Chapter 10
SVETLANA
For a moment, I can’t believe what just happened.
The intense pleasure of my orgasm is still fogging my brain, the aftershocks shivering across my skin, and I can’t comprehend what exactly is wrong about it for a brief second, except for the pinging anxiety in my chest.
And then he slides out of me, and I feel the drip of his cum against my thigh, and cold realization grips me.
Not only did I fuck a man I hate, but he came inside of me.
I didn’t exactly tell him not to. But I would have thought he would have known better. I expected him to pull out, to use the fucking head on his shoulders for at least a second, but I guess that’s my fault.
I know enough of men at this point that I should never expect them to do the smart thing. Or the right thing.
Or anything other than what they want in the moment.
I pull away from him, wrenching my body out of his grasp as I grab for the towel and wrap it around myself again, my back to him. I hear the sound of him adjusting himself, tucking his cock away, and doing up his belt, and I spin to face him with a sneer.
“How was that? Did it finally go soft?”
Kazimir stares at me. His jaw is rigid, his shoulders tense, and his eyes are full of regret.
That last hits hardest of all… that he fucked me, me, who has seen him look at me like he wants me for years, me, the woman he walked out on once before, who fucked him anyway, and he’s looking at me like he wishes he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he begins, and I laugh.
“Fuck you.”
His jaw tightens. “You just did.”
“Don’t worry, I regret that it was you, too. But you were the only available cock, and I wanted to get the taste of the others off of me.”
I can tell that hit the mark. He flinches, his shoulders jerking backward, and he lets out a slow exhale through his nose. “It’s not that…”
“So what? It was good sex.” It was, which I think is part of what’s pissing me off.
The last thing I wanted was sex with Kazimir Orlov to feel that fucking good.
And it was fast, rough, messy… I can only imagine what it would feel like if he took his time, drew things out, did all the things we could do if there was time and no hard feelings between us.
But there’s no point in thinking about that. I don’t want him, and after this, I’m never going to see him again.
Good fucking riddance.
He swallows hard. "I shouldn't have—" He stops, and then starts again. "I should have pulled out. I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry."
Something vicious unfurls in my chest. Something that wants to hurt him the way I'm hurting. Because the truth is, while I haven’t been a virgin for a long time—by my own choice, long before I was sold off—I never allowed any man to ever come inside of me without protection.
No one ever did, until the men who didn’t bother to ask about my preferences.
Kazimir was the first man I ever chose for myself who did. And he’s just made it into a regret.
"Don't flatter yourself," I hiss. “It’s not like I was a fucking virgin, Kazimir. It’s not such a shock.”
I can tell from the shock and brief flash of possessive anger on his face that he thought he was the first. And now he thinks I’ve let someone else fill me up like that, felt them dripping down my thighs after, like I do right now.
I could correct him, but I don’t. I let him think that, because right now I want him to hurt, and I can see that he hates the thought.
"Svetlana—"
"What?" I turn toward him, resisting the urge to drop the towel and let him see the woman he just fucked again, taunt him with what he had and can’t ever have again. I’ve felt so ugly these past months, so broken, my body scarred and cut and bruised, a shadow of how beautiful I used to be.
But Kazimir didn’t care. He wants me so badly he jerked off and still couldn’t stop himself from fucking me, and as much as I hate him, it felt as good as the orgasm did…
to be desired again, really desired. "Did you think you were special? That this meant something?"
“No. Of course not.” He rolls his eyes. “But I shouldn’t have done that. So I’m sorry.”
"I'm fine." I walk over to the couch and reach for my clothes—the oversized shirt and pants that I left there earlier before going to shower. "I've had worse."
It's true and not true at the same time.
The sex with Kazimir was intense and overwhelming, but it wasn't worse. It wasn't even close to worse. It was better than most consensual sex I’ve had in my life, and that isn’t even the lowest bar to clear any longer.
Now the bar is that he didn't hold me down while I screamed. He didn't laugh when I begged him to stop or pass me to his friends when he was done.
The memories slam into me, and I have to close my eyes against them, my back to Kazimir so he can’t see the look on my face.
The cell. The men. A bedroom. A library. Iosef’s study. The dining room table, once in front of other girls. The way they hurt me. The way they held me down.
