by Lana Sky
His nearness. My thudding pulse. More than that, even. Like the subtle way his breathing changes once I look up and meet his gaze. He’s panting, inhaling my unease. Getting high off every drop, I suspect.
“Look.” He takes the seat across from me and lifts the deck. One by one, he lays an array of cards face up. For some reason, I expect the typical arrangement: kings, queens, hearts, clubs, etc.
I shouldn’t be so damn surprised by the designs I find printed on each card instead. One sports a bloodied heart in vivid detail. Another displays what I think is a flogger, with tiny metal beads dangling from the ends of it. There’s also a pair of handcuffs, and a whip, and—of course—a knife.
“The game is simple,” Maxim says while cutting the deck in half. He places one stack before me and keeps the other for himself. “You draw a card and I will guess which one it is. You do the same to me.”
I lick my lips. It sounds so fucking simple, but nothing ever is where he’s concerned. “And if I lose?”
His eyes flash, displaying a fleeting emotion that disappears before I can name it. “If you fail, I decide your punishment.”
He waits, almost daring me to ask, And if I win?
He shrugs. “You do the same.”
Again, it sounds too easy. “How am I supposed to—”
“Draw,” he commands, nodding to the cards on my end. “I will guess first.”
My fingers shake as I brush them over the topmost card. Slowly, I flip it over, concealing my selection from him: a whip.
He eyes me for so long that I start to wonder what the real purpose of this “game” is. To unnerve me, obviously. To make me sweat and squirm. To keep me guessing, even if he’s supposedly the one in the hot seat, trying to decipher me.
“You drew a whip,” he says finally. When I gasp, he clarifies, “You look too eager.”
Eager. I marvel at that even as my stomach twists into uneasy knots.
“For your punishment, you give me an answer.” He shifts slightly in his seat, leaning forward, his hands braced over the polished wood of the table. “How long do you see yourself staying with me, should I rescind my other offer?”
In other words: If I dust you off and pluck you from the trash, how long before I toss you aside again?
An answer springs to my lips almost too quickly. “A month, maybe.”
He frowns. I answered wrong.
“Guess,” he snaps while fishing a card from his own deck. Coldly, his eyes scan the surface, impossible to read and unbearable to decipher.
Seconds tick past before I give up with a halfhearted guess. “A knife?”
“No.” He flips his card over: another whip. “I win again.” Lifting the card, he observes it in the dim lighting. Then he places it apart from the rest. “Your punishment.”
A shiver runs down my spine. I can’t breathe. Only sheer force of habit makes me obey when he commands me, “Draw.”
I do, but my eyes barely register the object on the other side of the card before he says, “A knife.”
“How?”
“You are easy to read when it comes to the things that excite you.”
My heart skips a beat. Excite?
He doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he reaches out and snatches the card from my grip. Laying it beside the whip, he sighs. “I win again.”
And I’ve supposedly earned my next punishment. I eye the knife warily as he draws another card. When I scan his face, however, something itches across my skull. Recognition? I know this expression.
I blurt out a guess without even thinking it through. “A heart.”
He stiffens. Then, very carefully, he flips the card over, revealing the image printed on it.
“I win,” I rasp in shock.
But beating him was the easy part.
His eyes meet mine again, more piercing than before. “And my punishment?”
Only he can make something so harmless—a childish game—seem so damn serious.
“The truth,” I demand. “Why did you throw me away?”
He sits back, running his fingers along his chin. I’m caught off guard by how casual he makes the act appear. Almost like he planned for things to end like this all along. When his eyes flicker knowingly, I’m sure of it.
This whole game was an elaborate ploy for this: He needed a reason to talk. And a way to ensure I was ready to listen.
“You see yourself staying with me for a month,” he says, twisting my words against me. “But maybe that would be for the best. Because being with me. Truly being with me… You would be risking way more than an occasional injury. In my world, you do not keep anything you’re not willing to kill for. Money. Power. Prestige. You must be willing to lay your life down for it all. But a woman?”
He looks down, eyeing the table as if it offends him. Clenching a fist, he sets it down over the image of the heart, blocking it from sight. “My own father couldn’t provide that protection to my mother. She was cattle. Do you understand what I mean?”
No. My brain isn’t deranged enough to imagine exactly what he’s implying—but it comes close.
“His own brothers could touch her,” he says, confirming the worst. “Hit her. Abuse her. And he would let them. Why?” He lifts his shoulder in a heartless shrug. “Because to defend her with his life would mean defending her from them and he was too selfish, even though he plied her with lies of love and affection. My methods may seem harsh, but when a contract is terminated, there are no loose ends. No possession to protect.”
“So…if they thought you cared for me—” My voice breaks. Even suggesting it seems unnatural. “You think they might hurt me.”
“I know they would.”
My stomach churns. I feel sick. “And you’d let them? You’d let them do those things to me?”
He doesn’t say anything.
Sweat creeps across my palms as I reach for my deck and peel another card from the top. Without fanfare, I flip it over and slam it onto the table. How fitting. Another knife, just like the figurative one I feel twisting in my chest.
