“Alexandr,” I breathe. My hands rest on his shoulders. I jump inside as his muscles work under my hands. Expertly he unfastens my bra. I lean into him, yearning as he cups and squeezes my breasts. Everything he does, every part of me he touches, I want more.

  He kisses me all over. Slowly. I grab his hair and grip him. His lips suck and tug on my breasts and my nipples. My cries grow longer and louder. Inside me, I’m ready to burst.

  “I will worship and devour every part of you.”

  My lips part as he pops the button on the front of my jeans. My stomach quivers. His hands slide over my thin white panties. He slides my jeans down over my thighs.

  “You are as beautiful as I always imagined you would be. All the years of waiting have been worth it. I knew you would come and you are perfect.”

  Then he slips off my panties. He sighs as he sniffs them then lays them gently aside.

  My hips jerk as he pulls my thighs apart. I resist. His eyes blaze. I haven’t the strength to defy him. I know he will be forceful. When he pulls my legs apart, I make him use his strength. And it makes me gush and sigh.

  His kisses are on the tops of my thighs, I squirm and shout his name.

  Pulling my ass to the edge of the couch, he flicks his tongue over my exposed and open lips. He darts inside, along my crevice, slips from the back to the front. His mouth closes over my nub. The point of his tongue teases and torments my zinging, aching pearl. I wriggle and yell. He knows exactly how set sparks inside me, to make them crackle along my nerves. He lights fires. Their heat licks up into my breasts, under my thighs, along my arms and legs.

  His tongue dances. My fingers clench and my toes curl. Flames of ice and trickles of freezing fire wave through my body.

  All of me shudders as his long wet tongue finally breaks in to explore me inside.

  “Alexandr. Oh, God, Alexandr!” My hands clench and twist in his hair. My whole body coils around his mouth. My toes curl and my feet beat and hammer on his shoulders. “Alexandr! What are you doing to me?”

  The walls inside me brim and bulge, ready to burst. I can’t bear any more. But I’ll die if he stops. His tongue flexes deeper. With the touch of a feather, his thumb awakens my back passage. My thighs slam shut on his head and I crack wide open. I burst, gushing, I shout and moan. My ass tips up to push more of him into me.

  I beat on his back with my hands and feet.

  He pulls me down. I feel like I am slipping all the way into his cruel, greedy mouth.

  He sucks. “God, Alexandr! Not again!”

  He has no mercy. He opens me wider. His tongue burrows in higher. My head thrashes from side to side.

  “God, Alexandr! Stop! Stop!”

  As if.

  He devours me and I explode, helpless. I tumble through waterfalls and fireworks. I’m past saving. Shaking, shouting, gushing. Drenched.

  He sweeps me up and carries me down, deeper into the superyacht. I tremble in his arms.

  “Don’t worry,” he tells me, “You will not lose your purity. Not yet.”

  But I want to.

  He senses it and he tells me, “You are not ready to take that step.”

  “You… you won’t force me?”

  His lip curls to flash a glint of his teeth. “Not before you are ready.”

  I shiver. He carries me down carpeted stairs into a sumptuous bedroom. Having this powerful man tell me that he is going to take control of me makes me tremble all the way through.

  “Will I know when I’m ready?”

  “I will know.”

  He sets me down on the bed. The scent of his maleness makes my head swim. As he stands in front of me, the bulge in his pants makes my breath catch. I want to reach up. To feel it under my fingers. Feel the weight of it. Squeeze its hardness. I want to take it out. Brush the heat of it against my cheek. Taste it with my lips and my tongue.

  He sees my eyes widen and I lick my lips as I lift my hands.

  “No.” Fiercely, he tells me, “Not yet.”

  I ache.

  He cups his hand around the back of my head. Holds me. I want to plunge closer. Bite him through his pants.

  He tells me, “We have all the time in the world.” Whatever he tells me, I will believe him. I know that.

  “You are my princess. And soon you will be my queen. You are my love and you will be my life. I will fill you with my seed. Over and over. Together we will make new life. We will create a beautiful baby. Then another. And another. You will be the best mother there ever was for all of our children.”

  He begins to open his shirt. My head swims in the male scent of him. I breathe deeply to savor him more. I want to reach out to him but he is in charge. I do what he tells me. I want to be under his command.

  Hands like a surgeon, a hunter’s instinct and the mind of a ruthless killer.

