by Lana Sky
Obey
XXX Maxim Book Two
Lana Sky
Obey
Obey By Lana Sky
Copyright © 2019 by Lana Sky
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design and Interior Formatting by The Illustrated Author Design Services
Editing by Erica Russikoff at Erica’s Editing Services and Mickey Reed Editing
Formatting by Charity Chimni
Proofreading by Charity Chimni
Acknowledgments
Mickey, thank you so very much for taking the time to help me perfect this draft. As always, your feedback and expertise have been invaluable. Thanks to Melissa Stevens for such beautiful covers. Thank you, Charity for applying the final touches on this draft.
Thanks so much to everyone who supported this draft along the way, including the many beta readers who provided encouragement along the way! Please keep in mind that this story includes dark, graphic and explicit content matter that is not suitable for readers under the age of 18—or for readers who are uncomfortable with the following subject matter: explicit sex, mentions of sexual abuse, mentions of child abuse, graphic depictions of violence, and mentions of self-harm.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
A Word from the Author
About the Author
Also by Lana Sky
Chapter One
I used to think I’d die before reaching twenty. Maybe I’d overdose on something? More realistically, I’d wind up stabbed to death by some shady-ass john.
Fairytales with shitty endings appeal more to me, anyway. The real Little Mermaid turned to dust in the end, and Snow White got buried in a glass box, all without getting the prince. I’m definitely not some fairytale princess—far from it, in fact. But maybe, just once, I want to know what it feels like. To dare to dream for something more than the inevitable unhappy ending. To want something so badly that you’d die for it.
After all, I’ve already killed for less.
“What are you thinking?”
The question rumbles against my eardrum. When I don’t answer fast enough, warm lips part against the nape of my neck, releasing nipping teeth that demand obedience.
Answer me.
“S-something stupid,” I croak, remembering where I am. Not a storybook setting, but a devil’s lair. Black sheets conform to my exhausted form, soaking up sweat.
I risk looking over my shoulder from behind a fringe of my matted hair. A predator lies beside me, his skin glistening with sweat. Pale moonlight streams in through the window, casting him in a silver glow. If I squint and ignore the stench of salt in the air…
This moment could be normal pillow talk. How people in those shitty rom-com movies act after sex. Panting and still with limbs that almost touch.
One of those people wouldn’t be bleeding though. They’d probably be closer in age, too. Not to mention, there wouldn’t be a body in the foyer of their fancy high-rise—no, that would be a whole different genre. The kind in which the lead actor utilized a whip, left discarded somewhere on the floor.
“Kotyonok.” Maxim’s tone snaps me back to the present. I’ve kept him waiting for a response for too long.
“Nothing,” I say finally, licking my bitten, sore lips. “I’m thinking of a stupid game I used to play.”
Or one my siblings and I used to, anyway. Proposing hypothetical wishing scenarios only poor brats could envision. Like: Would you ever kill a man? Or: What would you do with a million dollars, Frankie? For shits and giggles, we’d add a downside, just to make it harder to answer. Hey, Frankie, what would you do if you committed murder with a man who had a million dollars?
Well…
I’d probably be in bed with said chiseled Adonis who seemed to own the whole fucking world. He’d have blond hair. Wild strands of it might fall across his forehead, casting a shadow over his piercing gaze. One look and my heart would clench as if jolted by a defibrillator. Zap! It’s pathetic to admit, but only he would have that kind of power over me.
I’d let him have it.
Being so close to him would sting—worse than any bruise or cut I could ever inflict on myself. At least a knife would have a human impulse controlling it. Logic. Mercy.
But he wouldn’t.
He’d be different. A beautiful, soulless contrast of ivory and shadow. All mine and yet so far out of reach. But, like the idiot I am, I’d forget that. Just for a second. I’d stare, eyeing the contours of his jaw in search of a hint of softness.
Maybe I’d find some, right there lurking within dark irises. I’d reach for it, my fingertips grazing flesh and muscle. Then he’d open his mouth and say…
“You slept.” His voice resonates through my skin, his breath hot on my shoulder. “The first night I killed, I didn’t.”
I stiffen at the reminder, and then my hand falls to the sheets beneath us. Blood, violence, death. The memories circle my brain, forming a tornado of panic that almost drags me under—almost.
Like a good dealer, he already has another dose of my chosen poison on hand to keep me afloat. Rather than a bite or pinch, my antidote lurks in more violence, uttered like a bedtime story.
“I was a child then, the first time. My father would beat my mother, you see.” His tone is so casual that he could be talking about the weather. Not death. “It was common among them,” he adds. “His brothers. His father. It was even expected that I should hit her, should the feeling strike me to.” He blows out a sigh that ruffles my hair. “But she was kind. Gentle. She barely raised her voice to him, and yet he would attack her just because the wind was blowing. There was no reason. No purpose. He just could.”
