CHAPTER 46
Time ticks away at a painfully slow pace as I wait. The large, opulent living room is deadly silent—not even the guard standing watch by the door gives off a sound—but inside my head, I’m screaming, alarms are blaring, and destructive images of blood and pain keep flashing before my inner eye. But even as I want to release the screams and pull at my own hair, I remain in place, perching on the couch, hands folded in my lap, eyes staring straight ahead. I imagine this is how it must feel when anesthesia goes wrong—when the body shuts down and the mind is wide awake during the horror and pain.
Twenty agonizing minutes pass like this.
A slow tremble settles in my bones and works its way up to jerky tremors. When a particularly severe one makes me jolt, I think it will break me from the paralysis and into hysteria, but nothing happens. I remain rooted to the couch even though everything inside me itches to tear the pristine fa?ade of this place apart.
It’s only when steps in the hallway announce someone coming that I manage to move and turn my head. I can barely breathe as I stare at the door, expecting Gabor to come and say Janos is dead and I’m his now. So when Janos appears, the relief is like a shock to my system. My heart slams against my ribcage, and tears pool in my eyes. It takes everything I have to keep them from spilling down my cheeks and hold myself straight. I know this isn’t the end; there’s still more to come. The first down payment.
Janos looks as impassive as when he sent me out of the office, giving no signs of what has transpired. But when I look at his left hand, the air sticks like a cork in my throat. Where his pinkie and ring finger should be is a thick, white bandage. Looking back up at his face, I notice he does seem a little pale, his features taut. But his posture remains tall and proud, the strength in his eyes unwavering.
Nausea twists my stomach as he stops in front of me, and I stare at his left hand. One, two, three, I count over and over, never reaching four and five.
“Look at me.” Janos grips my jaw with his good hand, forcing my gaze up to meet his. “It’s just a couple of fingers. It’s not important.”
I stare at him, unable to process his words.
“Breathe,” he orders, and I drag in a small gulp of air that barely passes the restriction in my throat.
“One more,” he guides, and I give it a few more tries before I succeed, filling my lungs as I cling to the steady command in his eyes. “It’s just a couple of fingers,” he repeats. “Okay?”
I nod even though I can’t write off the loss of his fingers as insignificant the same way he does. But even so, this is more than I dared hope for. He’s still here. Alive. So I force the image of his three-fingered hand from my mind and focus on the one that wraps around my arm and helps me up. Once I’m on my feet, he slides his hand under my hair and grips my nape. The rough way he leads me down the hall must look callous to anyone watching from the outside, but I feel the small caresses under my hair, and his firm grip is a steadying force that chases away the quivers in my legs.
Gabor watches me with animalistic hunger as Janos herds me into the office. “Put her on the desk. Naked.”
Janos steps in front of me, blocking my vision of the man who is my nightmare. The man who is once again going to use and abuse me.
“He’s just going to fuck you,” Janos says. “I’ll be the one dealing out the pain.”
Swallowing hard, I nod. I feel nauseous from the sight of Janos’s missing fingers, and bile rises at the back of my throat at the idea of pain. I thought I was willing to do anything to belong to Janos, but right now, I can’t take it. My stomach is churning like it’s refusing to hold on to its contents for much longer, my head is pounding, and it gets worse every time I try to focus my blurry eyes.
“Rebecca, look at me,” Janos demands, grabbing my jaw the same way Gabor did earlier. But where Gabor’s grip sent icy shivers through my skin, Janos’s touch soothes the sick feeling in my body somewhat.
“It’s my pain,” he says. “You’re mine now, and you’ll come for me while I hurt you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the reality of my situation once again slams into me. Pain, Gabor, helplessness. The same nightmare that I had escaped.
“Rebecca,” Janos repeats, my name a stern warning on his tongue. “Mine.” He digs his fingers in with a force that hurts. But the pain isn’t cruel. It’s potent. Powerful. Like him. And as I watch the strength in his eyes mixing with that strange sort of protectiveness I seemed to rouse in him the first time our eyes locked, the fear changes. It doesn’t disappear, but it takes on a new character. It becomes this buzzing sort of urge for… something more. Something that will make me feel alive. Something that will stabilize the chaos within me and mend my brokenness. And only one man can do that. The man I now belong to.
So I nod. It’s all I can do as I get lost in his hard, gray eyes that hold all the power and control I can’t find within myself.
Releasing my jaw, he takes a step back and crosses his arms over his wide chest, making his biceps bulge menacingly beneath his suit jacket. “Take off your clothes,” he demands.
I don’t think; I just act, lifting the hem of my blouse and dragging it over my head. It’s pure instinct. Survival, or maybe submission. I can’t figure out which as I stare into the dangerous depths of Janos’s gaze.
“Impressive,” Gabor says behind Janos. “You should reconsider training my next toy. I rather like seeing how you’ve manipulated her to your will, Janos.”
“Shut up,” Janos growls with a force that makes me jump.
I tense up, fearing Gabor’s reaction. But he only chuckles, and when I throw a quick glance behind Janos, I see Gabor’s eyes light up. Fuck, I almost think he gets off on this. Janos’s power and the control. Maybe even Janos telling him off.