  My voice is almost a whisper. “What does it take? When will I be ready?”

  He takes my face in his hands. “This will be your first time.” I nod. “I know it will. I want your first time to be perfect in every way.” His lip trembles. “I will give you total satisfaction. Everything you could have ever thought of and dreamed about, I will make it ten times better than you imagined.”

  “You already do, Alexandr.”

  “I want you at the peak of your cycle. I am going to make you totally pregnant.”

  He pulls me to him.

  The distant sound of a two-tone siren approaches.

  At first I think it’s really loud for us to be able to hear it, far from the shores and deep inside the superyacht. But as it gets closer, I realize that it must be on the water. It must be another boat.

  I look into his eyes. His words echo in my mind, You will be ready. Soon.

  The siren makes a circle around us. Twice, three times. Closer. Alexandr’s face darkens. Quickly he seizes his shirt. His eyes narrow.

  He instructs me, “Wait here.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Him

  RIVER POLICE BOAT pulls alongside. From the wheelhouse I shout across the water at them, “What are you doing?”

  A voice on a loud-hailer says, “We just need to check the paperwork for the yacht is in order.”

  This is bullshit. I run down to the side of the yacht where they’re tying up their pathetic little boat. Their captain climbs the ladder. I’ve an urge to knock him straight back into the Neva River.

  This is Russia, though. I know it’s total bullshit, what kind of bullshit? Some cop looking for a shakedown, or is this part of something bigger? A gangster sending a message, or maybe a judge who thinks his slice of the action should be bigger.

  It could be pushback from the defense minister. He did what he was supposed to the other day. Now maybe he’s straining at the leash.

  The captain comes aboard. He has no papers in his hand. Whatever this is, it’s nothing legitimate. He puts out a hand. Smiling. This is all wrong.

  “Can we go inside, Mr. Roskovski?” A foolish man. Some police captains come up through the ranks and learn the ways of the street before the smooth, boardroom talk. Not him. He’s from some college where the managerial classes send pampered kids. Someone bought him a job as a middle-ranking police officer. He’s big, but he’s out of condition. His hands are smooth and his stance is unguarded.

  His feet are apart the way life coaches teach businessmen. The power stance. Looks strong, but it’s weak.

  “No.” I tell him. “I haven’t invited you aboard. You’re lucky I don’t just throw you over the side. We can talk out here on the deck.”

  “This could be a delicate matter, Mr. Roskovski.”

  As he talks, two of his men clamber aboard. They dash behind us, ducking into the yacht.

  Relaxed, I swing my body in a smooth, easy flow. From my feet, turning my ankles and my hips, all my weight rises through my torso and my shoulders, up along my arm. My fist spikes the side of his jaw.

  His head snaps sideways and he goes down like a loose sack of potatoes. He will be out for a minute and a half. Probably no more. I run inside, I slam the door and lock it behind me. If the captain comes to, he’ll have nowhere to go. My yacht looks like a palace on water but it’s built as a fortress.

  I’m running, only thinking about my Cate. My love. If those two cops go near her, I’ll break them in two. I run fast, straight for the master bedroom. The two police have barged inside.

  Cate is standing in the far corner of the sumptuous bedroom, between two walls of mirrored closets. Her face is wide with fear. She grips a sheet to cover herself.

  I catch the nearest river cop by his shoulder and spin him back toward me. My forearm up like a club, I spin my body. All of my weight rolls through my forearm, smashing my wrist into his throat.

  I’m angry that Cate has to watch him convulse and retch. It’s a certain death but not a quick one. He’s still choking. I grab his body and haul him in front of me. Pull the gun from his holster.

  The other cop reacted fast. He had his weapon drawn and aimed. He got two shots. The bullets thump into his dying colleague. A mercy. It shortened his suffering. I drill a single shot into the cop’s forehead. It goes straight through. A crazed spider-web crazes my antique mirror behind him.

  He sinks, eyes and mouth wide in astonishment. I drop his dead companion.

  Cate jumps across the bed. Into my arms. I hold her close. She shivers. I have never been more turned on.

  I kiss her. Deep and long. Longer than I intend. The urges have risen, hard and high. I may not be able to resist much longer.

  Holding her face, with the dark iron tang of blood in my mouth, I tell her, “There’s another detail I have to deal with.” Her eyes search mine. “It won’t take me more than a couple of minutes.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “It’ll be ugly.”