His confession puts everything he’s done to me in a newer context. The contracts. The safe words. Each layer is constructed to differentiate his preferences from those of an abusive prick. To prove to himself: I’m not like him.
Maybe it’s enough of a difference. Or a lie. The same one I tell myself every damn day: I’m not like Melanie. I whore because I have to. I steal, cheat, lie, and fuck—all because I need to.
Like that makes it any better.
Like that makes it any easier to look at myself in a mirror.
“One night,” Maxim continues, “he stormed into the house in a rage and struck her once. Just once, but she died instantly. Brain hemorrhage. Even as a child, I knew what he’d done. How little he cared in the aftermath—he kicked her when she didn’t get up. Then he poured himself a scotch and headed up to bed, muttering how he’d make her pay in the morning. So I followed him.” He remains silent for so long that I start to think he won’t finish. Finally… “I don’t even remember what I called him. He turne
d around and struck me across the face. In retaliation, I pushed him. He didn’t die instantly, not like her. He was still alive, howling at the bottom of the stairs. He’d struck his head, but not hard enough to kill him. So I took a poker from the fireplace…”
Oh god. I squeeze my eyes shut as if the pathetic act can stop my brain from conjuring an image to match his tale. “Why are you telling me this?”
He sighs, breathing out harshly against my spine as I open my eyes again. “So that you will understand. Contracts aside, I am who I am. This.” He raises his hand, extending each finger as though his true nature is tattooed on each knuckle. “I will never hide this part of myself from you.”
From someone else, I think the confession would sound romantic. Out of his mouth, it’s a terrifying promise.
And he makes me chase it, staying silent until I ask, “What happened next?”
“I spent days in that house alone with their bodies. My grandfather was the one who found me. Found his son. I was afraid.” No one would ever guess as much now. His voice lacks any true definition—just hoarse, emotionless words. “In my family, you can kill and abuse anyone but blood. The penalty is worse than death. But rather than punishment, he gave me my absolution: I was to head the division of the syndicate my father had. My family had a long heritage in running guns in and out of Russia, along with gambling. Overnight, I was given control of it all, with the same punishment my father faced should I fail: death. I was ten years old.”
Heat prickles behind my eyes. Blinking doesn’t push the tears back, and for the millionth time this week alone, I’m fucking crying. I can’t stop it. In a way, I don’t want to stop it. The moisture spilling down my cheeks tethers me to reality, far away from the twisted past he’s reliving.
But not for long.
“I was weak,” he says, continuing the thread of this fucked-up fairytale. “I still mourned my mother. Wept for her. And my grandfather was not pleased. To him, my actions were pathetic. He feared that I would never grow into a man. That I was too soft. Nothing should matter more to a man than his name. No one else. In his mind, he only saw one way to ‘cure’ me of those instincts.”
His hand drifts down his torso to the edge of the binder shielding his stoma.
No. I’m holding my breath. My lungs are screaming for air, unable to take any in until he finally delivers the final piece of his story.
“He hired men,” he says into my shoulder.
A sharp pain makes me jump: He bit me, giving us both a dose of the drug we’ve come to crave—but this time, it’s not enough. I’m in the void with him, sucked into the past, forced to relive his horror to the very end.
“A group of them. To teach me why it would not be in my best interest to continue acting ‘like a faggot,’ as he put it.”
Oh god.
I can’t. I shake my head and then push him off. Away. In a rush of unfurling limbs, I try to crawl to the end of the bed, but he catches me, fisting his hand in my hair.
“I learned the truth about pleasure and pain that night, kotyonok,” he says in a chilling monotone. It’s like once he’s started talking, he can’t stop. “You can never have one without the other, and I ensured that I would never be on the losing end again. I came to America. I built my own corner of our empire with my own fucking hands. I found people I could share it with.”
He doesn’t mean a family. Something more. I think of the British man, and Lucius, and the aura he’s cultivated in his club. He built a new life.
“But you. I never planned for you.”
Hot, searing pain splashes across my scalp as he yanks on my scalp, drawing me into him.
“You are disgusted,” he says, but he doesn’t sound angry. Just resigned.
I crane my neck and find his mouth twisted into that terrifying emotion: confusion. His fingers trace my jaw as he studies my expression: my gaping mouth, my weeping eyes and what I know he finds in them.
Pity would be one thing, but this is different, unlike any agony he could ever dish out with a belt or his teeth. Something deeper than physical pain—it’s understanding.
