She had been nearing the end of her last dance of the evening when the spot light above her had shifted momentarily, illuminating the audience. It flashed over David’s features for a split second. Long enough for her to see both the aching desire for his wife and the blazing fury reflected in his face. To her credit, she didn’t falter once during that last dance. If anything, she soared higher and danced more flawlessly, knowing the end was near. That glimpse of danger, of searing hunger, she had seen in him sent her heart racing in anticipation. David was angry but he wanted her. And, as he always did after staying away, he would have her. It would be delicious.
David’s anger was terrible. He treated Tasha as though she was a child that couldn’t understand how to listen to her father. She had tried to argue back that he wasn’t her keeper, that she had every right to dance if she wanted to. Neither of them gave way to the other until David, frustrated, had thrown her down on their bed and proceeded to force her compliance using the best methods he could think of. She had exploded under his hands that night and agreed to do anything he asked.
“Crazy little chattel…” she breathed, remembering the love-sick idiot she used to be.
Of course he hadn’t wanted her dancing on stages across the globe. She had been too high profile. Half of Europe knew who she was. How could he work while toting a near-celebrity around? Finally, she had allowed him to convince her that their life of obscurity was what she truly wanted.
Tasha squirmed, attempting to find a position that was more bearable while cuffed. She gave up with an annoyed huff when the belt twisted and the knot bit into her waist between her body and the mattress. She froze when she heard the front door rattle and then open. She listened nervously as David crossed the floor to the kitchen. She heard the muffled sound of bags and the opening and closing of cupboards and the fridge. She held her breath as footsteps finally made a path to the room she was held in. David opened the door and stepped into the bedroom, his brown hair slightly damp from early spring snow. He shook his head, sending droplets flying. He paced to the bed, stopped and looked down at her bound disheveled figure as though trying to decide what to do with her.
The thought was terrifying. Mostly because Tasha was convinced David had planned on killing her. That bringing her back with him was never his intent. Now that she was here, laying in his bed, helpless and tied up for his pleasure, he was struggling to contain the darkness storming within. Would he… could he still kill her? Was she safe from the possibility of death at his hands? Her throat still throbbed where his hand had squeezed the breath from her earlier, reminding her of exactly how vulnerable she was. As if sensing her thoughts, he finally spoke to her.
“I watched you with another man, Natasha,” he said, his voice a seething snarl. His accent noticeable. “You allowed his touch with such ease and familiarity that I wanted to snap his neck in that moment and then claim my wife next to his dead body. Jordan Kent was closer to death than he will ever know.” He paced away from her. Tasha’s eyes followed his every movement, the way a terrified rabbit would watch a predator until her opportunity to run arose. Only Tasha was well and truly ensnared. “It was fantasy though. Because you were to die. A bullet through the brain by these very hands, Natasha.”
He held his hands up to show her. They were the beautiful, long-fingered, veined hands that had always captured her interest and fascinated her, almost to the point of obsession. The hands that could pull so many feelings from the depths of her, both emotionally and physically. A pang hit her hard as the light glinted off the wedding ring on his left ring finger. He still wore that symbol of their marriage.
“David,” she whispered, imploring him. “Please uncuff me… I’ll try to explain…”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “You do not get to talk to me. You can earn your freedom another way.”
She wanted to ask him how and even opened her mouth the ask the question, but stopped herself. This was the David she had seen kill someone. This was David without the veneer of civilization. This was his ice-cold anger colliding with the searing rage of losing his wife for two years. This was his reclamation. She only hoped she survived the experience.
His dark eyes never left hers as he unzipped his coat, pulled it off his broad shoulders and tossed it over a chair. Tiny drops of melted snow fell on her as he threw the jacket. She shivered from the impact. He followed the movement, tracing every inch of her prone body from her feet, which she’d tried tucking up onto the bed, to her hands, cuffed above her head. He lingered on the metal attached to her wrists, the sight bringing a sadistic gleam to his eyes.
He reached for the buttons on his shirt, starting at the top and unbuttoning them one at a time. Her lips parted and the breath caught in her throat as he once more revealed to her the work of art that was his chest and stomach. The years hadn’t changed his physique by much, except perhaps to chisel him even more. Each muscle was honed to perfection. Not too big like a bodybuilder, but lean and targeted for sleek strength. It was like his time apart from Tasha had driven his workout regime to even higher peaks. Now that he revealed the musculature beneath his shirt, each shadowy dip and hollow told the story of a man pushing himself to extremes. He had always been built to perfection, but this…
He leaned over her prone body, his chest just barely brushing the tips of her breasts, until his lips were inches from hers and he whispered in Russian, “Vremya dlya oplaty, moya lyubov.”
Her heart froze in her chest as his words hung between their parted lips.
Time to pay, my love.
Chapter Eleven
The bed dipped where he was kneeling on it, his knee pressing against her thigh. He leaned back and swept her with an icy look that would have been utter contempt if it weren’t for the lust evident within. She sucked in a quick breath and bit back a whimper when he reached for the belt on her coat.
