Conquer (XXX Vadim Book 3): Club XXX Book 6

by Lana Sky

  Sensory overload. Especially as I find myself turning to take in the room we’re in—a beautiful, haunting space decorated almost entirely in hues of black and navy. The man has certainly researched kink down to an art form. I blink as my brain races to take in every last detail.

  There are windows, large and rectangular with a view overlooking what appears to be an enclosed courtyard complete with a bubbling, black marble fountain. Plush, ebony carpeting lends to a mysterious aura only enhanced by matching curtains. A lone leather chaise positioned near the windows serves as the sole piece of traditional furniture.

  Because everything else is so very NSFW.

  “Holy crap,” I whisper as my eyes fall over one promising structure directly ahead. Extending from the ceiling in a display of expert craftsmanship is a round, circular base hung upright with two strips of material dangling from the bottom. Longer, larger sections dangle directly from the ceiling, framing it at all four corners.

  It’s a fancy version of a sex swing.

  Beyond it, I recognize the pillory from the house, along with a few hanging cabinets, no doubt containing more goodies.

  “A fitting enough playground?” Vadim wonders, coming up behind me. I’m too busy staring to answer him right away. Awed, I continue to take in the meticulously compiled décor—and all the while, his hands slide down my shoulders, removing my dress as they go.

  I’m only vaguely aware of the material falling to my hips—and promptly tugged down the rest of the way. All I can do is surrender to his touch as my attention fixates back on the swing. My thoughts whirl, quickly envisioning how many naughty, twisted things he could do to me on it.

  But, as he runs his fingers through my hair, smoothing the strands back from my neck, I suspect that I haven’t even come close to what he’s planned. Not by a longshot.

  “Do you trust me?” he asks near my ear, his voice a low rasp.

  My heart stutters. Breaths quicken. Excitement builds, nearly impossible to contain.

  “Yes,” I croak, sensing him lower something from above my head. His hands brush my cheeks as I blink to recognize a black strip of silk being positioned before my eyes. His tie?

  Make that a makeshift blindfold, in this instance.

  I don’t resist as he loops the silk around my head, tying it in the back. Warm and dangerously soft, I sense the shape of his fingers dance down my forearms, finding my wrists next. With gentle pressure, he urges me forward, forcing me to follow his prompting blind.

  And it is an experience unto itself. Trust had a different meaning before this moment—being naked, at his mercy, completely under his control.

  At the same time, he tied the blindfold loosely enough that I have to keep my head still to prevent it from slipping. An oversight? Or by intention…

  The latter, I suspect, predicated on one twisted bit of reasoning. If I want to see where this new game goes, I have to commit fully. There is no room for doubt or hesitation. The second I falter, his illusion will quite literally fall as well.

  Sneaky devil.

  The implicit insinuation is that every step, every bit of obedience to his touch, is entirely of my own free will and completely at his discretion.

  “Kneel,” he whispers against the column of my throat, his voice sensually warm.

  I start to obey before he even finishes getting the word out, sinking to my knees on the plush carpeting.

  “So beautiful,” he praises thickly, sounding somewhere above me, still behind. “Now lie flat, onto your stomach.”

  My unease only grows in the most delicious of ways. Taking care with my back, I ease myself down onto my belly. From this position, I’m painfully aware of just how vulnerable I am. Open and naked to any assault he deigns to dish out.

  For now, he seems content to make me wait. I breathe in and out, my face pressed against the flooring, him presumably watching down on me. Surprisingly, I feel anything but degraded. I know without even having to see his face, his expression is only one of lust.

  And desire.

  But just as I start to relax, I sense movement near my right. His footsteps? They’re muffled, harder to track. I can only interpret him moving maybe a few feet away before he returns. A hiss of air betrays him sinking to his knees, I think, his fingers trailing down to my wrist. Something softer than flesh replaces his touch a heartbeat later. Silk? He loops it around, securing it tightly, but the sensation is nowhere near painful.

