by Lana Sky
“Beg him for what?” His voice is too raw, scorching my tender skin. Anger on him is like wildfire; within the blink of an eye, it’s too violent to be contained. “Don’t feign you’re mute now.” He cups my sore throat from behind, sliding his fingers along my windpipe in a chilling caress, daring me to lie to him. “He’d make you beg him for what?”
The memories chase me. Haunt me.
“To stop…”
“He’d hurt you?”
My nerves cringe at the genuine curiosity in his tone as he hooks a hand beneath my waist and flips me onto my back with my head propped against the rim of the tub.
But I don’t scream.
He’s too heavy. His eyes are empty, the gaze of a monster. But his mouth…
Crushed to mine with no warning, there’s no comparison. Robert bites, and licks, and takes. But Mischa just claims. His lips are too soft. Not possessive and unfeeling—but fire. There’s no teasing buildup. No savoring of my fear. He slides his tongue between my lips and just steals what he wants. With hard, searing thrusts. With heat. With more fire.
He destroys every instinct before I can remember what emotions to salvage. In the resulting chaos, all I can do is feel. Everything.
“He touched you?” Mischa growls against my parted lips, remembering the second stage.
“Y-yes...”
With deft motions, he unhooks the back of my dress. His fingers still against my spine as if waiting for me to react. Scream. Run. When I don’t, his fingers drift lower and my body quakes at the feel of his warm flesh molded over solid muscle.
“And then,” he snarls into my open mouth. “What?”
I beg. Always. Without fail. Robert never heeds my pleas, but they come anyway. It’s our tradition. My torment. His game.
My lips flutter, ready to play, but Misha takes his role of my husband too seriously. His hand descends between us, unzipping his pants to an erection straining against his boxers. His fingers capture mine, forcing me beneath the waistband to feel him for myself. Hot. Silken. Steel.
“Go on,” he goads, bucking into my fist, testing my grip. “Beg.”
Stop. He’s bigger than Robert. He’ll hurt me more than my husband ever could. I know it. I feel it. I…
Breathe, Ellen. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe!
“Come on.” Frowning, Mischa meets my gaze directly, still throbbing against my fingers. “Play your part, Little One,” he commands. “Beg me to stop.”
My lips flutter, but when I say nothing, he laughs, throwing his head back.
“You can’t take me. Admit it. I am nothing like him. I’ll fucking break you.”
It’s a promise. One that adds a new level of danger I’ve never felt before to the game. No one has ever taken anything from Robert Winthorp.
Nothing.
I’m so sure of that that I can’t stop myself from croaking, “Will you?”
I almost sound amused. Intrigued?
At the prospect, my captor growls in irritation, freeing himself from his boxers. To prove that he can. That he will. And as I stare down at what rises beneath a thatch of blond curls, a word comes to mind. Something terrifying. A term I’d never apply, even to Robert.
Beautiful?
Dusky flesh and glistening ridges form a cock as repulsive as it is impressive. He could break me.
And maybe there will be nothing left...
“Beg.” He hammers the word into my skin with his teeth, nipping the flesh of my throat. He’s too close. Flexing his hips brings him between my legs. Heavy. Dominating.
A moan dies behind my teeth as the slick crown of his cock bats against my entrance. Beg? But how? I can’t get any air to go into my lungs.
Robert would take his time at this point in the game, stretching me with his fingers, telling me all the while that I want him. We were made for each other, Elle, he’d croon.
There is no such teasing with Mischa.
“Fine, Little One,” he snarls, bracing his hand against my thigh. “I’ll show you just how much like him I can be.” One flex of his hips and he slams into me with a groan. A curse. A million fucking words hissed in English and whatever language he natively speaks.
I see black. Then white porcelain as my head falls back and a scream claws its way from my throat. He’s too fucking big. I’m too tight. We just don’t fit, and that natural deterrent demands one solution: He has to force his way into me. Thrust after thrust. Over. Over. Again.
I feel him in my skull, like a battering ram, fucking my body and not just the space between my legs. All of me.
“Say it,” he grits out between clenched teeth. “Fucking…say it. I’ll stop—”
An answering moan trickles from my lips. I can’t contain it. Begging, finally?
