Chapter 7
Anya
What is happening to me?!
Nikolai’s onslaught is relentless. My ass stings and I feel my face twist as I wince against another slap. Then his hands turn soft and tender, caressing me, soothing my pain, like I’m something precious. Before I can repress it, a gasp bleeds from my parted lips, hitting the air noisily enough to garner his attention.
My body is careening back and forth between highs and lows; he”s blurring the lines between pleasure and pain. I can”t tell which is which... and I think I want more. I can’t want more. What is he doing to me? He must have drugged me or something. There”s no other explanation.
Infuriatingly, he chuckles proudly and I scowl, though he can’t see it. I need him to stop this before it gets out of control. Wet and wanting, I cannot allow him to make me feel this way. It’s wrong and disgusting. I want him to touch me everywhere and I hate it. My thighs are parting, and I can’t even convince myself that it’s because they are tired from fighting. Each spank gets closer and closer to my core. Shame floods my face, heating it as he delivers another painful slap, ramping up the desire that has already engulfed my trembling body.
My body has never been put through something like this before, and I don’t know how to handle it. The blend of sensations is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. My limited, sheltered bedtime activities have never ventured into this world.
His fingers brush against my wet center, alternating between pain and pleasure until I”m dizzy.
“Stop,” I beg him weakly, realizing that my voice doesn’t even sound like my own.
“Are you going to make me?” he laughs, running one hand over my sore, abused ass. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands.”
Clenching my jaw, I glance over my shoulder only to catch sight of the smug smirk spread across his handsome face. I gulp, knowing that he’s right but my rebellious streak surges up nonetheless. “You can’t do this to me,” I warn him. “I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Maybe not, but your body certainly seems to want it.” Nikolai chuckles again, shaking his head. “You don’t know what I could do for you, do you?” he breathes, leaning down and grazing the small of my back with his lips. “If you’re a good girl and you obey me, I can provide you with extreme pleasure, more than you have ever experienced in your life. On the other hand, if you defy me, your punishment will be very painful.”
His words are dripping with salaciousness and lust. I shudder wantonly beneath him. The rational part of my mind is shrieking at me to take whatever punishment he intends to dish out and get it over with. However, my primal instincts override any sense of logic that I should possess.
My thighs are already coated with my own juices and my heart is pounding as I long to know if his actions would live up to his words, and he truly could give me the pleasure he promised. After everything I’ve been through in the last day, I crave a release from this torture.
Stilling the rhythm of his fingers against the tender skin of my thigh, he raises a questioning brow at me. “Do you want me to stop?” he asks with an infuriating smirk, delivering another stinging blow to my flesh.
Every instinct is warning me to tell him yes but I’m too far gone, lost down the rabbit hole that I should never have dived into. Peering up at him from under hooded lashes, I scowl at him.
“Fuck you!” I say, trying to push myself up to get control over my own body, but my hands slide down his muscular leg. The starting and stopping is driving me insane. My words still him for a moment and I’m terrified at the thought of what’s running through his demented head.
I wonder if he’s thinking up a whole new level of torture for me. It wouldn’t surprise me, considering how he seems to get off on hurting me. However, his touch softens as he brushes tender fingers across my bruised butt.
He doesn’t stop there—he trails his fingers between my thighs, dipping lower until he finds the evidence of how I’m not hating the situation that I’m presently in.
“Is that what you want?” He leans down to present his damp fingers. “To fuck me? It certainly looks like you do, sweetheart.”
He rubs his fingers together, and I snap at him, attempting to bite his damned fingers but he laughs and straightens up once more.
A shriek escapes my lips when he flips me over and throws me onto the bed. A moment later, he covers me with his body and stares down at me. Reflexively, I tug my dress down to cover myself, but he reaches out and stops me.
“Don’t hide,” he breathes, running a finger down one thigh. “Let me see you.”
Gulping, I can’t do anything to stop him. Slowly, he forces my thighs apart, the fabric of my dress lifting until it’s bunched up around my hips. I try to fight it; I try to clamp my thighs shut again but I can’t. He could snap me in half if he wanted. Nikolai’s nostrils flare as he takes in the sight of me.
I feel cheap, like a paid whore dressed in trashy clothes and at his mercy. Transfixed on his face, I watch as his smirk turns dark and devilish, like he knows exactly what he is doing to me. Something warm inside of me furls lower. I cannot be liking his gaze. I can’t. That is impossible.
Still, the heat between my legs grows as the dangerously handsome man on top of me strokes my most sensitive parts with languorous ease. He evokes a deep groan, and I can’t seem to find the will to fight him off. It’s torturous in a way I never anticipated.
My eyes drift shut, allowing me to lose myself in the sensations for just a moment. I bite my tongue, and push against his shoulders. Not that it’s going to do any good. He’s so much larger than I am.
“Beg me,” he demands, cutting through the lusty haze that engulfs me.
Snapping my eyes open, I peer at his face and shake my head. “Never,” I reply.
Nikolai removes his hand and encircles my throat, pinning me to the bed under his grip. “Beg me,” he growls again, his hot breath coming out in pants.
I try to find purchase on the bed, but my legs slide across the fabric on either side of him. I can’t move him an inch. I’m pinned. Helpless. He can, and is, doing whatever he wants to me and I’m forced to realize that my body is into it. I’m more aroused by being helpless than I have ever been in my life.
Nikolai’s voice washes over me, my breathing turns short and clipped. “Beg me to touch you.”
I despise him. He had complete control, and I”m being forced to beg him for something I don”t want, but need more than I”ve ever needed anything.
“Never!” I pant as he tightens his grip around my neck.
Nikolai smirks, like he can see right through me. “Come on, you can do it.”
