Her Rustanov Bully: the (possibly romantic?) tale of how I pucked around and found out
Her Rustanov Bully: Chapter 4

Ever wondered what it would feel like to detonate a bomb? With your mouth?

Well, I’m here to tell ya. Not great. My heart pounded too fast and far too hard.

It felt like all of my internal organs were imploding inside my body as Artyom Rustanov gaped at me for several century-length seconds. Letting me know I’d shocked the hottest person I’d ever seen into complete silence.

“You have been with no other?” he finally asked.

Probably hoping he’d heard me wrong.

“Not on purpose,” I assured him. “I was just… busy, I guess, during high school. I was in all these clubs. And I had to keep my grades up, which is kind of hard when…”

I stopped myself there. No way did I want to tell the finest hockey player on the planet about the neurological glitch in my head that made it hard to read basic sentences. It was bad enough that I had no idea what was in that contract I’d signed because I’d been too prideful to ask for the hours it would take me to read the blocks and blocks of legalese out loud while running a finger underneath each line of text.

“When you don’t have a lot of time,” I finished on a weak note.

He shook his head. “I cannot believe this.”

Grade-A shame burned me up worse than the university-wide flu I’d caught last winter.

Okay, this was a mistake. Not the part where I decided not to dose him with whatever was in that packet Paul gave me. But the part where I agreed to come back to Artyom Rustanov’s hotel room, knowing full well that I did not have the experience points to psychologically handle going to bed with this hockey god.

I hadn’t come up here to finish Paul’s plan. No, I’d come because, for once, I wanted something for myself. A night with a guy so far out of my league it was laughable. Someone who made my skin tingle just by looking at me. For the first time in my dull, dutiful life, I wanted to be selfish. To take something bright and shiny, just because I could. Except now, my impulsive decision was settling like a pile of stones in my gut.

Saying yes to his grown-up proposal had been a mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake.

“I’m just going to go.” I set the sparkling water down and headed for the door. “I’m so sorry I bothered you instead of letting you go home with someone else.”

“Lydia…” he said behind me.

I didn’t turn around to answer him. It would have been impossible to speak anyway, considering my skin was melting off my head like that last villain scene in my father’s favorite movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“Lydia!” Yom called out again.

Then, suddenly, he was in front of me. Like a vampire.

Wait a minute… “Are you a vampire?” I asked.

“What?” His brows furrowed.

“I mean, that would explain a lot. The easy seduction, the moving so fast, and the whole accent. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first American to mistake a Romanian accent for…”

Before I could finish, Artyom pursed his lips and said, “I am not vampire, Lydia.”

But then his exasperated look disappeared, and he stepped closer, erasing the space between us.

“I will admit there are many things on you I would like to suck. However, your blood is safe from me.”

My mouth dropped open. “Wait, you still want to…? Even though I’m a…?”

God, I was such a dweeb. I couldn’t even say the words out loud.

But I didn’t have to say them.

“Da, I still want to,” Artyom answered, his voice husky. “And because you are not experienced, we must take everything very slow, okay?”

“Oh.” I didn’t know whether to be grateful or even more ashamed.

“Thank you,” I said, deciding to default to gratitude. “Thank you for agreeing to go slow for me?”

“For me,” he corrected. “I am too unnerved to finally be here with you. Coming much too fast if I do not go slow is a real possibility.”

I stared at him. Then realized: “Oh, you’re kidding!” I let out a little laugh. “That’s really sweet of you to make me feel like we’re both nervous.”

“You do not think you make me nervous?” He undid the buttons of his black dress shirt to just below his chest and took my hand. “Here, feel, while keeping in mind I most normally maintain resting heart rate under forty.”

He brought my hand up to his impressively slabbed chest, right above his heart. Then he raised his other arm to reveal an analog watch with a second hand.

“Count,” he commanded when the ticking hand reached 12.

I did as told, a little thrill running through me as I reached 75 right before the second hand completed its circle.

“How many beats was it?” he asked, lowering his wrist but not lifting his hand off mine.

“It wasn’t under forty,” I admitted.

“Of course, it is not. As I said before. You make me nervous.” His eyes hooded over the hands still resting on his chest. “We should kiss to slow it down.”

