by Lana Sky
“Eight hundred,” another says, his casual tone suggesting he just bid on a pair of shoes or piece of jewelry, not a woman.
“A thousand,” someone adds to the chorus of bids.
For a painful second, there’s no other offer. “Two thousand,” someone calls finally— Andrew, perched on a chair in the back. Catching my relieved glance, he nods. “Five thousand,” he adds after another man has countered his offer.
Minutes pass, and it almost feels like a strange, thrilling game. One played after too much wine at some rich bastard’s soirée. A game of “who can be the biggest show off” by throwing unseemly amounts of money around.
“Six thousand,” bids another man, his face obscured by the glow of the spotlight.
There’s a moment’s pause. Then I hear Andrew wager. “Seven thousand—”
“Ten thousand.” A newer voice cuts through the fray and any innocence this event may have held is promptly shattered. The devil enters the room, looking as though he crawled his way from hell. His suit is rumpled, his hair a wild mess. Cold, glaring eyes find me, cutting through every obstacle in his way. “Twenty thousand,” he adds before another man can even finish voicing his bid.
A shudder runs through the room. Heads turn, eyeing the newcomer curiously. What was fun and games is now a gladiatorial match, with money as the weapon and my body as the prize.
Andrew, as Sloane insisted, proves to be more reliable than expected. “Thirty,” he says, sounding unfazed by this new challenger.
As if shrugging off a fly, Blake flicks a different amount off his tongue. “Fifty.”
The confused murmurs grow. Excitement and tension crackle in the air. I’m sweating in my borrowed dress, aware of how my chest heaves with every breath. Sloane warned me to be careful. “That gown is killer, but one wrong move and your goods will be on full display.”
They must be, because, if anything, the only man standing suddenly looks taller. His voice grates, taking on an increased urgency. “One hundred.”
“Two,” Andrew says without missing a beat.
“One million.”
My jaw drops, along with most of the men’s jaws in this room. The wildest amount I ever pictured anyone pledging was maybe a few thousand. And, by anyone, I meant the one bastard who thwarted my original plans for an auction. Never in my most dangerous nightmares did I imagine him putting that much of a price on me. Or a bounty.
“Two million.” A slender figure rises from the crowd. Andrew, his face suddenly drawn with concentration. “Four,” he adds when Blake unflinchingly counters.
The game ends as other men lose interest. It’s a two-man race now, each naming an amount more absurd than the last.
Six.
Seven.
Nine.
Ten…
Oh God no. Terror corrupts my limbs, turning bone and blood to cement. The closer the amount creeps to my limit, the harder I sweat. Quake. Tremble.
He can’t. He can’t really…
No. He won’t.
Teeth bared, he snarls, “Fifteen million.” Loudly, as if he wants the entire damn world to hear. To know the price he’d pay for the privilege of owning me. Claiming me.
Dread has me in its grasp even before I force myself to glance at Andrew. His teeth are gritted, but the silence stretches on as he heeds my hard limit.
A second passes.
Another.
Sold.
No one says it. I feel it: possession. Wrapping around my throat, yanking me the few steps it takes to descend the dais. He doesn’t beckon me or even call me by name. He doesn’t have to. As he glowers like a fucking psychopath, his gaze alone warns any other man from glancing in my direction. It’s like I no longer exist, a pawn in his possession, unreachable to any other.
I assume the other women purchased within these walls would approach their buyer with a mixture of curiosity and excitement. They’d submit to this creature who bought them like a commodity.
I run.
Panting, I find that Bolles is a maze of dark, winding hallways and hardwood floors. Floors that echo, taunting me with every footfall that lands in my wake. Slow and steady, but never far behind, he chases me into a foyer. Up a polished set of stairs. Farther. Farther. Farther…
Rounding a corner, I nearly run into a woman leaving a bathroom, her arms laden with cleaning supplies. She gives me an odd look as I lunge past her, closing the door. The damn room is too narrow. There are no hiding spaces—just the sliver of space beside the black marble toilet, its basin blue with cleaning fluid.