But no. My ears catch my own voice whispering something far more dangerous. “M-more.” I tremble, every nerve in an uproar.
This isn’t part of the script. This isn’t right. This isn’t…Robert.
He’s not Robert.
That fact is only solidified by how roughly he thrusts into me—not patient and unhurried. He’s frenzied. Splitting me open. Ripping me apart.
Like he doesn’t need to save me for another round. I’m not his toy to keep unbroken.
“What…what the fuck did you say?” he demands. But his body contradicts the anger in his voice. Even now, he’s throbbing and thickening. So deep. Not deep enough. “Stop.” Gritting his teeth, he starts to withdraw, hissing into my ear, “Tell me to stop.” It’s not a command as much as it is a plea.
But there are no rules anymore. My body has a mind of its own, taking control of my throat to voice it as my knees draw up around him. “M-more—”
“Fuck,” he hisses in confusion, gripping my hips.
Before I can even register his absence, he’s back. Deeper. Harder. Faster. Our lips fuse, grappling for leverage, and I finally feel the fear I should. It’s hotter than fire. Than hate. Burning. Scorching. Desolating.
“Beg,” he pleads, still on a vicious race toward his own release.
But my lips seal shut as a grim realization sinks in: I won’t beg…
I don’t want to.
It’s like that single thought is the trigger to surrender. My body tightens, rippling around him, collapsing in on itself. He snarls at the reaction, still thrusting. Harder. Faster.
He fucks his rage into me without mercy. Everything. I feel him shuddering with release and sullying the shell of Robert Winthorp’s “whore.” Deflated, he slumps against me, knocking the air from my chest.
And I lie here, letting him crush me.
CHAPTER 12
I hover on the edge of consciousness for what feels like an eternity. Any minute, I’m sure someone will kick, shake, or threaten me awake—but that moment never comes.
I’m left alone to suffer, and in the end, hunger is what finally rouses me. My stomach aches. So does my head. Between my legs… No. I ignore that pain and focus only on what I can fix now. Food.
Gradually, my eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling and unease returns. I don’t recognize the bed I’m lying on; it’s too soft to be the one in the safe house. The sheets twisted around me feel clean, but the comfort they impart doesn’t do much to negate the terrifying reality that someone stripped me naked. That everything hurts. The insides of my legs feel sticky…used.
Don’t think about that, Ellen.
Groaning, I roll onto my side, trying to find a semblance of familiarity in the darkness. I track the twisting shadows and vague furniture-like shapes without recognizing much. There’s too much space. I cradle my forehead against my palm and try to remember. Hotel room. Mischa must have kept me here. Left me here? I don’t sense him nearby.
When I finally crawl from the bed, drawing a white sheet around me, he doesn’t lunge from the corner and command me to stay. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be anyone else in the suite but me. Beyond the bedroom is a small sitting area and then the bathroom. Someone left the light on in the latter
area. The floor looks wet, scrubbed down. A chemical odor itches my nostrils.
Rather than inspect further, I aim for the mini fridge in the corner, tucked into a tiny alcove. Whoever bought this room must have paid for the complimentary mini bar in advance. It’s already been stocked, and I grab a pack of crackers and a soda. The pain in my throat is enough to temper my hunger, however. I can only choke a few crumbs down at a time, and even hearing the soda hiss as I pop the top makes me set it aside. Instead, I hunch over the tiny sink above the bar and swap intervals of chewing with measured sips of water from the tap.
That’s how he finds me: with my mouth upturned beneath the faucet and the last wet crumbs of cracker clinging to my fingers. I hear his approach rather than see it. His footsteps resonate in slow, steady waves. One step. Another. Pause. Another. Then something lands at my feet, startling me into spraying water down my front.
“Get dressed.” Mischa’s calm is a distant memory. Now, his voice is unsteady. His breathing… Only the thinnest thread of control seems to hold him together.
I sense it wavering the longer I stay hunched over the sink. Slowly, I shut the water off and gather enough nerve to face him.
