by Lana Sky
At the same time, Ainsley starts rubbing her eyes, and I take the sign as a cue. “Bedtime.”
The others groan in unison, but I follow them upstairs, surprised by the feeling building in my stomach. It isn’t until I tuck Ainsley in bed and plant a kiss on her cheek that I can name the sensation for what it is.
Dread.
That cold, dark room awaits. But it isn’t fear that sends my heartbeat surging as I finally approach the master suite. Maybe it’s a little grief? The open, relaxed Maxim from earlier is dead and gone.
The figure standing hunched over the foot of the bed is a different creature—the other half of the twisted coin that is this beautiful, broken man.
“It’s dusk,” he says in a rasping tone. His hand gestures curtly toward the window. Sure enough, the horizon is a bloody, brilliant scarlet mingled with shades of orange. The sun is making its last stand. Technically, it isn’t nightfall just yet. “If before… You can ask me one thing. The question I know is burning on the tip of your tongue.”
My heart skips. His offer isn’t a thoughtful request or a meaningless gesture. It’s an olive branch. Reassurance—this is a true give and take. No matter how much effort it requires on both our parts.
“Do you want children?” I blurt out. He’s right. That one question has been hovering in my throat, and I didn’t even fucking realize it until now.
He sighs, lowering his head. “Would you trust me as a father?”
I’m unprepared for the question—one so different from his usual defensive responses. I think of how he can be with Ainsley, Eric, and the others—so gentle. On the other hand, it seems to take effort on his part. So much damn effort that at night, he needs to lock himself in a room just to express the pent-up violence. And with me…
He’s slipped before, going too far, almost beyond reach. Could someone as small as Ainsley or even smaller be able to stop him?
No, a part of me whispers in horror. But you know that. You’ve known it all along…
I shake my head, banishing the doubts. “I don’t know.”
“Oh?” He laughs in a way that raises goosebumps, cold and distant. “You do know.”
“Should I?” I swallow hard, watching him. He must have opened a window. A breeze drifts in, disrupting the golden halo of hair brushing his shoulders. For the first time, I toy with dissecting the real reason he’s kept me with him, apart from the kids, except during our strained hiatus. I’d always assumed he preferred to live alone, but what if there is more to it than that? “Are you okay with my kids being here now?”
He doesn’t answer.
I blink more rapidly, my eyes burning, my throat tight. “If this is all too much…”
“It’s not,” he says, and it isn’t until now that I realize just how much I needed to hear that. My knees buckle at the genuine honesty in his voice. “I don’t mind them. I will never lose control around them, I promise you that.”
But something is on his mind, gnawing away at his previous composure. Something he can’t—or won’t—explain, no matter how many seconds tick by.
“Does this help you?” I finally ask, avoiding the real secrets looming between us. “The room. Even if you don’t talk about it? Does it help?”
He nods, and it’s like I can track the instability building within him. His spine goes rigid, his hands clenching into fists, his body hunched and angular. “Yes,” he confesses hoarsely. “I need this… I need this from you.”
“Okay.” I turn to that infamous door, this time freed from hesitation. When I grip the handle, a mechanical noise sounds before it opens. I’ve barely stepped over the threshold when I sense him on my heels, herding me inside.
“Kneel.”
Choking down a hiss, I sink to the hard floor. Every ache from last night throbs, renewed beneath his gaze. With him, pain takes on a sick connotation, enhanced by his reaction to it.
He inhales as if feeding off every flinch and twitch of sore muscle. I track his steps to the opposite end of the room. That one drawer, I suspect.
Sure enough, as he returns to me, the telltale snap of leather cuts the silence. Instantly, a stinging pain bites at my hip—a warning.
“Get on your hands and knees.”
I do, bracing my palms over the frigid floor. He must control the air-conditioning in this room apart from the rest of the house. It’s colder in here. My teeth are chattering, and yet sweat drips down my spine at the same time, a twisted dichotomy.
In this realm, even logic ceases to matter.