I let out another little laugh. “I don’t think that’s how kissing works.”

“Alright, then, I agree to experiment.” He slipped his watch arm around my waist and drew me in closer. “You will keep monitoring me while we are doing this so we can replace out who is right and who is wrong.”

He pressed his lips to mine in a soft kiss. And I was right. I forgot to count, but his pulse pounded underneath my hand, and my own heart most definitely sped up as he gently explored my mouth.

“I will undress you now,” he said against my lips. “Is this okay, Lydia?”

That peculiar warmth swirled through my body and landed hotly between my legs. But I somehow managed to nod.

He skimmed his hands down the sides of my body, pushing the dress over my hips.

My heart thudded so loud, I couldn’t hear the soft rustle of the dress as it slipped to the floor—only the blood rushing in my ears, a deafening reminder that this was happening. Right now. Here. With him. I could barely breathe as he finished undressing me.

Since I hadn’t brought a strapless bra with me to Germany (silly me for not anticipating that my brother would send me on a seduce-and-drug mission), I ended up standing in front of him wearing nothing but the thong the whole nightclub got to see when I fell into his lap.

My first instinct was to wrap my arms around myself, to cover what no one had ever really seen before. But Yom didn’t rush to touch me. He just looked. His eyes lingered on my breasts, the curve of my stomach, and lower, as if he were reading me like a favorite book he wanted to savor. That look made me feel something I hadn’t expected—wanted. Completely and utterly desired.

His eyes heated as they roamed over my bare chest. “You are perfect, do you know this?”

No, I didn’t. At least not before. I hadn’t received many compliments, growing up in a mostly White community that hadn’t appreciated my wide nose and not-slender anything.

But here in this hotel room, I felt like the most beautiful goddess who’d ever walked the earth underneath Artyom’s hooded eyes. It was that kind of gaze.

“I want to kiss you again.” His voice was rough, commanding. But somehow, he still came off sounding like a gentleman when he asked, “You will give me permission?”

“Most definitely,” I breathed out, my own voice little more than a sigh.

He cupped a big hand around the side of my face and neck, pulling me forward.

And this time, I could feel the rigid length of him against my bare stomach, hot and pulsing. But his kiss was exactly like before. Sweet. Slow. Completely low-pressure.

No tongue. Just lips moving gently over mine. Until he said, “We will lie and do this for as long as needed on the bed.”

I’d only just met this guy.

But somehow, it felt as natural as breathing to crawl into bed with him and keep on kissing while we lay on our sides.

He cupped my breast, gently massaging as he kissed me like that for hours. Maybe minutes. Either way, a tingling sensation appeared between my legs. Liquid and warm. I found myself squirming against him instead of making a mental list of things I had to study the next day, like I had the few times I’d made out with boys in high school.

“I think… I think I’m ready for more now,” I whispered against his lips.

He groaned at my words. Then pressed his forehead into mine. “I do not wish to harm you. You will give me permission to make you ready.”

“Make me ready?”

“Let me touch you or kiss you here.”

I sucked in a breath when his other hand moved from my breast to cup my sex over the thin barrier of my thong.

“Or both. It is your choice. I have been dreaming to do both.”

“You’ve been dreaming of doing both ever since you met me a couple of hours ago?” I couldn’t help but let out a laugh at his exaggerated claim.

But he pulled back and regarded me dead-eyed before repeating. “It is your choice, Lydia.”

Suddenly, all the laughter died right out of my throat.

“I am waiting for your answer.”

His touch was light, but somehow, his hand felt heavy on top of my sex. My body was on fire, yet my thoughts spun wildly out of control.

“Touching,” I answered in the end. Because I could not even begin to imagine myself getting oral for the first time from a guy who looked like a hockey player fan fiction come to life.

A pleased smile broke out across his face. Slightly goofy but also completely devastating. Maybe because it was just eager enough to make me feel like I’d somehow made his entire night.

“You will come for me like a good girl, da?” His hand slipped underneath the thong’s band, and he expertly rubbed. While maintaining full eye contact.