“So why even bring me here?” I demand, blinking rapidly. I won’t… I am. Tears spill down like acid, eating through my skin. “You want to keep the stupid contract? Fine. But why do you keep toying with my head—”
“Because I can’t let you go.” He raises his fist and slams it over the heart. Once. Twice. With each blow, the entire table shakes. “I won’t. And I should. That motherfucker is already asking about you.”
My brain stalls. Sevastyn?
“I don’t…I don’t understand—”
“If he touches you, I’ll kill him,” he growls. “But I can’t.” He unfurls his fists and upends the entire table. Bam! It slams to the floor halfway across the room and every card goes flying. A flicker of shadow from the corner of my eye is my only warning before his hand captures my chin. “If I kill him. I’m done. Everything I’ve worked for. Everything I’ve slaved for. Gone. Are you really worth so much? Though, fuck, maybe it’s not even you I want, either?” Laughing, he shakes his head, sending golden hair falling across his shoulders.
The locks obscure his face. Good. I can’t even imagine an expression to match the grit in his voice. He’s thinking out loud—and that’s the terrifying part. Nothing unnerves me more than the brief glimpses I’ve had inside his mind.
“Maybe it’s the idea of it,” he says through gritted teeth. “The idea of having someone to fuck when I want. Hurt however I can. Someone foolish enough to stay so that I don’t have to constantly look for someone new. That could be it…”
Frozen solid, I’m a slave to his touch, interpreting every fucking detail that I can from his coarse fingertips. They graze my skin, a heart-stopping caress. Eventually, he cuts my reprieve short, tilting my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze directly.
Dark, swollen irises convey so much in one glance. I can’t interpret it all. Just that I’m in danger. Horrible, lethal danger.
And not because he might choke me.
Because he’s confused. He’s thinking. Without ever giving me the fucking chance to have any input, he comes to a decision within seconds. Like a door slamming shut, his expression shifts into a hardened mask.
“Could you stay, then?” he wonders. “With no contract? No promise of protection?”
And, if he were the kind of man to even offer such a thing, no love.
I know what he wants me to say—what I should say.
Of course not.
“My own mother didn’t want me,” I hear myself argue instead. God, I sound so old, aged a million years in just a few goddamn seconds. “I’m used to rejection. Hell, maybe I don’t want you, either—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
I flinch as he shifts his stance and drops to his knees. With his height, it’s easy for him to block me in. I brace for an assault, but his forehead meets mine without malice, his breaths scalding my cheek.
And this is worse than violence.
“Not now. Don’t fucking lie to me. I wish it were just the sex.” He laughs. Growls. “Any other man could fuck you. Keep you. But you haven’t seen a client a fraction as often as you’ve been with me—this unnerves you. Any other woman could give me her body for a price. But no…” His fingers sink into my hair, gathering strands of it in a brutal fist. “It’s your skin. My marks on it,” he hisses near my ear. “Your scent. The way you move. Your fucking voice—” He tugs and stands, hauling me to my feet as well. Trapped by his bulk, I’m crushed against the wall, forced to endure every word of his confession. “It’s you. And you threaten everything I’ve built. Everything I’ve worked for… But I can’t let you go.”
“Then don’t.” My face is buried against his chest and I pray that the cotton of his suit muffles every fucking word. Because once I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “I just want…”
“What?” he demands.
“To submit,” I say in a rush. “One aspect of my life when someone else takes complete control of everything for once. Someone who won’t throw me out or push me away. I don’t care about the rest. I just want to stay.”
My nails dig into the fabric, biting into the tender flesh beneath to convey what I can’t put into words.
“It’s out in the open now,” he says, his voice rough. Strong hands grip my waist, bunching up the skirt of my dress. “You know my limits. I’ve hidden nothing.”
His limits: I’ll never be worth fighting for. His club. This room. His world. All of it takes precedence over me.
Can I live, knowing that?
His lips brush my jaw before I can decide and every thought vanishes. “Everything else I can give you,” he swears. “Money? Fine. However fucking much you want. An education? A home for your family? I’ll give you that.”
And all of it tethered to a contract, nothing more.
Which is fine. I don’t need anything else. I tell myself that over and over as his teeth nip at my lower lip, pry my mouth open, and claim every inch for himself.
I tell myself that as he backs me to his bed and crushes me to the broken-in mattress.
I chant those fucking words: Material things are all I need.
Maybe if I repeat it enough times…
I’ll finally believe it.
“Get up.”
The husky voice, paired with a fiery splash of pain on my hip, draws me from a dreamless, heavy sleep. Peeling my eyes open, I find Maxim sitting beside me, his palm hovering over my smarting skin, ready to strike again.
“Come.”
I crawl after him to the end of the mattress, groaning in a mixture of pain and exhaustion. It has to be some time in the afternoon, judging from the sliver of sunlight seeping beneath the black curtains that shield the windows. He’s kept me here for hours.
Was this part of my punishment? Getting fucked into oblivion?
I bite my lip as a pang shoots through my belly. It wasn’t hope. It wasn’t.
“Come here.”
He leads me into a nearby bathroom. Gold fixtures and white marble are a chilling contrast to the darkness of his room. After steering me into a sunken tub, he runs the water hot and watches as the liquid rises, lapping at my skin.