Another blow lands across my lower back. Another strikes my hip. My thigh.
“Strip,” he commands.
I do so without bothering to stand up, shimmying from my dress. His footsteps echo, resonating in my bones as he circles my position, eyeing his handiwork. None of the lashings broke the skin, but they came damn close. The one on my hip smarts like hell, and I grit my teeth against making a sound. Attuned to my body like any true predator, he nudges that wound with the whip as if aware of the amount of pain inflicted in each particular spot.
Without warning, the whip hisses through the air and lands in between my shoulder blades. It hurts. I can’t smother a groan, even as my thoughts start to dissipate, drunk on the burning sting.
Merciless, he hits me again.
Again.
Eventually, he forsakes the whip entirely and captures a fistful of my hair, wrenching me to my feet. Without explanation, he guides me to the marble slab and shoves me across it. Shivers ripple down my spine as he slides his hand between my legs, hissing at what he finds.
“There are things I want to do to you that would terrify you,” he admits, stroking his damp fingers up the curve of my back, leaving a trail of moisture in his wake. “Things you aren’t ready for. I’ve been patient, but fuck… Can you trust your body to me, even now?”
A part of me realizes in horror just what he’s doing—begging.
Do I trust him? With his voice thick with lust, his fingers trembling with malice, my body on fire from his lashing…
Slumped against the marble slab, all I can do is nod. The intensity with which I do so makes my mind reel and has him grunting in relief. What dark, twisted fantasies has he held back from enacting?
For whatever reason, I’ll take them without asking. Without hesitating.
His fingers dance over the throbbing skin of my ass, lingering there on purpose to heighten my anticipation. I writhe, too on edge to remain submissive. The disobedience makes him hum, and I know he’s savoring the thought of whatever punishment lies in store.
“No one’s ever fucked you in this way,” he suspects, inching lower down the curve of my hip, to the center of my back. Then lower…
Oh. I have a grim suspicion as to what he wants.
“I can tell,” he adds accusingly. “You stiffen whenever I touch you here. Why?”
My cheeks catch fire at the intimacy of the question. Because no matter how broke or how desperate I’ve been, no one could ever make me relinquish that one, small bit of myself. No one. Anal sex was never on the menu to any John, no matter the price.
“Do you trust this to me?” Maxim wonders, invading my thoughts so easily that it’s pointless to speak them out loud. He knows. More than I should be comfortable with allowing. More than any other man ever will. “I won’t take it from you—” He slides his fingers dangerously close to the entrance no one has ever touched. Not even him.
I tremble, my chest heaving. I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t afraid. What little I know of anal is that it hurts. Like hell. If done too violently, it can cause lasting damage. Unimaginable pain…
And yet, my hips buck—toward him, not away.
“You’re so perfect for me,” he grates against the groove of my neck. It’s both a praise and a curse. Perfect for him. Squirming and willing, thwarting the perfectionist in him that craves control. I’m ruining his careful, precise vision of taking my last shred of virginity. I’m far too fucking eager. Voice breaki
ng, he commands, “Tell me I can have you—”
“Yes.” The words escape me before he’s even finished speaking. “You…you can have me.”
He whispers something too softly to make out. An apology? His thumb grazes my lips before I can question. He parts them with persistent pressure, finding my tongue. Slowly, he wets his fingers—but I don’t understand why until he moves behind me, urging me to lie higher across the altar.
I nearly jump out of my skin as he guides his thumb between the crack of my ass, finding that elusive opening. One of his hands captures mine, gripping tight as his other pins my hip to the marble.
I only have enough sense to suck in a breath of air before he slips his thumb inside…
Out.
In.
This taking is brutal. No planning. No preparation. Only after a few tests of his thumb does he rub the head of his cock against that untouched opening, hissing when I flinch.
“Say that you trust me,” he demands, nipping my earlobe. “Say it.”
My lips part, devoid of hesitation. “I trust you—”
“Then take me.” He bucks his hips, and the sharp pinch of his invasion takes my breath away. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!
