Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Margaret

My life just got so much more intense.

Who is this woefully hot Russian dude and what was he doing in Hank’s All Nude Review? His strict demeanor, his expensive suit and the black Escalade he’s driving make him the furthest thing from strip joint clientele you can get. I think. After all, today was my first—and apparently last—day of work.

From my position in the passenger seat, I sneak another look to Lenin. If that’s his real name. He must be some kind of wizard, because I was definitely under a spell during the lap dance. One minute I was petrified I would fail to please him and the shoebox I’m now clutching would be destroyed by my stepfather. And the next? I wasn’t thinking about anything but stoking the new fire inside me higher and higher until it burned me down.

I’ve woken up after a sexy dream before and pressed down on the flesh between my legs until fleeting relief came. Those times were orgasms, yes, but they weren’t anywhere near as satisfying as the one I had on Lenin’s lap. Lord, I’m still buzzing from it. My skin is sensitive and I can feel every inhale and exhale that leaves my body. I came by it so shamefully, too, writhing around on his arousal like an animal in heat.

Bounce you like Daddy’s good little girl?

My core clenches like a fist and I swallow a gasp. What does it mean that Lenin calling himself my Daddy wrought such an overwhelming response from my body? My real father barely spared me a glance and I hate him for the harm he inflicted on my mother. The idea of him laying a finger on me is repulsive and I never called him daddy. Lenin, though…calling him by that title excites me. Not just because of the word itself, but what it represents. Someone to actually care for me. About me. Lenin seems to. However, if I learned anything from my mother and the life she led, it’s to keep caution and place trust only sparingly.

Especially when it comes to men who carry guns and swing their fists as easy as breathing.

“Where are you taking me?”

Lenin nods at the navigator screen. “The Inner Harbor.” I feel his sharp gaze skimming over me from behind his dark shades. “You need something to eat.”

My stomach turns over at the mere mention of food and his lips quirk at one end. I’ll say one thing for Lenin, he’s like no man I’ve come across. One, none of my mother’s boyfriends carried around giant wads of cash. Two, none of them exhibited any manner of self control. And three, their needs always came first.

Get me a beer, woman.

I’m hungry.

Tell your brat to shut up.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine Lenin saying any of these things to me. Or am I just so accustomed to the scum of the earth that I’m painting a picture of him he’s going to destroy as soon as I let my guard down? Don’t let your guard down.

He has a gun.

“Yeah.” I clear my rusty throat. “I guess I could go for a bite.”

He hums sympathetically, but his powerful hands tighten on the steering wheel, making the leather groan. “When is the last time you ate?”

“Saltines and some peanut butter. Maybe yesterday?” Pride sends my chin up a notch. “I’m not complaining. It’s my favorite snack.”

A muscle jumps in his cheek. “No, you do not seem the type to complain.”

“No.” I think of the hard shaft left unsatisfied between his legs. “Neither do you.”

“I have many complaints right now, Margaret. They will be taken care of when you are fed and soaking in this bubble bath you requested.”

“What’s in this for you, Lenin?” I blurt. “Why do you want to feed me and soak me?”

He’s quiet until we pull to a red light and he looks over, his eyes hidden behind black lenses. “You already find trusting me difficult, angel. I worry that if I explain my feelings, you will grow even more skittish with me.”

“Skittish?” I wrinkle my nose. “Ouch.”

He sighs. “You are adorable.”

“Double ouch.”

The light turns green. We pull into the intersection. “See? I am already fucking this up.”

On impulse, I reach over and lay my hand on his arm, fascinated when his whole body shudders at the simple touch, his white teeth flashing. “Tell me. I won’t grow more skittish.” I twist my lips. “I can’t promise I won’t get more adorable.”

He laughs softly and my skin prickles deliciously at the sound. Ooh. Am I flirting? I’m not terrible at it. My mother must have passed on her skills.

“Margaret…” He makes a right turn and the glittering nighttime harbor comes into view ahead, but I only spare it a brief glance because, oh my God, the tips of his ears are red. “I cannot describe what happened inside me when you walked into the room earlier. You made my cock hard, yes, I won’t lie about this. But I knew right away…your spirit is one to be protected at all costs. It is a beautiful one and I’m humbled you’d trust me with this mission.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “There was an angel in my midst and I’m just enough of a bastard to be greedy for all of her.” The leather on the steering wheel creaks again. “I want all of you.”

