Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico (8 page)

Thel looked at her mother, shaking her head, barely able to comprehend her over the song looping in her head.

Marian, however, continued on as if her words made complete sense. “Too much drama all at once makes for a rather convoluted storyline, don’t you think?”

“I guess…” Thel said again, still confused.

The more her mother talked, the louder the song got.

Marian came over to her with a hardcover novel in her hands. “Sadly there’s not much in our library that fits your situation, but this ought to do for your bus trip, and it’s one of my favorites from the seventies…”

She handed Thel the hardback, and her heart filled with horror when she saw the front cover with its iconic typography and the line drawing of a hand manipulating an unseen marionette.
The Godfather
by Mario Puzo.

“Now be careful with this, dear,” she somehow heard her mother say over the song raging in her head. “It’s a first edition.”

H
E should have known
he’d find her through the wedding ring. He’d had it custom made for her by one of the best jewelers in Berlin.

But it had seemed like something was dying inside her when she’d opened the leather box and seen what was within.

“What is this?” she’d asked. Confused, like he’d given her a box with a cockroach inside.

“It is wedding ring,” he’d answered, dropping the article like he did when the Darkness got in the way of the English classes he’d taken at the German University.

“But I thought…” She blinked down at the ring. “I thought yesterday was just a formality.”

He chose not to answer. Simply let a dark second tick by before saying, “Put it on.”

“But—”

He stopped her with a cold look. “You know better than to question me on these things, Siren.
Put it on
.”

Proving just how far their relationship had descended since his brother’s last visit, she quickly took it out of the box and slipped it onto the correct lovely brown finger.

There used to be a time when she’d question his orders. Ask from under sultry eyes what exactly he planned to do to her if she said no. Then filled the room with her husky laugh when he bent her over the nearest surface to give her the answer.

But now she merely put on the ring, no more questions asked.

“Why are you not smiling?” he’d asked her, too irritated not to let her see how she was affecting him. “This is nice ring. Very nice ring. What don’t you like about it?”

“You’re right,” she’d answered, pasting a smile on her face. Such a pretty smile, but it didn’t come anywhere near her eyes. “It’s real nice. Thank you.”

She’d said all the right things when he’d given her that ring, but he’d punished her anyway. Scooping her into his arms and carrying her back to their bed, then keeping her there all day so that she ended up missing a recording session. Fucking her and fucking her until they both passed out. Until every inch of him knew she still got wet for him. That she still screamed for him. No matter how dull her smile.

Then he’d left for Russia the next morning, only to receive the call a few weeks later. They’d lost her. She’d disappeared and couldn’t be found, even after scouring the city.

The only place him and me work is in bed.

The words continued to haunt him six years later, even before he got the call.

“That ring we inquired about just showed up in a D.C. pawn shop with a new name…” the voice on the other end of the line told him.

Less than forty-eight hours later, however, his hopes were dashed. His investigator was able to track her down to a house in Virginia, but she wasn’t there. And keeping a house under surveillance in such a small town wasn’t so easy, the investigator told him when he called after only two days on the assignment.

“No one’s seen her,” he said to Alexei. “Only her mother and sister and a nephew have been in and out of the house, and if I probe any deeper, I’m going to set off some alarms.”

He was most likely right, Bair thought. In a small town like that, his New York private investigator wouldn’t exactly blend in. And if he asked too many questions he might tip Sirena—who was apparently really named Thelxiope—off. Keep her from returning home, because she’d know Bair had finally found her.

Still, the thought of her having once again run off with another lover burned him inside. Made it easy to pay the astronomical fee to have the investigator back off but continue to check weekly on the house.

“Patience,” he told the Darkness roaring inside him. Now that he knew her real name, it was only a matter of time.

He’d find her. And then he’d make her pay.

F
UCKING Pledge
. She was down on her knees, about to clean the dark baseboards in the manager’s office of the rundown campground in Florida where she’d taken an under- the-table cleaning job. But the memory assailed her without warning, as soon as she sprayed the cleaning product on the cracked wood.

