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by Lana Sky

  “Eat alone,” he tells me, stalking toward the door. “Then get to your room. And I suggest you stay in bed tonight, kotyonok.”

  Without another word, he follows Lucius out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 14

  I don’t hear Maxim return to the suite this time. When I wake up, he’s already standing at the foot of my bed, casting a shadow that swallows up every ounce of nearby light. He’s wearing black from head to toe today, his hair hanging loose and unbrushed around his face. For some reason, my first instinct isn’t to scream when I see him.

  It’s to wait, my heart pounding, my breath trapped in my throat. Already my thoughts solidify, chasing away the incoherent nightmares that haunted me all night. Is that a good thing or bad?

  The question remains unanswered by the time I fully wake up. After a long minute of silence, Maxim commands me to dress and then leads me to the sculpture room, where he spends hours beating the hell out of the block of stone. He’s so brutal that he winds up cracking it, ruining the half-finished sculpture, and I spend the entire day waiting for his inevitable cue to open my mouth or strip. Maybe he’ll fuck me raw? Beat me with a leather strap again?

  Something.

  But he storms about the suite instead, shouting orders into a cell phone—mainly in Russian. What little words of English he sprinkles in stick out to me like jagged shards of broken glass: Find them, any means necessary. Now.

  Afterward, he commands me to bed, and the next two days play out the same way. Apart from washing me in the morning, he never fucks me—and the anticipation is somehow worse than anything he’s dished out so far.

  Waiting is a brand-new torture he seems determined to inflict.

  By the time the final day comes to an end, the only break in the relentless routine is when Lucius comes to take me home. I’m in the corner of the sculpture room, watching Maxim work. When Lucius beckons me toward him, Maxim’s only form of acknowledgment is a single command that chases me on my way out. “Have him give you the bonus payment.”

  It’s a second before I realize what he means. A quick glance over my legs alone reveals numerous welts, way beyond the scope outlined in his contract. Ten inches. Twelve…

  I try to mentally tally up an estimate and choke. Too goddamn much.

  “The rate will stay the same if,” Maxim adds, turning his back to me, “when you come back.”

  I wait, paralyzed in the doorway, but that’s it. He doesn’t say anything else, and Lucius has to touch my shoulder to get me to move again. It isn’t until after I’ve stumbled through my own front door sometime after midnight that I realize just what this means.

  I survived another week with Maxim—with a few extra thousand padded to my paycheck, too. I only have to last two more in order to make it a month. After that, I would earn my sixteen thousand dollars.

  The number is my lullaby as I fall asleep on the couch and wake up to find Ainsley climbing onto my chest, demanding to know why I have so many booboos.

  Sixteen thousand dollars: It’s a fitting price tag for any whore.

  Two days home should have seemed like a godsend. A break from hell.

  In reality, they felt more like that sleepy twilight between dreams and waking. When your thoughts are all jumbled and it’s nearly impossible to tell up from down.

  So you float.

  Maybe it’s the love that leaves me so disoriented. It tugs at my chest every time Ainsley or Daisy fusses over me. Every time Mikie slips me a beer once the others have drifted off to bed. When they hug me. Climb onto my lap. Drag kisses over my cheeks.

  It’s such a contrast to Maxim’s cold darkness, and ironically, it’s harder to bear than the pain. Love just feeds on my fear, dragging up that worn-out mantra.

  Money. Money. Money.

  I can’t escape it, but ignoring the cold reality seems easier now than ever. I’m too tired to ask if Melanie came back or brought along her new husband. I just restock the stash, refill the fridge. Enough to last. Enough to replace me for five more days.

  When Lucius comes for me on the morning of what would be the third day, I leave the house without looking back. I don’t even bother to pack a bag.

  There’s no point.

  It’s not like I have a single thing to my name anyway.

  I reach the penthouse through a haze of rain. Without a word, Lucius drops me off near the front of the building, and I ascend to the suite by myself. I’m only yards away when the door swings open on its own.