The air has completely left me, but it takes every ounce of my willpower not to squirm in my seat. I can’t decide if I should climb into his lap and grind out another orgasm—classy—or throw open the passenger door at the next red light and run for my life. This man is the kind of intense that doesn’t quit. We’ve only known each other for an hour…and already, I don’t think he’ll ever let me go. On one hand, that excites and comforts me. On the other, I know too well what it’s like to be trapped. I don’t feel that way now, with Lenin, but what if I do in the future? This was supposed to be my escape, but I’m already in a man’s web.

I swallow hard as his huge bicep shifts under his jacket sleeve.

What a sexy web to be stuck in, though, right?

“There are hotels in the Harbor. Nice ones. We could stay for tonight.”

Now I’ve got even more questions. “You can’t take me to your place?”

His hard face remains stoic. “Time for a change.”

My stomach sinks. “You’re not married, are you?”

He scoffs. “Nyet. I don’t even own house plant.” His gaze lands on me. “Now I have a girl to look after. Very ambitious of me.”

“Maybe you should have started with a parakeet.”

Lenin shakes his head. “You make me want to laugh, Margaret.”

“Why don’t you just laugh, then?”

He considers this for a moment, then makes a punctuated ha ha ha sound that sound more like spaced out cracks of thunder. “How was that?”

“We’ll work on it.”

A minute later, Lenin pulls up alongside a tall, stone building with ivy climbing up the side. He exits and hands his keys to a man in a blue jacket marked Valet. Then he opens my door and assists me to the curb. The night air is cold and blows my old, loose T-shirt around—which I changed into while packing in a hurry—but before I can shiver, Lenin wraps me in his suit jacket and pulls me into an embrace. The shoebox I’m holding is wedged between us and I wish it wasn’t there. He’s so incredibly warm and smells like chimney smoke floating in winter air. I’d like to wrap him around me and sleep for a thousand years.

It’s scary how much he makes me want to let my walls down.

Where did he come from, though? Why was he in the club tonight?

He tips my chin up and kisses my forehead, distracting me from my worries. “We’ll check in to the hotel first, then go find somewhere to eat. Da?”

I nod and let him continue to hold me. Maybe I’m being complacent or too gullible, but I just want to live the next few hours without fear. Fear I’m going to get kicked out onto the street, fear I won’t be able to scrounge up a meal. Fear in general. Lenin is giving me that and if I’m a fool to take it, so be it. I’ll go back to being a cynical jerk tomorrow.

Lenin holds me against his side as we enter the hotel lobby and I’m glad he covers me, because I’m way underdressed for this place. It’s got a mile-wide chandelier, sparkling floors and giant flower arrangements. Staff bustle through with luggage carts and piano music drifts softly through the interior. Lenin keeps me by his side as he checks us in to a room and requests my things be taken to our room. About ten minutes later, we’re walking across the street toward the many restaurants that line the harbor. “Kind of presumptuous of you to book only one room, Lenin,” I say, giving him a mock stern look. “I don’t suppose it had anything to do with me getting naked and climbing all over you earlier.”

“Are you being sarcastic, angel?” He grunts. “You’re very good at it.”

“That’s all you have to say? You’re not going to make an excuse about conserving money or—”

He looks at me like I’m insane. “Nyet.” He guides me into an Italian restaurant and we stop in front of the hostess station. “I’m going crazy needing to fuck you, Margaret. This is why we book only one room.”

The hostess blinks over at us with owl eyes.

“Table for one,” Lenin says, arching a dark brow at me. “Unless you’d prefer two.”

Laughter tickles my throat. “Honey, you made a joke!”

His only response is a grunt, but I detect a smile.

He’s deep in thought on the way to our table, glowering at every man in the packed dining room. Even the senior citizens. When we sit, he drags my chair closer and hits me with a frown. “You’ll call me ‘honey’ from now on. It’s nice.”

Enjoyment rushes through me. Who knew life could be fun?

Lenin is making it that way.

I’m thinking about climbing him again. If we weren’t in a restaurant, I might, but we’re in public, so maybe I’ll just keep flirting. His responses make me feel like I have control over the situation. No matter what I say or do, I know he won’t force me to do anything I’m not ready for. He made that much obvious when he shredded the couch while I lap danced him. I mean, he could have done anything he wanted to me—and he didn’t. I think…I think I might be safe.

Teasing him, flirting with him, even driving him crazy feels safe.

Have I ever felt safe?

Beneath the table, I let my fingertips walk up his thigh. His leg flexes into steel under my touch and he tugs on his collar. I trace his belt buckle with my index finger and he breathes my name. “You really want me to call you ‘honey’?” I tuck my finger just inside his pants. “I thought we settled on ‘Daddy.’”

