22. Ana
22
ANA
I trembled under the weight of their gazes, sipping my coffee, trying to absorb the humiliation of my situation, naked and on my knees, letting them feed me, and then stupidly accepting the gift of a coffee like a fucking treat I’d earned by perfecting sit and stay .
Like a puppy.
Angelo absently stroked his fingers over my hair while he and Valentin conversed in rapid French about the attacks on Costa properties in Yorkfield.
The Russians were attacking our properties? That didn’t make any sense. The truce between the Russians and the Italians was over a decade old.
“Tchérnov stopped his attacks in France, but he wants something in Yorkfield,” Valentin mused.
His attacks? I rocked back on my heels, my mind churning as I worked through the implications of what he’d said.
“Linking his trafficking empire with my father’s,” I said, unthinkingly. “And opening the market up to Russian guns so he could compete with Dante Oscuro. That’s why he wanted to marry me in the first place. If he can’t get it through an alliance, he’ll take it by force.”
Valentin flicked his whip across my nipple. I shrieked with pain and scrambled backward. Angelo’s fingers tightened in my hair, impeding my flight.
“Did we give you permission to speak, princess?” Valentin purred.
Hurt sliced through me, unexpected and unwanted. I’d let Angelo’s warm embrace and their care feeding me lull me into thinking I was something other than a set of warm, wet holes for Angelo and a skinsuit for Valentin to beat. Angelo hadn’t even fucked me yet. Goddamn it.
Furious tears pressed behind my eyes. I lowered my eyes to hide the emotion filling them—betrayal, hurt, and most of all my outrage at myself. Stupid, stupid Ana. Always believing if you’re a little bit more perfect, give them a little more, men might come to love you. But they never did.
“ Pardon, ma?tre ,” I said, a tear streaking down my face, even as I swore I’d find a way to escape.
Angelo’s fingers massaged my scalp, a cold comfort when my heart was breaking again. They’d told me what they wanted. Why couldn’t I make myself believe it? Why would I think they might be interested in the knowledge and experience I brought?
Because I was a fucking idiot, that’s why.
We sat in silence, and I grimly exalted in cutting their conversation short.
“What does a spoiled slut of a princess know about the business of importing guns and drugs?” Valentin asked, finally, his voice derisive.
Was he fucking kidding me? Women in the world I inhabited didn’t have the luxury of ignorance. We might be traded like cattle, but I’d seen as much blood and violence in my household as any of my father’s soldiers. More, if you counted the beatings I’d suffered.
“Nothing, ma?tre ,” I responded, my anger getting the best of my good sense. “I don’t know anything about how money flows through Yorkfield. I didn’t pay any attention to the business deals I helped my father make. I never used my smile and my tits to gather intelligence for my family. I don’t have a master’s degree in fucking finance. I’m just a brainless whore that exists only for the pleasure of men.”
Angelo’s bark of laughter surprised me.
As did Valentin’s sigh. “Up,” he commanded.
I scrambled to my feet.
“Hands flat on the table.”
I bent over, placing my palms on the wooden surface.
A drawer opened, utensils jangled, and the drawer shut. Three stinging strikes against my ass later, I was weeping, not just with pain, but because I’d allowed myself to hope for a few moments that these men might find value in me outside of sex.
Valentin held up a wooden stirring spoon so I could see the object that caused me such great pain. Stupid, stupid Ana, thinking that these men might want anything different than any other men—a beautiful ornament, available when they want to fuck, and silent otherwise.
“The first one was for disrespect,” he murmured. “The second two were because I can’t wait to see the bruises bloom on your skin.”
“Yes, ma?tre ,” I whispered, hating how much I wanted to lower my head and submit, to give in to their commands and let them wipe my mind blank, taking away the need to think, to calculate my every move, even as I hated them for reducing me to nothing more than an object.
That’s what they wanted, though. I’d refused to obey my father’s dictates about dating and my virginity and my body. Why did I want to give them everything, even as they disrespected me? What the fuck was wrong with me?
Angelo slipped his hand between my thighs, as I waited for their next order, my chest heaving as if I’d run a marathon, adrenaline spiking through me. He ran a finger through my folds. God, they were assholes, but I couldn’t stop my hips from twitching, desperate for friction.
Ana, you are such a stupid fucking slut. They don’t even think of you as a person, and here you are, desperate for their attention and praise. When I jerked away, determined to preserve what little remained of my dignity, Valentin slapped the sensitive inside of my thigh, drawing a howl of pain out of me.
Angelo hooked his fingers into my mouth, turning my face toward him. “Suck, angel.”
Thought deserted me as he circled my clit in a swift rhythm that sent me soaring.
“Fuck, yes, you’re a gorgeous little thing,” Angelo murmured, his eyes dark with desire. Warmth flooded through me, humiliating and shameful so soon after my earlier resolution to tell these men to fuck off. “That’s it, sweet angel,” he murmured, finding the rhythms and pressure that made me tick as he played with my clit. I moaned around his fingers, then gave into the pleasure, tentatively sucked on him, then hollowing out my cheeks as he continued to murmur sweet praise in my ears. “Such a beautiful slut, willing to do anything for a bit of praise, aren’t you?”
