Masks of a Tiger (10 page)

Her body contracted, and
stabs of raw need travelled from her clit out in waves of sweet, spiraling
torture. Just as her orgasm threatened to erupt,
Grisha
bit down on her sensitive lips and pinched her clit. She screamed, and he
laughed into her belly.

"Not
yet, my sweet
Neeve
.
When you come this time
I want you splintering around my cock, milking me dry, while you scream my name
and
know
that you're mine.
Mine to do with as I
please.
Mine and only mine."

His voice had dropped an
octave with those words of ownership that settled dangerously close to her
heart. She could almost believe he meant them. But this was just a scene. She
had to remember that. This is what he did. What had Estelle said?
Grisha
is very good at fulfilling your fantasies
.
She couldn't afford to get lost in the illusion. This lifestyle wasn't for her,
it wasn't. It couldn't be.

There was a movement of
air, and then a million little beestings erupted on her tummy. She screamed and
her eyes flew open to see
Grisha
flick the flogger
again. With deathly precision it skimmed across her breasts, and she sucked in
her breath at the heat that spread over her skin. Her pussy clenched, and tears
pricked the back of her eyes again. She hadn't been this emotional since her
parents died. She never cried, damn it, yet here she was reduced to the edge of
tears again by this man, and the myriad of emotions he unleashed in her. A few
more well aimed swats followed until her entire torso was a mass of stinging,
sensitive skin.

"Show me your
fists, sweetheart. Let me know you're still with me."

She clenched her hands
obediently, and he smiled. He removed her gag, and the kiss that followed
shocked her with its tenderness. It was a slow exploration of sensual bliss
that started a gnawing hunger inside her belly and left her aching to be close
to him. Tears rose again, and he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against
her.

"Let it go,
sweetheart. Let it all go. It doesn't matter anymore."

The sob came deep from
within her soul and shocked her with the violent intensity of it all. She tried
desperately to hold it in, but cradled against him, with his hands massaging
her scalp and him whispering Russian words into her ear, the sweet burn of the
ropes into her skin adding to the ache in her soul, she couldn't.

Neeve
broke down
and cried. Tears of hurt, frustration, wonder, grief, sorrow, and hope all
mixed in together, until she was hoarse, until she couldn't cry anymore. When
she finally had herself back under control she was back on the bed, cradled in
the protective cocoon of
Grisha's
arms.

"Now, that wasn't
so hard was it, sweetheart?"

Chapter Seven

Grisha
held his
woman in his arms, his tiger for once quiet. He breathed in her scent and
willed his body to behave. She needed tender after care right now, not hot sex,
even if his balls were in danger of falling off. He ground his teeth and
counted backwards, but with her soft curves pressed into him, he had a hard
time holding onto his composure. She stirred, and he brushed her hair off her
face better to see her expression. With her face all blotchy from crying, her
eyes red rimmed and moisture still clinging to her lashes she still looked the
most beautiful woman ever to him. Her delicate skin carried the marks of his
claws and the rope, and his balls grew tight. His cock twitched against her leg,
and he groaned when she touched the grotesquely swollen head of his dick with
the tip of her finger. That light touch was enough to have his pre-cum spill,
and he closed his eyes and breathed in and out of his nose.

The bed dipped as she
moved, and she pressed an open mouthed kiss on his abdomen at the same time as
she grasped his shaft.

"Jesus,
woman."
The curse hung between them, and his hips bucked off the
bed. His eyes flew open to see her smile. A shy, tender smile of uncertainty,
that was his complete undoing, as were her whispered words.

"Please, Sir, let
me?"

Did she have any idea
what she was doing? How sweetly submissive she was being? He groaned and cupped
her face in his hands.

"You don't have to
do that. I didn't bring you here to service me." Her eyes widened in
surprise, and he rubbed his thumb over her full lips. An image of those lips
wrapped around his aching cock made him groan. His thighs shook with the effort
to contain himself. He couldn’t remember ever being this desperate for relief.

"You didn't?"
Her voice sounded terribly small and unlike her usual self.
Another
reason not to take advantage of her current vulnerability.

"No,
sweetheart.
I brought you here to help you, to show you what you're
capable of. To show you what you need. To show you a better way of dealing with
all that hurt you carry around inside of you, than injuring yourself."

She swallowed and
dropped her eyes to his chest. Fresh tears glistened on her eyelashes, and
Grisha
kissed them away. She made a strangled sound in the
back of her throat and wrapped her arms around his neck, straddling him, until
she was as close to him as it was humanly possible to be, without actually
joining their bodies.
 

"Remember what I
said about honesty?" She nodded into his chest. "It starts with
you.
You need to be honest with yourself, first, truly
explore
what you need to be happy, to let go of whatever demons haunt you. I think, I
hope, today has been a first step in that direction for you. And I'm humbled
that you trusted me enough to help you take that step. You have a lot to think
about, sweetheart, before we can take this further."

She propped herself up
on her elbows using his chest, an action that brought her pussy dangerously
close to his throbbing cock, and they both groaned. Their eyes locked, and
sweat broke out on his upper lip. He clenched the bed sheets to stop himself
from grabbing her hips and impaling her on his dick.

Fire flared in
Neeve's
eyes, and that hint of defiance was back when she
lifted her chin.

"Bullshit!"
She smacked her fist into his chest hard enough to wind him, and the growl
rumbling from her would have done any female tiger proud. He grinned at her,
and he could almost see the steam coming out her ears.

