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My heart hammers in my chest. That warning voice in my mind is hissing at me to resist, resist, resist! But the alcohol combined with the hard, warm body of the man behind me radiates a numb determination around my body and I just need to move. We weave through the crowds to where the music beats loud and rhythmic above us and all around us, the bassline thumping alongside my heart. The conscious part of my brain is floundering because I don’t know how to dance. But some subconscious instinct takes over and seizes my limbs, making me sway, then raise my arms above my head and roll my hips side to side.

  As though pulled by invisible marionette strings, I start to move with the music, and Andrei slides in close behind me, his arms coming down to keep me near. His large hands fall to my waist, rocking me, gently controlling the rhythm of my movements. I can feel his ticklish, vodka-tinged breath on my cheek, his lips brushing along the slope of my neck to press soft, teasing kisses against my jaw. His hands slide up and down my frame, squeezing my thighs, roving up my stomach to subtly brush over my breasts. The music, the sensation of his body against mine, and the intoxicating drink are sending me into a confusing state.

  I’m dizzy and frightened and exhilarated all at once. I can feel a wetness growing between my thighs and suddenly I can’t stop myself from spinning around to face Andrei. I tilt my head up to look at him, peering into his dark eyes, his solid features, and my hands both go up to bring his face down closer to mine…

  So I can kiss him.

  At first, my lips are closed tight, and a cold nervousness threatens to unravel the moment. But then I remember that this is my husband. He chose me. And he wants me. My lips part and my tongue prods into his mouth, and he answers with the same. His hands slide into my hair and along my lower back, pulling me into him so that I can feel every rippling, tensing muscle of his body against my own.

  There’s something long and hard against my leg, and I lean into it hungrily, without a single thought as to what it might mean. I kiss him in a way I never knew was possible for me. I kiss him like I’ve never seen before, save for one time…

  My mind flashes momentarily back to the most scandalous thing I’ve ever seen, a memory which has sustained my flickering desires for love for years. I was fourteen, and it was one of the rare times when my mother allowed me to visit the park with her and Isaiah, who was only a toddler then. He threw his ball, which rolled down a hill, and I went to fetch it for him.

  At the bottom of the hill, several yards from where the ball had stopped rolling, there was a willow tree by a pond. Beneath the graceful, slim branches of the willow lay a couple, tangled up in each other’s arms and legs, their lips locked together in a passionate kiss. They were fully clothed, but there was such an obvious heat between them that they might as well have been naked, the only two human beings left in the world. They did not acknowledge me, and even though I knew it was a sin, I stood entranced, watching them for several minutes until my mother came looking for me. When she saw what I was looking at, she yanked me away by the arm, scolding me for being a voyeur, urging me to beg God’s forgiveness.

  After that, I was never allowed to go to the park with them again, instead having to stay home and practice my piano lessons. But every time they went out and I was left alone at the black and white keys, my mind inevitably wandered back to that afternoon in the park. I wondered if I would ever know a passion like that.

  And now, wrapped in Andrei’s arms, I feel a unique stirring deep inside me. It’s happening — despite the grim circumstances of our union, despite his coldness and my fear, things are beginning to change. He’s an imposing marble statue and I am a trembling, lost little girl, but he is beginning to thaw and I am finding my strength.

  It’s only the start. We hardly know each other. But I know this is real, whatever it is.

  And when Andrei starts to guide me backward through the crowd and into a sequestered chamber near the back of the club, I don’t resist. The sign on the door says VIP LOUNGE and when he opens the door, there’s no one inside. As though fate itself has aligned to let us in, alone together at last.

  He sits down on a plush red sofa and pulls me down to sit sideways on his lap, his mouth still devouring mine needily. When his hands slide up my thighs, I inhale sharply, and fear begins to sneak its ugly tendrils back through my mind. Surely he isn’t going to touch me like he did before… not in a public place! This isn’t what I ever envisioned for my first time. I suddenly feel so exposed, so uncertain, my former oblivious fog clearing away.