Valentin dragged a finger down the welt on my ass, agony and bliss combining, bringing me higher and higher, out of control, unable to think or breathe as pressure built in my core. I sucked hard on Angelo’s fingers, a whining, desperate, writhing mess, fucking his hand as Valentin smacked me with the wooden spoon.
Euphoria exploded outward, shrapnel obliterating my vision as I clenched my thighs around Angelo’s fingers and curled in on myself with the power of my climax, crying out as my vision faded to black and I collapsed against the table.
I lay there, breathing hard, sweat dripping off my brow, once again ashamed of how easily I gave into these two men.
Valentin shocked me by tucking a strand of my blonde hair behind my ear. Gentle fingers rubbed a cool substance into my welts as I laid bent over the table, trying to get my bearings. When I tried to push myself up, my arms wobbled.
Angelo swept me into his lap before I embarrassed myself by falling forward, draping my legs over his with my ass hanging out, blissfully free from any contact that would send me howling again.
“So pretty when you submit,” he said and sucked my earlobe between his teeth, scraping them along my skin until I shuddered, need once again pooling between my thighs. He tucked my head against his shoulder.
Weakly, I pushed away, desperate to maintain my resistance to their touch, only for Valentin to raise the small whip he kept in his hand, a silent threat of more pain. “ Première règle? ” First rule?
“ Obéissance, ma?tre ,” I whispered, burrowing my face into Angelo’s chest and telling myself it was because I didn’t have a choice.
Locking me in my room with only a sandwich for company was bullshit. I paced the length and width, counting my steps, memorizing the contours, strategizing my escape. But even as the sun set and a hard knock sounded on my door, I had nothing.
The door opened, revealing Valentin’s frame, too handsome for my own good in a suit that hugged his shoulder muscles and showed off his trim lines. He tugged the knot of his tie, then unbuttoned the collar. His face was tired, the lines around his eyes deep, and his full lips tilted into a frown.
“Kneel.” Valentin radiated authority, filling the room with his silent expectation of obedience. Before I could stop myself, I dropped to my knees, lowered my eyes, and rested my hands on my thighs. Then turned them up like the pictures of BDSM I’d seen on the internet, then turned them down again. Fuck, why was I so awkward all of a sudden? If pleasing this cold, complicated man was my path to freedom, then I would do it. That was the only reason I was on my knees, I told myself.
I peeked at Valentin from lowered lashes, only to find him watching me contemplatively.
“Chin up, eyes down, hands behind your back,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle.
The new position thrust my breasts forward, but I obediently kept my eyes down and ached for Valentin’s approval.
His soft, “Good girl,” eased the anxious pressure in my chest. Why did I want to impress him? He left me to rot in this room all day. He fucking kidnapped me! Valentin Rochefort and Angelo Costa were no different from any of the other men in my life who’d tried to rule me, and ultimately failed because they underestimated me. It didn’t matter how carefully they’d fed me, how hard I’d come when Angelo fingered me, and how much I liked the silence in my head when Valentin hurt me. They didn’t respect me.
“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t,” he growled, interrupting my spiraling thoughts. “I lost a ten-million-euro warehouse to a fire today, and I’m going to lose at least sixty-five million more before Tchérnov considers us even for that fucking yacht you blew up. So behave yourself for once.”
Maybe Angelo shouldn’t have sent me away in the first place. Wait—Tchérnov is taking the cost of his yacht out of Valentin’s businesses and not the Costas’? Does he not want to piss off Angelo’s father? I turned the thought over in my head, examining it from every angle while Valentin circled me, catlike and predatory.
“Ana, Ana, Ana. Some men want blow jobs when they get home from work. I want to make a pretty girl cry until she begs for mercy. And look at you here, on your knees, your gorgeous tits heaving every time you breathe, begging for my strap.”
My heart sped up like I was sixteen and talking to a crush. Brains? Education? Who cares? He thought I was pretty .
That awful whip, the one he kept in his pocket, flicked out and cracked into one of my nipples.
I shrieked with pain, my hands darting up to cover my breasts, and he laughed. “Did I say you could move?”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t, ma?tre ,” I snapped back.
Valentin hummed. “Hands behind your back, I believe was the command.”
Reluctantly, I bared my breasts again. The scrape of my palm over my nipples sent a shock of need straight to my clit, and I fought to keep my face expressionless.
“Good girl,” Valentin said. “Pretty girl, bared to me and eager for the pain,” he continued, and I flushed with embarrassment at how true his words were. I wanted him to whip me, get it over with and distract me from my loneliness.
“You like the praise, don’t you?” he mused, pulling me from my thoughts. “You crave it.”
I hated the way that made me sound, like I was needy and desperate for male attention.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Valentin said, as if he could read my mind. “Being a spoiled product of a rotten system, a selfish bitch who’s never had to work for anything a day in her life and doesn’t realize how damn good she has it? That’s what I’d be ashamed of.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. Hot tears welled behind my eyes, and I bit my lip to distract me from the knife slicing through my heart at the accuracy of his words.
