by Lana Sky
The raw lust in his voice steals my breath away. I’ve never been this terrified. This damn alive, on the edge of pain and insanity. Too many men have had my body to even count, but none have made me crave them back. Like heroin. Like air. Deep inside, muscles I didn’t even know I had clench and unclench, desperate for something to cling to.
“Look at me.”
His gaze is feral when I do: all teeth and those eyes crazed with hunger. I nearly choke on the cry that threatens to break free as he muscles his way between my legs, jarring my precarious balance. The rasp of his pants against my inner thighs clashes with the throbbing pain building in my shoulders. It’s too fucking much.
“I will not play with you tonight,” Maxim tells me, his voice gritted. “There is a reason why you came back to me. Can you tell me?” A cruel thumb nudges my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze again, our frantic breaths mingling. “Hmmm?”
My body jolts. I know. Every cut in my flesh stings in a mocking symphony. Away from him, none of it feels strong enough. I’m not strong enough…
And, damn it, I don’t want to be anymore.
“Say it,” he goads, nipping my throat, a taste of what I crave. “Your safe word,” he adds when my brain stalls, unsure of what he means. “Say it now.”
If it was hard to say it before, it should feel impossible to now. My leverage. My sanity… All of it is tied to two little words that spill from my tongue on command. “I’m…happy.”
His unstable chuckle swallows up the words and it’s like I never said them at all. “Now, beg me to fuck you. And know that, the moment I enter your cunt this time, there will be no more lies. No more games.”
No more safety net, a part of me cries, filling in the blanks of what he doesn’t say.
“You can still run.” Another dizzying kiss lands on my shoulder, giving way to raking, biting teeth. “Maybe I’ll even let you go. But we both know…” His hand slips between my legs, batting the dangling limbs apart and gliding along the outside of my pussy. One thrust of his thumb and I’m jerking on the hook, swaying back and forth, a scream trapped in my throat. “We both know the truth, don’t we, Francesca?”
Hearing my name come out of his mouth, thick with need? It shatters me. Suddenly, even the brush of his fingertips stings like the touch of a live wire. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. I’m so damn close…
“I will only tell you this once.” His tongue blazes a trail along my jaw, inching toward my mouth. Once he reaches his destination, his lips settle over mine, allowing me to feel every uttered word. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“Because… Because I’m yours.”
One minute, he’s holding me steady in the air. The next, he’s ramming into me, with one brutal hand on my ass while the other sinks into my hair, forcing my mouth against his.
We don’t fuck.
We come un-fucking-done.
I scream.
He growls, pistoning his hips until the friction sets me on fire. I’m eaten alive by the flames, watched by countless people, consumed by the only man who matters.
“This”—he thrusts, stretching me wide while his free hand assaults my throbbing clit—“is”—another thrust—“pain. I feel it…” Awe chokes his voice as he thrusts again and the motion triggers his release, which draws out a roar he bellows into my skin. “What have you done to me?”
I’m on cloud fucking ten, but I still know I’ll always remember those words. How he said them: raw, without a damn for who could hear.
“What will I do to you?” he rasps next, sounding crazed. Mindless. One last pump of his hips grinds the rest of his release into my ravaged pussy and I go under. Maybe I only imagine the words I hear next. “You are mine.”
He lets his ownership hang in the air, which is every bit as powerful as the orgasm ripping me to pieces.
Chapter Twenty-One
Survival is something you can’t ever regret—I know that better than anyone.
Whatever it takes. No matter the cost. You lie, cheat, and steal if you have to. Your actual feelings never matter.
Until they do and it’s all you can do to just lie there in a daze, hemorrhaging something more vital than blood.
I’ve never felt this kind of pain before. It’s consuming, biting deeper than anything physical. It’s in my soul: a wound left gaping open and I don’t know how to staunch the flow. Something tells me that Band-Aids won’t work in this scenario.