  When his fingers brush over my panties underneath my dress, I break away with a jolt.

  Andrei looks at me, his features hard and cold yet again.

  I start to open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what to say. Suddenly, I am very afraid. I’ve rebelled. I’ve teased him. I made him want me so badly and now I’m pushing him away! To serve and please my husband is my primary purpose in life, and now I’m screwing it all up. I remember my mother warning me, ‘Do as your husband tells you, Cassandra. Even if you don’t want to, you must always obey him, or he will be angry with you. The only way to protect yourself, to be a godly woman, is to do as he says.’

  My heart pounds in my chest, waiting for his reaction.

  A flicker of darkness crosses his face and I prepare for my punishment.

  11

  Andrei

  Each thump of her heart that I feel makes me want her more, and I sense her desire for me creeping out of the tight-knit cocoon she’s spent so long bound up in.

  I’ve never desired her so strongly. As my hands venture dangerously up her thighs, pushing away all the expensive lace that makes her all the more rare and precious, I hear soft moans escape her lips. And they seem to beg me to press onward.

  I will make her first time worth remembering.

  I’m looming over her like a ravenous predator, and as my hands explore her body, Cassie seems to be readying herself to be devoured, urging me forward. With a low growl in my chest, I wrap my hands around her hips and move in to give her all that she could possibly want…

  But she recoils.

  The way she moves is unmistakable—I feel her limbs pull into her body, moving away from me instinctively, and as I freeze in place, still as a statue, I look into those large, shining eyes of hers and see the telltale glint of fear in their pupils. She fears me.

  A true lamb cowering before a wolf.

  “Cassie,” I say in a whisper, drawing back ever so slightly, “printsessa, what’s the matter? Do you not want this?”

  Her voice cracks as she struggles for words tragically.

  “I…” Before she can continue, her cheeks flush an even deeper red, and she turns her face away from me, shame mixing with her terror as she curls up tight into herself on the couch.

  My heart sinks, and I realize that I’ve pushed her too far. Maybe this young woman truly isn’t ready for such an experience, not so soon after escaping the stiflingly repressive world she was reared in.

  “Cassie, I know I may seem frightening to you still,” I say gently as her eyes flit back to me briefly, “but I only wish to bring you pleasure—and there’s so much of it just within reach. But I would never force you to do something you don’t fully desire.”

  “No!” she gasps, looking suddenly panicked. “No no, I-I want this, I really do! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she wrings her hands together. “I should never have said anything, I—I don’t mean to make you think I…” She bites her lip, stumbling over her words.

  “I just don’t know if I’m ready,” she finally lets out.

  “Cassie…” I say to her in a low tone, and she looks up at me fearfully. I meet her gaze, even and unreadable, and I let the moment linger between us for an instant before continuing.

  “You will never have to do anything you don’t want to do. I didn’t buy you for you to be my slave. All you have to say is stop, and I will. Cassie, you are more than just an object to me. You’re a person, and you deserve to have a say in what happens in
your life. I know you may have been taught only to obey, but from now on I want you to choose your own path. I will do everything in my power to make you happy, even if it means I never get to touch you again.”

  There were tears in her eyes already, but they well up to the point of bursting in the moment that follows, and before I know it, she throws her arms around me, embracing me tightly, and I slowly return the gesture, pressing my cheek against the top of her head.

  Then I feel a kiss at my neck.

  Her face has moved up from my chest, and her soft lips are pressed into my exposed skin, and as she lingers there for some time, I feel her hands exploring my torso with more bravery than before.

  I feel her heart on my chest again, thumping away, worked up into a storm as it tears itself apart between its repressed, chained-up desires and its need to free itself.

  I move my face down to meet her, and with a newfound hunger I didn’t know her to possess, she reaches up and wraps her hands around my head, hoisting herself up into a kiss.

