Chapter 3
SOPHIA
The mansion looms before me like something out of a gothic nightmare, all stone and iron, with windows that look like dead eyes staring into the darkness.
Mikhail’s hand grips my upper arm as he drags me through the massive front doors, and I stumble on the marble floor, my sneakers squeaking against the polished surface.
“Let go of me,” I hiss, trying to wrench free. My wrist still aches from the zip ties, and my shoulder throbs where it hit the SUV’s interior.
He doesn’t respond.
Doesn’t even look at me.
He just pulls me through a grand foyer that probably costs more than my entire college education, past oil paintings of stern-faced men who look like they’ve never smiled in their lives, and up a sweeping staircase that belongs in a museum.
My heart hammers against my ribs.
Where is he taking me?
What is he going to do?
The hallway on the second floor stretches endlessly, lined with closed doors that could hide anything.
Mikhail stops at the last door on the right and throws it open, shoving me inside.
I stumble into the room and spin around, ready to fight, ready to run, but the door slams shut behind him with a finality that makes my stomach drop.
The master bedroom. Of course.
It’s enormous, dominated by a king-sized bed with dark gray sheets that look like they cost more than my car.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook manicured gardens lit by security lights.
A fireplace crackles in the corner, casting dancing shadows across the walls.
Everything screams wealth and power and danger.
“Please.” The word escapes before I can stop it. “Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again—”
“Shut up.” Mikhail’s voice cuts through my pleading like a blade.
He shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it over a leather chair, then he loosens his tie with deliberate slowness.
His green eyes never leave mine. “You’re not going anywhere, Sophia. You’re mine now. My wife. My property. My revenge.”
“I’m not your anything.” I back away until my legs hit the edge of the bed. Nowhere left to go. “You can’t just force someone to marry you and expect them to-to—”
“To what?” He stalks toward me.
God help me, he’s beautiful in the firelight.
The flames cast his sharp features in gold and shadow, highlighting the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his lips.
He’s a predator, and I’m trapped in his den. “Expect them to submit? To obey? To spread their legs for their husband?”
Heat floods my face. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m honest.” He stops inches from me, so close I can smell his cologne again—that expensive, woodsy scent that makes my head spin. “Your father destroyed my sister. Took her innocence, her future, her life. And now I’m going to take everything from you, starting with this.”
His hand shoots out and grabs my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
His touch is firm but not painful, and that somehow makes it worse.
I want to hate every part of this, but my traitorous body responds to his proximity, to the heat radiating from him.
“Don’t touch me,” I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
“You’re my wife.” His thumb brushes across my lower lip, and I hate the way my breath catches. “I’ll touch you whenever I want. Wherever I want.”
He leans in, and I know he’s going to kiss me. I should bite him.
Should knee him in the groin and run.
Should do anything except stand here frozen like a deer in headlights.
When his lips crash against mine, all thoughts of resistance evaporate.
The kiss is brutal, claiming, nothing like the cold peck in the chapel.
His mouth moves against mine with ruthless possession, his tongue demanding entry.
I keep my lips pressed together for all of three seconds before he bites my lower lip, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make me gasp.
He takes advantage immediately, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, tasting me, conquering me. God help me, I kiss him back.
My hands come up to push him away, but instead they fist in his shirt, pulling him closer.
He tastes like whiskey and danger, and I hate that I want more. Hate that my body is betraying every principle I have.
Mikhail’s hands slide down my sides, mapping my curves through my clothes.
When he reaches my hips, he grips them hard enough to bruise and lifts me onto the bed.
I land on my back, and he follows me down, his weight pressing me into the mattress.
“No,” I gasp against his mouth, but it sounds more like a plea than a protest.
“Yes.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, his green eyes blazing with something dark and hungry. “Your body knows what it wants, even if your mind won’t admit it.”
His hand slides under my shirt, and I arch into his touch before I can stop myself.
His palm is warm against my stomach, his fingers splaying across my ribs.
When his thumb brushes the underside of my breast, I bite back a moan.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “Stop fighting what you feel.”
“I hate you.” The words come out breathless, unconvincing.
“Good.” He captures my mouth again, swallowing my protests. “Hate me all you want. It won’t change what’s about to happen.”
He strips my shirt over my head with practiced efficiency, and I should cover myself, should try to preserve some shred of dignity.
But I don’t.
I just lie there as his gaze rakes over me, taking in my simple cotton bra, my flushed skin, my rapid breathing.
“Beautiful,” he says, and there’s something almost reverent in his tone. It doesn’t match the cold vengeance in his eyes. “Wasted on a Moretti.”
Before I can respond, he’s unhooking my bra and tossing it aside.
Cool air hits my exposed skin, and my nipples tighten.