Maybe it’s pride I’m losing—the one thing I always told myself I still had. Not even hooking deprived me of it. Neither did Melanie or any of the shit she put me through. I was still Francesca Marconi through it all, one tough-ass bitch.
But without even trying, Maxim Koslov made me surrender the only thing of value I had left. The worst part?
I gave it to him willingly.
Ain’t that one for irony.
My exhausted psyche can’t admit defeat just yet and clings to any other alternative. This is just a nightmare… It isn’t real. As if to prove me wrong, reality returns in full force. It’s cold here. I’m numb. It’s loud, a million sounds battling for supremacy. Murmurs. Music. My head spins, struggling to piece it all together from the chaos of my memory. The club. The stage. Maxim.
Too late.
Ruthless fingers rake through my hair, electrocuting the nerves along my scalp. My shoulders are on fucking fire—I feel that first and nearly choke on a gasp as my eyes fly open to a hazy blur of red and black. I have to blink a few times before I can make out anything of substance, but in the end, only one sight registers: two dark eyes.
“Look at me.” He must come closer, because the shadows recede, allowing me to make his face out clearly.
Just like that, I stop inhaling what little air my lungs managed to suck in.
It will never cease to amaze me how this man can turn something like confusion into the most devastatingly violent thing to witness. His jaw is a chiseled line, his mouth stretched tautly. Sweat glues his shirt to his body, his muscles rippling as his hands wrestle his cock beneath the zipper.
I know, even before he says the words, that this isn’t over.
“Tell me to release you.”
Shivers run down my spine at the strained tone. I’m still on the hook: still naked, my arms stretched above my head. I can feel his seed drying on my inner thigh and our sweat slicking my skin.
Without the high from the sex, the position is agony. Unbearable. Dried, my lips spring apart. “P-please.”
Satisfied, he muscles in, cupping one massive hand against my ass. “Hold on to me.”
A whine rips from my throat as the tension in my body suddenly snaps. He’s already there to catch me when I fall, holding me close. I do my best to dig my nails into the fabric of his shirt, but even that seems damn near impossible. My muscles are jelly. Breathing is a struggle.
I should be terrified, I think. It can’t be good to be this disjointed. So dizzy. So tired. So fucking real.
For the first time in my life, there is no fog threatening to descend. Just cold, harsh reality.
And he gave it to me—this man who lifts me like I weigh nothing, cradling my body in his arms.
Seconds later, he lays me onto something soft. Through heavy-lidded eyes, I recognize his second room.
“Are you in pain?”
The knowing tone in his voice quickens my already racing heartbeat.
“Yes,” I admit into the silken sheets.
His next words come thickly. “Tell me where.”
I flinch at the question, unsure of how to respond. Would my fucking self-worth be an adequate answer? I doubt it. So I improvise and blurt out an area on my actual body.
“My back…”
I hear him grunt in acknowledgment. Footsteps follow, but I’m too damn exhausted to turn my head and see their destination. I just have to wait and listen. Something that sounds like a drawer opens and closes. More footsteps.
When he’s close again, my nostrils flare, catching t
he familiar aroma of his musk mingled with something sharper. Spice. It’s like my body knows when he’s near before I even do. It tenses up, every nerve on high alert, before the mattress dips beneath his weight, and his breath fans the back of my neck.
“Spread out your arms,” he tells me.
When I obey, a warm substance falls onto the middle of my back and I have to smother the urge to shudder. Whatever it is feels like liquid. Hot. Oil? Something heavier descends before I can be sure, rubbing the substance into my skin. His hand? His palm, each finger fanning out along my spine, nudging tense muscle underneath.
I suck in a breath as he presses hard, setting off a chain reaction of sore muscles and aching nerves. He performs the same manipulative stroke three more times before I actually realize what he’s doing. Massaging. Tugging. Pulling. I’m at his mercy, and my brain anxiously tracks each touch, anticipating the moment a fingernail might stab through my skin. Would that ruin this? Make it better?
