she’d thought to herself
.
But she got the message loud and clear: Rustanovs weren’t the kind of men you left. The only way a pet could get out of a relationship with one of them was if she they got tired of her and let her go. And Bair had made it apparent on more than one occasion that he was nowhere near ready to let her go.

Yet here she was, hundreds of miles from Berlin, alone for the first time since Bair had decided to start keeping her under 24/7 guard. For her own protection, he claimed.

But it wasn’t her protection she was worried about, but getting caught by her Russian protector. Her eyes traveled to the hallway window once more, searching the street below. No dark cars. No hulking men in suits with obvious pieces tucked inside, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for her to come out. Sembach was six hours by train but only one by plane. And if they knew where she was, they would have followed her here by now.

If she hadn’t truly given her guard the slip, he’d already be outside her sister’s apartment building—no inside. Making some not so veiled threat. Letting her know just how few choices she had left when it came to him.

No, it was hard to believe, but she’d really done it. A last-second decision to run out the back door of the university doctor’s office. To hail a cab and pay with cash for it to take her to a small town outside of Berlin. Then pay another cab to take her to a bus station in an even smaller town. Then to take that bus to the closest town with a Bahnhoff. And from there, catch a train to Sembach. It had actually worked.

The brilliance had been in the lack of planning. There’d been no chance to let fear override her, or flake out. Just the driving need to run away. Not tomorrow, not in a few years when he finally tired of her. But that very day.

Thank goodness she’d heeded the advice Natascha—one of Alexei’s pets—had given her five years ago, the first and only time the woman had come on one of Alexei’s visits to Germany.

“Sirena, that is a good name for an opera singer,” she’d said at the expensive restaurant Alexei had invited them to. A fairly new hot spot that, like all the places Bair’s brother had ever invited them to, he owned. Supposedly Alexei had taken over the backroom of the restaurant to celebrate Bair finishing his first
Wintersemester
at Berlin University. But judging by the number of business contacts who’d also been invited to this “little celebration,” it also served as a good excuse for Alexei to show off to his German associates.

Because she and Natascha were two of the only people in the room who didn’t speak German, they had naturally gravitated toward each other over the course of the evening.

“I hope it turns out to be a good name for an opera singer, but it’s not my real one,” she had confessed to Nastascha. She’d been so young and naïve back then. Following The Russian Beast to Germany had still felt like it was the best decision she’d ever made. Even if her brain was still reeling from being thrown into an opera program back in January, halfway through the first of the two semesters that make up the typical German school year. Despite their late starts, both she and Bair were thriving in their individual programs and opera felt like nothing less than the music of her true soul. The kind of music she’d always been meant to sing, not the dramatic R&B and gospel standards she’d messed around with back in high school.

Back when she’d met Natascha, everything with Bair had still felt like a honeymoon. And she only barely acknowledged the small town girl she used to be, before Bair found her and swept her up and away into a new life and name.

“Even better that this is not your real name,” Natascha said with a twist of her perfectly painted lips. Not quite smiling as she asked, “Does Boris know your real name?”

Boris. That was what everyone called him. His family, his classmates, everyone. She’d yet to meet one other person aside from herself who called him Bair.

“No, I guess he doesn’t,” she answered. “But it’s not a secret. I just don’t like it.”

She would never forget the sudden bitterness that overtook Natascha’s expression at that point. Or the shadow in her voice as she said, “Take my advice, Sirena. Do not
ever
tell him anything you don’t have to. These Rustanovs are, how you say, ‘generous but not kind.’ Anything you give them, they will use against you. Especially your heart.”

Natascha was in love with Alexei. Anyone could tell by the way her eyes softened as they followed the large Russian businessman around the restaurant’s back room. Which made her words all the more confusing for a young and stupid girl from Virginia.

But the next time she’d seen Alexei at a similar intimate (but not really) get together at an even hotter restaurant to celebrate the end of Bair’s
Sommersemester
, he’d had a new pet on his arm. This one much more uptight, without any of Natascha’s inner warmth to offset her frosty Russian looks.

“This is Alexei’s way. When he is done with a pet, she is gone,” Bair had answered with an indifferent shrug, when she brought up his half brother’s lack of fidelity as the town car ferried them back to their apartment later that night.

“But she was in love with him.”

Another shrug. “Her feelings do not matter.”

Wow. That was cold. But still she couldn’t resist asking, “So if I fell in love with you, what would you say?”