  Dark eyes rake me over from the shadows of the interior with every step I take, and I instantly know that something is different. A shiver runs down my spine, chased by a single realization that makes me swallow hard. Just by coming here again, I’ve crossed some sort of invisible line that can’t ever be undone.

  Not with money.

  Not with a signature.

  Not even with some stupid safe word.

  “Get in,” his gruff voice commands when I’m only a few steps away, sealing my fate. Impatience laces the air like the scent of roses, and he doesn’t have to say the second part of that statement out loud this time: Strip.

  Without daring to take my eyes off his shadowed silhouette, I remove my clothing piece by piece: sweatpants of Daisy’s and Mikie’s old shirt. When I finally reach my panties, sliding my fingers beneath the waistband, he steps forward and a tendril of light from the hallway reveals how he shakes his head.

  “Not yet. Come.”

  He steps aside, and my heart jumps as I follow him deeper into the suite and directly into my room. It looks the same: a haven of white in a world of shadow—but a few key changes stick out, impossible to miss.

  The air smells like roses this time. Nothing else. No one else. I can tell at a glance that the bed hasn’t been touched, either. He hasn’t had anyone else in here while I’ve been gone.

  In fact, he’s been waiting for me. Two sets of leather cuffs have been neatly laid out over the white duvet.

  “Sit,” Maxim commands, pointing to the bed.

  I obey, folding my hands on my lap to hide how they’re trembling. I’m still sore from the last time leather came into play; my legs are purple with bruises. I’ve felt him every second I’ve been away: sitting, standing, walking—nothing brings relief.

  “Behind your back, kotyonok,” Maxim instructs without a shred of empathy, reaching for one set of cuffs.

  When I contort my arms, he circles my position and fastens the cuffs tightly over each wrist. Once I’m bound, he drags my panties down my legs, allowing his fingers to dip inside me. One, two, three all at once. Shit. I’m nowhere wet enough; it burns, and he goes deep as if to make sure of that. Feeling. Searching. Whatever he finds makes him…frown.

  “How long were you a prostitute?” he asks, drawing his hand back while I cringe.

  I’m no shrinking violet, but call me old-fashioned—I’m not used to being asked something like that at point-blank range. The sad part? I don’t even know the right answer. Did he mean in the sense of selling my body or selling my soul? Is one even worse than the other?

  “Kotyonok—”

  “Um, six months,” I stammer, rattling off the timespan that I guess is nearest to the truth. Six months ago is when I started working for Benny almost every night. “Just to pay the bills.”

  I can tell from Maxim’s icy, uncaring stare that he’s heard it all before. Every fucking excuse under the sun. I could play up the sob story, but something makes me match his honesty with a bit of my own.

  “It pays the bills.”

  “You haven’t had many.” He swipes his finger along my entrance again to prove it, but I’m too sore, too exhausted, to hold a cry back. If anything, his jaw clenches at the sound. “And still, you’re already broken in,” he adds softly. “For me.”

  A single question escapes my doped-up brain. “Huh?”

  There must be another term for whatever he means in Russian. Something that doesn’t make the person on the rece
iving end feel like a pair of worn-out jeans. Broken in.

  “You will never feel tight to a smaller man.” He sinks into a crouch beside me. His breath fans my bare thigh as he rams a thumb in beside the first finger, stretching me further. “How many have you been with?” he asks, sounding miles away as his fingers keep tweaking bruised, battered flesh. A pinch here. A swipe there. Then a brutal pinch that drives the air out of my lungs.

  My blood runs cold at the thought of coming up with a solid number. It’s definitely higher than three. “Um, thirty.”

  Maxim chuckles at the amount as he perches himself between my outstretched legs. He’s too big. I have to lie back and fling my thighs apart for him to fit, which stirs an ache that travels through my entire body. Being trapped beneath him like this feels different than anything else. He doesn’t even have to touch me; my body stiffens, paralyzed by the sting he dishes out.

  “Who was your first?” His palm returns to my hip and I know he feels how I flinch at the question.

  My first. That title is supposed to hold some kind of honor, isn’t it?

  As far as achievements go, Maxim takes that crown, in a sense: the first man whose name I actually remember.