“Fuck you, Valentin. Fuck you and your billion-dollar businesses. Fuck you and your dick that lets you do whatever the fuck you want. But mostly, fuck you for thinking anything about me at all.” I spit at his feet, my stomach a roiling mess of confusion. How could I crave approval from a man who enjoyed being so mean?
He crouched down in front of me and slid a finger under my chin so I had to meet his eyes. To my surprise, they were filled with sympathy. My chin trembled, and he frowned.
“Don’t move, princess.” He left the room, only to return with several implements in his hands.
He held up the first one—a thick handle with a bunch of soft leather strips hanging from it like tails. “To warm you up.”
Without another word, he began striking me with it, the strips hitting my back, my breasts, my stomach, and my thighs, leaving a pleasant warmth in their wake.
“Yes, ma?tre ,” I whispered as he struck me harder and harder, until the soft burn became quick stings, each one a welcome distraction from the misery in my head. When the strands of leather hit my nipples, the pain shot to my clit, agony and desperation, aching need mingling together. I couldn’t stop the throaty moan that escaped me. What was wrong with me? How was I getting off on this?
Valentin laughed quietly, as if to himself. “Incredible. Angelo found himself a pain slut. And he doesn’t even like inflicting pain.”
I looked up at him through my lashes, unable to interpret the wonder that softened the harsh angles of his face.
He dropped the leather implement and grabbed another, no two. Both had handles like the previous, but the tails were shinier, and different leathers and widths. I tracked him with my eyes as he swung them with his wrists, and then?—
I gasped as he struck me with one, and then the other, an endless cycle of stinging impacts, heating my skin, punishing every inch of my torso and my upper legs, until I shrieked for him to stop.
But I didn’t move. Didn’t take my hands from behind my back. Just let him hit me, the sensations blending. And then he hit my breasts, one then the other, and need flooded between my thighs.
“Fuck,” I gasped, heedless of whether I was breaking the rules as the impacts continued.
“Fucking gorgeous,” Valentin said. “So responsive, so obedient, sitting there so perfectly as I flog you.” Impacts hit my breasts, my thighs, my back, my ass, and back to my breasts again, the pain as arousing as it was miserable.
“Your tears, dripping down your face, knowing I put them there, that you don’t have a choice but to accept them. Perfection.”
I relaxed into the punishment, the pain sending me soaring alongside his words, the sweet praise melting my resistance. Why did I crave it so fucking much, especially when Valentin made it heartbreakingly clear how little he thought of me as a person?
His wrist flicked again, and the intensity of the strikes against my skin increased, the burn turning to agony. I was sure he was tearing strips out of my skin, but still, I said nothing, didn’t ask him to stop, just knelt there, tears streaming down my cheeks.
It felt right. It felt cleansing.
“Spread your knees,” Valentin instructed.
The first time he struck the sensitive insides of my thighs, I shrieked in pain. The second, I sobbed, and then I couldn’t hold the tears back as he struck me, again and again and again, each impact on my clit driving me higher even as I wailed my misery.
But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t close my legs, I couldn’t jerk away. My mind floated between agony and euphoria, utterly disconnected from my body and reality.
Until.
Stars exploded across my vision as he landed a hard smack on my pussy, the tails hitting my clit and sending me over the edge into an intense orgasm. I screamed as the pain and pleasure merged into a sensation I couldn’t name, intense, overwhelming, like no climax I’d ever had before. My limbs seized and I stopped breathing, my brain silent as bliss swept over me like a tsunami, obliterating my sense of self in its wake.
Valentin dropped to his knees and caught me with an arm across my chest before I could collapse forward.
“ Mon dieu ,” he swore. “You came. You fucking came from that.”
I didn’t register his words. I couldn’t. My sobs were too loud, my thoughts too incoherent, my confusion overwhelming. My body had transformed the agony of his beating into the most intense sexual experience of my entire life, and I couldn’t stop crying.
“ Merde .”
When Valentin picked me up and carried me into the living room, it barely registered.
“ De l’eau ,” he snapped. “ Et les amuses-gueules .” Water and snacks.
“What have you done to her?” Angelo snapped, reaching for me.
Valentin tugged me closer, pressing me against his chest as I cried. “Nothing she didn’t want,” he growled. I murmured my protest, only for him to shush me gently, pressing his lips into my hair. “Rule number four. Don’t lie to me, princess.”
“Give her to me,” Angelo said.
Valentin ignored him, sitting on the couch and arranging me so I was curled up in his lap, my face pressed into the crook of his neck, inhaling his sandalwood scent.
I wanted to push away from him, to assert my independence, insist that I hated him, and I hated what he’d done to me, but when he held a glass of water to my lips, I drank greedily. And when he offered me a bite of chocolate, I eagerly ate it from his fingers.
“Did you miss us today?” he asked.
“No,” I lied.
Yes.