His fingers made quick work of the knot and the two halves of the light overcoat fell to the side. She sucked a breath in, pulling her stomach concave as his long, skilled fingers lightly wrapped around her ribcage and caressed her first up and then down. He ran his hands up her sides, his fingers exploring every curve, every dip, every soft part of her while she lay helpless underneath him. He brought his hands closer together, touching his thumbs just beneath her breasts and them running his hands down her body toward her hips, sweeping each part of her stomach as though remembering what she felt like. Tingles ran all through her torso wherever the warmth of his hands touched. She tried her hardest to supress the tiny shivers he drew from her, but it felt so good she couldn’t lay completely still.
After his frightening words, his declaration of making her pay, Tasha hadn’t expected such a gentle touch. She didn’t expect it to last long. She could still feel the rage simmering beneath the light touch and lustful gaze. She knew that David would not let her go with just a few tender caresses.
He sat further back and frowned down at her. “Need to touch you,” he growled.
He wasn’t satisfied with touching her body through the layers of her clothes, light though they were. Tasha swallowed and watched as he turned from her to pull something from his coat. This was it. He was going to take her body and she wouldn’t have a choice. He’d hunted her across the globe and now he intended to extract payment for the debt he perceived she now owed to him. She had run, but failed to hide herself well enough. Her shadowy protector hadn’t shown up in time to protect her from the killer she’d unintentionally married.
Tasha whimpered in terror when David turned back to the bed, a knife in hand. He didn’t bother to sooth or calm her. To his credit, he didn’t prolong her fright either. He began to cut away the coat, pulling the blade through the fabric, parting the sleeves as easily as though they were butter. She tilted her head as far back from the flashing metal as she could get and watched with wary astonishment.
Finally, after he jerked the shreds of her coat from beneath her body and tossed it off the bed, Tasha cried out, half hys
terical at the barbaric lengths he was going to, “Please, David, stop! Why won’t you just take the handcuffs off? I can undress for you properly. You don’t need to do this!”
“No,” he grunted and continued, cutting a jagged path through her black leotard from neck to crotch.
Tasha tried to remain still as he slid the knife through the fabric but she couldn’t help but jerk in panic as he ripped and tore the material from her body, baring her to the cool evening air. The moment her small, curvy breasts were exposed, the nipples peaked in reaction to both cold and fear. He twisted, the muscles along the side of his body rippling in the lighting of the bedroom and slammed the knife down on the nightstand before turning back to Tasha, his black eyes roving over her naked upper body with grim pleasure.
He moved to stand next to the bed and hooked his fingers in the waistband of her thin dance tights. She moaned in distress and shook her head, pleading without words. In her bleakest moments, when she’d been on the run, she had remembered the better times with her husband. The tender, loving moments, in his bed, in his embrace. But in her darkest moments, all of her imaginings of David had ended in a gunshot in a dark alley somewhere, cold nothingness blazing from his empty gaze. Now she was caught somewhere in between. She was the property of a man, a monster, who knew how to love her properly, but chose to punish her instead.
He dragged both the pink tights and her panties down her thighs, past her calves and off her feet. She now lay completely naked, utterly at his mercy. The look on his face was beyond anything she’d seen before, it went past possessive. It was cold, dark and unrelenting. Like he would commit murder for her. Then his eyes dropped to the most vulnerable part of her and unrestrained rage darkened his features like a flash of lightening.
“What the fuck!” he exploded in a deep growl.
Tasha jumped, the cuffs rattling ominously against the headboard. She tried scooting backwards to escape the intense heat of his sudden wrath, but David grabbed her thighs with such sudden brutality that she cried out. His fingers dug into the tender flesh as he pried her legs apart and leaned forward to look at her exposed pussy. He released one of her thighs and wedged his hips in between her spread legs to keep them open. He ran his knuckles down the bare lips of her labia, up and down, back and forth. He did this for several seconds before opening his clenched fingers to feel the softness against the sensitive pads of his fingertips. Finally, he wrenched his gaze away from her soft folds, lifting coal black, accusing eyes to hers. Scorching her with the intense heat of a man a hairsbreadth away from losing his mind.
Tasha barely dared breath. Yet, she could feel her body begin to respond to the hypnotic touch of his hand gliding against her aching flesh. She sighed and bit her lip, trying to concentrate on the anger emanating from his towering form and not the need to squirm against the too-light touch of his fingertips. She almost… wanted to buck her hips a little closer, bury them into her dampening heat… just a little bit. It had been so long since she’d known the delicious touch of her husband.
“Shaved?” he asked suddenly, his voice a hoarse demand.
Her eyes flew up to meet his and she shook her head. “Waxed,” she whispered, frowning a little. Why did he care so much? When they were together, in the past, he hadn’t been interested in her personal grooming habits. She’d only shaved along her bikini line back then.
His thick, dark eyebrows crashed together in anger. Okay… apparently now he cared. “How? Did you do it yourself?” he demanded through gritted teeth, his fingers still running agonizingly lightly across her delicate folds.
She shook her head, panting a little. “A salon!”
His fingers stiffened against her flesh, dipping between her folds. Tasha cried out, arching her back into the bed as lovely, tingling sensations shot through her. She didn’t want to feel this way. Not under the hands of the man she’d just spent two long, lonely years fleeing. But they had been lonely years and she had missed the physical intimacy David had been so good at giving her.