He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t even barge inside. The doorknob turns slowly, as if he’s savoring the sound of my racing heartbeat. Relishing in the frantic swell.
I stop breathing as he forces his bulk through the doorway. He seems that damn large—he can’t merely step inside. He crams every inch of his body into the narrow space. Slowly, he flicks his gaze over me, molten hot, as he reaches up to tug his tie loose.
“Turn around.”
My body obeys, a slave to the ragged tone of voice I’ve never heard him use before. It’s volatile, grinding inside me, irritating raw flesh. A warning of what’s to come.
“Bend over.”
My hands land on the toilet seat, but I choke down any disgust I may feel. It’s primal, this compulsion taking control of my spine. I can’t resist. Not even as his fingers graze my throat, practically shaking with possession.
“Open your mouth.”
The moment I do, silk is shoved between my lips. His tie. His thumb strokes my jaw until I bite down, muffling any sound I might make.
“You think I’ll let them fucking hear you?” he murmurs into my ear. There’s a terrifying calmness in his voice, far beyond rage, or anger, or even hate. It’s acceptance.
We’ll only ever belong together like this. Fit together like this: two halves of the same broken puzzle piece. “Hell no.”
Two fingers delve beneath my skirt and find the panel of my thong. “You think I’d let them get a fucking taste of what is mine?”
God. My eyelids flutter as he rubs between my folds, easing me open. Warm wetness greets him, and he takes advantage, painting heated flesh with the proof of my arousal.
He growls. I hear his zipper come undone, and a heartbeat later, I’m thrown forward as he plunges inside me. My knees buckle. My arms strain to support my weight as my face is brought ever closer to the water glistening in the toilet.
But he doesn’t fuck me.
He breaks me open, grinding every inch of himself he can fit into the cracks. I cry out, muzzled by the makeshift gag. I’m mute to every thrust and groan. No one can hear me whimper. Moan. Scream.
“No fucking way.” He never stops speaking to me, listing every transgression committed against him. “I saw them. Looking at you. Fucking you with their eyes. But you’re mine—” He bucks his hips, and my arms give out. My chin hits the toilet seat, leaving my ass in the air, my body at his mercy. “Fuck. I should string you up. Never let you out of my fucking sight. Fuck. Fuck!”
He doesn’t even give himself the chance to experience his release in full. He pulls out, still impossibly hard. Dazed, I watch him stuff himself into his pants, his face a mask of pure insanity.
“Car,” he says simply. “Five minutes.”
He strips his coat and tosses it over my heaving frame before storming into the hall.
Five minutes.
Chapter 11
I leave Bolles a captive after entering just a moment earlier with my soul in play. I wagered and badly lost. My tormentor is waiting for me out front, ready and willing to usher me into his dark chariot. Not that he needs it. He’ll drag me into Hades with him if he must. By the aid of a vehicle. By my hair.
“In,” he grunts, stepping aside to wrench the door to the back seat open.
I move past him, numb. Dazed. As he slams the door behind me, I realize he drove here himself. Radiating tension, he climbs into the driver’s seat. A telltale click betrays t
hat the locks engage, trapping me within.
We return to his suite in silence, crowding into the elevator wordlessly. The moment the doors part on the top floor, he commands me forward with a curt nod, his gaze unreadable. With my shoulders squared, I enter the foyer.
Something heavy rams into me from behind, forcing me against the nearest wall where a framed portrait of a painted landscape hangs. Fabric tears and cold air rushes to assault my suddenly bare torso.
“Turn,” he commands, but he does it himself, shoving me back. Darkness taints the blue of his irises as he grabs my panties with both hands. Tears them off. Throws the lace aside. His cock is already captured in his fist, straining to enter me.
Groaning, he lifts my thigh against his hip and shoves the swollen crown inside me.
My cry cuts the air, loud without anything to stifle it. The sound only makes him harder. Madder. He drives into me, grunting, teeth clenched, eyes pressed shut.
“You’re so beautiful.” Every praise lands like a curse. “So wet for me. God, so wet. Fucking hell...”