I choke on a cry as his length slams into me, crushing me between his bulk and the unyielding marble. My fingers claw uselessly at the surface, scrambling for purchase.
He goes deep. Too deep. So deep.
It should be impossible to find pleasure in this—suffocating, crushing, writhing agony. In some ways, maybe it is. The heat of his breath on my neck burns like fire. He grips my hips without care, driving his nails in, forcing me to take every thrust with no mercy.
I’m convulsing around him anyway.
It’s a feeling I could never find in his arms, lounging beneath the sunlight. Something violent and raw and selfish that lingers in the knowledge that only I can give him this.
True submission.
Even if it hurts. Even if the aftermath leaves me trembling on my knees, too exhausted to stand on my own. Murmuring against my skin, he lifts me into his arms, carrying me from the room. Still on edge, I gasp as the atmosphere changes. Warmth displaces cold. The air thins. Moonlight replaces the harsh, fluorescent lighting.
We re-enter the real world like creatures from hell, and it’s a slow, cruel readjustment to reality.
He drapes me over the edge of the bed and disappears for a moment only to return with a cloth clutched in his fist. He bathes me carefully, but his touch lingers afterward. It’s like I can read his mind as he weighs the prospect of taking me back into that space. Feeding this addiction with another round.
I’ve already resigned myself to exactly that when a frantic knock on the door shatters everything.
“Frankie? Frankie?”
“Shit!” I only have enough energy to roll onto my side, facing the door, and pray that it doesn’t open. “W-What is it?”
“Can I sleep with you?” Ainsley asks in between sniffling cries. “P-Please?”
Double shit.
“Uh…” I can’t even look at Maxim. “Not tonight, baby. G-Give me a minute, and I’ll come to tuck you in—”
“It’s okay.” Maxim enters the closet and tosses me a robe. “Let her in.”
He’s already pulling on a pair of gray sweats and a shirt. Before I can call Ainsley myself, he crosses over to the door and opens it.
Rubbing her eyes, Ainsley barges in, trailing a pink blanket behind her that I assume came from her bed. She climbs in beside me and burrows beneath the sheets. From the corner of my eye, I notice Maxim already entering the hall.
“I’ll be on the couch,” he says.
“No!” Ainsley sits up, her eyes wide. “You have to stay in case the bad man comes back. You have to!”
“Ainsley…” I run my fingers through her hair and try to coax her into lying down. “Baby, try to get some sleep—”
“It’s alright.” Maxim lingers near the threshold before he returns to the bed. I can’t read his expression. He circles around to the opposite end from Ainsley and me and then sits on the floor with his back braced against the mattress. “Get some sleep,” he grunts. “No one will hurt you.”
A faint reply comes muffled from beneath the blankets. “Promise?”
He sighs again. “I… I promise.”
Satisfied, Ainsley snuggles against me, and within minutes she’s sleeping deeply.
But her protector doesn’t budge from his post. Even though he has no real obligation to, he keeps his promise.
He stays.
Chapter Thirteen
I wake up content—a fact that makes my heart beat faster before my senses fully return. There’s no foot in my side, no tiny fingers tangled in my hair. Confused, I feel out with my hand, alarmed to find empty space beside me. “Ainsley?”
“She’s eating breakfast,” someone calls before panic can set in, their voice raspy with sleep. I look over to find Maxim unmoved from his previous position on the floor, his back to me. A familiar heat stirs as my eyes skim over his muscle, defined in the daylight.
But once I reach his face, the fire dies down, replaced by cold, hard fear. From this angle, I can only make out the stern set to his jaw—he’s still in that room, brooding internally. Over regrets? Normalcy by day and BDSM by night could be a game that even he isn’t up to playing for very long.
“Maxim?” I tentatively call out, rolling toward him.
He doesn’t answer. Then he groans, stretching his arms above his head, and the tension leaves his muscles. “I believe they’re having omelets,” he says from over his shoulder, his voice neutral. “Courtesy of Lucius.”