Looking down, I don’t even recognize myself. A patchwork of cuts and bruises stand out in brutal contrast to pale skin. Only now can I feel the sting and ache from each little injury. My left eye throbs the most.
“Don’t—” He stops me from reaching up to touch it, capturing my wrist.
I can’t breathe as he lowers my hand to the water and then flicks his thumb along my cheek instead.
“When I sculpt, every strike must be precise. Controlled,” he says gruffly, observing my wound like he would a cracked bit of marble. “The slightest chip can often be smoothed or polished—but a crack is irreparable. I can only start over, move onto something else. But this…” He lightly teases his nail against my skin, just enough to bite. “I can’t start over new.”
His jaw clenches in the dangerous way it does when he’s thinking. Contemplating. Plotting.
“I suggest another game,” he says, lowering his hand. When I stiffen, he shakes his head. “Not like that. This one… If I ever hurt you again, you have my permission.”
I’m cold despite the steam wafting from the water around me. It’s up to my chest now, and the gentle flow from the faucet adds a haunting backdrop to his low, careful tone.
Hurt. He doesn’t mean via the lash of the whip or the sting of his blade during foreplay.
“Permission to what?” I croak when seconds pass without an explanation.
His fingers leave my hair and move to my hip, this time with a washrag caught between them. “Permission to render your own punishment,” he says. “I will give you that.”
Shock lances through me. Punish him how? I’m not brave enough to ask. His promise lingers, tainting the air as he washes me up in earnest.
There is no rose-scented soap here. Instead, he lathers me with a scent that smells like him. Musky, spicy, and masculine. I don’t know how long he bathes me in total—just that he takes his time, extending every touch and caress.
I wouldn’t call it gentle. More resigned. The same way the drug dealers in my old neighborhood used to wash their expensive cars out in the open, daring anyone to touch their property. As the water drains from the tub, he disappears, slipping into the hallway, and I finally let myself process the snippets of what happened last night.
So much about his bipolar mood makes sense now—and that’s the fucking terrifying part. He makes perfect sense. I can easily guess what will happen next. For now, he’ll keep me around, but the moment I get too close. Push him too far. Draw too much attention from his fucked-up family.
He’ll cut me loose again.
“Lift your arms,” Maxim commands, snapping me back to the present.
He got a dress for me while I was lost in thought. With little fanfare, he redresses me in the black shift I wore here. Together, we return to the now deserted main hall of the club and then out front, where his driver awaits.
It’s only when we’re halfway across the city that I stop to consider how dangerous this game of roulette has become. It’s one thing when the bullet is an unknown number of pulls on the trigger away. It’s another entirely when the bullet is in your goddamn hand.
Safety. Security. Sex. I’ve bled for those things before. But maybe that’s the point. Who am I without the constant, soul-numbing struggle I’ve known my entire life?
That’s the real question.
He takes me home and I find the kids in the living room. Dread weighs me down as I linger in the foyer, listening to their laughter drift through the doorway. This time of day, I can’t scurry past them or hide from sight.
Inhaling, I start forward, taking stock of the battlefield before me. Ainsley and Eric are trying to stab each other with the ends of expensive-looking fake flowers while Mikie and the boys shout at the television, game controllers in hand. I spot Daisy lurking into the
shadows. The moment I enter the room, she’s already sneaking out before I can say a word.
Sighing, I start after her. “Daisy, wait—”
“She’s okay,” Mikie says without looking away from his game. “Give her some time to cool off… You look like shit.” His eyes sweep over my damp hair and my wrinkled dress. “Sorry,” he says a second later. “I just meant—I mean. Hey.”
“Hey,” I choke out.
Ainsley and Eric are watching me, frozen mid-fight. Ollie and Ray stare too, while Mikie turns back to their game, his shoulders hunched.
I don’t know what else to say other than, “How…how are you guys holding up?” The neckline of this dress is too damn low. Awkwardly, I cross my arms over my chest in a pathetic attempt to disguise the bared flesh. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” the twins say in unison.
“Fine,” chirp Eric and Ainsley.
Mikie sets his controller down. “We’re all good,” he says, flashing a crooked grin. His eyes meet mine, unusually sharp. He’s trying to tell me something, but he doesn’t say what out loud—for their benefit, I realize.
Then it hits me, a figurative punch to the chest: He’s playing the role I used to, keeping the kids calm while the deadbeat mother makes her occasional appearance.
“Get back to the game, you dummies,” he barks to Ollie and Ray. “Let’s see how many times I can kick your asses!”
I back out of the room, heading for the stairs. My eyes sting. My throat is on fire, but this time, I’m not sure why.
Relief? They’re doing fine without Melanie.
Or me—which is a good thing…
“The police were here again, you know.”
I look up and find Daisy standing at the top of the steps, her arms crossed, her pink lips in a flat line. I don’t even recognize her voice, so dull that she might as well be whispering.
“That bald guy scared them off. But they said some stuff.”
“What?” My heart races, my palms slick. “What did they say?”
“That guy Mama married is dead too. Did you know that?”
My eyes widen before I can school my expression. “No,” I rasp. “I didn’t.”