He’s ruthless, taking me with reckless need. Like he’s drowning. Starving. Dying. Only this can keep him afloat, sustain him, keep him alive. Only this gives his life any damn meaning.
He drags me to the floor, rutting me from behind with my face pressed against the marble. Drool coats my cheeks. I can’t suck in enough air to gasp. Moan. I claw at the floor, a mass of tense, clenching, churning muscle and nerves, taking as much of him as I can. So deep that it fucking burns. It bleeds.
“That’s right,” he urges, sounding crazed, as he pulls out only to seek his way into my body through a different route. A tighter one that clenches against him. He has to dip into my gaping “cunt” to find enough lubrication. “So goddamn wet. Let me in, Snow. Won’t hurt… Let me in… Jesus Christ!”
My head rears back as I find the voice to scream. God, it doesn’t hurt—it desolates. He claims me in a way only he can, forcing me to accept him. Need him. Crave every fucking burning, painful, stretching inch.
And inch.
“So fucking good,” he mutters into the nape of my neck. “So good. Fucking hell. Feel like heaven. Heaven…”
The intimacy of this way of fucking undoes him too quickly. He groans, collapsing against my back. But he doesn’t pull out. I doubt he can, gripped so tightly by my body for every spasming, unbidden release.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he demands, grasping strands of my hair. Pulling on them. “Drive…me…goddamn…insane.”
I was wrong. Still hard, he flexes his hips, driving into me for another series of punishing thrusts. Too much. Can’t take. Blind. Numb. Dumb.
Burning.
My body goes limp before jolting back to life, enslaved to every grinding, harsh, bruising bit of friction.
“You’re mine now,” he tells me, thrusting even deeper. Faster. Oh God, too fast. “Mine!”
My vision goes white. I’m weightless, robbed of sensation. Just the knowledge of him crushing down on my spine, his presence inescapable as my body rides every dizzying throe. This isn’t an orgasm. It’s dying, becoming something twisted and new from the ashes.
“You’re fucking mine,” he promises, his voice hoarse. “From now on, you’re fucking mine.”
I come to on what feels like a bed. How we got here, I have no clue. I smell him sweating and breathless beside me. My inner thighs throb with his release, my body burning in the aftermath of his possession. Somehow, I know without having to look that he’s ready to take me again.
It’s like we’re two cogs of one of those wind-up toys. He’s the crank, twisting into me. I’m the part that jumps across the floor at the whim of every motion.
“Touch yourself.” He voices the command into my ear, biting the lobe when I don’t comply fast enough.
My fingers rise from the bed, trembling and weak. I guide them down my belly until they meet a mass of swollen, slick flesh.
“Holy hell.” He inhales, positioning himself to watch every illicit motion. “More,” he grates, his eyes glowing in the dark. “Harder. The way I know you’ve imagined me touching you.”
Like a deranged madman, apparently. Rough. Rigidly. Tentatively slipping inside, just to the nail bed before chickening out.
“No.” He leans in closer, inhaling the scent on my skin. His hand captures my wrist and the pressure increases.
My fingers have no choice but to enter me. One. Another. “Oh God—”
“Yes.” He bites me again, grinding a ridge of flesh on my throat between his teeth. “Fucking yes.”
He guides me in and out, but never deep enough. Hard enough. Fast enough. He coaxes me up that dangerously high peak, but never close to the edge.
“The things you make me do,” he admits, barely intelligible. “I’ve fucked my fist for weeks. Come inside my goddamn pants. You make me so fucking… Fuck.”
I stiffen as he forces my thumb against the bundle of nerves aching for the most stimulation. One hard flick has me gasping. After another, I’m grinding my hips against my own damn fingers.
“You were made for me,” he declares. “For this. To be fucked by me. Fucking me. You’re fucking for me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut against his expression. Too raw. Too dangerous. I focus on the white-hot flames building inside my belly, growing hotter with every twist. Every thrust. Far too soon, he bats my hand aside. Hot air assaults the throbbing flesh. God no. Then I open my eyes and find him hunched on all fours, his head lowering.