I can’t even look at him. I turn my head away and stare at the far wall as he leans down closer to me, his breath washing over my skin. My imagination sparks to life, wondering what it would feel like if he would just close that gap between us—to place his lips against my skin wherever he wanted like he’s been threatening to do.
“You may not have many chances left to claim pleasure in this life, Anya, why deprive yourself?”
Again, he threatens to kill me, that my days might be numbered and my body isn’t reacting to the danger like it ought to be. Instead of simply being terrified, the thrill of danger is overheating my skin. Nikolai runs a finger over my collar bone. He trails it down the line of the nightdress, teasing me, refusing to touch me where I want him to. My traitorous body arches up into the contact.
“Give in to me, let yourself have what your body wants. It will certainly make your time here a lot more pleasurable for you.” Nikolai’s teeth brush against my skin, nipping at me anywhere he can reach. He’s waiting for my answer.
“What do you want me to say?” I grit out, almost at the point of tears.
“Please, touch me, Sir,” he clarifies, elevating my humiliation to an entirely new level.
I refuse to let that word spill from my lips. How can he ask that of me? Is this not bad enough? To be mortified by my captor and so vulnerable? To be prepared to beg him? Now he wants me to call him Sir? I shake my head in defiance, reluctant to give into what he’s asking of me, but I can’t avoid the determination in his gaze.
“Would you prefer that we return to the punishment, Anya?” he asks me, the tenderness in his voice belying the fury on his face.
Gulping harshly, I let my eyes flutter shut and breathe, “No,” Letting my pride ebb away, I inhale a shaky breath and open my eyes to gaze up at him. My body is shaking, trembling with need. “Please, Sir,” I force out.
“Please… what? Say it the right way, sweetheart, or I don’t think I will believe you.”
“Please… touch me… sir.” The words taste like acid on my tongue.
Relief floods through me as he returns his fingers to where I crave him the most.
However, I can barely stand seeing the triumph in his expression. He’s a fucking bastard and he knows it. Defeated, I fist my hands in the sheets above my head as he slips a finger inside me, manipulating me with lithe expertise.
“Shit!” I scream when he curls his long finger inside of me and hits a spot that nobody has reached before.
Nikolai laughs, moistening his lips. “Tell me that you belong to me, sweetheart.”
Clamping my lips shut, I refuse. I’m not his. I will never be his. Maybe my pride is gone but I’m still me. I expect him to pause again, demanding that I admit it but he seems to shrug off my refusal this time, continuing to pleasure me. My desire rockets, exploding overhead in a cascade of stars in front of my eyes. I feel my muscles tighten, pleasure searing every sinew.
I’m so close, teetering on the precipice of my orgasm. I feel it building within me, sparks beginning to shoot from my center up and down every limb. His fingers pump harder inside of me, coaxing pleasure from my most sensitive parts. I moan against him, biting down on my bottom lip as the deluge overwhelms me. Screwing my eyes shut, I hear myself start to groan his name. “Ni?—”
Then, he stops.
My eyes snap open as he distances himself from me, staring at my flushed face with the coldest gaze I have ever witnessed. “You’ve had a taste of what I can give you, a little appetizer so to speak. But you haven’t been a good enough girl to deserve the entrée.”
Panting, I peer at him in confusion, desperately struggling to regain my composure as he looms over me. “What?” I stutter, swallowing hard. “What are you doing? Why did you stop?”
“For a woman who didn’t want it at all, you seem mighty eager for me to finish,” he comments languorously. “I don’t need to bring you to completion, you haven’t earned it. Now, I know just how easy it is to play your body like a fiddle.”
Humiliated, I duck my head, feeling the blood rushing to my cheeks as I battle against the embarrassment of my behavior. It doesn’t help that he’s left me frustrated and wanting but it’s even worse to see him gloating so arrogantly about it. Nobody has ever made me feel truly like shit before, but he’s accomplished it with ease. My fists ball at my side and I want to launch them at him, but I know I can’t win.
He holds all the cards and I have nothing.
Nikolai stands, straightening his suit as if nothing ever happened. I don’t even have the energy to cover myself. I’m too drained and lost. The tears that gather behind my eyes do not fall.
“Breakfast is at eight,” he tells me in a tone that’s all business. “Ivan will wake you if you are not already up. I’m sure you will enjoy it. I have some work to take care of in the morning, so I probably won’t see you. However, I’ll be right here, on the upper floor, so don’t go getting any ideas about trying anything naughty while I’m busy.”
Brokenly, I bob my head, unable to really absorb what he’s saying. “Okay,” I whisper, turning from him so that he cannot see the utter devastation on my face.
The door slams behind him, leaving me entirely alone. I flop onto the bed, scrunching myself into a tight ball. Tears burn behind my eyelids, threatening to spill down my cheeks. I’m so confused, I don’t understand what just happened. One moment, we were arguing and the next his fingers were inside me, taking me to heights to which I’ve never ventured before.
I cannot understand how my body could react to him like that. He took me by force and somehow transformed me into a willing, writhing whore prepared to beg for more against my will and my own better judgement. What the hell have I turned into?
I look out the window, my eyes stinging, and notice that the sky has darkened. I sigh heavily as I realize nightfall is approaching. I”ve been here for almost a day. Or perhaps longer. I”m not sure how long I was unconscious before waking up to this hellish new existence that I now call my life. I peel the red dress from my body and throw it away, not wanting to deal with the memory of it, or the way he looked over me when he saw me in it. I pull my legs back under the blankets and up to my chin. They don”t make me feel as comfortableas they did before.
The future has always been a bright and exciting place for me to explore, but it now terrifies me. I”m not sure what tomorrow will bring, and the unknown makes me nervous. This is all due to Nikolai and whatever evil plans he has for me.
God, I loathe the man.
But right now, I hate myself even more.