Irina should always remember not to trust the waters and the beast that lurked in those stormy depths.
I pushed the anxiety aside, using the key card I’d secured from the building owner earlier that day to unlock the door. My butterfly huffed on my shoulder, sending a shrill scream echoing through the clean but dimly lit lobby of her building. There was no one on staff to supervise who could see her tantrum—only the rare person who poked their heads out of their apartments at the top of the stairs.
I stepped up to the elevator, pressing a hand to Irina’s ass as her squirms became more and more aggressive. My fingers sank into the plump flesh, gripping her tightly in a silent warning. I spun, glancing at her over my shoulder with a grin on my face. “Be a good girl and push the call button for me, Butterfly.”
“You know, you really only annoy me when you’re breathing,” she said, twisting to look up at me from where she hung. I chuckled under my breath, all too aware of the way she sighed and dropped back down. “You did it again,” she added for good measure.
Assuming she wasn’t going to be a good girl after all, I jabbed the call button with an elbow, making sure to spin sharply enough that she hissed through her teeth. “Did I make you swoon?” I asked.
“More like vomit,” she snapped, twisting her body as she tried to get free.
“Settle,” I said, accentuating the word with another sharp slap to her ass. I wanted to strip her naked, to watch her body move as I took out my frustration on her.
“I loathe you,” she groaned, lifting my suit and trying to work my shirt out of my pants so she could claw at my bare skin. She’d quickly find that my lower back had very little feeling left, the scar tissue of my childhood having damaged the nerve endings beyond repair.
I stepped into the elevator when the doors opened, turning to press the button for her floor and letting them slide closed before I deposited my butterfly to her feet.
She spat hair out of her mouth, frantically swiping her mass of raven locks away from her face as she leaned against the elevator wall for support and waited for the blood to vacate her head. “You asshole,” she growled, wrapping her hands around the support bar and gripping it tightly.
“You shouldn’t have tested me, cuore mio,” I said, taking that single step closer to her until the space between us was nothing but a memory. Her breasts brushed against my chest as I took her face in both of my hands, the heat of her skin burning like a brand on my soul.
It set the burn scars on my palms alive, reminding me of the agony when the man had held my hands over the flames. I shoved aside the memory of his screams when I’d taken my revenge, focusing on the shock of green staring up at me from wide eyes.
Irina silenced, waiting for the panic in my face to pass or for me to back away, but I didn’t do either, determined to feel her, just this once.
Even if my scarred, tattooed skin against her flawless complexion was seven kinds of wrong, I needed it like the next breath of air in my lungs.
I crashed my lips down on hers, mauling her with absolutely none of the finesse that a man like Grant Dumas would use to seduce her. My kiss was nothing but tongue and teeth, a savage claim over the lips that I bruised with my possession. With my desire to fuse us together until we became one person.
One mind.
One heart.
Hers could beat for me, an echo of what should have throbbed within my chest.
She moaned into my mouth, lifting her arms to wrap around my neck. Those delicate fingers brushed against skin there lightly, gliding over the tattoo that crawled up the side of my neck as if she expected me to bolt at any minute.
The urge struck, but I used it to press her further into the elevator wall. Her lower back struck the support bar, her shoulders slamming into the metal wall as the elevator came to a stop.
Someone at the door cleared their throat, but Irina only dug her nails into my skin and pulled me closer. I failed to stifle my groan, dropping my hands from her face to her thighs and gripping her until I lifted her off her feet once again.
She wrapped those sleek, seemingly never-ending legs around my waist instinctively, shifting her hands from my neck to my face and holding me tight as I strode out the elevator doors. The people waiting hurried to get out of the way as I stumbled into the hall, pressing Irina against the closest wall and grinding myself into her pussy.
With only the fabric of her underwear between us and her dress hiked up so far that her ass was barely covered, I very nearly fucked her right there for all to see.
Let them know the woman was mine. She was off limits to every fucking pervert who might watch her as she came and went daily and dream of her when they went to their bed that night.
But Irina fumbled with her clutch, pulling the key for her apartment free and snapping some sense into the haze of lust that had consumed me. Sex had never been a necessary part of life, just another way to blow off steam—easily replaced with a good fight.
But the need to be inside Irina thrummed through every fiber of my being, threatening to obliterate everything I knew about myself, if I could only just find the way to her fucking door. “Left,” she murmured with a giggle as I stumbled, unwilling to separate from her long enough to watch where I was going.
Eventually, we stopped in front of her door and I took the keys from her hand. Holding her propped up with one arm wrapped under her ass, I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Kicking it closed behind me, I sauntered through the apartment to the sofa where I’d watched her touch herself.
The moan she emitted when I dropped her onto the arm of the couch erased the last of my self-control. Her fingers went to the buttons on my suit jacket, seeming just as greedy as I was to get me inside her.
I shoved her hands away, spinning her to face the couch and pushing her down until her stomach rested on the arm and the toes of her heels touched the floor. She turned to look back at me in shock, her red lips parted and lipstick smudged, but I tore my eyes from hers to stare at the smooth expanse of her thighs.
I pulled her jacket off her shoulders roughly, barely giving her time to maneuver to help me in my urgency. Shoving the fabric of her dress up until it bunched around her waist, I leaned forward and sank my teeth into the curve of her ass where her thong left it bared to me. Moaning, she thrust an arm back and sank her hand into the back of my hair, pulling me closer and tighter to her skin.
As if she couldn’t get me close enough.
I pulled back, slapping her bare ass hard enough that I watched it jiggle from the force of it, and a pink hand print bloomed across her skin. Gripping her thong in my hand, I tore it down her legs until it caught around her knees.
With her legs pressed together, all I could see was the curve of her ass and the seam of her pretty little pussy glistening between her legs. My hands went to the fly of my slacks, sliding the zipper down and pulling myself free as I stared at her.
She waited, her body still and her mouth quiet for once as she watched me stroke my cock. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, that same apprehension she’d shown the first time she saw me making her face scrunch up.
I was playing with fire, pushing the limits of what my body could tolerate. Going so far beyond what was right when it came to my butterfly.
Because she still didn’t know the truth, and if I ever wanted her to look at me again, she never could.
I pressed my free hand down on her spine, pushing her upper body down and holding her so that I felt in control as I lined my cock up with her pussy. I slid the head through the wetness coating her, the ragged groan that left her when I bumped against her clit seeming to pulse straight to my balls.