The glare he was giving her heated her, licking at her sensitive skin, making her wonder what she could possibly have done wrong… but it also made her feel sort of good. Deep in her stomach, like golden, shimmering liquid heat. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“You allowed another to touch you,” he snarled, his thumb digging into her thigh where he was holding her leg open, “intimately. And you waxed for a reason, Natasha. Women don’t just groom for their own pleasure. Who did you wax this pussy for? Who did you show my woman to? Did you stray, my wife, did you act the slut for another?”
Tasha’s mouth fell open. Yes, David had always been possessive as long as she’d known him. But this… this uncontrolled rage… this was something new. “There was no one,” she whimpered, flexing her thighs, trying to close them against the dual onslaught of his harsh words and seductive touch. He refused to allow her retreat, gliding his fingers even further through the wetness. “Please, David. I simply went with Regan from work.”
He stiffened against her, his dark eyes searching hers for truth. Finally, nostrils flaring, he lifted his fingers from her dripping, heated pussy to his lips. Her own mouth opened at the same time as his, the breath froze in her throat as he slipped his strong fingers into his mouth, the veins on the back of his hands flexing as he tasted her. Oh god, it was so sinfully sexy, watching her husband lick his fingers after touching her so intimately. She could feel the fire of a blush racing beneath her pale cheeks, but could not bring herself to look away as he enjoyed her taste.
“Fuck, Natasha. You taste like heaven,” he groaned, shaking his head and standing beside the bed, glaring down at her. She closed her legs and watched warily as he thrust an agitated hand through his hair. Then, as she warily watched him, scorching rage came brutally under control and ice cold once more reigned. “But I do not believe you.”
“David!” she yelped as he turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving her naked and chained to the bed.
Tasha surged against her handcuffs, twisting to try and see what he was doing through the open bedroom door. She could hear drawers opening and closing in the kitchen. When he returned he was holding a thick, white candle in one hand and a long lighter in the other. She watched apprehensively as he turned away from her, set the candle on the nightstand and lit the wick. His incredible back flexed, muscles rippling, showing her exactly how helpless she was, with or without the handcuffs, with or without the martial arts lessons. She would never have been a match for David’s incredible strength and skill.
The black trousers he wore sat low on his hips, moulded to his sculpted body, showing Tasha that, while he may not enjoy the idea of a person waxing her, he certainly liked the results. And she, in turn, was incapable of tearing her eyes away from the generous bulge displayed in the fine, black fabric. She chewed on her lower lip as she assured herself that he was just creating mood lighting and that her hitman husband in no way meant to torture her.
“You like wax, Natasha?” he asked, his voice cold and steady.
Fuck. My. Life.
A tiny whimper escaped her before she could recall it. She tried to curl in on herself and give the sadistic bastard as little surface area as possible. “Please, David! It’s not what you think!” she told him frantically, babbling in her fear, trying to convince him not to do what she knew he was going to do to her. “Regan wanted a girls’ day out at the spa and I was just trying to fit in, in a new city. I swear I haven’t been unfaithful. Please don’t hurt me!”
The ghost of a smile creased his sinister, scarred lips, nearly sending her over the edge of hysteria. That slight smile nearly brought forth the tears she swore she wouldn’t cry when she’d started running two years ago, when she’d convinced herself that she needed to be tough enough to survive. Only David could do this to her! Make her plead for mercy that she knew would not come.
He grabbed her ankle, enveloping it in one hand and yanked her toward him until she was stretched on her
back again. “Stay!” he commanded when she would have rolled onto her side.
She froze, simply from the force of his voice, knowing the punishment would be so much worse if she disobeyed. He separated her legs, using his body to hold her still and open beneath him. She watched in horror as he turned to the nightstand and picked up the candle. His eyes met hers, dark colliding with light as he poured a line of hot wax from between her breasts to her naval, stopping at her belly button.
“Daaaaaavid!” she screamed, arching her back and wrenching her hands hard against the handcuffs. Her knees started to jerk up, but his body was in the way so her legs fell back against the edge of the bed. Involuntary tears of pain started in her eyes.
Before the pain could entirely recede, he ran his fingers softly over her pussy again, making her jump as though shocked by an electrical jolt. The juxtaposition between gentle and painful was nearly unbearable, but oh, so sweet! “David…” she moaned, her head lolling to the side, her eyes glued to the movements of his hands as they flexed and moved against the candle.
“Please… don’t!” she yelled hoarsely when she saw the candle tip again.
The wax cascaded over her skin scorching a fiery line across her left breast, just missing the nipple, and down the flat path of her belly. Before she had time to suck in a desperately needed breath of air, he tipped the candle again and heated another stripe straight toward her right breasts, this time hitting her nipple directly and not stopping until the wax pooled in her exposed armpit. Tasha screamed, yanking against the handcuffs so hard she thought she would bleed. Except David slammed the candle down on the nightstand, clamped his hand over her wrists and held her hands while she writhed under the agony of his torture.
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