Chapter 8
ANNA
Ididn't say yes. I didn't say anything.
He didn't ask for my permission; it was clear he didn't need it.
Darius carried me in his arms to his bedroom, and the second I realized what was happening, I tried to squirm away from him. But that realization came too late. He had already tossed me onto the black silk sheets of the bed.
I immediately rolled, getting on my hands and knees in an attempt to scramble to the other side of the bed. Desperate to put some space between us.
His hand wrapped around my ankle and pulled me back.
No matter how hard I tried to grip the bed and pull myself away, my fingers only slipped on the silky sheets.
He grabbed my other ankle and with one swift movement, he flipped me over. I was briefly airborne before landing on my back, the air punching out of my lungs.
"Don't move," he ordered, his eyes pinning me in place.
He turned his back to me for a moment and strode to the closet, so confident that I was going to obey him.
My heart thundered in my chest, and my mind screamed at me to get on my feet and run. But my body refused to move.
Especially when he stripped off his crisp black button-down shirt, revealing long, toned muscles accentuated by the fine lines of his tattoos.
I knew he had ink, I'd seen it peeking from beneath his shirt, but I could never have anticipated the work of art that he was.
His tattoos were curated. I knew each of them had a meaning, some carefully planned story or symbolism that was important only to him.
The artistry was part of him. It melted into his skin, highlighting his strength with the markings of a predator.
The stars on his shoulders stressed their breadth, and I had a feeling those were not given, but earned, through acts I didn't dare consider.
On his spine was a dagger with a serpent that coiled around it in a figure eight before eating its own tail.
I wasn't unfamiliar with the Ouroboros imagery, but I had never seen one so beautiful and threatening.
The snake seemed to shift, coming to life with his movements as he hung his shirt. The thin gold necklace around his neck glinted where it caught the light, and my breath caught in my throat.
I didn't understand why I was still on the bed. I should have run. I should have been out of the hotel room halfway to the elevator. But I couldn't move.
He turned back toward me, his chest and abs just as honed with lean, hard muscle and carefully chosen, carefully placed tattoos. A black-and-gray chess piece with a long shadow on his ribs, the Roman numerals “XXIII” placed just below his left pec.
The question was on the tip of my tongue.
I wanted to know why twenty-three was important, but when my eyes met his, the question fell away. He was staring at me, watching me watch him, with an intensity that told me I wasn't leaving this room until he allowed it.
"Come here," he demanded.
As if he had a direct link to my body that bypassed my mind, my free will, I scrambled off the bed to stand in front of him.
He motioned for me to turn, and I did.
There was a large floor-length mirror on the other side of the room. I watched him sweep my hair to one side and slide his hands from my shoulders down my back, the soft whisper of the zipper on the dress being pulled down following his motion.
Then he pushed the dress off my shoulders and it fluttered to the floor, leaving me staring at myself in the mirror, standing in nothing but a simple cream-colored bra and pale-pink panties.
His eyes met mine in the mirror, and it felt too real.
It was too much. I looked down at the floor and moved to cover myself.
He didn't let me. Instead, he grabbed my arms and spun me back around to face him, and the knot in my stomach loosened a little.
Staring into his eyes in the mirror had been overwhelming. Too intimate, as if he could see into my mind, or maybe it was that I saw too much in my reflection.
"Tell me, maya soloveyka, have you ever been touched by a man before?"
My cheeks burned; I shifted my gaze back down to stare at the floor again. Somehow, I knew he wasn't only asking that question because he knew the answer was no.
I wasn't a virgin, but I hadn't taken a lover in years. It never really seemed worth the hassle of pretending to be good enough, hoping my mother would approve, and praying they didn't see me as the same failure she did.
It was easier to accept being unlovable when there was no one there to love you.
"Answer me, Eleanor," he warned, and I flinched away from him.
"Anna," I corrected. Hearing the name Eleanor slip through his lips felt wrong. I may not have wanted to be in this room, and I may not have chosen this. But I still didn't want him to call me by that name.
If I were forced to be here, he could call me by the name I chose.
"What?"
"My name is Anna. Only my mother calls me Eleanor."
He hooked his knuckle under my chin and lifted it until I was looking into his eyes. "Has another man ever touched you, Anna?"
"I am not a virgin." I answered in the only way that felt truthful.
He looked at me for another moment, considering my answer, not allowing me to pull away.
"From this moment on, no one else will touch you. No one else will get to look at your body. You are mine."
"I am no—" He cut off my words with a kiss, devouring any objections I may have had.
With one quick movement, he snapped the clasp of my bra and pulled it from my body. His mouth was still on mine, his lips persistent, his tongue demanding until I opened to him.
Darius's kiss was...consuming, and I let it take me.
I didn't have the capacity to unpack what was happening, or what had happened. I couldn't even handle the way he looked at me and saw everything I had tried so desperately to hide.
So, I let my body take over. As my mind screamed in horror at what I was allowing to happen, my body reveled in it.
