Danil’s Mate(25)

“Like hell I will,” she snapped, standing up and turning to face him. Her expression was one of complete war; she wasn’t trying to play her way out of this one and Danil was eating up every minute of it. He was getting the pure, unadulterated Pandora Katsaros and he couldn’t be more into it. Not to mention that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing on her golden body. Couldn’t fault the view.

“You know, this is so like a man,” Dora snapped. She was on a roll now. “One quick tumble in the hay and suddenly you’re the boss of me.” She gave a disgusted little chuff of a laugh. “God. Why did I expect it to be any different? I don’t need help, a bodyguard, or a project manager, Danil. And fucking me doesn’t give you the qualifications to be any of those things.”

“Unfortunately, you need all of those things, ptuška.” He had known it was coming, but he was surprised by the way it felt to receive it. Her rejection of him was like sandpaper over a sunburn.

“You don’t know anything about what I need,” she snapped at him, rooting around on the ground to find her underwear. “You don’t know anything about me.”

He sat up on the bed, batting her underwear out of her hands as she picked them up. She squeaked in outrage.

“Please, ptuška,” he said arrogantly. “I know you. The way you fuck tells me everything about you.”

Her mouth fell open in what he assumed was equal parts outrage and shock. “What. Did. You. Just. Say. To. Me.”

Danil rolled his eyes to the sky. “American women,” he mumbled. Clearing his throat he decided to fill her in. “I said that the way you fuck tells me more about you than maybe you’d like.”

Now she was the one who was rolling her eyes. “European men. Think you’re God’s gift to sex. Please. You know what you’re doing in the orgasm department, I’ll give you that. But I’m pretty damn sure you were as single-minded and foggy as I was during the deed. Don’t give me this crap like you were studying me.”

She was striding toward the door, apparently willing to abandon the underwear in favor of a speedy exit, when he spoke again.

“You like control. You have it in almost every interaction you have, sexual or not, because of how beautiful you are. It comes naturally that a man would fall before you. The way almost everyone does. You get almost everything you want from life. Except for the things you want the most. Those things you have no idea how to get. How to ask for. When I gave them to you just now, you didn’t even know how to take them. I had to spoon feed you that passion, that pleasure. You would have pushed it away, not even recognizing it for what it was.” Dora’s eyes were like chips of ice, hidden deep beneath her lashes as Danil continued speaking. “You think your defining characteristic is curiosity. But it isn’t. You’re right that it often drives you. But it’s your quest for the truth that’s real. That’s why you accepted me so easily into your body just now.”

He was standing in front of her, one hand over hers on the doorknob.

“You accepted me in to you because you see that I wasn’t lying when I said I’d keep you safe. I’d give you a home. You were fuzzy, overwhelmed with it.”

“Stop,” she said, her eyes startled and cornered, like a wild animal.

He lifted a hand to her cheek, to soften the blow of his words and was greatly relieved when she didn’t flinch away.

“You expect to be treated casually,” he said. “So you brace yourself against it. You are comfortable accepting the tip of the iceberg when you deserve the entire ocean. Something in you tells you that you deserve the entire ocean. But you don’t listen to that thing.” His eyes searched hers, he was learning this information almost the same second that he was speaking it. “Because it causes you pain. Whatever it is inside you that demands more is causing you pain.”

Dora stepped back from him. She flexed her hands at her side like she wanted to cover herself up, but wouldn’t let herself. Her chin raised in the air. “Now let me tell you what I saw.”

He rolled out a hand as if he were saying ‘be my guest’.

“I see an arrogant asshole who can’t keep his ridiculous thoughts to himself. I see a man who thinks he can boss me around. I see a man who is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, smarter than I am. And even if you’ve gotten me off my footing right now, I always gain it back. And then I’m going to win this little sexual chess match. Or whatever the fuck it is you’re playing right now.”

She whipped the hair out of her eyes and stared him down.