“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.”