  “If I’m with you, it will be beautiful.”

  Her tender, wet smile stiffens my cock. My whole body swells.

  Her soft eager body stretches against me. I have to pull free. My point of no return is too close now.

  I give her a Chinese silk robe. It flows around her curves. She is even sexier than she was naked. The taste of blood and iron in my mouth sharpens.

  I carry one river cop on each shoulder, through the yacht and back to the rear deck entrance.

  My Cate holds the doors open. The police captain is still a heap on the deck. I haul the two dead cops to the side of the boat and drop them over. They crash onto the deck of their river cruiser.

  I rush back to the galley and fill a bucket with cold water. Back on deck, I sling the water over the police captain. Soaked and groggy, he groans and shakes.

  I order him, “Get up.”

  He slouches, staggering to his feet. The fool doesn’t have the training to snap to at an order. What rubbish they promote these days. He must be the child of some middle-ranking functionary. A man with enough clout to get a commission for his idiot son, but not enough brains to know that the fool can’t handle the post.

  I tell him, “Stand up straight for once in your life.”

  He tries. It’s a pathetic effort. He’s a miserable sight, dripping on the deck at the side of my yacht.

  I look in his sorry face. “When the defense minister sent you, what were your instructions?”

  “We were to come and give you a message.”

  “And what was the message?”

  “He said, ‘Things have to change.’”

  “Well, for once, I agree with him. I’m sending him a message back.”

  “What is it?”

  “You.” Cate’s eyes widen and gleam as I pull the gun from my pocket. The captain has the same startled expression as I plug a shot between his eyes. He tumbles back over the side. He lands, broken, on top of his men. I untie the police cruiser and shove it away from my yacht. It will drift until someone finds it. It won’t be long.

  The defense minister will understand my message.

  I hold my Cate. She’s shaking in a way that my body responds to.

  “I have to tell Mr. Putin that he needs a new defense minister,” I pull her close and stroke her glowing face, “I may let him know who it will be.”

  The power in my voice makes her tremble. I know that I need to wait until her cycle is at its peak.

  But I can’t.

  She’s wide eyed and open mouthed as I sweep her up and carry her inside. I kick the door shut behind us.

  A crew member’s voice comes from an internal stair. “We heard a disturbance.”

  I shout. “Everything is fine. Shut the doors and lock them. Tell all the crew, do not come to the upper deck. Don’t disturb me under any circumstances. You all have the rest of the day to relax.”

  “Sir.” The locks tumble and click.

  Cate’s wet eyes search my face. Her tongue slips along her lower lip. I wanted to prepare her more. But I can’t. I throw her onto a leather couch. Her silk robe falls open. Her breasts heave as they bounce free.

  Her thighs fall open. Instinctively, she pulls them together. I start to force them apart. She holds back. My eyes narrow. I look in her face. Fear and uncertainty are in her eyes and her mouth. But she nods. Twice. Licks her lips as she nods a third time and her eyes widen.

  I pull her knees apart and she moans. I have no more control. I grip her by her hair.

  “Do you know what a ‘safe word’ is?”

  She nods.

  “Pick one.”

  Her head shakes.

  I pull her hair. My cock is so hard I can smell it myself. “Pick one!”

  Her voice shakes. “Volcano.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “No,” but her grin is so eager it’s filthy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HE LICKS HER lips. As I yank my belt open, her eyes fix on it. Then they rove back up to mine. I watch her face as I pull the belt from the loops. She bites the side of her lip and looks in my eye.

  I can’t wait another moment. I need her soft, wet flesh.

  I undo my pants and drop them. I lift her with one hand. Her legs wrap tight around me. Her heat, her soft, wet pussy, rides and grinds against me. Her hips wriggle downward. I yank on her hair. She gasps.

  “I am in control.”

  She gasps again as she nods.

  I hold her throat. Tight. Her eyes roll. Then I flip her, back onto the couch. Onto her hands and knees. The Chinese silk gown hangs from her sides. Her ass is bare, showing me her wet pussy, waiting as her hips tilt up. I glimpse her wonderful breasts. Her eyes and lips are wet.

  Her eyes widen as she looks back for her first sight of my massive cock. Pulsing red and aching hard for her.

  Her fabulous ass shakes in front of me. Her scents drive me wild. Blood sings in my ears.