The Beauty Who Loved Him by Bethany-Kris

17.

“Hello, kisska.”

Vera clung tighter to the phone like it might bring her closer to the man who answered on the other end. “Vas.”

“Aren’t you shopping for dresses? Why on earth are you calling me?”

A valid question. Even if he did ask it impatiently.

Vera didn’t typically call Vaslav without his prompting through a text first because that’s what he preferred. He didn’t pretend to like talking on the phone, and she didn’t push him on it considering he was easier to appreciate when he was less annoyed.

Mostly.

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

Vaslav paused on the question before asking, “What does that have anything to do with dress shopping?”

“Well, nothing. Sort of,” Vera added quickly. “But then I—”

“Are you dress shopping?” he injected, demanding.

“Yes! I’m sitting in the dressing room right now.”

“Send me a picture.”

Vera’s brow jumped high. “Excuse me?”

“A picture. With your phone. Send it.”

“What if I was wearing my dress?”

“Are you?” he returned.

“Stop talking me in circles,” Vera returned. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

She didn’t have any intention of explaining that she had already picked her dress, paid for it with the card Vaslav had provided, and Hannah was currently browsing for an appropriate gown herself. That wasn’t even why she’d decided to call him.

“You would have come right out with that, kisska, if you were wearing something you didn’t want me to see.” She surmised he was at home, but other than the sound of footsteps, she couldn’t hear anything else on the other end of the phone. “Send me a picture, or I call Kiril and ask him where you are.”

“You really don’t believe me?”

“Trust is a ... tricky thing,” Vaslav muttered.

No, he was just a very complicated man. She had figured that detail out before agreeing to marrying him, and had accepted it was a part of the package that made up the man who had unintentionally captured her heart.

“Don’t call Kiril,” Vera grumbled. “He’ll come inside and make a damn scene.”

Just because he was probably bored by now.

“Then send a picture.”

Vera rolled her eyes. “Give me a second ... impatience helps no one.”

“And yet, impatience somehow gets me everywhere.”

Frankly, she didn't mind playing along with Vaslav’s game because she intended for him to eat his words. Or rather, his request. He couldn’t possibly know that even though she’d finished her dress shopping, including finding a black number for a possible date that may or may not happen, she had decided to try on the sets of lingerie.

Well, one set of three. The set she couldn’t wear on the wedding day because the straps of the bra weren’t removable.

Vera didn't bother to stand from the white leather chair in the middle of the changing room to take the picture of her reflection in the wall of mirrors. She didn’t need to. With her legs crossed, she’d propped her elbow up on the armrest of the chair to get a good, steady shot of her body’s profile wrapped in stark red lace. She even winked for the picture, too.

All the while, Vaslav remained quiet on the phone. She knew when her picture text had been sent through, and he pulled the photo up, because he didn’t try to hide the grunt that proceeded the clearing of his throat.

“Damn,” he praised.

Vera smiled.

Only to herself.

“See, I am in the changing room as we speak,” she said.

Vaslav’s responding sigh came out breathy and terse. “Did you try on the other two as well?”

“They’re the same size, so I don't really need to. They’ll fit, and I’d like to keep them perfect until the wedding, you know?”

She didn’t explain why she opted to try on the red set. That would give Vaslav too much information to go on regarding her dress and what it might look like. Not that he asked.

Yet.

“Good, save the white set so I can ruin it first, and the black set for the night after.”

Vera eyed her reflection as she toyed with the red strap of the lace bra. “That’s why I called, actually.”

“Pardon?”

“The lingerie,” she clarified. “I wanted to tell you they’re good choices.”

“Da, for anything. Including taking them off. And speaking of things getting off, how about you? Now.”

Vera stilled in the chair, unsure that she’d heard him right. “You’re not serious?”

“As a fucking heart attack. You should not have sent me that picture if you didn’t intend to make it worth my while, beautiful. Can someone see you?”

“No,” Vera assured.

“Hear you?”

Did he hear her swallow just then?