“You will have some muscle tenderness for the next few days,” he warns me without an ounce of guilt lurking in his voice. “Next time, I will better prepare you before using the hook.”
I stop breathing, hung up on so many implications of that statement.
“I will do this to you again,” he promises, reading my mind. There’s a slight tremor in his voice: impatience. Like he can’t wait to string me up a second time.
Tonight? I press my cheek against the sheet beneath it and tell myself that I wouldn’t want him to. Because…
“Do you know why you came back to me?” he asks, interrupting my quest for an answer. His free hand sinks into my hair, wrenching my head back so that I can face him directly. “Do you? You said it once. Say it again.”
I swallow hard and resist the urge to shake my head. Lying—that’s Melanie’s trick. The one thing I’ve always been able to fall back on. You lie to the patsy you’re planning to screw over. You lie to yourself. To do otherwise is fucking suicide.
It should be easy to lie now, but looking at him…I just nod once.
“Say it,” he prompts, tugging on my scalp when I don’t comply quickly enough.
Freedom should be a good thing, but my body doesn’t think so. Both lungs seize. “Because…”
I trail off.
He waits.
In the end, I guess there’s only one real answer. “Because you make me feel wanted.”
A low sound rumbles from his chest. It’s only when he throws his head back that I can put a name to what it was: a laugh, unlike any I’ve ever heard. Beautiful, fucked-up noise.
Rather than say anything else, he releases his grip on my hair and continues his massage, moving along my lower back before digging into my arms.
I can’t escape the mental comparison to how he handles his tools: wiping them down after a brutal sculpting session, rubbing oil into each scratch and imperfection.
“Wanted,” he finally echoes after one last manipulation of my wrist. His tone is less gruff. I guess he’s agreeing with me. “That is one way to put it.”
The mattress shifts as he stands and circles the bed toward the direction I’m facing. Step, by step, by step…
“But I will tell you the real reason why.” He stops just beyond my line of sight. While I stiffen in anticipation, his shadow falls over me, painting the edges of my vision black. “The real world doesn’t keep you here. Not always. It can be too…harsh. Too cold.” He’s speaking from experience, his words losing their polish again for a brief second. “You go numb.”
My hands twitch weakly at my sides, desperate to clamp over my ears. He shouldn’t be making sense. Not now, when I’m too tired to counter him. Those weeks alone flicker across the inside of my skull like a slideshow of emotion. How it felt—or more like how cutting myself didn’t make me feel.
“Look at me.”
I must have closed my eyes, because they flutter open as something brushes my chin. His finger. With surprising gentleness, he uses it to steer my face up in his direction. Darkness has swallowed his pupils again, but this time, he doesn’t seem inhuman. Just fucking insane.
“I can make it better…can’t I?” His voice is rough, like he’s unsure of the words even as they leave his mouth. Like…he wants them to be true. “In a way that even you cannot.”
He nods toward my wrist and I instinctively draw the hand closer to my side, bunching my fingers up to hide the cuts slashed across my palm. I can’t disguise the other marks though. Ironically, they look even worse than the mess he’s made of my skin. His marks are precise blows from a chisel. Mine are just sloppy. Not artful.
And that’s just it: He turns agony into art.
“Coming back to me… You know what this means, don’t you, kotyonok?” His head is cocked to the side, those eyes unreadable for once.
I have to take a risk and guess what emotion might be filling them now. I know anger on him. Confusion. Hate.
Maybe this is something different: pity.
“No,” I croak, the truth.
Rather than punish me, he strokes his hand along my cheek. “I will release you, and you will stay because you want to.”
My eyes start to burn. Blinking just makes it worse and hot liquid spills onto my cheeks. Damn it.
Slowly, I nod. Swallow. “Y-yes…”
Watching him this way, I finally see a shadow of the creature he must have been on stage. Tall. Imposing. Blond hair wild, eyes blazing, body radiating tension.