It’s a bad idea. His silhouette flung against the wall is more than enough for me to realize my stupidity for challenging him in the first place. His fingers flex at his sides. Opening and closing. Finally, his shadow flickers and fades as his footsteps head toward the bedroom.
When I crane my neck to look down, I find a pile of fabric at my feet. Clothing. The small white shirt and jeans are all he brought, but I gratefully accept them. Even in my hands, they feel better than a flimsy negligee.
From this position, I can’t see the bedroom—or into it—as long as I don’t turn around, so I muster what little bravery I have to creep into the bathroom and shut the door. My first action is to run the shower as hot as I can stand it. Then I climb in. God. It feels…
Like heaven. Like hell.
Blood and grime wash away from me to circle the drain, but the heat makes everything sting and throb at full force. Every bruise. Every cut. Every brutal “love bite” scraped into the flesh at the nape of my neck.
I feel them all no matter how much I scrub. Clean. Cleanse. Soap and water can’t erase him. The soft wash rags the hotel supplies aren’t anywhere near strong enough to peel back tainted flesh. Not like the ones at Winthorp Manor, anyway. Those long, hot showers could make me feel new again. Strong again. Afterward, I could always face Robert again.
But the longer I stay beneath the scalding spray, the more I’m sure of one chilling truth: I can’t ever leave this room. I can’t face Mischa. There won’t be much left of me to clean if I do.
I think I hide for hours, searching for a state of mind I know I’ll never find. My fingers feel bloated, the skin pruned to the point that I can’t hold the cloth anymore. It lands at my feet, stuck to the bottom of the tub like something used that can only be scraped off. I’m not sure how long I can last when the door rattles on its hinges.
“Open.”
This isn’t fair. Even Robert let me escape him for at least a day or two at a time. He gave me that much.
Mischa has no mercy. No fucking soul. When I don’t open the door myself, he slides it aside on his own. Dominating the doorway, he’s a specter decipherable only in pieces snuck from behind the curtain of my wet hair.
He changed, swapping the suit for his usual fatigues. His hair hangs loose and wild around his shoulders and a sudden memory leaves me trembling: feeling that softness for myself as my fingers gripped his shoulders. Grabbing. Pulling. I stare down in horror at the hands in question, sticky with soap, forever unclean.
“Come,” Mischa commands, his voice grated and low. “We need to move. Now.”
His tone spurs me into action. I switch the water off and pull my new clothing on without bothering to towel off. He watches me, his gaze searing my bare shoulders while I drag the jeans up over my hips and shimmy into the shirt. They’re both too big. I have to roll the pant legs up twice and tuck the shirt in to find some semblance of comfort. By the time I turn to the doorway, he’s already entering the hallway.
I follow him and watch as he returns the keycard to the base of the potted plant. It’s a quick, silent trip back out to the van, and we leave the hotel behind just as night falls.
Locked in the confines of the vehicle with him, I can’t breathe. It’s too close. Too quiet. Too dark. My face burns as I remember his cruelty…but my body remembers something different entirely. Thick, heavy, hot, wet, raw. Those adjectives trickle across my brain, explicit and vulgar. Robert was firm. Robert was familiar. He never made me say the wrong thing.
More.
My fingers fly up to my lips as if to capture whatever insane impulse made me utter that word. What did I want? More pain? More hate? No. The answer lingers in my mind, resisting all attempts to forget: hooded, terrifying eyes. A voice like thunder growled into my ear. More him. The living, breathing antidote to my husband. Someone more twisted, and broken, and fucked than Robert could ever be.
My only comfort is that any longer with Mischa and there won’t be anything left of me for Robert to reclaim.
“Tell me something. You were more than just his wife.” He hisses the words out and veers the van suddenly to the right. “Weren’t you? Maybe you fucking planned it, huh? He let me take you? To get inside my fucking head. Is that it?” he demands.
“W-what?” I shake my head. God, the things he’s saying. He sounds insane. “What are you talking about—”
“This!” He takes a hand off the wheel and jabs the fingers in my direction. “You’re a whore. A snake. From the first fucking second I took you, I knew something was wrong. And now you say you remember me?” He laughs bitterly at the idea. “There’s no way in hell he’d let you go. Not without a reason.”