“Maybe,” she admitted, less sure.

The walls of the private dressing room weren’t particularly thick. Yes, Hannah was down shopping on the main floor of the private boutique known affectionately as the Dollhouse by the ladies running the place. Vera probably wouldn’t be interrupted for a while, either.

“Be very quiet, yes,” Vaslav murmured.

“Vas—”

“But make good and sure I can hear you, kisska.”

Oh, God.

It was hard to deny him when his voice sounded almost like a purr against her cheek through the speaker of the phone. All it took was closing her eyes, and Vera could imagine him there. The friction of him stepping between her widening knees. The way he’d touch her without abandon, leaving no piece of her body unloved by his attention. She could even smell him, taste him, too, if she tried hard enough. The thing was, even the memory of him was enough to get her body limboing in a hellish place.

Somewhere between want and need but feeding the urges wouldn’t necessarily give her precisely what her body craved—him.

Like muscle memory, he’d imprinted himself there, sure—in her mind, rushing through her veins. All over. She couldn’t forget the way he’d made her feel at one point or another.

He was there.

Even when he wasn’t.

She couldn't hide the shakiness in her next exhale.

Vaslav didn’t miss it, either.

“You want to,” he said with a taunting flair. “I bet your hand is already between your thighs or damn close. Are you wet?”

Vera laughed weakly. “My hand is not—”

“How close is it?”

She wet the seam of her lips with her tongue, whispering, “One is holding the phone, thank you.”

“And the other?”

This man.

“On the armrest of the chair, Vaslav,” Vera said, refusing to give into his tempting game. “I’m supposed to go help Hannah pick a dress. I am not sitting here masturbating on the phone for you.”

“You haven’t even thought about moving off that chair, have you?” he asked, confident. “Between the two of us, let’s get fucking real.”

And cocky.

“Vas—”

“I haven’t touched you in more days than I care to count, so the very least you could do is let me hear you pretend like I’m touching you now,” Vaslav said, the edge in his voice creeping through the phone to kiss her like sharp knives raking lightly over her skin. A threat, of sorts, but it still felt delicious. “And if it matters at all, because I am not above using various manipulations to get my way, I haven’t slept in just about as many days. Don’t act like you won’t enjoy giving me this.”

“You’d be mad,” she said. “Out of your mind.”

“What’s your point? That’s nothing new.”

“And just how is that the least I could do?” Vera asked, grinning.

Even if he couldn’t see it.

Vaslav growled a frustrated sound. “Vera, I am still looking at the picture. Of course, red looks the way it does on you, you’ve got porcelain for skin.”

His compliment tugged at her weak self-control. “Where exactly are you while you’re looking at it, huh?”

“In my den.”

Alone, then.

Shocker.

“You didn’t answer me, though,” she pointed out. “How is this the very least I could do for you?”

“You’re teasing me, kitten,” Vaslav said, his gravely accent twisting the English equivalent of his pet name for her into something that knotted heavily in her gut. Like the lust settling there, too. “And I promise the next time we sit down together, I’ll make you regret it.”

“But are you going to answer me?”

His chuckle rumbled on the phone.

Dark.

So deep.

Vera had little doubts about whether or not she’d enjoy how he made her regret this. Talk about making something worth her damned while ...

“This is the very least you could do for me,” Vaslav replied, every word confident and clipped as she imagined them slipping past his smirking lips, “because I think I’ve been very patient with you while your friend visits. I’ve repeatedly considered dragging you out to Dubna just to keep you locked upstairs with me for a few days, because we both know how much you value the concept of time when you’re in bed with me, but I was trying not to be selfish. That could change. Today, even. I bet I could get the Rolls to the city in less than an hour. How opposed are you to being on top in the backseat?”

“Jesus Christ,” Vera swore in a laugh. “Igor takes at least an hour and a half, and he drives like a madman.”

“Like one. Except he isn’t.”