“On the desk,” Janos orders once I’m fully naked, his tone hard and uncompromising. Part of me is scared shitless, but that fear seems to awaken a slow hum deep within my belly. Because as much as I fear Janos and the pain he’s going to inflict, I want it too. I want him. With everything it entails. His devastating control, his brutality, and his protection. “Ass on the edge,” he adds as I scoot onto the desk and lie down on my back, planting my feet on the surface. My whole body shivers, chills spreading over my skin and raising goosebumps along my arms.
Janos comes to stand at my side, and the slap he delivers to my face has my head jerking to the side.
“No,” I yelp as pain flares in my cheek. The shock has me drawing in on myself, squeezing my eyes shut and tensing my muscles. But Janos won’t allow it.
“Look at me,” he demands with a force that pulls me straight out of the onsetting panic. “Thank me.”
“What?” I say through shallow breaths.
“Thank me for slapping you and ask me to do it again.”
I blink back and forth between his eyes, unable to believe that I’m hearing right. But he keeps watching me, quietly demanding that I obey. So I part my lips. “Th—thank you,” I stutter, and the words have a strange effect on me that pulls me deeper under his spell and makes the burning sensation in my cheek draw back. I breathe through rounded lips before I say the next part, and as I let out the words, they feel more sincere than I expected. “Will you please slap me again?”
A swish through the air and his hand connects with my cheek. Hard. But this time he catches my head with his other hand.
“Ah,” I cry as my cheek flares up, the force ringing in my ears. But I keep watching him, and the pain morphs into a warm sensation that doesn’t hurt as much as the first.
“Ask me again,” he demands.
“Please slap me.”
A loud smack rings out as his massive hand connects with my cheek, and Gabor’s sadistic laugh is a distant sound that I register but doesn’t quite penetrate the fluffy fog that’s descending over my mind.
“Again,” Janos says and slaps me as I once again ask him to do so.
Pain flares in my cheek with each time his hand strikes, but it quickly drowns in a heated sensation that spreads through my body and makes electricity and desire crackle in my nerves. By the time he delivers the tenth and final slap, my head is swimming and my vision is blurry, but no longer in the nauseating way as before.
“Beg Gabor to fuck you,” Janos demands, nodding his head toward the man at the end of the desk, who I had all but forgotten.
Letting out a whimper, I lick my dry lips, and Janos’s expression turns dangerous. Lethal. It’s almost a relief when I look away to face Gabor. He has taken out his cock—his very hard cock—and is stroking it languidly, eyes shimmering with fascination, like he’s seeing the ocean for the first time.
“Please fuck me,” I say in a weak voice.
“Louder,” Janos demands, grabbing my hair to hold my head in place.
Closing my eyes, I breathe deeply. But I’m not sure if it’s to gather my courage or to steady myself as everything floats. Looking up at Gabor, I let out the words that once tore at my soul, but now drives me deeper into submission. Because those words don’t belong to Gabor this time. “Please fuck me.”
Gabor’s entire stance changes, teeming with sadistic hunger and brutal intent. I cower on the desk, trying to scoot farther up, but Janos tightens his grip on my hair, holding me in place as Gabor shoves my legs apart.
The moment he presses his hard cock against my slick opening, it all comes rushing back. The pain and the panic of all the times he fucked me. The searing helplessness and the worthlessness. But when Janos wraps his wide hand around my throat, forcing my head back and my attention at him, something else comes rushing back too. Our first kiss, his all-consuming possession, and his steadying strength. All the ‘good girls’ and the soothing strokes. I close my eyes and soak it up.
At this moment, I find that I don’t hate myself. I’m not even ashamed about the moan that escapes my lips as Gabor shoves inside me, stretching my inner walls and sinking deep into me. All I feel is submission and belonging. Because Gabor is not the one pulling the strings. Janos is. It’s not the things Gabor does to me that I’m reacting to.
“Good girl,” Janos whispers in my ear, his hot breath tickling my skin. “Now you’re gonna come for me, and then you’re gonna turn over and let him take your ass.”
“Yes,” I moan. Because it’s all I can do. Obey the man who now owns me. The man I belong to, heart, mind and soul.
Gabor picks up pace, and my pussy tightens around him as my world narrows to the man squeezing my neck and the pleasure he grants me.
Janos tightens his grip on my neck, making it hard to breathe as he says, “Then I’m gonna take you home, cut my own mark into your skin, and fuck you so hard that you’ll never be able to think about anything else again.”
His words send a surge of fear, horror, and anticipation through me. Because I want his twisted possession, and I want to bear his mark on my skin.
Tightening his grip further, Janos cuts off my air. I try to keep my eyes on him to hold the panic at bay, but within moments, I’m writhing and jerking, pushing at his hand as the desperation to breathe builds. Black spots dance in my vision, and Janos becomes a blurry figure before me as he leans down over me.
Just as I’m about to lose consciousness, he loosens his grip. “Come!” he demands with a force that reverberates through the room. The air swooshes back into my lungs with a deep gasp, and my blood rushes in my veins to send oxygen into my deprived cells. It’s like a shock. A shock that sends me straight over the edge.
Pleasure explodes at my core as Gabor grows impossibly hard, and my moans mix with Gabor’s feral groans and Janos’s deep whispers.
“Good girl,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. “My girl.”
“Your girl,” I repeat, and those two words are the best ones that have ever passed through my lips. Finally, I belong. It doesn’t matter what I’ve gone through to get here or what I’ll suffer through to stay here. All that matters is that I’m his now. That I belong to this mighty, beautiful warrior named Janos.