Mikhail makes a sound low in his throat.
Is it approval, possession, hunger?
Then he lowers his head.
When his mouth closes over my breast, I cry out.
The sensation is overwhelming—his tongue circling my nipple, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh, his hand kneading my other breast with just the right amount of pressure.
Heat pools between my legs, and I squeeze my thighs together, trying to ignore the ache building there.
Mikhail notices. Of course he does.
“Spread your legs,” he commands against my skin.
“No.”
His hand slides down my stomach and cups me through my jeans.
Even through the denim, I can feel the heat of his palm, and I have to bite my lip to keep from whimpering.
“Spread. Your. Legs.” Each word is punctuated by pressure against my core, and my body responds despite my mind’s protests.
I hate myself as my thighs fall open.
“Good girl.” The praise shouldn’t affect me, but it does. It sends a shiver down my spine and makes the ache between my legs intensify.
He makes quick work of my jeans and panties, stripping them off and tossing them aside.
Now I’m completely naked beneath him while he’s still fully dressed, and the power imbalance should terrify me.
Instead, it makes me wetter.
What is wrong with me?
Mikhail’s hand slides between my thighs. When his fingers find how wet I am, he groans. “Your body doesn’t lie, Sophia. You want this. You want me.”
“I don’t—” My protest dies as he slides one finger inside me, and my back arches off the bed.
“Don’t what?” He adds a second finger, stretching me, filling me. His thumb finds my clit and circles it with maddening precision. “Don’t want me to touch you like this? Don’t want me to make you come?”
I can’t answer. Can’t think. I can only feel as he works me with his fingers, building the pressure inside me until I’m trembling on the edge.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, his lips against my neck. “Let go. Show me how much you hate me.”
The orgasm crashes over me like a wave, and I cry out, my body convulsing around his fingers.
Pleasure floods through me, so intense it’s almost painful, and I hate that he’s the one giving it to me.
Hate that my body responds to him like this.
Before I can recover, Mikhail is stripping off his own clothes.
I watch through half-lidded eyes as he reveals a body that looks carved from marble.
Broad shoulders, defined chest, abs that ripple with each movement.
Scars mark his skin, evidence of a violent life, but they only make him more devastating to me.
When he pushes his pants down, I see just how much he wants this. How much he wants me.
“See what you do to me?” He positions himself between my thighs, the head of his cock pressing against my entrance. “Even knowing who you are, what your father did, I still want to bury myself inside you.”
“Then you’re as much a monster as you claim my father was,” I whisper.
Something flashes in his eyes—pain, maybe, or recognition—but it’s gone in an instant, replaced by cold determination.
“Yes,” he agrees. “I am.”
He thrusts into me in one brutal stroke, and I cry out at the invasion.
He’s big, stretching me almost to the point of pain, and my body struggles to accommodate him.
But even as I gasp and claw at his shoulders, my inner walls clench around him, pulling him deeper.
“Fuck,” Mikhail groans, his forehead dropping to mine. “So tight. So perfect.”
He doesn’t give me time to adjust.
He pulls out almost completely and slams back in, setting a punishing rhythm that has me gasping with each thrust.
His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, holding me in place as he takes what he wants.
God help me, I meet him thrust for thrust.
My legs wrap around his waist, my nails rake down his back, and I kiss him with all the hatred and desire warring inside me.
This is wrong. This is so wrong.
But my body doesn’t care about right or wrong.
It only cares about the pleasure building inside me again, coiling tighter with each stroke.
“Say my name,” Mikhail demands, his voice rough. “Say it.”
“No.”
He changes his angle, hitting a spot inside me that makes me see stars. “Say it.”
“Mikhail!” His name tears from my throat as another orgasm builds, bigger than the first.
“That’s right.” He pounds into me harder, faster, chasing his own release. “Remember who’s making you feel this way. Remember who owns you now.”
The orgasm hits me like a freight train, and I scream his name again as pleasure explodes through every nerve ending. My body convulses around him, milking him, and with a guttural groan, he follows me over the edge.
I feel him pulse inside me, feel the warmth of his release, and reality crashes back in. What have I done? What have we done?
Mikhail collapses on top of me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his breath hot against my neck. For a moment, we just lie there, our hearts racing in tandem, our bodies still joined.
Then he moves, and I feel his lips against my throat.
Not a kiss, something more possessive.
His teeth graze my skin closer to my breast, then he bites down, marking me.
I gasp at the sharp pleasure–pain, and he does it again, higher on my neck where everyone will see.
“You’re mine now, little adskiy kot,” he growls against my skin, his voice dark with satisfaction as he refers to me as a hellcat. “And I’m going to make sure you never forget it.”