He spears me open with his tongue, fucking me with the stiff tip. I lose my voice from screaming. I lose my fucking mind. I only find pieces of it again: on my knees as he takes me from behind, slamming my shoulder against the headboard.
“Fuck,” he growls, his face buried against my neck. “I’d give you anything…everything. I’d give you everything. But I can’t… I don’t. Trust. Can’t trust.”
He rears back, spilling himself inside me before I can anticipate the searing warmth. For some reason, that last confession resonates more than the others. I’d give you everything. Anything.
“Purse,” I croak, too exhausted to lift my body from the twisted sheets. “Purse.”
Frowning, he rises from the bed and returns a second later, dropping my handbag beside me. Blindly, I reach inside and grab a letter at random. He eyes it blankly as I press it against his palm.
“Read.”
I can’t find the words to explain his expression. Maybe there aren’t any. Just feelings: an aching clench of my heart and a twist of my belly. Things I hate feeling. Things only he can make me feel.
He leaves again, but he doesn’t go far. Into a bathroom, maybe? I hear water running. When he pads back to the bed, soothing warm runs between my legs, cleaning me up. He washes me slowly, using the same rag to stroke my backside and down my thighs. Satisfied, he settles beside me, sitting upright. Paper crinkles, manipulated by his large hands. A man like him isn’t the type to write letters or read them. They forge contracts and sign lives away with the stroke of a pen.
“Dear Snow…” He sounds worse than I do. Ragged and hoarse. After clearing his throat, he tries again. “Dear Snow. I don’t want to hate you. I can’t hate you.”
My skin heats, and I roll onto my side, hunting his expression. He keeps his face utterly stoic, hiding himself from me, even now.
“And I should. There are moments where I still look at you and I feel it. I despise you so fucking much. Then others…when the light catches your hair, and your eyes seem so goddamn blue, and all I can fucking think about is being inside you. Near you. And that’s the worst part,” he insists darkly. “You don’t want me to crave you the way I should. Need you the way I fucking need you. If anything, you should ignore me. Run away. Because I’ll fucking chase you. I’ll chase you until you stop running.”
He crumples the page in his fist and tosses it aside.
“My first fifteen-million-dollar fuck,” he grumbles as he staggers for the door a
s if drunk. Looking back, he frowns, the expression almost pitying. “I wish I could say it wasn’t worth it. I fucking wish I could.”
He leaves, letting the door sway in his wake. I’m too tired to track where he goes. Somewhere far from this room, down the stairs, but still in the suite. Like any predator, he won’t leave his kill for long.
Groaning with the effort, I feel along the bed for the letter. My heart lurches when I finally find it, clutching it tightly. I roll onto my stomach and unfurl it, straining my eyes to read in the dark.
I seek out every scribbled word in that scrawl I know so well.
Only to find nothing.
Not on this side. Not on the other.
It’s blank.
A sickening feeling runs through me like a lance as I drag my bag closer and grab another letter at random. I rip it open, unfurling the pages. There are three of them, each one blank. So is the next. And the next. And the next.
Every single envelope contains a varying number of blank pages.
And suddenly, I know why: He sent me blank, fake letters, knowing that I’d never read one.
Chapter 12
I wake up sprawled over a strange bed in a strange, darkened room. Gray walls and hardwood floors form a bare, utilitarian prison. At least at first glance—a second appraisal reveals that the door is open, and faint rays of daylight seep through black curtains, revealing a distinctly masculine air. Steel-colored sheets cover the substantial mattress. The frame is dark wood, with simple, sleek furniture rounding out the drab surroundings: a nightstand in the same style as the bed, a leather chaise near one of the massive windows, and a floor lamp placed beside the door to a walk-in closet. From here, I can make out seemingly endless rows of hanging suits.
A terrible realization strikes: This is his room. His bed.
I scramble to my feet, alarmed to find countless balls of crumpled paper mingled in the sheets. Then I take a step and groan as my body throbs in a million different ways. My back aches. My head pounds. A steady burn builds between my legs—in both the front and the back. My cheeks flame as I remember the myriad of ways Blake Lorenz violated my body.