  With a deliberate series of movements, he does the same to my other wrist. A subtle bit of tensing makes me suspect that my binds aren’t manacles this time. They don’t feel secured together, or even to the floor or any nearby surface. From up above instead?

  I’m distracted from my suspicions as my ankle is next to receive the mysterious silk treatment. Then the other. Finally, his hands rove up to my waist, smoothing over the bones in my hips.

  “Beautiful,” he breathes before silken fabric brushes over my lower back in a teasing swipe. The gesture urges me to arch inward, allowing him to loop the fabric underneath. When I lie back down, I sense a swath of the silken material wide enough to stretch from my upper thighs to my navel.

  “Do you trust me?” he asks again, but this time his tone makes me shiver in anticipation. It’s low. Hoarse. Alluring.

  And too damn smug beneath it all.

  “Y-Yes,” I whisper. The word barely escapes my lips before…

  Ascent. Glorious, heart-stopping, mind-bending ascent. I don’t know how he does it. The fabric carefully looped around my limbs goes taut, but not constricting, Regardless, the sudden tension lifts me from the floor completely—my belly first, then my wrists and ankles, suspending me seemingly by a thread.

  A startled gasp escapes my throat. I can’t even tell how high up I am—or if there is anything beneath me should I fall. But before I can voice my doubts fully, a stern voice reminds me, “You trust me.”

  That’s all he has to say for it to click. So, this is the swing he envisioned for us—a completely different concept to the sturdy, more traditional base I helped him build what feels like a lifetime ago. Even now, I’m swaying, my body lying limp in this virtual harness.

  But the logistics of my predicament aside, his care for me is readily apparent. He made sure there is no pressure on my back, for one. The position of the strap beneath my hips is expertly placed, ensuring that the tension is spread out evenly, preventing any one limb from taking too much stress.

  It betrays an impeccable attention to detail, and I have a feeling that—as he has with most of his toys—he ensured this was designed with my specific measurements in mind.

  “Are you afraid?” Vadim wonders, sounding somewhere in front of me. I almost reach out for him, feeling disarmingly unmoored. Lost. But his voice is like an anchor, imparting a calmness that heats me down to my core. “Don’t be,” he urges in a tone like sin. So deep, rumbling in earnest. “You never need to fear me. That isn’t what I crave from you. But do you know what I do crave?”

  My belly flips, sensing him even closer. A prickle of heat along my cheek alludes to his nearness. Then…

  Whoosh!

  I fall.

  Stop short.

  Raise again even higher.

  Descend twice as fast.

  It’s almost too much. Almost. But the tension of the fabric is just a hairsbreadth on the side of more restraining than restricting. My body feels unnaturally loose—less like I’m a fly stuck in a spider’s web, but more as though I am the spider. One whose web is being meticulously manipulated by a beast with devious intentions in mind.

  But in the end, I still have some level of control.

  Or not.

  A featherlight touch along my jaw has me inclining my head toward the source, desperate for any clue of what lies in store.

  “So beautiful,” I hear Vadim say, his voice throaty and gruff. That gentle touch steadily inches downward, brushing the trembling column of my throat. “You wanted me to show you how I feel?” What I t
hink is his thumb caresses my windpipe. “This.”

  Again, my binds are manipulated. The world shifts, and in a dizzying display of motion, I sense that I’m now suspended at an angle, slanted with my head downward judging from the blood rushing toward it. The strip beneath my belly still provides enough support that I don’t feel in danger of falling. Just disoriented like hell.

  “Always on edge,” Vadim explains, his voice even closer. A prickling heat over my shoulder blades makes me envision him standing before me, stroking his fingers through my hair. “Like everything I knew no longer provides the same structure. The same support. You’ve taken that away from me.”

  Have I? I suck in a breath, mulling over the description.

  “No one else would ever dare,” he adds in a dangerous murmur. The air shifts again as the binds around my wrist tighten while the ones around my ankles loosen. My stomach flips as I wind up upright, leaning slightly against the strip across my belly, my hands stretched above me, while my legs are slightly bent behind me.