And it’s fucking horrifying to feel it for someone like him. To feel it at all.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurt as his frown deepens. “I’m so sorry—”
“Sorry?” Darkness clouds his gaze, and my heart sputters to a stop in my chest. When he reaches out, I’m frozen solid, but his fingers merely graze the length of my chin, tilting my face toward his. “One would think that, by now, you would stop surprising me, kotyonok,” he says. Then he rolls toward his edge of the bed and stands. “I want you to answer this question honestly: Do you trust me?”
“W-what?”
“Trust,” he snarls. “Do you know what it means?”
“I…”
I don’t. Trust—that’s a make-believe concept. I grew up being taught over and over that you only had one bitch on your side: the same one you saw in the mirror.
No one else was needed.
But him…
I know the word I want to say. I try to spit it out, but my brain scrambles it, turning the answer into something else. “I don’t know.”
Maxim nods. He’s already dressed, and one of his hands dips into his pocket and withdraws a familiar object tucked into his palm: a knife. He flexes his wrist, springing the blade to its full length.
“My family thrives on ‘trust,’” he says, mutilating the word like it’s some sick inside joke. “On honor. Obedience. I am expected to follow any command given to me. No questions asked. No hesitation. Could I expect the same from you?” He takes a step in my direction, sending every muscle in my body into a frenzy. “The will to let me approach you with this blade and not so much as flinch because you trust whatever I will do with it. To you. Could you give me that?”
He smiles when I don’t answer: a dangerous flash of teeth. “Stay here,” he says, changing the subject. “I need to clean.”
I swallow hard. Clean. In other words, remove the body. I can smell it from here, lingering beneath the musk of sex. Blood. Death…
“Get some rest, kotyonok.”
When he leaves this time, there’s no uncertain anticipation of what he might do next. I know: He’ll come back.
And for whatever insane reason…I’ll be here.
Chapter Two
“Trusting” begins with a simple lesson, more basic than any so far. Wake up in his arms, breathing in his scent: a giant who holds me like a doll he doesn’t want to break. Yet. The moment he senses I’m awake, his grip tightens, trapping me here. Beneath him. Beside him. Possession laces his touch, but it feels different from before.
My old collar was leather and gold, but this time…
Secrets bind me to him, forming a noose around my throat—one I’ll never be able to remove. I can only endure it. Feel his skin molded against mine, sinew and muscle coiled with enough strength to kill. Take in everything Maxim Koslov has to offer…
And not flinch.
I last two seconds—the longest stretch I’ve ever gone with him. When I finally react, he pulls away and stands.
“Get up.” After crossing over to a dresser, he removes a crisp white shirt and a pair of black slacks from it. “Up, kotyonok,” he warns, frowning. I haven’t moved. “As much as I’d love to punish your insolence—” His eyes rake over me and his tongue traces his bottom lip. Meeting my gaze, he sighs. “I’m taking you home.”
Home. A part of me recoils even as I scramble upright. I can’t imagine stepping foot back in the fucking shack again. The one place where I’m easy bait for Melanie the next time she comes knocking.
“Not there,” he says as if reading my mind. “I’m taking you home.”
The subtle inflection in his tone adds a terrifying new connotation to that word.
“What about my siblings?” It hits me that I don’t have any idea where they are now. At the hotel? Somewhere else? My throat constricts. How could I have been so fucking selfish? “Where are they?
”
“Safe,” Maxim says. His tone paired with the knowing gleam in his gaze gives me an idea that he’s handled it, taking all decisions right out of my hands.
Should I feel insulted? Petrified?
Still numb from last night, I can’t decide. Absolution is a funny fucking thing in practice. It takes something more than the submission he craves—it takes desperation. I could fight back against his smooth insertion into my life or demand to know more.
Or I could say that fucking safe word and end it all now.
And he wants me to. That is why he’s taking his time unfurling his shirt and pulling his pants on, waiting for the exact second I’ll challenge him. When that moment never comes, he stands, fully dressed, his head cocked slightly to the side.
“Get dressed,” he says and I lurch from the sheets and stagger to my feet.
He follows when I head toward my room, lurking in my wake. A glance down the hallway reveals that the center of the foyer is pristine, free of blood. Terror seeps in for a brief second, rooting me in place. My hand trembles, and for a moment, I let myself relive it.
The lack of resistance after the bone was crushed. The rusty smell of his blood painting my skin. The life draining from his eyes…what was left of them.
“Kotyonok.” Maxim’s hand lands on my shoulder, nudging me into the room down the hall from his. “Come.”
With him in tow, I approach the closet and observe the clothing within. I don’t even put up the pretense of choosing an item on my own. Sure enough, he reaches around me and flips through an array of hangers before settling on a black dress with a lacy collar. I start to pull it on, but he stops me, running his hand across my cheek.