No wonder that little redhead looked so eager to be near him, even if it only meant being flogged. No wonder the entire fucking room of people stopped to watch him at work. If I wanted to take pity on myself in this moment, I’d go a step further: No wonder you’ve gone fucking insane.
It’s impossible to judge your own mental psyche when looking at him. He’s fucking psychotic, but he doesn’t even begin to hide it.
He paints the world with it, not giving a damn for the lives he might stain with his twisted brand of madness.
“Sleep,” he tells me once he finally reaches the door, feeling along the wall to shut the light off. He doesn’t have to say the rest.
You’ll need it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He doesn’t take me back to the suite.
I’m eerily familiar with our destination anyway: a desolate, dank parking garage. Dread congeals in my throat, making it harder to breathe as he exits the car. The door slams after him—and it all clicks.
He made up his mind, all right: If he can’t fight for me, he’ll destroy me.
“No.” The refusal slips out of me unbidden, impossible to bite back. My fingers grip the handle tight while I try to find the lock. “N-No—”
“Come.” His voice reaches me through metal and glass, faint but still laced with authority. There is nothing in his tone to give me a hint of what he’s feeling or why he’s brought me here.
But it’s obvious: to kill me for good this time.
“Just let me go,” I croak. “Please let me go—”
“Kotyonok…” He advances toward the door and wrenches it open from the outside as I cling to the handle. “Come with me.”
He pries my hand loose, yanking me to my feet, and my brain goes blank.
“No!” I lash out, nails drawn, desperate for any part of him I can reach. Skin. Cotton. Anything. I kick and I hit with everything I fucking have.
But he’s stone, impossible to outmaneuver.
“Enough!” He grabs my wrists, pinning them both to the hood of the car. The harder I try to escape, the tighter his grip becomes. “You have nothing to fear.” He frowns, as if the thought only just occurred to him.
I can barely contain my scoff even as he releases me and holds his hand out for me to take.
“Do I really need to say it after everything else that’s happened tonight?” Irritation makes his tone even harsher than anger—but his expression softens in the same instant. “Fine. I will not hurt you here. I need you to trust me.”
Pan
ting, I eye his fingers and consider running. Trust? Why, when all he’s done is prove why I shouldn’t? My blood pistons through me, making my entire body jolt with each frantic beat of my heart. If I listen hard enough, the thrum sounds like a warning. Run. Run. Run.
“Can you give me that?” he wonders, consuming my focus. I look up, unnerved by the uncertainty I see in his gaze. As if, for the first time, he can’t predict what I’ll do. He’s just as unsure of me as I am of him.
“Come,” he prompts, flexing his fingers. “I’m asking for your trust.”
This time, I reach out and let him grasp my hand. He tugs, guiding me step by step down that dank, dark hallway. My nostrils flare. It still smells like rust, but now an even worse stench lurks underneath. Something rotten? Decaying.
The closer we come to the back room the more sweat slicks my fingers and it’s easier than ever to slip from his grip if I have to.
Even his reassurance can push me only so far.
I stop dead in my tracks just beyond the doorway as my eyes warily trace the interior. The tarp is gone, at least. But in the center of the space lies a reddish stain someone tried very, very hard to get up with bleach, if the acrid stench left behind is any indicator.
They failed.
“Come here.” From the doorway, Maxim watches me, his face partially hidden by shadow. “I will not hurt you here,” he stresses. “So trust me. Come.”
His eyes track my approach. When I’m close enough, he captures my entire hand in one of his own, his eyes honing in on my heaving chest.
Only now do I realize we’re not alone.
A man lies in a far corner of the room, beyond the view from the doorway. Someone stripped him naked, and my stomach threatens to crawl up my throat as a sliver of light gives his flesh definition. A rainbow of violent, grim color. Purplish bruises and red, gaping wounds form a collage that covers him from head to toe. Some of the cuts bleed and ooze, still fresh.