"This is fucking
bullshit. You want me. I want you. What is there to think about? You want
honesty? I give you fucking honesty. I have no clue why I react to you in the
way that I do. Maybe Nathan is right. Maybe you're
all
right. Maybe I am really a sub. How the fuck would I know? All
I do know is that if you think you can pull any of that collaring crap on me,
I'll have your balls for breakfast."

He winced in between
laughter, and she pummeled his chest with her fists until he caught them and
flipped them over until he was on top with her pinned underneath him.

"Damn you, let me
go, you stubborn, overbearing, idiot you." She bucked underneath him, and
he did the only thing he could do. He gave into temptation.

****

Neeve
had no idea
how it happened, but one minute she'd been sitting on top of him, getting more
and more annoyed at the stubborn man's insistence that she didn't know her own
mind, and the next he had her pinned into the bed with his erection hard and
heavy pulsing at her entrance. His eyes bled back to his tiger's, and he
scraped his fangs along her neck. She went perfectly still at his growled
command to do so, and her insides turned to molten lava at the heated look he
gave her.

"Give me your
hands."

She hastened to comply,
and he fastened her wrists into the very same restraints she'd used on him
earlier. He repeated the same process with her legs until she was
lying
spread eagled on the bed, every last line of her body
open and vulnerable to him. Her skin tightened until it felt too small for her
frame under his intense scrutiny. He ran his hands over every inch of her body,
driving her wild with need. By the time he finally reached her pussy, she was
about ready to scream at him. She bit her tongue however. He was very much back
in full Dom mode, and trying to hurry him along would only achieve the
opposite. She had learnt that much.

He studied her piercing
as though he had never seen it before, and her stomach dropped at the sinful
smile that crept over his features when he looked from her to the side cabinet.

"Sir?
Please?" Her breathy voice was a mere whisper, but he raised his eyes to
her face and stroked his cock slowly. Her mouth went dry following that up and
down movement, and she whimpered her need. Long, hard, and thick, it jutted up
toward his navel, the prominent veins testament to how aroused he was. His face
contorted as though in
pain,
and
Neeve
shut her eyes in relief when he pulled a packet of condoms out of the side
stand and made short work of sheathing himself.

He tested her readiness
by running his fingers through her slit and licked the wetness he found there off
with his tongue.

"You're so fucking
wet for me, sweetheart. It's beautiful." He lined himself up with her
entrance, and their eyes locked when he seated himself in one smooth stroke. He
swore, and her internal muscles clamped around him, drawing him in farther as
her body opened up for him.

"Jesus, I'm sorry,
sweetheart, this will be quick." He panted the words in between thrusts
into her core that had her body climbing in record time. The delicious weight
of him on top of her, the inability to move, as his thrusts grew more and more
urgent, his harsh breaths in her ear, all combined to pitch her headfirst into
release. He pounded her into the bed with such force the whole bed shook and
her teeth snapped together, and when he changed the angle of his thrust,
Neeve's
body splintered. She did scream his name, as wave
after wave of bliss crashed over her, and he grunted his release into her
shoulder. He collapsed on top of her, and for the second time that day
Neeve
burst into tears at his murmured apology.

"I'll do better
next time."

****

Grisha
froze at the
renewed tears streaming down
Neeve's
face. Had he
hurt her? But no, these weren't tears of sorrow. She smiled at him through her
tears, and he kissed them off her face and released her from her bonds. He
massaged her arms and legs, ever mindful of the fact that she was new to this
and then walked to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. He washed his hands
and face and willed his breathing to calm down. The intensity of his feelings
for the woman next door overwhelmed him completely. Even now his tiger was
anxious to return to her side.

He had no idea how he
was supposed to ever let her go. Heaven help him, but he wanted it all. He
wanted her to wear his collar and his mate mark; he wanted to come home to find
her waiting for him, and he wanted to see her slight body heavy and swollen
with his child.

He shook his head and
dug his claws into the porcelain wash bowl. He needed to shift and let his
tiger roam free, to roar his frustration to the heavens. His mother's dying
words came back to haunt him. "I haven't once regretted meeting your
father. I wasn't what he needed, and I had to let him go, but he gave me you,
Grisha
. I pray that you find the woman you need one day.
Just remember to truly love someone is to set them free."

His mother, God rest her
soul, had died minutes after uttering those damning words.
Grisha
had decided there and then that he would never allow himself to fall in love.
To let anyone close enough to break through his defenses.
Love just brought misery and heartache. His mother had loved his father, but
the little human had just been a distraction for him. He'd left her within
weeks of meeting, without telling her that he was a shifter. When Natasha had
found herself pregnant, she'd had no idea she was carrying a tiger shifter, so
the first time
Grisha
had undergone the shift he'd
had no idea what was happening to him. He'd done his best to hide his “illness”
from his mother. He hadn't been able to hide his nightmares, however.

Eventually, she had
wheedled the truth out of him. Natasha
Sergewski
had
taken the news with the same calm, and quiet determination she'd faced anything
else life had thrown at her. She'd helped him to find out as much as she could
about shifters. The forests of Russia were rife with legends and myth, and they
soon found out that most of those myths were steeped in truth.

After the death of his
beloved mother, a teenage
Grisha
had left Russia
behind. He'd back-packed through Europe, supporting himself through odd jobs,
and expanding his sexual education. To be in control of his sexual partner was
a necessity he could not function without. By the time he met Ink in a bar
brawl in Lithuania he'd known who he was and what he needed. Ink had started a
fight with some locals, after the men had taken offence at one of the girl's
shameless flirting with Ink.
Grisha
had come to Ink's
rescue, and over the heavy beating they'd received the two shifters had bonded,
and a lifelong friend ship had been formed.