Slowly, I relax back into the mattress. “Is there anything he can’t do?” I wonder tiredly.
“If there is, he’ll rectify it somehow,” Maxim replies with audible respect. “The man is the best money can buy.”
That and loyalty. There’s no denying that, their professional relationship aside, Lucius cares for him.
“You should go eat,” Maxim suggests, rising to his feet while I shift to keep him in view. “I will shower and…”
He meets my gaze, and whatever he finds makes him trail off. The distraction is mutual. One look from him sets me alight despite the exhaustion weighing me down. I flick my tongue along my lower lip as I follow the line of his gaze downward. Oh. My robe fell open when I moved, revealing my breasts. Absently, I start to adjust it, but he lunges, grabbing my wrist.
I’m in his arms before I know it. He takes me into the shower, and we bathe together, saying nothing—verbally anyway. The way he touches me conveys a million different things, soothing over every sting inflicted last night.
A tendril of lingering doubt creeps in, feeding off the memories of him in that room. The anger. The repressed emotions. Again I have to wonder if this little game of give and take is more than he can handle. Is normalcy beyond his limits?
His fingers sink into my hair, grazing my scalp as if to banish all other thoughts but this. His nearness. Our nakedness. Heat. Cautiously, our lips meet. Once. Twice.
“I am curious about something,” Maxim confesses, drawing back. My lips burn, mourning the loss of his as he turns his attention to my throat. His teeth knead the flesh along my collar, sending heat churning through my belly with every nip.
Distracted by how his mouth increasingly travels south, I can barely form a coherent reply. “Oh?”
“You didn’t argue,” he points out before cupping my breast in his palm. With a sinful caress, he squeezes, making me lurch against him. “When I told your family you refused my proposal.”
“What?” I stiffen, but his tongue laves over my nipple, and any logic dissipates. “I-I…”
“You didn’t deny it either. That I had pursued you—or ‘dating’ as your sister put it.” Rather than annoyed, he sounds oddly…smug at that fact. As though in not refusing him outright, I hadn’t closed the door on an engagement entirely.
“I…”
He
returns his mouth to mine, robbing me of the chance to argue. Within seconds, he’s buried within me to the hilt, and I lose track of everything but the sensation building between us.
Slow, lazy, unhurried sex is another first.
Experienced with him, it feels like some novel, newly discovered concept that I pity every other woman for never getting to enjoy firsthand.
Afterward, we dress, and by the time we make it downstairs, breakfast is long gone, and Ainsley is musing about lunch.
That meal is eventually supplied by Maxim as well—more grilled meat and fresh fruit from the well-stocked fridge. This time, we pack up the food and eat on the beach, wiggling our toes in the sand. That hazy, dreamlike feeling returns and I’m stupid enough to wish this could last forever.
But when Lucius approaches, a cell phone glued to his ear, I know reality is about to descend. Rudely.
Apparently, Maxim assumes the same. He lunges to his feet and races to meet Lucius first. Whatever words they exchange leaves the younger man scowling, and when he returns, he shoves his hand into his pocket and withdraws a wallet. From it, he takes several crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“Who wants it?” he demands, brandishing the bills in his fist.
Predictably, all six kids shout in a deafening clamor.
His voice booming, Maxim easily overpowers them, “Alright. If all of you can make it to that end of the beach—” he points to a spot in the distance “—and back, you can divide it amongst each other. Go now.”
Oblivious to anything but their challenge, they take off, jockeying for the lead.
The second they’re out of earshot, Maxim grabs my wrist and pulls me to my feet.
“What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer in favor of leading me back to the house. As we enter the living room, I see the cause of the disturbance for myself.
Dressed in a tan suit with a crisp white shirt, a few buttons open at the neck, a tall man commands the massive space. He stands rigidly, casting a cynical glance at the bright, neutral décor. Once he spots Maxim, he inhales as if steeling himself for a battle. “I will explain—”