Fear renders me silent as the gauge on the dashboard slowly ticks up, up, up. The engine revs as if echoing the way its master speaks.
“Admit it,” he snarls. “You aim to seduce me? You really think you can?”
Seduce? Shock overrides every survival instinct warning me to stay silent. “No—”
“No?”
The van comes to a violent stop, which flings me forward against the console. My ears ring. A door opens and slams. Footsteps crunch over gravel, circling over to my side. Cold air rushes in as my door is opened and I’m dragged out onto the side of the road.
“Tell me he sent you,” Mischa demands, wrenching me around to face him. “Admit it.”
I stumble for balance, forced to confront a terrifying reality. If Robert did plan anything, I’d have been the last to know.
“He didn’t,” I insist, more to myself than the man beside me. “I swear. He didn’t.”
Something ugly flashes in Mischa’s gaze. He turns, dragging me along with him. Wham! Heavy hands slam me against the side of the van and pin me there without mercy. They tug at my jeans, wrenching them down. Then he shoves a fist between my legs, roughly spreading me open around the width of his thumb.
I groan, flinching in surprise.
He hisses. “Fuck. If this isn’t a game, then why are you so fucking wet?”
Pressed against cold metal and glass, I say nothing.
Wet. That word means nothing to me. To him, it sounds like a curse, explaining how easily his fingers navigate my flesh without arousing the pain of Robert’s groping.
He feels…different. Too raw. Too real. My legs spread without permission, allowing him more access as his snarled insult echoes in my mind. Whore.
“Jesus Christ, he had to send you,” Mischa mutters, sounding crazed. His fingers curl against me, stroking the flesh still sore from his last assault. “But I won’t fall for your fucking scheme. Be a good wife, now. Tell me to stop.”
Stop. My lips flutter, struggling to form the words. “I…”
“Say it.”
I sense him shift as a dangerous rasp echoes. His zipper? Yes. The se
cond the hum trails off, his weight slams into me from behind. Then he slams into me, replacing his thumb.
My lips part around a single gasp. It’s nearly impossible to describe the sensation of him—massive.
He’s in too deep. Deeper than anyone has ever reached, scraping me hollow and shoving himself into crevices even Robert left untouched. My inner muscles clench, desperate to register the intrusion. In or out? Nerves ignite. Flesh tightens, clamping down, drawing him in. In. In. In.
All at once, my throat remembers how to make words. “Oh…God—”
“Fuck!” He throws his weight into me.
I see black. Can’t feel. Can’t breathe. Every sense turns inward, riveted by the sensation of his cock. Twitching inside me. Filling me. Breaking me.
Enraged, he roars. Thrusts. Brutalizes. “Tell me to fucking stop.”
“More…” It’s not the word he wants to hear.
“No!” He grabs my throat from behind, grinding my face against the window, still thrusting. Grunts rip from him with each pass of his hips, each more unsteady than the last. Gritted. Grated. Gasping. “Tell me to stop.”
My head is spinning. My body is on fire. Unbearable pressure gathers in my abdomen. Am I suffocating? You’re dying.
“Fuck!” He bucks into me, twisting his fingers through my hair, grasping, pulling. He’s afraid of something. I hear it in his voice. I feel it in how he trembles. His hand leaves my throat and plunges between my legs, pressing into the flesh that surrounds him as if he can stave off whatever I feel building there, gathering in intensity. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Too late. The pressure builds and then spills over. It’s like a dam breaking: unwelcome, consuming pleasure flooding every fucking pore, crashing through parts of me I kept safe from even Robert. Too much. Not enough. My head rears back against his shoulder as my eyes widen to a mocking view of the endless night sky. God, that’s how he feels. Endless.
Pain rips through my shoulder: his teeth sinking deep, even as he spits words out against my skin. “You goddamn bitch.”
He’s furious, but I don’t know why. He’s not the one boneless and senseless, held up only by the weight of his body crushing me to the van. He’s not the one with nerves so stimulated that it hurts. My nails scrape the window glass, desperate for leverage, but I find nothing. Just cold night air and the taste of a stranger’s musk on my tongue.