Arriving home from the studio after a day spent recording an aria for her second album. Only to hear the song she’d recorded just an hour beforehand, already wafting through the apartment.

She’d followed her bodyguard and the sound of her own voice to Bair’s closed office door. Bending down to pet Sascha, before she stuck her head through the door to tell Bair she was home.

Of course he already knew that. Her driver or bodyguard always texted their arrival before letting her out of the car. But he liked to see her. Had considered it an insult the one or two times she would go straight to their rooms without presenting herself to him.

However, when she opened the door, she found not just Bair, but also his brother, and two other men. One had on a gray business suit with a tie that matched his mostly silver hair. The other man was younger. Forties maybe. His suit was black like Alexei’s and Bair’s, but not quite as well made. Also, unlike the other three men, he wasn’t wearing a tie. Instead he left the top two buttons of his shirt undone with a scarf looped around his neck to a rather rakish effect.

An impression confirmed by the way his eyes lit with frank interest as soon as she opened the door.

“You forgot to knock,” Bair said from behind his large desk.

“Sorry,” she said, struggling to hit the “ee” at the end of the word. Then not daring to say more, lest she embarrass Bair in front of his associates.

He spent thousands of dollars a month, on clothes, beauty treatments, and elocution lessons for her. But whenever she opened her mouth to do anything other than sing, she still sounded exactly like what she was, a small town Virginia girl without a lick of non-manufactured sophistication.

She’d dressed carefully today in a loose Dior sundress, though she was only going into the studio. So at least she looked the part of a Rustanov pet, even if she couldn’t quite speak like one. A wave of irritation floated over her. She missed her accent. She missed being able to talk however she wanted.

Don’t,
she told herself. This wasn’t the place. Save it for the next letter to W. Letters to W—that was what she called her diary. The one she wrote in to vent in a way she wasn’t allowed to as Bair’s pet.

“Can I get you another drink?” she asked Bair, her eyes going to his nearly empty tumbler of vodka. Ever the good Rustanov pet.

“He is fine,” Alexei answered. “Come sit, Sirena. We were only now just discussing your future. This is Igor Artemovich and Nestor Kuzmich, friends of ours from the Moscow National Opera.”

Her eyes widened. She recognized their names immediately. Igor was the artistic director of the Moscow National Opera, and Nestor was one of their most visionary stage directors. Thel and her fellow student singers had been shown quite a few clips from his cutting edge operas when she’d been at the Berlin Arts University.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she told them, fighting the urge not to do something silly. Like curtsy.

“The pleasure is all ours, I assure you, Ms. Gale,” Igor answered, standing up along with Nestor to shake her hand.

But unlike Igor, Nestor, the genius stage director, didn’t immediately let go of her hand when they were done shaking. “You have an extraordinary voice and we were only just now discussing how to make use of it when you join us in Russia,” he told her with a handsome smile.

“In Russia?” she repeated, looking over at Bair.

But he merely continued to stare at her hand, held within the director’s. She gently took it back, not wanting to rile him. “But I thought Russia wasn’t necessarily safe for people like me.”

“You are a Rustanov pet, we will make it safe,” Bair answered as if her American fears regarding race bored him.

Thel continued to study him, searching his face for any clue of what was really going on here. Bair, from the little she’d gleaned of his past, hated Moscow. He’d grown up in some cold remote region of Siberia, and he never went to the country’s capital city unless called there by his older brother.

Perhaps reading her confusion, Alexei said, “The Rustanov empire has grown too big for Russia. We’ve decided to expand into New York. But I will need someone I trust to stay behind and run the Moscow office. Bair is that person.”

Wow, she thought, barely able to maintain her neutral façade. That was a huge upward move for Bair who’d only just graduated from his program.