He closes his eyes and breathes heavily for a moment. When he looks at me again, I witness a man burning on the inside. “Is it your plan to strip me of my sanity, angel?”

I lean up and whisper against his ear. “You really want to call me ‘angel’?”

“That is what you are,” he answers, voice harsh.

“But, um…” My own face flushes when I admit the next part. “I liked when you called me your good little girl.”

His mouth finds mine and consumes it with a growl. Lenin’s big body turns toward mine, his knee finding my core and pressing—and I’m instantly wet, soaking my panties and the material of his pants. He moves his knee side to side while tonguing my mouth and I whimper, trying to leave my chair and mount his beckoning lap. I want. I want the safety and satisfaction he gives me. I need to return it. What has he done to me?

“Enough, little girl.”

Lenin cracks the words like a whip and I fall back into my chair, laboring for oxygen. My nipples are in awful, aching peaks and my senses snap and simmer. But my body obeys Lenin’s order, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It seems I can flirt and drive him mad, but he is the boss. My God, I’m so turned on by that, I can barely stand it.

Without a doubt, I’ve found something I need.

Maybe even the only man who makes me need it.

Please let this be real. Please let him be right. Not a trap.

I watch with starved eyes as he blots his upper lip with the white table napkin, nodding at the waiter who comes to stand by the table. “Does pasta sound good to you, angel?”

“Anything sounds good.” Lenin points out a few things to the waiter on the menu and the man returns quickly with a bread basket, a glass of red wine and a beer, leaving them on the table and departing as fast as he came. “I think you make him nervous,” I say to Lenin, trying not to look desperate as I reach for a piece of bread.

“Do I make you nervous?”

“Yes. But not for the same reason.”

He frowns. “We will work on this.” When I nod slowly, his big shoulders relax and he pulls my chair closer, cursing in Russian when it won’t come any further. He watches me plow through a dinner roll and hands me another. “Will you tell me what is in the shoebox, Margaret?”

I pause, mid-chew. “Oh, um…”

“It is personal?”

“Yes, but I want to tell you,” I say, truthfully. “Horse figurines.”

I love that he isn’t surprised, only curious. “They are special to you.”

“Yes.” I pick up my napkin and twist it around my fingers. “When I was ten, my mother took me to a farm and we went horseback riding. It was the best day. Ever. Just her and me and we stayed all day, feeding the horses and giving them all silly names. When we were leaving, she stole the figurines from the farmer and surprised me with them on the bus ride home.” I shrug. “I know stealing isn’t right, but she’s never done anything by the book. That’s just my mother. If I didn’t have those horses, I wouldn’t have anything to remember her by.”

Lenin is quiet. “Then I’m glad you have them.” He picks up my hand and kisses the small of my wrist, sending a gust of giddiness into my stomach. “It pains me that you were forced to dance for me to save them. If you’d only asked, I would have torn down the building to find them and lay them at your feet.”

“I think I know that now,” I whisper.

“Good.” His tongue traces the veins at my wrist. “I find I can’t regret you rubbing your creamy little cunt on me until you drenched my zipper.”

My moan, my pulse, my brainwaves are choppy. Why do these forbidden words sound so amazing coming from his mouth? “I can’t seem to regret it, either.”

“Mmmm. You’ll rub that sweet cunt on my face later, Margaret.” He tongues my palm. “All over my tongue and chin and cheeks. Then I’ll kiss that mess back onto your pretty face while I mate you like a fucking animal.”

“Oh,” I wheeze, my feminine flesh constricting painfully. “Oh.”

An affirmative rumble leaves his chest. “Let’s get back to the horses.”

Sensory overload. “The…what?”

“Horses, Margaret.” Appearing half amused, half predatory, Lenin traces my lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “I will bring you to ride horses. Would this make you happy?”

My spine straightens. “You’d do that?”

Lenin is visibly affronted that I would doubt him. “Of course. We will give them silly names, too. Like…Joe.”

I giggle. “Joe?”

“It is a silly name for a horse, is it not?”

“Why the long face, Joe?” I give a firm nod. “I like it.”

He is very pleased with himself.

“Are you going to steal me something?”

“I will merely ask for whatever it is you wish, Margaret. Firmly.”

Not for the first time, I sense darkness inside of Lenin, but I’m too warm, safe and full of carbs to question it tonight. Maybe tomorrow. And then our food arrives and I sip my wine while enjoying the best meal I’ve ever eaten.

Life is good.

But only for now? Or forever?