  It’s deep and long, and she moves her lips against mine as though desiring so much more. I do not deny her. Sliding my hands around her waist, I let her meld into me, moving my tongue to her lips gently at first. As they part to let me in, I delve forward with abandon, and she meets me with just as much energy.

  Now her gasps become desperate between kisses, and we become totally lost in one another as I feel her grasping at my clothes, climbing me needfully and hungrily.

  “Andrei,” she whispers into my ear as she rests her chin on my shoulder, letting my hands grasp her ass. “All my life, I’ve never felt like I’ve had a real choice in things. Even if I wanted something, I felt like it was decided before I was ever involved. With you, though…”

  She moves back just enough to look me in the eyes, and I look upon her radiant features and feel my heart begin to melt.

  “...I feel like I can finally desire and choose with you, Andrei.”

  “You deserve nothing but what you wish, printsessa,” I whisper back in a husky voice.

  “I admit,” she says, “I’m...I’m still afraid, but I know for certain that I want this. I want this more than I’ve wanted anything in a long, long time.”

  My gaze boring into her, I ask, “Do you want me?” I take her hands and draw them across my body, feeling my rock-hard muscles, swollen with blood flow that she stirred up in me. Slowly, I trace her hands down towards my thighs, getting dangerously close to the stiff shaft between them. “Do you want everything you feel, everything my body can give you? Do you want all of that to be inside you, taking every ounce of you?”

  “Yes,” she breathes, “but I just don’t know how. I’ve never even seen…” her voice trails off as her eyes fall on the bulge of my cock, the hard outline desperate to escape my pants.

  I move in and kiss her again, my tongue swirling through her mouth, dancing with hers as we revel in one another’s warmth.

  “Don’t worry,” I assure her as we break. “I will teach you.”

  There’s a long pause between us, and her eyelashes flutter after she steals another glance at my manhood.

  “Will you show me tonight?”

  12

  Cassie

  The ride home from Brighton Beach is a whirlwind. Even though the drive there seemed to last forever, the trip back seems to pass by in the blink of an eye. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that Andrei doesn’t seem to pay any attention to traffic laws and speed limits on the way to the apartment building. The Corvette weaves nimbly in and out of traffic, down side streets and shortcuts, some probably at least borderline illegal, in order to get us home before our heads clear completely.

  I wonder if Andrei feels the same way I do right now: all flaming nerves and skipping heart — but then I remember that he has probably done this before. It’s a rather strange thought, that my husband has most likely touched other women before me. He is older than me, older than any of the young men from the congregation or the homeschooling community I previously viewed as contenders for my hand. And although I have not asked him outright, all signs point to the fact that he is not of my faith. Living outside the church, it can only be assumed that he has not been saving himself for marriage as I have.

  As handsome as he is, I doubt he’s had any difficulty finding women.

  The thought of his hands on another woman’s body, his lips on another woman’s mouth, makes me want to cry. How can I possibly live up to what he has had before me? I don’t know what I’m doing at all. Andrei plans to teach me, but what if I don’t do it right?

  These fears rocket through my head, plaguing my thoughts so fully that I block out the ride home. When the Corvette finally stops outside the building, my stomach churns. I want this — I want him — more than anything, but I’m just so scared.

  Andrei turns to me, leans over the console, and takes my face in one big, strong hand. He gazes into my eyes for a long moment while I hold my breath in anticipation. Then he dives in to kiss me hard, his tongue pushing into my mouth and his fingers tracing down my cheek, my jaw line, my neck. I feel wanted. It’s a foreign feeling, but I am beginning to crave it intensely.

  Wordlessly, he gets out of the car and helps me out, as well, before taking me by the hand and leading me into the building. With a silent urgency we rush to the elevator. As soon as the doors close, he pins me between his body and the wall, kissing me and feeling me up. His manhood presses hot and hard against my hip and I rock into it, eliciting a groan from deep inside his throat.

