13. Ana
13
ANA
Valentin stroked the bare skin of my ass, dragging his fingers over the agonizing burn where he’d spanked me. Warmed me up , he’d said. My muscles tensed as I waited for the next round of punishment. Hot fingers traced my curves in a comforting caress, then slid between my thighs.
I slammed my legs shut around his fingers, only for him to slap the back of my sensitive thighs with his other hand. I whined, but refused to let my legs fall open and risk exposing how wet I was, how turned on I was by this ludicrous situation. What the fuck was he doing to me?
“Ana,” he growled in a deep baritone, and a shiver ran down my spine before lodging in my pussy, my clit throbbing in time with my heartbeat.
What the hell?
He curled his fingers, still trapped between my thighs, trying to nudge them apart.
I couldn’t let him know. Couldn’t let him see. He was my uncle’s lover. So fucking off-limits. So fucking cruel. And he hated me. Always had.
“Ana,” he growled again, the deep rumble in his voice reverberating through my soul and my pussy. “Let me in.”
“Fuck you, Valentin,” I snarled, kicking his leg off me and landing in an awkward pile on the floor, but only because he allowed me to. I scrambled to my feet and backed away, shoving my dress back down over my thighs. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Punishing you,” he said simply, as if his pupils weren’t blown with lust and his hard cock wasn’t visible through his expensive trousers.
A small, petty part of me triumphed that even if I disgusted him, he still wanted me.
“And then,” he continued, “I’m going to take you back to your uncle Angelo, where you’ll crawl to his fucking feet and beg his forgiveness for the weeks of worry you’ve put him through and the millions of euros you’ve cost us.”
“Go fuck yourself, you asshole.”
Valentin’s lips quirked up, and for one terrible moment, I found him devastatingly handsome—full lips against ochre skin, black hair cropped close against his head, and a short-trimmed beard that would scrape against the insides of my thighs so fucking perfectly.
He levered up from the bed where he’d punished me, the metal coils creaking in protest of the movement. With each step toward me, my heart pounded, until I found myself pressed up against the metal door with nowhere else to go.
Panic blinded me, and I shoved him backward, clawing wildly at his chest, desperate to escape, for space. I wouldn’t let him take me, wouldn’t let him drug me and then rape me like Grégoire had.
“Let me go,” I gasped, my breath ragged. I shook uncontrollably as my vision narrowed.
“Breathe, princess. In and out. In and out.” Valentin wrapped his fingers around my neck again, stroking his callused thumb across my cheek. I focused on his eyes, such a rich, dark brown, inscrutable, as he brought me back to earth.
I breathed in deeply, and his eyes tracked the movement of my breasts, the creamy curves pouring out of my too-fucking-small dress. My breath hitched as he pressed between my legs, and I held in the whine that threatened to escape. He’d spanked me! How could I be turned on mere seconds after a panic attack? This was so fucking wrong.
Valentin traced a callused finger down my jaw and rested it in the dip in my clavicle, pushing hard enough to feel like a threat.
“You’ve cost me money, you’ve cost me time, and more importantly, you’ve upset your uncle. All three of those are unacceptable. Now you can take your punishment like a good girl and leave with me, or I can leave you for Julian to do with you what he wills.”
My eyes snapped to his. He wouldn’t. Would he? Leave me for these fuckers to beat and rape because I wouldn’t take a spanking?
“Try me, princess.”
He would.
Valentin hated me. He always had. He hated all of us Costas, except for Angelo.
“ Non? ” he asked, his French accent pronounced.
When I didn’t move, he stood up straight, freeing me from the intimidating menace of his presence, then pounded on the door.
“ C’est fini. à vous de la gérer. ” I’m done. She’s yours.
“No!” I gasped, wrapping my fingers around his arm, digging them into the layers of fabric in his jacket. “Please, no.”
Valentin looked me up and down and sneered.
“Beg, princess. Like the stupid slut you are.”
Aghast, I didn’t move, and he lifted his fist to pound on the door again.
Shit.
I dropped to my knees and leaned my cheek against the expanse of his thick, muscled thigh. “Please don’t, Oncle Valentin. S’il vous plait.”
His fingers stroked my hair, the heat of his body searing my face as I pressed against him. “Is that begging?” he asked. “That sounds like you’re at a fucking tea party, asking for a drink.”