The car was too dark to see his face, but his body went rigid beside hers. “I would say do not give me something I cannot give you. Love. It is not the Rustanov way. Not my way. I will give you flowers and jewelry if you wish it, but there can be no love between us. Do you understand?”

She’d nodded, not knowing how else to respond. And later, she’d put in extra effort with her performance in bed, reminding herself that she was here to do a job with Bair. Not make love, but provide the fuck part of the equation that had allowed him to thrive so well in his German Economics program.

Back then, the conversation had felt like a blip in an otherwise good first year of being Bair Rustanov’s pet. But it wasn’t a blip. Rather a harbinger of things to come. Things that would eventually bring her to the door of her sister’s apartment in Sembach.

But if her sister could get her to someone with government connections, she could finally get a new passport. One issued under her own name. If this crazy non-plan worked out, she could finally go home.

She looked out the window again. Still no dark cars. No goons in suits. No Bair Rustanov. She was safe here in Sembach, she assured herself. She was.

But she couldn’t relax. The
Carmina Burana
finale was chewing up the inside of her chest, and the heavy wedding ring he’d given her felt like it was burning a hole in the pocket of her Marc Jacobs dress.

She still didn’t know why he’d done it. Called her into his office a few weeks ago, just a couple of days after the worst visit yet from the brother she’d come to privately refer to as “Alexei the Awful.” But nonetheless, she’d found him there with two men, and the papers all drawn up. One of the men who announced himself as a lawyer presented the papers and told her where to sign.

The other turned out to be a judge. Which was how she came to find out that this was a marriage ceremony.

“We will get married now, so there is no misunderstanding,” was the only explanation The Beast gave her.

The wedding had been conducted like a business meeting with not even a kiss exchanged at the end. Of course no kiss. He never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and she’d been too stunned to initiate one even if she wanted to. Their wedding was the first time “O Fortuna,”
Carmina Burana
’s opening and closing song, had popped off like a flare gun’s warning shot inside her chest.

Just words
, she’d told herself even as the beginning lines of Germany’s most famous cantata began its slow rise.
Just words,
she told herself. Not the real her. She’d never given him any piece of her real self or let that broken Virginia girl make him any promises—

A door slammed on the floor below and her body seized, her eyes flying back to the hallway window. But the street was clear.

No dark cars. No hulking men. No sign of him anywhere. Still her stomach remained tight as she listened to the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the stairs.

But then she saw the most beautiful thing on earth. Willa, the younger sister she hadn’t seen in years. Dark and tall as Nefertiti, her mouth dropped open in shock when she found her long lost sister standing in front of the apartment door.

“You got a package,” she told her sister, the med student, not knowing what else to say.

“Thel?” Willa blinked rapidly.

And Thelxiope—or Thel as she used to be called (because who could pronounce that crazy name?)—knew Willa was still trying to process the presence of the sister who hadn’t so much as emailed her in the last five years. The Thel she’d known had been a much different girl. A sharp-tongued cheerleader who’d barely managed to stay on the squad, because she was constantly catching suspensions for getting in fights. The Thel she’d known had run away from home dressed in shorts and a tank top. No doubt Willa hadn’t been expecting for the trashy sister, who used to save up money for push-up bras, to show up at her door five years later in a Marc Jacobs dress. The C- sister Willa had known, hadn’t even known how to spell Marc Jacobs.

As it was it took a few times working her mouth before the girl who used to be Thel could answer, “Yeah, it’s me, Willa. Though nobody’s called me Thel in years.”

Her little sister gave her a knowing smile. “So I guess you changed your name.” Thel had always said she would as soon as she turned eighteen.

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Thel admitted with a tremulous smile of her own. “But I’m ready to change it back now.”

“Why?” Willa asked, voice curious and frank.

“Because I’m sick,” Thel answered, not knowing how else to explain what took place in the doctor’s office that day. How instead of getting her tubes tied like she was supposed to at Bair’s command, she’d asked the university hospital’s OB/Gyn in broken German about the lump she’d felt in the shower. Even after five years, she still hadn’t managed to pick up this country’s language as well as Bair.

She could still remember the doctor’s cold hands as she checked Thel’s small breasts herself. The feeling of certain dread even before the doctor switched to English to tell her this was something they would definitely need to have checked out before they went through with the “other” procedure. And the wind tunnel that had appeared inside her head as she nodded and asked if there was another door she could leave out of. Already knowing without needing any test results what was happening inside her body.

But in Sembach, she told her sister the simplest version of her truth: “I got cancer, really bad. And I’m ready to be done pretending to be somebody I ain’t.”