  I definitely hear him now, moving to stand nearby. Then I feel him. A slow, hungry kiss against my eager mouth. Groping fingers cupping my breasts.

  But, even as my body melts beneath his ministrations, I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’m unable to touch him in return. A shudder runs through me as I recall his deliberate phrasing. You’ve taken that away from me. So, he’s retaliated by robbing me of any chance to turn the tables. Taking away my own sense of support.

  But damn is it a glorious exchange. In return, he gives me a teasing, sparse bit of contact I never knew I needed. My body contorted like this, every nerve and sensation are enhanced tenfold. I can feel every ridge of his fingers. The softness of his tongue. Being helpless is surprisingly…

  Kinky.

  But I never forget his grated statement, or the way he said it. You’ve taken…

  And in return, he devours. I’m never sure of where he’s standing or how exactly he’s touching me. Just that he is—near, there, everywhere somehow all at once. I’m a puppet on his strings, capable of moving only as much as he’ll allow.

  It’s so disorienting. I lose track of up and down. Left and right. Gravity. My sense of direction comes solely from him. His mouth, grazing my jaw, inching down to my breast, encasing the nipple. Sucking…pain. Warmth of his tongue to soothe the sting. Then again.

  Again.

  Again.

  I don’t realize how turned-on I am until he adjusts my legs, making them chafe and bringing painful awareness to the moisture gathering there—that’s how distracted he has me. I’m feeding off every bit of physical contact he’s willing to give. I’m thriving on it. Growing mad on it…

  But it’s as if he’s avoiding true stimulation on purpose, making me wait. Ache. Throb in a way I never have. My thoughts start to dissipate, scattered by his searching, grasping fingers. Down to my hips. Up across my ribcage and around to my healing scars. One by one, he gives every wound his own unique brand of attention, caressing the flesh around each with worshiping reverence before turning to my breasts again. Lower.

  But never too low.

  I’m biting my lip so hard I taste blood just to keep from voicing a plea. Sweat slicks my skin, making the fabric chafe with every swaying motion, but the slight friction only enhances my sensitivity more. A moan breaks loose before I can help it, but the low sound seems to trigger something in him.

  Finally, his touch slips between my splayed legs, his voice dripping into my ear. “I have you,” he tells me throatily as one of his fingers invades, working past my contracting muscles. “Don’t I? I have you.”

  Mindless, I nod, lost to the feeling of his touch.

  “You will never leave me.”

  Never, a part of me whispers as he thrusts that invading digit, making my eyes roll back into my head. It’s like he’s drugging me with every deliberate motion, making me susceptible to any command he dishes out.

  “And you will finally tell me what you’ve danced around confessing all this time, won’t you?”

  Tell? Then it clicks. My eyelids flutter against the fabric of his makeshift blindfold. “Let me see you,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “Please. I need to see you.”

  I sense him hesitate, presumably unsure of my motives—always battling that closed-off, paranoid part of himself. Finally…

  His fingers brush the planes of my cheeks before the blindfold is lifted away, and I can take in his face. Those beautiful dark eyes watch me warily, still too proud to beg. So he demands instead, stroking me from the inside out, wringing a strangled gasp from me in lieu of words.

  He wanted me to feel what he does? I show him, arching shamelessly into his touch, forcing my body to sway, at the mercy of his contraption. I let his fingers work their magic, turning my insides to putty, my brain to mush. I allow any lingering doubts to drain away, my blood drugged on lust as our gazes meet.

  “I love you,” I tell him, meaning every word. The conviction in my own voice terrifies me, but I can’t deny it any longer.

  And this is true surrender.

  And corruption.

  “I love you—”

  Growling, he steps into me, at the same time reaching up to snatch one of the strips holding my wrists aloft. The sharp shift in angle draws me against him, and his free hand grips my hip, snatching me the rest of the way. His lips pry mine apart, his tongue plunging in between as his finger strokes a brutal friction that makes me moan openly, senseless.