  The elevator doors open with a ding and he scoops me up so that my legs are wrapped around his waist, then carries me down the hall and into our apartment. He rips off my jacket and lets it fall to the floor, his lips never breaking away from mine. Without even flicking on the lights, he swings me around to perch me on the kitchen counter, his hands tugging at my dress to pull it up and over my head. I shiver in the cool air and lean into him self-consciously, not wanting him to look at my nearly-naked physique. I know he’s seen it before, but I still feel so exposed and ashamed to be naked in the presence of a man, even if he is my husband.

  But he refuses to indulge my modesty, pushing back to look me up and down, his eyes roving over every inch of me. I am wearing a pair of frilly, pink satin panties and an ivory-colored bra which Andrei selected for me in one of the boutiques we visited earlier. The cups of the bra are sheer, lined with lace and decorated with tiny rosettes, allowing for my rosy pink nipples to show through the fabric.

  “Krasivaya,” he murmurs, shaking his head and swiping a hand over his mouth.

  “Wh-what does that mean?” I ask, starting to cover myself with my hands.

  Andrei catches my wrists and pins them behind my back, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “It means you are beautiful.”

  “Am I?” My voice is breathless and soft.

  “It is my intention to make you feel as lovely as you look,” he promises, scooping me up again to carry me into the bedroom. He gently sets me down on the bed, smoothing down my hair and kissing me on the forehead.

  Standing in front of me, my eyes are drawn to the bulge in the front of his jeans. It looks too enormous, too powerful, straining to break free from its constraints. I wonder what it feels like, what it will feel like inside me.

  The very thought makes me wet.

  Andrei catches me looking at him and says softly, “This really is your first time, isn’t it?”

  I nod, looking down at the floor a little ashamedly.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “I — I think so. Yes.”

  He untucks his shirts and unzips his jeans slowly, sliding them down his thighs and stepping out of them. Then he shrugs off his jacket, and unbuttons his shirt it to toss it over his shoulder onto the floor. Standing nearly naked in just his silky black boxers, I gasp a little. Seeing him this way for the very first time is startling: all that muscle hinted at beneath his clothes is now exposed in front of me and I can scarcely be
lieve he’s real.

  “You… you’re so handsome,” I breathe, my eyes wide. Hesitantly, I reach out and touch his taut stomach, every abdominal muscle sharply defined and rock-hard. There is a faint trail of dark hair leading down from his navel and disappearing into his boxers. I trace this downy path with one curious forefinger, stopping short at the waistband of his underwear.

  But before I can withdraw my hand, Andrei takes hold of it and slides my hand down farther to brush over the massive bulge there. I gasp again, and cover my mouth with my other hand, even as my own private parts respond with a gush of wet warmth. I must be so slick down there by now, and Andrei has hardly even touched me at all.

  Holding my breath, I trace the outline of his shaft through the fabric of his boxers, then I get a little braver and run my palm up and down its substantial length. Andrei groans his approval and pushes into me ever so slightly.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he says kindly.

  With that, I pull down his boxers and he steps out of them to stand totally naked before me, his colossal manhood jutting out, hard and engorged.

  “Oh my — oh my gosh!” I exclaim. “It’s so big.”

  “Touch it,” Andrei says imperiously.

  I am reluctant at first, intimidated by his size. But then curiosity and desire overcome me and I gently wrap my hand around his member, my fingers barely able to contain him. When he doesn’t pull back, I decide to run my thumb around the head of his shaft slowly. Andrei closes his eyes and groans.

  “Da, malyshka. Good girl.”

  His growl of approval sends me into a frenzy. Suddenly, I need him. Now.

  “Please… I’m ready,” I whisper. Andrei opens his eyes and immediately reaches behind me to unclasp my bra, then gently pushes me back to lie down on the bed. He tugs my panties down my legs and drops them on the floor before climbing over to straddle me. He positions himself between my legs, holding his member so that the head of his shaft rubs up and down my slick opening. My breath comes raggedly as I try to rock my hips up into him, needing more.