Vera’s teeth cut into her upper lip with a pleasing sting. The same way Vaslav liked to bite her on that very spot, too just to take a gasp or hiss from her.

“Just tell me if you’re wet,” he urged.

Demanded, was more like it.

“I’m honestly trying to ignore it,” Vera replied, mindful of her voice level.

She also hadn’t lied.

The squirm of her crossed legs made the dampness of the soft lace between her thighs more apparent. She had yet to take her hand off the armrest, though, and she still needed the one holding the phone. Or that’s what she kept telling herself.

Vaslav released relief in an exhale, muttering, “Then, here’s what you’re going to do for me, sweetest thing, I want the red set sent straight to me. After you get your hand in those panties and rub one, or wait—”

“Wait for what?”

She hadn’t even bothered to let him finish. If only she cared about the desperation that snuck into her tone.

Vaslav laughed. “Is your hand down there now?”

“No.”

Vera couldn’t take her eyes off her own reflection in the mirror. Those nerves fluttering in her belly were practically invisible to the woman wrapped in sin sitting across from her. She seemed more womanly than Vera thought herself to be, sexiness smothered her every movement and blink. Except that woman absolutely was her.

“I only said wait because I wanted to ask how fast could you get yourself to three?” he asked.

Vera’s tongue smacked the roof of her mouth. “Orgasms?”

“Mmm.”

“Three minutes. Maybe four.”

He whistled low.

Pleased.

Vera would be a liar if she said that sound didn’t aide in the sudden gush of heat between her thighs when she rubbed them together.

“I need at least three, then,” he said, “hand—or hands—in the panties. They better smell like you, Vera. Soft like petals and wet. Fold the panties under the bra and stockings, tie the bow pretty and neat, and take it to one of those nice women at the front who I know have been helping you all day. They’ll be all too happy to take the box with the red set and drive it out to my estate for the price I will pay. Don’t worry, they already know that price is whatever they ask. They won’t open the box, and neither will Mira when they deliver it to her at the end of the driveway.”

Vera rubbed her lips together as the side of her hand stroked back and forth on the armrest of the chair. “Just you?”

“I promise. And we won’t talk about what I’ll use them for tonight, either. I’ll have it all dry-cleaned. Don’t worry.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you love it,” he returned. “Stop pretending like the little slut inside of you isn’t weeping right now. The only thing you’re missing is me there to do it for you. How wet are you?”

Of course, he asked that then. As she slipped her fingers under the waistband of her panties; like he somehow knew when her fingertips glided over her clit and between her slick slit. Had he heard her readjust on the chair when she uncrossed her legs and opened them wide?

“What do you see?” Vaslav asked.

“I’m wet all the way through the gusset and lace.”

He groaned thickly.

She used two fingers at first, working them in with wet, soppy sounds that she didn’t know if he could hear. Her breaths hitched with every roll of her wrist to get her fingers deeper. She should be ashamed of the wet spot she was going to leave on the chair but at least the leather would allow her to easily wipe it away.

“Talk to me,” he said, hoarser than ever.

“Three f-fingers, now,” she whispered.

“They’re not like mine, are they?”

“No.”

Not calloused, or long. She found flex and give in her fingers and hand that his did not provide; he took with no forgiveness.

“But you’ll still um,” he told her, almost soothing.

“For you.”

Voice crackling.

Body trembling.

Her back stayed turned to a door she couldn’t even remember if she had locked, but it didn’t matter to Vera. Not then.

“I really shouldn’t send these to you,” she whimpered. “Besides, Hannah’s flying out this weekend. Saturday morning. I could be there with you—”

“Saturday afternoon. You damn well better.” Vaslav’s husky laugh helped to tether Vera over the very precious ledge keeping her from falling into her first orgasm. “And as for the panties and the rest, well, we both know exactly what you’re going to do. Was that one?”

She gasped out a yes, hips still jerking into her trembling, thrusting hand.

“Good girl,” her dangerously addictive lover praised, “now stroke your clit for two but first, tell me how you taste.”