  He’s still fully dressed, I realize somewhere at the back of my mind. A fact he quickly rectifies, snatching open his slacks with a sharp tug of his free hand while his opposite fingers withdraw from me.

  Bucking his hips, he enters me hard, lowering his mouth to my throat, his teeth catching the tender flesh there. “Again,” he rasps in between harsh thrusts that leave me reeling. “Again—”

  “I love you.” I marvel at how easily the words come now. No hesitation. No shame. I’m as locked into the confession as I am to the apparatus he’s created for me, surrendering of my own free will.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m only vaguely aware of the moment he releases me from the straps, cradling me into his arms. His jacket encases me, a prison of tailored cotton, as he carries me from the room and then the club entirely. I can sense the change in the atmosphere—the sensual tension traded for welcome calm—right up until the moment he finally brings me over the threshold of our home and utter contentment sets in. Now I know why Magda missed it so much during our brief absence—the smell. The familiar feeling in the air that makes me relax into his arms as he takes me into our room.

  We’re on the bed, my limbs still slick with sweat when he drags me closer, his lips pressed to my forehead. “I love you,” he tells me in a low, fierce hum more beautiful than any other sound in the world. “I love you.”

  Magda gets the benefit of having her playdate extended to midafternoon as I spend the morning recovering in bed, and Vadim pampers me with mind-blowing attention to detail. He bathes me first, then feeds me a hot breakfast of eggs and toast—I’m starting to appreciate how his research has broadened into culinary skills. When we finally get dressed and drive the short distance to Maxim’s home, Vadim’s still so relaxed there’s barely any clue as to his unease.

  It’s only when he finally parks in the driveway and steps from the car that a frown tugs on his mouth as his gaze fixates on the front door. His right hand sinks into his pocket, and I envision him grasping his cell phone, ready to call Magda the second he doesn’t catch sight of her.

  But as the seconds pass, he doesn’t take a step toward the house.

  “Come on, Mr. Brooding,” I tease, stepping forward to slip my hand in his. But inside, I’m just as uneasy.

  Can the brothers extend their terse truce for longer than a few seconds at a time?

  God only knows.

  I aim for optimism, however, as we approach the front door. I think it’s the first time that it isn’t automaticall
y opened from the inside. Instead, we’re forced to knock, and Vadim’s wary expression deepens into flat out dread.

  Seconds pass in silence before audible footsteps approach from inside the home. Finally, the door cracks, revealing an unfamiliar face so unexpected that I blink.

  “They’re in the back,” a teenager declares, his dark hair shaggy and untamed. He must be sixteen or seventeen, at least, nearly as tall as Vadim. Is he one of Francesca’s siblings? I think I vaguely recognize him from the “party” I attended all those weeks ago.

  Without a more thorough introduction, he inclines his head for us to follow him inside and leads the way out onto the terrace.

  One look at what awaits us on the lawn, and I feel my eyes threaten to fall from my head. Beside me, Vadim’s jaw tightens, his gaze unreadable.

  “Off with his head!” Magda shrieks. Somehow she got a hold of one of my old pageant dresses—a bright pink chiffon that hangs on her tiny frame, clashing with her fanny pack. Wearing an equally extravagant dress is Ainsley, crouched beside her, cackling maniacally.

  Both girls look poised to lunge at the poor, unfortunate figure caught in their midst.

  “Get him!” Ainsley calls, leading the charge.

  Both girls proceed to throw themselves at their victim—the only fact impeding their attack is that their opponent dwarfs them in both size and stature. Nonetheless, he’s a good sport and playfully keels over to accept his fate.

  All circumstances aside, it’s an oddly heartwarming thing to witness. Maybe I’m not the only one who feels as much—Vadim’s watching as well, his expression blank. Mistrustful, still? Even if he is, he doesn’t march forward to draw Magda’s attention.

  He merely watches the scene unfold, and I imagine him envisioning all the many ways he was denied one similar to it. A peaceful, happy childhood spent playing games with his brother on their lawn, safe and protected.