I clinched my arms around his legs. “Please, Valentin, please don’t hand me over to them. Please don’t make me go back. Please.”
His fingers tightened along my scalp then relaxed. His cock was hard and hot against my forehead, twitching as I breathed against it through his pants. “Beg for your punishment. Tell me how much you want me to hurt you, how much you need it.”
“Il faut me punir. ” Please, punish me. God, what the fuck was wrong with me? But I couldn’t take back the words once they were said.
“ Encore .” More, he said.
I nuzzled my face against his thigh, then his cock, inhaling the musk of him, hating how I wanted to rub my thighs together and relieve the ache in my pussy, as turned on as I was desperate and humiliated. “Please, Uncle Valentin. Punish me. I want you to?—”
My voice caught. I took a deep breath, and then another. I didn’t need shit, but if begging him to hurt me was the key to walking out of here with him, then I’d do anything he asked.
“I need you to hurt me. Please.” I ignored the tiny voice in the back of my head reminding me I was wet. My pussy throbbed, aching for the contrast between the gentle strokes of his fingers against my skin and the agonizing pain of his punishments. The silence in my head from when he spanked me was the sweetest quiet I’d ever known. With Grégoire, I’d disassociated into numbness, but Valentin brought me a blissful peace I hadn’t known I needed alongside the pain—a bizarre sense of safety, even as he hurt me.
“I’m begging you,” I continued, shocked at the words coming out of my mouth. “I’ll do anything you want.”
Valentin laughed cruelly, then wrapped his fingers in my hair and dragged me across the tiny cell.
I shrieked at the pain, clutching where he held on to me, only to find myself once more over his lap.
He shoved my dress up, then yanked down my lacy panties, leaving them tangled around my knees.
My breath shuddered, ragged and uneven, desperate not to reveal my nerves, my anticipation of his touch, furious that I already had.
He slid a finger over my folds, tracing the seam of my pussy, and my legs slid apart before I could stop them.
“That’s my good girl,” he said, and I fought not to preen under the praise. Letting my uncle feel me up wasn’t being a good girl. It was the lesser of two evils—better him than the creeps who beat me up. “Nice and wet, even if you don’t know you’re a masochist yet.”
I whimpered when he dragged a finger against my clit, then slammed my legs back together.
“Do you like praise, princess? Does it turn you on as much as it did when you begged me to punish you?”
I didn’t answer, and he laughed softly as he continued to stroke against my skin, his fingers leaving a trail of electricity everywhere they wandered.
“Count to ten, princess,” Valentin commanded.
Only ten this time?
Agony exploded on my ass as his hand connected with my skin, and I howled with pain.
“Count,” he snarled.
“One,” I gasped, desperate to recover from the shock and pain before another impact roared through me.
“Two.”
Valentin continued to spank me, his hand heavy as he bruised my ass. And me? With every impact, I felt myself relax into his hold, the pain slowly transforming into a gorgeous, floaty bliss that wiped every thought from my brain.
“Ten,” I whispered, desperately holding onto a sliver of myself, terrified that in a few short moments, he’d not only obliterated my thoughts, but everything that made me me.
He slapped my ass one final time, more gently this time. “ Putin de magnifique ,” he murmured, as if to himself. Fucking beautiful. “You took that so well, princess,” he added, running his hands over my curves, soothing the burn, massaging the ache. With far more care than he’d used to pull them down, he arranged my panties over my ass.
I cried out as the lace scraped against my agonized skin, only for Valentin to scratch his fingers over my scalp once again, as if he knew how much that simple gesture soothed me. “Up, princess.”
The delicious lassitude that had stolen over me during the last few spanks still coursed through my veins. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to.
Valentin stood, righting me as I tumbled off his lap, then eyed me critically. A moment later, I found myself encased in his suit jacket, the smell of citrus and sandalwood as comforting as it was overwhelming.
“Hold on,” he said, and I didn’t understand until he scooped me up in his arms, bridal-style, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, comforted by the heat of his body as I snuggled into his chest, telling myself I didn’t have a choice.
He used the arm wrapped around my shoulders to pound on the door. “ C’est fini .” We’re done here.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, then pulled away. “Put me down.”
Valentin looked down at me, his eyes shuttered and unreadable. “Can you walk?”