"Hold still, printsessa. We're just having some fun."
The pain. The violation. The feeling of being split apart from the inside.
And then—the worst part—the feeling of them finishing inside me. Hot and wet and wrong. Marking me. Claiming me. Leaving their filth inside my body like I was nothing more than a receptacle for their pleasure.
I'd screamed until my voice gave out. Begged until I had no words left. And they'd just laughed. Every single one of them had done it. Had finished inside me like it was their right.
And when Kazimir did it—when I felt him throb and empty himself into me as he shuddered against me, lost in the same pleasure I was feeling—part of me wanted it.
I wanted him to replace those memories with something else.
Something that was my choice, even if it was a fucked-up choice made in a fucked-up moment.
But I can't tell him that.
I can't tell him that he's actually the first man I ever wanted to do that. That every other time, I'd never let anyone finish inside me. Until then. Until I had no choice. And then him. When I did have a choice, even if it was buried under layers of trauma and desperation and need.
I don’t want him to know he’s meant anything to me, in any way, after what he’s done. He doesn’t deserve it.
"Svetlana." Kazimir's voice cuts through my thoughts. He's moved closer, though he's still keeping his distance. "I didn't mean to—"
His continued attempts to salve his conscience are pissing me off. "I know what you meant." I pull the shirt on, then the pants. "You meant to be a gentleman. To do the right thing. Well, congratulations. You failed."
"That's not fair."
"Fair?" I laugh again, and this time it sounds slightly unhinged even to my own ears. "You want to talk about fair? Nothing about this is fair, Kazimir. Nothing about any of it."
He doesn't have an answer for that. I stomp away from him, toward the bathroom, and slam the door behind me as I turn the shower on again. A part of me doesn’t want to wash the scent of him off of me, the feeling of him on my skin, but I can’t let myself linger on it.
I need to wash him away, just like every other man, to free myself from all of it before I go back home.
If we can get through the night.
It’s impossible to sleep. I curl up on the bed and just lie there, tense and waiting for the sound of feet outside, for gunshots, for the sounds of men trying to get into the house. I’m painfully aware of Kazimir in the next room, probably on the couch or watching the door, as I wait for morning.
And hope that by this time tomorrow, I’ll be back in Boston.
—
The extraction team arrives just after dawn.
I jolt upright when I hear the sound of knocking on the front door, and booted footsteps on the floor inside. But then I hear Kazimir speaking to them in English instead of Russian, his voice quiet and calm and controlled, and I let out the breath I was holding.
After a few minutes, Kazimir knocks on my door. “Svetlana, we need to go.”
“I’ll be right there.” I take a slow breath and push the door open, stepping out into the small living room.
There are four men in the house. They barely look at me. One of them hands Kazimir a phone. He takes it, steps outside, and I hear the murmur of his voice through the door.
"Ma'am." One of the men approaches me, his expression professionally neutral. "We need to move. There's a vehicle waiting."
I nod, feeling my stomach twist. I have no reason to think that I can trust these men, beyond the fact that Kazimir called them, but they can’t be worse than Iosef and his men. I follow them, still wearing Kazimir's shirt and the stolen pants, but no one comments.
The men lead me outside. The storm has picked up again, wind howling and snow blowing, though it’s not as bad as it was when Kazimir and I made our escape. I imagine that’s why Iosef and his men weren’t able to track us back to the safe house.
And now there are more men with guns surrounding me. It’s more of a relief than I would have thought. Unless Kazimir has been lying to me all this time, these men won’t give me back. I might be… safe.
That word feels completely foreign to me now.
There's a black SUV idling in the clearing, exhaust puffing white in the frigid air. The last of the armed men opens the back door, and I climb in. Kazimir appears a moment later, sliding into the seat beside me. He doesn't look at me or say anything.
The SUV starts moving, and I watch the safe house disappear behind us.
—
The drive to the airstrip takes four hours.
Kazimir spends most of it on the phone, speaking in rapid Russian to people I don't know.
Making arrangements, I imagine, covering our tracks.
I stare out the window and say nothing, watching the snow blow by as the storm gradually recedes.
When we reach the airstrip—a small private field in the middle of nowhere— I can see a sliver of blue sky near where there's a plane waiting.