  “Some guy my mom was dating,” I blurt out, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “Climbed into my bed when I was fifteen. They ran off to Vegas the next day. By the time she came back…he was gone.”

  There’s no emotion in my voice. There are no memories in my head. Yet. I dig my nails into my palms, as I much as I can despite the bindings, to make sure. I’ve only just broken the skin when I sense a deeper, harsher burst of agony along my thigh. It’s too sharp to be from one of the previous cuts. Sure enough, I look down and find his thumb nearby. He pinched me.

  “Never be ashamed of your past, kotyonok,” he scolds.

  “I’m not.” The words are already out of my mouth before I realize what I’ve done. Argue.

  His eyes flash and my punishment comes swiftly; he leans forward, hovering above. The soft cotton of his shirt teases my stiffening nipples and chilled skin—but his aim isn’t sex in this moment. My only warning is a dangerous, creeping heat as his mouth latches onto my shoulder. I feel teeth next. Teasing. Warning. Biting. Deep. Air squeezes from my lungs in a gasp. God, he broke the skin.

  “My first woman was a prostitute,” Maxim says as he pulls away while wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. That one word catches me off guard as my brain attempts to reboot in the aftermath of his assault.

  His first woman—not his first time having sex. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe my head is too fucking clear, jumping to conclusions: anything to humanize him.

  “She was older than you are,” he adds, fanning his fingers out to stroke the site of his bite, mingling comfort with pain. “I was even younger. My grandfather hired her, you see. To make me a man.” He chuckles. It’s a chilling sound. Ha. Ha. “She reeked of cologne and the several other men she’d been with that night. I was…untried. Untested. The entire duration, my grandfather berated me. He made sure to watch from the end of the bed, you see. To judge.”

  The darkness in his words shatters even the clarity his touch delivers, making everything too sharp. Raw. Revulsion churns through my stomach. He’s lying. He’s joking. He has to be.

  “When my actions did not satisfy him, he hired more women,” Maxim continues without revealing the butt of the joke. “Sometimes he would ‘demonstrate’ on them. How to make them scream. He only ever completed if they screamed…” He trails off, glaring into his fucked-up past even as his fingers continue stroking me. Soft. Softer. All at once, the nails return, drawing blood when I least expect it.

  I jump as pain floods my system, but just as I start to lose my mind, Maxim drags his fingers between my legs again, staving off another trip over the edge.

  “I learned then that fucking is just a game, kotyonok. But you do not seem to comprehend the rules.”

  My head continues to spin, even as my heart stops beating at the tone of his voice. Low. Guttural. Confused. It’s like he can’t grasp the concept of it: that it was possible to get off not at the expense of someone else. Suddenly, he reaches down and seizes my chin in his grip, forcing me to face him directly.

  “Understand, that even in a game as twisted as Russian Roulette, there can only be one winner.”

  He doesn’t reveal just what he means, but my intuition is more than happy to fill in the blanks as he lets me go: At the end of the game, there is only one survivor. As far as this round is concerned, the odds aren’t even slightly stacked in my favor.

  Yet Maxim still seems determined to play.

  His hand returns between my legs again, and a searching thumb slides along my inner walls as if in punishment for making him feel even a shadow of human emotion—even one as primal as greed. Finally, he pulls away, but I don’t even have the chance to feel relief before he flings another command my way.

  “Get onto your stomach.”

  His voice alone affects me like nothing else—not even the pain. I scoot back over the mattress and roll onto my belly, my ass in the air. When I look up, Maxim is holding another strip of leather I instantly recognize: the collar, its chain winking in the daylight streaming in through the windows. All this time, he must have had it in his pocket.

  “Lift your chin.”

  Once I’ve complied, he fastens the strip around my throat, this time so that the chain dangles against my back rather than my front: an icy reminder of the power he holds over me.

  “Lift your legs,” he commands next, “so that your heels are near your head.”

  The moment I do, the tension in the chain becomes unbearable, forcing my head back farther…farther. Going off his calculating expression, I know instantly what he’s done.