“I want to.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he murmured as he set me down with care, as though I were made of glass and might shatter if he made too abrupt a movement.
I wobbled and grabbed at his arm, standing straight in time for the door to open.
The man who opened it was the same man who’d beat me earlier.
“Julian,” Valentin began. “ Retrouvez-moi les hommes qui ont touché à ma fille .” Bring me the men who touched my girl.
Warmth warred with fear at his possessive language and his tone.
“Can we just go?” I whispered.
“ Non .” He pulled me to his side, wrapping an arm around my waist and settling his hand on my hip in a decidedly un-uncle like fashion. Butterflies swirled in my gut at his possessiveness. I shouldn’t have liked it. But I shouldn’t have liked the spanking either.
Julian’s pale blue eyes frosted over. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Take the little hoyden and leave.”
Valentin’s back stiffened and his fingers clenched into my side so hard I knew I’d have bruises. “If you don’t bring them to me, I’ll burn this casino down with you inside.”
The two men faced off.
“Test me,” Valentin threatened.
Julian unclipped a radio from his belt, made a call in rapid French, then indicated for Valentin and me to follow. With every step, my ass burned, the rough fabric of my dress scraping against my raw skin, reminding me of my humiliation.
None of that mattered, though. I lifted my chin and strode down the hall beside Uncle Valentin like the mafia princess I was born to be. Wealthy, perfect, confident, no matter what I might look like, no matter the shameful mess between my legs.
“That’s a good girl,” he murmured in my ear when he saw the change in my demeanor. I hated the flush that threatened to show on my cheeks and the warmth in my chest at his words.
He spanked you, Ana. And he’s never liked you. Don’t be a thirsty bitch just because you’re desperate for affection and praise.
We followed Julian into an office where the other assholes who’d assaulted me waited. My breath caught in fear, an unconscious reaction I hid by smoothing down the front of my dress—also a sign of nerves, but understandable, given what I’d been through.
“These are the two men who enforce the rules in my casino,” Julian said by way of introduction. I couldn’t hide the twist of my lips—those two men and Julian had beaten me.
“Ana, are these the men that hurt you?”
The two thugs looked at each other as realization dawned on them and on me. They wouldn’t make it out of this room alive.
Valentin turned to me, his deep brown eyes cold with fury. “Did anyone else touch you?”
I blinked. Julian had beat the shit out of me.
But.
So had my father.
As had Grégoire Tchérnov.
When I remained silent, Valentin grabbed my chin. “You’re a misbehaving brat, and if I have to access the security feeds to—” He stopped and narrowed his eyes at me. “Kneel.”
I gasped. Was he going to humiliate me in public?
“I said kneel, brat,” he growled, and I hated how good it felt to obey him as I lowered myself to my knees, despite how badly my body hurt from these bastards’ earlier abuse.
He caressed my face, his fingers leaving burning trails across my skin before catching on the deep cut over my left cheekbone. “Which one of them did this to you, princess?”
I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t dare.
He stroked a hand through my messy hair, his thumb tracing back and forth over the crown of my head before he turned back to Julian, never releasing his hold on me.
“Did you lay a hand on her?” Valentin’s voice was icy cold, not a shred of emotion in it.
Julian swallowed.
Valentin slid his hands down my face and pressed my cheek into his thigh. “Did he touch her? I’ll show mercy if you’re honest.”
One of the men nodded, the fool.
I rose, only for Valentin’s hand to tangle in my hair and yank me back down. “They stopped when they realized who I was,” I whispered from where I crouched, half-risen, unable to stand, tears streaming from my eyes at the pain.
He shoved my face against his thigh. “Close your eyes, princess.”
Obediently, as if in a trance, I sank back down to my knees and buried my face in the rich fabric of his trousers, squeezing my eyes shut.
Three shots echoed in the office, followed by the soft thuds of three bodies.
“You belong to Angelo,” Valentin said, tightening his fingers in my hair, his nails scratching against my scalp almost affectionately. “And nobody touches what’s his without his permission.”
“The fuck I do,” I said. Where the fuck was Angelo when Tchérnov was raping me?
Valentin’s lips tilted upward in a cruel smile as he yanked me to my feet. I stumbled, and he placed a hand on the small of my back to steady me before guiding me out of the casino.
“Come. It’s time to apologize to your uncle.”