I can’t bear knowing something hurt you, and I don’t know what it is, how I can erase it, how I can stop it from hurting you ever again.”
Reaching for her hands again, he pulled at her stiff body, brought her flush against him, letting her feel every inch of his hard perfection. Immediately the body he’d serviced and pleasured for ten long weeks wept for his ownership.
But because he hadn’t really owned it yet, and with Mikhail’s comment giving her fresh reasons why he hadn’t, this time she resisted the need to succumb to him. The desire she’d been giving in to, willingly, breathlessly, since that day he’d taken her to her own bed, suddenly felt pathetic. She’d let it blind her to something that had always plagued their relationship, the prior one and this one, that she basically knew nothing about him. That nothing about the way he behaved with her made any sense. That with him, she couldn’t form an opinion of the past, chart the present or predict the future.
But ever since he’d pulled her back from the brink of death, she’d accepted not knowing, had even told herself she didn’t care to know so that she didn’t have to make a decision or take a stand. But it ended now.
But Ivan’s burning lips and hands were roaming her flesh, igniting her every inch against her best effort to resist. Before she could attempt to push away, he swallowed her protests, those hard yet lush lips mastering hers, his powerful tongue driving inside her mouth, filling her with the need to surrender again, to beg for him again.
But she couldn’t do this again. Not if it meant a return to the status quo he’d imposed. Of him being so close, yet farther than the stars.
With an act of will she hadn’t thought herself capable of, she tore her lips away from his sensual onslaught, pushed out of his embrace. It took him so much by surprise that he let her go so abruptly, making her stagger back.
After lunging forward to steady her, Ivan let her go. He looked down at her as if she’d slapped him.
Though she hated having to do this, after everything he’d done for her, she hardened her resolve. This was as much for him as for her. It was unfair to him if she continued taking advantage of his uncontrollable need to protect and indulge her. Not when it seemed to be at the expense of his own needs and life. He’d put everything on hold to be there for her, as he’d promised he would the moment she’d come out of anesthesia.
By now she knew he’d keep his word forever. As long as he believed she needed him he’d stay with her, be there for her in every way he could think of.
Except the way she really wanted and needed.
His inability to be with her fully, intimately, forced her to face one possibility. That this was all for her, and there was nothing in it for him. And she couldn’t do that to either of them.
Swallowing the rising tide of misery, she whispered, “I—I do want to tell you something.”
His face lit up with a surge of eager supplication. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“Can I?” Not finding the right words to say what stormed in her mind, she gave a nervous laugh. “I do tell you a lot of things, then you do what you unilaterally see fit anyway.”
He started to protest, then stopped. There was no denying that he’d been overriding her. All for her own good in his opinion, but he’d done it nonetheless.
“But I am thankful you did it.” She held up her hand to stop his usual protest. “And yes, you have to take my thanks. But it just has to stop, Ivan. You can’t go on like this.”
“I can, if you let me.” Then, as if he heard his own words, he backpedaled. “But I promise I will pull back as much and as far as will make you comfortable.”
“You’re still making this all about me.”
“It is all about you.”
“No, it isn’t, Ivan. There are two of us here. I suffered an ordeal, and you helped me through it. You were the only one I wanted help from. But time passed and my needs have changed and I no longer need that kind of help.”
All light in his gaze was extinguished, making the ache she felt perpetually in her right side throb harder.
“Is this what you wanted to say to me? That you no longer want to be here?”
Her insides knotted tighter at the bleakness in his eyes, his voice. “I no longer want what you think is best for me. I want you to start considering yourself again.”
“I am very much considering myself.”
“No, you’re not. And it’s enough, Ivan. You’ve gone way beyond what I dreamed anyone could do for me. Now it’s time for you to be with those you really want to be with.”
His hands clenched at his sides, his whole body tensing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Y-you know what I mean.”
Suddenly something scary unfurled in the depths of his gaze. “This is about what Popov said to you, isn’t it?” When her gaze wavered, unable to bear the brunt of his incensed one, he rasped, “Hell, Anastasia, just tell me what he said.” When she hesitated, his eyes grew beseeching. “It was clearly about me and I have the right to know what it is, if only to tell you my side of it, whatever it is. I already promised you I wouldn’t retaliate.”
Knowing there was no way she could still hold out now that he’d put it that way, she reluctantly, haltingly told him.
“It was silly to react that way, but it did remind me that this artificial bubble you’ve created for me has nothing to do with your real life. You’ve interrupted it to come to my rescue, to stay by my side. But you now have to go back to your...”
She faltered as that terrifying thing in his eyes expanded, like a dragon unfolding its wings and preparing to spew fire.
It was more frightening that he sounded totally calm when he said, “That miserable piece of scum. I’ll make him pay for that.”
That had her pouncing on him, grabbing his arms in alarm. “No, Ivan, you promised.”
His face looked again as demonic as it had when he’d been defending her and Alex, vanquishing their attackers. He gently unhooked her spastic fingers from his flesh, pulled away. “If I’d suspected he’d told you anything like that, I wouldn’t have promised to spare him. This changes everything.”
“No, Ivan, just let him be. It’s not like he was trying to stir up trouble. What he said was the vodka talking. But then it’s only expected for a man like you to have—” unable to say the word mistresses again, she just shrugged, her shoulders so taut they almost cramped “—you know.”
That seemed to pour fuel on his terribly calm, and more terrifying for it, wrath. “A man like me? Do you or Popov or anyone else even think you know what kind of man I am? And it’s only expected that I have mistresses? In the plural? At once? Do you think I have them all lurking around, on hold, while I play house with you? Or maybe I put you in bed at night and go make the rounds of my stable of kept women? Or worse, I have a harem all in one place as Popov suggested, to observe my convenience?”
“That isn’t what I thought, Ivan, what upset—”
Her words choked off. Though there was much she didn’t know about him, there were some things she was sure of. Beyond knowing that he had his own brand of unwavering integrity, he had this aloofness, this fastidiousness about him. What he’d just suggested, what translated Mikhail’s comment in jarring detail, couldn’t have any basis in fact.
She kept staring at him helplessly. Before she found the words to tell him her conclusion now, to beg his forgiveness for jumping to the wrong one before, Ivan’s simmering gaze cooled down until self-reproach took over his expression.
“I’m sorry I overreacted.” Though his voice remained as calm as before, it was now devoid of that dangerous viciousness, filling instead with entreaty. As