“Congratulations,” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, yes, congratulations,” Nestor said with a wave of his hand, like Bair’s promotion to the head of a billion dollar company was too boring to talk about for long. “And congratulations to
you
, Ms. Gale.”

To her dismay, Nestor took her hand again, and this time he kissed her knuckles. “It will be my greatest pleasure to welcome such a beautiful creature as a lead soprano in our company.”

He regarded Bair with a teasing chuckle. “Be careful with this one, Boris Rustanovich. As enchanting as she is, she will have many of our patrons wishing she were their pet.”

However, his chuckle was greeted with dark silence on Bair’s part. “Sirena I do not worry about,” he informed the other man. “She is very good pet. Very
grateful
pet. She would never give herself to another.”

Perhaps sensing he’d fucked up, Nestor finally dropped her hand. But it was already too late. Thel knew this even as her hand fell to her side like a dead fish.

Something had shifted in the room, completely evaporating the former good cheer.

“Tell him why you would never give yourself to another, Sirena,” Bair instructed from his position behind the desk.

Oh God. Oh, God. Not again. Not in front of these men
.

But she answered anyway, knowing what would happen if she didn’t. “Because I only get wet for you.”

“Come here, Sirena.”

The dark command propelled her forward on her high heels, an invisible but strong string yanking her around his large desk.

She let her eyes meet Bair’s, begging him not to do this to her. Not to humiliate her. In front of his brother. In front of the men who would be overseeing her tenure at the Moscow National Opera.

He answered her pleading look with a snarl, “Are you wet for me now, Sirena?”

She nodded. Because it was expected. Because it was true.

Everything happened very fast after that.

He came out of his seat, like an animal unleashed.

Turning her around and tearing open the front of her expensive dress, with one vicious yank of his large hand.

She wasn’t wearing a bra. She technically didn’t need one because her breasts were so small, and he’d forbidden the push up ones she used to wear to make up for the lack. Same went for underwear. He bought her the finest clothes, but never anything to go underneath them. Another point of control. He wanted easy access to her body at all times. So she stood in front of him, completely exposed to the men in his office.

“Show them,” he growled in her ear, pressing his erection into her back. “Show them how wet you become for me.”

She closed her eyes, not wanting to, but knowing she didn’t have a choice. Not really.

Fight or fuck, Sirena. That is only choice you will ever have with me.

She lifted the bottom of her ruined dress, and though she kept her eyes squeezed closed as she did it, she knew what the men would see there. Her naked sex, wet to the point of dripping. For the Russian Beast behind her.

No, closing her eyes didn’t help. She could still feel the gazes of the men on her. Taking in her exposed breasts, her naked pussy.

A large hand pushed against the back her neck then, pressing her down into the desk. The cleaners must have been in here earlier. The smell of wood cleaner filled her nose, as her breasts flattened against its smooth surface.

He shoved into her from behind, lifting her hips with the action. For what felt like hours on end, all that could be heard in the silent room was the sound of his hips slapping into hers.

Silent, but not empty. She knew the men were still there. Knew Bair would have pulled a gun on anyone who even thought of leaving while he was claiming her like this. Including his own brother.

But that wasn’t necessary. The three men bore witness to her humiliation. They all quietly watched Bair fuck her hard from behind with his hand on the back of her neck.

She wished she could say it hurt. But it didn’t. Her sex received him gladly, clenching around his cock as he cruelly fucked her. Instead of going cold with humiliation, she continued to cream. In fact, her clit was so engorged, she started coming as soon as Bair reached down and found it with his free hand. Even before he snarled, “Show them, Sirena” from his position above her.

“Oh, Beast! Fuck, Beast! Oh...” She pressed her face into the desk’s cool wood as the orgasm overtook her, cresting through her entire body and leaving her weak.

A couple of strokes later, his hips flexed strong into her backside, and his release flowed into her, strong and unrelenting as a tsunami tide.

Only then did the hand on the back of her neck let up. He pulled out, leaving her weak and trembling on top of the desk.