"Such a lovely little soloveyka," he murmured, and then said something else in Russian. His words were harsh, guttural, but they heated my blood all the same. "Are you going to behave for me?"
I didn't trust my voice, so I just nodded and looked away. Part of me hoped he would take it as disgust rather than a sad attempt to hide the heat just under the surface.
His thumb traced my cheek slowly, then traveled down my neck—
The necklace.
The bomb pressed against my throat, cold and heavy, humming faintly. My breath caught, panic clawing up from my chest and across my collarbones.
Every place he touched flooded with electricity, but my pulse hammered against the metal at my throat, reminding me that he held my life in his hands. That one wrong move, one press of a button, and—
When he palmed my breast, I couldn't breathe. Fire shot from his hand straight through to my core. No one had ever had that kind of effect on me.
"These tits are so pretty, and it seems they are just as sensitive," he breathed. "Tell me, do you like the way I touch you?"
I pinched my lips shut, refusing to answer.
A low chuckle came from somewhere deep in his chest, then he pinched my nipple hard enough that I cried out and my knees went weak. "I asked you a question."
"Yes," I said, the word barely audible.
"Yes…what?" he taunted.
"I like the way you touch me." My stomach rolled as I admitted something so shameful.
How could I like this? How could I want more?
I should have been fighting him, trying to get away, not standing topless in front of him with my panties wet from him palming my breast.
"Sir," he corrected as he pinched my nipple again.
"I like the way you touch me, sir," I said, my voice shaking as humiliation burned in my cheeks.
"Good girl," he purred. "Let's see what else you like."
He grabbed me by the throat—
My whole body went rigid. His fingers pressed against the necklace, the metal digging into my skin, and for a second, I couldn't tell if it was the bomb or his hand that was going to kill me. The weight of both crushed down on my windpipe.
His hand tightened just enough to make sure I knew he held my life in his hands, and he was choosing to let me breathe.
Terror and something darker, something twisted, flooded through me in equal measure.
My heart pounded faster, and my lips tingled as he leaned in and traced the curve of my upper lip with his tongue.
"Your lips are so sweet. I wonder if the rest of you tastes as good."
He pushed me back and I stumbled, landing on my elbows on the bed. He stepped closer and I pressed my thighs together. The corner of his mouth curled up as he placed his hands on my knees and pried them apart before standing between them.
Leaning down, he placed one hand on the bed next to me and wrapped the other around my throat again. The necklace bit into my neck and my pulse hammered against his fingers, against the metal, a frantic reminder that I was alive only because he allowed it.
The fear should have drowned everything else out. It should have been all I felt.
But it wasn't.
He kissed me again, squeezing my throat just hard enough that my lips parted and he took full advantage, thrusting his tongue into my mouth, claiming it, owning it.
My senses filled with his scent, and every nerve ending I had came alive.
I hated myself even more as the tingling heat moved to my core, and I knew I was wet for him.
When he broke the kiss, he moved along my throat, tasting my skin. He was slow, methodical, trailing his kisses down my throat to my collarbone, skipping the heavy necklace that glinted around my neck, moving to the curve of my breast.
My nipples tightened, and my breath hitched, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. When his lips wrapped around my nipple, I couldn't help the gasp that pulled from my lips, how heavy my eyelids grew. It felt so good.
It had been so long since I had been touched, so long since I had felt pleasure like this. And no matter how much I didn't want to want him, no one had ever affected my body the way Darius did.
His hot mouth pulled at my sensitive skin, his teeth scraping, adding an addictive, sharp shot of pain that was instantly soothed by the caress of his tongue. My core grew hotter, and the flush on my cheeks burned hotter, but I wasn't so sure it was only embarrassment.
One of his hands stayed around my throat while the other moved to my other breast, pinching and massaging. I had never thought my chest was overly sensitive. Maybe I needed that mix of pleasure and pain...or maybe it was just him.
His beard scraped across my skin as he let go of my breast with a pop, then lifted off of me just enough that he could look down at me. His eyes were intense as he took in every inch of me.
"Give me your wrists," he ordered, and I lay back, offering my wrists to him, my hands clenched.
He held them both in one of his massive hands, his fingers gripping tight as he brought them over my head and pressed them into the mattress. "Keep them there. Do not move them, or I will punish you. I promise you will not like the way I punish you. Is that understood?"
His tone left no room for argument.
"Yes, sir," I answered.
He got off the bed, and I didn't move. I lay there, his words binding my wrists and tying me down.
He traced the line of my panties with the tips of his fingers, just sliding along the waistband, teasing me. Even that tiny motion made me ache. My stomach hollowed as my chest rose with a deep, shuddering breath.
"If I were to pet your pretty cunt, would I find it wet for me?"
I pressed my lips together, unable to bear answering him.
Instead, I stared at the ceiling and started thinking about the store, with its endless rows of records and the things I needed to do when I got back...if I got back.
Darius grabbed my face, his hand painfully squeezing my jaw. "Answer me. Is your cunt wet?"