Oh! It felt good… too good. My body jolted like it had been waiting for this moment its entire life. Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? My mind screamed at me to stay in control, but the rest of me was already spiraling away, melting into his touch.

“Talk to me, Lydia.”

“Talk to you?” My voice came out breathless. “About what?”

“Tell me what you like. With boys who come before me.”

“There were no boys before you. I told you before…”

“Yes, you say you are twenty-two-year-old virgin. But no one touched you here?”

I shook my head, wanting but unable to close my eyes against his relentless stare.

“How about when you touch self?” His voice remained gentle, despite what he was doing to me. “How are you liking it then?”

“This is already better than when I touch myself,” I admitted, the words tumbling out of me before I could overthink them.

“Lydia, you are very sweet talker to Yom. You are making my heart so big. Thank you.”

He rewarded me for my honesty with another one of those goofy, devastating smiles. Then he asked, “How about from behind? I know Catholic school girls sometimes…”

“I’m not Catholic,” I said in the same tone he’d used to let me know he wasn’t a vampire.

He chuckled. And brought his free hand up to my face. “Talk to me about this mouth.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “Later, can I make it mine for the first time, too? This is something else I dream of.”

Suddenly, the space between my legs had a heartbeat, too. I throbbed. Like, everywhere. But I managed to answer, “If—if you want.”

“I want, Lydia.” His gaze held a strange intensity. “I want all your first times.”

With that declaration, he nudged open my folds… explored… then sank two fingers into the tight space he found.

I drew in a sharp breath. Shocked at the invasion.

“It is okay. It is okay, Lydia.” He pulled my head forward and gave me another soft kiss. “You are tight, but we will make your pleasure. Ride hand. Ride until you replace place you like.”

His broken English was a little hard for my mind to comprehend. But my body understood. I instinctively moved my hips into his fingers. Shifting up and down until the button he’d so expertly rubbed earlier found the friction it wanted on the ball of his hand. A lightning bolt of pleasure shot through me.

“There!” I gasped.

“Here?” He down-shifted, then set a new rhythm, curling his fingers inside of me as he applied a massaging pressure with his hand.

“Yes! There! There!” The slow throb had disappeared. Everything was quickening inside of me. I was burning up again. But this time I liked it. I liked it so much!

He tugged on my locks, just enough to tip my head back so I had to look him in the eye as he said, “You will come for me. Right now, on my hand. Like good girl you promised to be before.”

I’d made no such promise. But my breath quickened. And suddenly, I was doing something else I’d never done with any boys before him. Contracting, then exploding around his fingers.

Sparks of pleasure zapped through me, making me arch into his hand and cry out as my entire body bloomed with heat.

“Thank you, Lydia.” He dropped more soft kisses on my neck, my chin, and all over my face as I shuddered to completion. “You are so good for me. I am never being this pleased.”

I could only stare at him with wonder. “How did you…?”

How could you?

The harsh, judgmental question crashed down on me as his fingers continued to move in my greedy, contracting sex.

How could you let him do that for you after what you almost did to him earlier at the club?

Shame curdled my stomach.

It felt so good. Until it felt so terrible.

The voice inside my head was right. I’d tried to drug him.

The only reason I was here in this hotel room was because I’d attempted to do something horrible to this amazing guy, who’d done nothing but attend to me and my needs since I stepped into his hotel room.

How dare I let him give me my first orgasm?

What business did I even have coming back here with him?

“I… I shouldn’t have done this!” I said. “Stop… stop!”

To his credit, Artyom immediately pulled his hand back and moved his body from mine. “Am I doing something wrong? Hurting you?”

The question was sincere. The expression on his face genuinely worried.

Oh my God, I’m a monster.

I leaped out of bed. “I should never have come here with you. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he asked, sitting up. He looked so handsome in his open button-down, and I could see the thick line of his hard-on clearly etched out against his pants.

The shame turned to ice. Freezing my blood with the knowledge that I was the worst. Truly the worst.

No more talking. I pulled back on that awful yellow dress as fast as my trembling hands would let me and ran toward the door.

“Lydia,” he called behind me. “Lydia!”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. I could only swipe at tears of soul-deep shame as I ran out of that hotel room without looking back.