She listened to the sound of him readjusting his pants and zipping up. Even if she could have moved, she knew better than to do so before he gave her permission. That he’d consider any movement on her part an invitation to take her again, to humiliate her further.

Instead she concentrated on blinking the hot tears out of her eyes as she waited for his next words.

“You may go now, Sirena,” he said a couple of moments later.

She didn’t look at him as she left. But she couldn’t help but peep at the men who’d just watched her get fucked. Alexei’s face remained as cold and impassive as ever—liked he’d just watched a tennis match. But the other two. They stared at her unabashedly, their faces nearly slack with lust.

A lust they’d never be able to sate. Not without deadly consequences. She struggled on the heels out of the room, forcing her focus from the three men to what she knew would be expected of her now.

Bair was probably already hard again. He’d expect her to be waiting for him. Naked and ready on their bed, with his cum still inside her. He’d punish her all night for the stage director’s teasing words. Fucking and fucking her until she was too tired to come anymore.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The cranky voice broke into the memory like a note played wrong. She looked up to see the older Florida motel’s manager standing in the doorway of his office. “I been watching you wipe down that same baseboard for over a minute. You think I’m paying you to sit around daydreaming?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, body still feeling flushed with the memory.

“I expect this office to be clean by the end of the day along with the rest of the cabins on today’s list.”

She just nodded, holding on to her temper. She needed this job, she reminded herself. Needed this place to hide without any record that she’d ever been here.

“And another thing,” he added, holding up a letter. “I’m not your post office. If you’re going to get letters here, tell them to address it to your cabin.”

He handed her the white envelope, but she knew who sent it even before she saw Marian’s name written in neat cursive across its front. Nobody knew where she was. Only her mother, who communed on a regular basis with the spirits, could have found her here.

Thel could still remember the new assistant finding her while she was practicing in the solarium Bair had designated as her rehearsal room back in Berlin. Marta, an older Russian woman who’d been sent by Alexei to assist him in preparing for his first month-long orientation trip to Moscow.

It was the woman’s first day or otherwise she would have known better than to find Thel in the solarium. “To ask, excuse me, Sirena Gale, do you know where I can find a Theo?”

“Theo?” Thel repeated with frown.

“I have letter addressed to Theo. But I can find no Theo or Theodore on the staff roster I was given.”

“Let me see,” Thel had said, having a feeling about this as she held out her hand for the letter.

And sure enough, there had been her mother’s handwriting, with her fat loopy ell, which could easily be mistaken for an “O.”

“Oh, Theo,” she’d said, keeping her face carefully blank. “One of my other bodyguards. He’s out on paternity leave. I’ll make sure to forward it to him.”

“I could—”

“No, I’ll take care of it. I was planning on sending him a gift basket anyway.”

“I could do that, too—”

“I know, but I prefer to do these things myself for a personal touch.”

A total lie. One that could and most likely would come back to bite her in the ass when the new assistant learned she was barely allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, much less send men gift baskets. Her psycho owner didn’t abide her so much as looking at a man, married or unmarried, too long. Not without major consequences.

But she’d deal with that later. Her mother had written her. Her mother! She ripped into the envelope as soon as soon as the Russian woman left and pulled out a simple notecard:
“The spirits told me you would be ready to come home soon. Here is your sister’s address in Sembach for when that time finally comes. Don’t worry, we’ll get through this terrible thing, oldest daughter. Remember what I told you before you left. Love always. ”

Without any clear understanding of her mother’s words, Thel had memorized the address before tearing up the letter, envelope and all. She’d felt like a character in a spy film as she snuck behind their cook’s back and deposited the tiny pieces into the trash can underneath the kitchen sink.

And six years later she ripped open another white envelope from her mother to find another note about her sister. This time much happier.
“To everyone’s surprise but mine, Willa has gotten her happily ever after. Time for you to come home for her wedding, oldest daughter.”