  If I try to lower my legs, my head follows. Just like that, he’s turned me into a spit-roasted pig. The only thing missing is the apple shoved into my mouth.

  Apparently, he intends to improvise on that detail. “Open,” he grits out, coming to stand before me.

  My lips spring apart as he finds the clasp to his jeans and rips it open, revealing his cock, pulsing and straining, underneath. Before I can even begin to imagine how this will work, he nudges my lips farther apart. Farther. Only now does the reality sink in.

  He planned this, with only one goal in mind.

  “Open wide, kotyonok.”

  He doesn’t even have to try to deepthroat. He slides right in and there is no way I can move to even try to regain leverage. If I throw up in this position, I’ll choke. So I stop breathing. I stop thinking, and the tugging of hungry fingers on my hair is my only tether to reality.

  “Fuck,” he growls.

  His thrusts become faster. Harder. I have to breathe in through my nose in order not to suffocate. Which is fucking impossible. He’s reckless. Rough. With every thrust, he tilts his hips to explore another crevice of my mouth or to plunge deeper down my esophagus. There is no mercy. Just pain.

  And I can feel every single drop of it.

  All at once, he pulls out, leaving a trail of drool over my chin just as my muscles sear, white-hot. I vaguely see him twisting around to mount the other end of the bed. The chain is suddenly loosened and I’m shoved onto my back, both of my hands still tethered behind me. Maxim hovers above, positioned so that he’s facing the opposite wall, his cock near my mouth, his head dangerously close to my lower body. In one frantic sweep of my eyes, I take him in: rippling muscle covered in golden skin. I know this position…

  “Open,” he commands, his breath scorching the inside of my thighs.

  Wait…

  “Take me in, kotyonok,” he grates when another second passes and my lips remain shut. I don’t think I’ve heard this edge to his voice before. Broken. Unsteady. “Open and I will show you how to use that greedy mouth.”

  Impatient, his cock nudges my lips, seeking entrance. When I open wide, Maxim rolls his hips, teasing the back of my throat with his length in one stroke. At the sa
me time, his fingers drift between my spread legs, roughly rubbing me open to make way for something wetter. Warmer. Thicker.

  Oh! His cock muffles any sound I might make. All I can do is swallow, stroking the underside of his shaft with my tongue. He returns the favor, sinking his own inside me. Hard. Soft.

  Shit.

  “You like that, kotyonok,” he mutters into my skin when I stiffen in shock.

  I stop sucking, desperate to catch my breath. And my punishment comes swiftly. He seizes a bit of flesh between his teeth and bites down so hard that I see stars.

  “Do not stop.”

  Left with no choice, I hollow my cheeks around him, taking him in as far as I can, while he copies every action with his tongue. Ramming into me. Fucking me.

  Driving. Me. Insane.

  I’ve only just gotten the hang of the motion when he comes, spilling himself down the back of my throat. The moment I feel the initial hot spurt, my thoughts drift apart and scatter. I lose my sense of fucking gravity—the climax hits me that hard. I feel it in my chest. My stomach. My fucking soul. Like a freight train.

  I expect him to stop, let me come back down gradually, but his tongue only moves faster. Swallowing. Licking. Taking. Swirling, consuming.

  All the while, his hips buck, driving every ounce he has left into me. I taste blood when he finally pulls out and slides off me while I blink up at the ceiling and try to remember how to breathe.

  My lungs heave for air, but nothing trickles in—just out: gasps riddled with moans.

  I vaguely know when Maxim leaves my room without a word and closes the door behind him. But I can’t do anything but lie here as the pain in my throat mingles with the icy-hot, ravaged ache of my pussy. I don’t know which one is worse to bear. Or which one pushes me closer to the edge of sanity first.

  I can taste the first hint of madness when Maxim finally returns. Shadows paint the edges of my room now, making his hair stand out like a halo.

  “You may eat, kotyonok.” Heavy footsteps approach the bed, and when I crane my neck, I find him holding a tray. He lowers it, allowing me to make out the bowl of soup and crackers on it.