Chapter 24 Mara #2
The thought sends a fresh spike of adrenaline through me. I push away from the desk and keep moving, trying to stay quiet and use the shadows to my advantage. If I can just find an exit, if I can just get outside, I can get to my apartment, get my identification and go… somewhere.
I can be free.
I feel that strange mixture of fear and disappointment again, a longing to stay mixed with the knowledge that I need to go. If he keeps me, if he catches me… I don’t know if I’ll ever get free again, even if he let me go.
I’m too close to admitting that I want him as much as he wants me.
I move through the warehouse as softly and quietly as I can, trying to control my breathing despite the fear coursing through me.
I pass through a section filled with old machinery I don't recognize, and I'm starting to think I might actually make it when I hear his voice, coming from somewhere in the darkness.
"I used to watch you run."
I freeze, my blood turning to ice. His voice is calm, conversational, like we're having a normal discussion instead of playing this twisted game.
"Every morning," he continues, and I still can't tell where he is. The acoustics of the warehouse make his voice seem to come from everywhere and nowhere. "You'd leave your apartment at six a.m.. Always the same route. Through Central Park, over the river, around back to your apartment.”
I bite my lip, shifting carefully as I move to another shadow, trying to figure out where his voice is coming from so that I can stay ahead of him. But my hands are shaking now, my breath coming faster.
“I always thought you were beautiful when you ran. So focused and determined. I imagined what it would be like to catch you. To chase you through those trees, down that path. To have you there, in your element.”
I duck behind a stack of crates, pressing myself into the shadows. He's close. He has to be close.
“Of all the places I watched you, I thought you were the most beautiful when you looked at art, or when you created it. But you were also so beautiful when you were begging to be chased.”
His voice is moving now, circling me. Hunting me. And as he speaks, I feel a dark, unbidden spike of arousal, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I crouch there. I’ve never felt more like prey… and a part of me wants to be caught.
To find out what the wolf will do when he gets his mouth on me again.
God, what's wrong with me?
"I know you, Mara. I know you better than anyone. I know what you want, what you need, what you're afraid to admit even to yourself."
All my effort to be quiet and stealthy vanishes. I move faster, desperate to get away from his voice, from the truth in his words. I round a corner and see a door, partially hidden behind more crates. An exit.
I bolt, a deer fleeing from a hunter, a mouse fleeing from a cat, not bothering to try to hide the sound of my steps any longer. I’m a foot from it, so close that I can see the rust patterns in the metal, when an arm wraps around my waist and yanks me backwards.
I’m hauled back against a solid chest, the scent of Ilya’s cologne and his warm skin filling my senses. I scream and struggle, kicking and twisting, but his grip is iron, inescapable.
"Caught you," Ilya whispers in my ear, and I can hear the satisfaction in his voice.
"No!" I'm still fighting, still trying to break free, but he just holds me tighter, his other arm coming up to pin my arms against my sides as he brings me down to the floor, rolling me onto my back and hovering over me as his knee wedges between my thighs, his weight pinning me down.
"The game is over, Mara. I won."
"Let me go!" My voice is shrill with panic—not just panic over being caught, but of the inevitable surrender that’s coming. "You said—you said if I escaped—"
"If you escaped. But you didn't." In the dim light, I can see his eyes, dark and intense and hungry. "You're mine now. Those were the rules."
"I don't accept—" I protest weakly, knowing there’s no point. My heart is thudding in my chest, my palms tingling with adrenaline… and I’m wet. I can feel it between my thighs. I can feel the second heartbeat of my arousal pulsing there, anticipating everything he might do to me.
"You already accepted when you agreed to play. Now you pay the price."
"What do you want?" I whisper.
"I want to watch you." His voice is low, rough with desire. "I've watched you for months, but always from a distance. Always through windows or cameras. Now I want to watch you up close. I want to see what you look like when you touch yourself. When you give yourself pleasure."
Desire crawls over my skin, shame and fear twisting my stomach. “No,” I protest, my voice trembling.
"Yes." He looms over me, his icy gaze turning molten with arousal.
"That's what I want, Mara. That's the price of the game.
You touch yourself while I watch. You show me what you look like when you come.
And then—" he pauses, his eyes burning into mine, "—then I'll take every part of your body that belongs to me. "
“I won’t do it.” I tilt my chin up, glaring at him, still trying to fight as every molecule of my body begs me to give in. To take the endless pleasure he’s offering me.
"You will." His hand comes up to rest on the other side of my head, caging me in as he presses his hips down against mine.
I feel the hard weight of his cock digging into me, evidence of the strength of his arousal.
Desire jolts through me, and I fight to keep from tilting my hips up into him, grinding against the cock that I know feels so fucking good.
"You agreed, and you lost. And deep down, you want this as much as I do. "
"I don't—" My voice is feeble.
“Don’t lie to me.” His voice sharpens. “ I know what you want. And I know you're terrified to admit it."
He's right. I shudder, another pulse of arousal rippling through me. But I can't do this. I can't just—
"The rules were clear," he says, his voice softening slightly. "I caught you. You're mine. Now show me."
Tears blur my vision. If I do this, if I give myself pleasure while he watches, without him starting it… it feels like a line I can’t come back from. Like I’m crossing that final bastion to giving in to him completely.
"No." The word comes out as barely a whisper. “Just take what you want. You won, so take it. Don’t make me… give it to you.”
Something darkens in his expression. He reaches into his jacket, and when his hand comes back, he's holding a gun.
My blood turns to ice.
He raises the gun slowly, deliberately, until the barrel is pressed against my temple. The metal is cold, so cold, and I can feel myself starting to shake uncontrollably.
"I'm going to ask you a question," he says, his voice deadly calm. "And you're going to tell me the truth. Not what you think you should say. Not what you wish were true. The truth. Do you understand?"
I can't speak. My lungs feel as if they’re seizing from a sudden, terrified inability to breathe. I just nod, feeling the gun press harder against my skin.
"Do you want me?" he asks. "I’m not asking about being kept in the penthouse, or how you feel about the morality of it all, or the fact that I won’t let you leave. Do you want me, Mara?"
Tears are streaming down my face now. "Please—"
"The truth." The gun doesn't waver. "I won't fuck you if you don't want me. I won't touch you again if this isn't what you need. But I will not stand for you lying to me any longer. Not about this. So tell me the truth. Do you want me?"
The question hangs in the air between us, terrible and inescapable. I could lie. Could tell him no, that I want nothing to do with him. And maybe he'd believe me. Maybe he'd let me go. Maybe I could convince him… but I don’t think I could, because it would be a lie. And he’d know.
I can tell the truth, or…
Do I really think he’ll pull the trigger? I’m not sure. I still don’t truly think, after all of this, that he’d kill me. But I feel something coming unfurled inside of me, some last thread of control fraying, and I know I can’t fight this any longer.
Because right now, all I want is for him to yank down my jeans and thrust that hard cock that I feel digging into my thigh inside of me. I want him to make me scream until the sound of it echoes through this fucking warehouse.
And part of me wants him to do it while he keeps the gun to my head, because it’s scaring me to death, and I’ve never been more aroused.
“Yes,” I whisper, the word breathless and desperate. “Yes, I… I want you. I do. I—”
"Then show me.” His voice is rough, tinged with the same desperation. "Touch yourself. Let me see what you look like when you give in to what you want."
My hands are shaking as I reach for the button of my jeans. This is insane. This is wrong. This is—
This is what I want.
I can feel the reality of it sinking in as I unzip my jeans, pushing them down my hips, down to my knees. Ilya’s gaze darkens as he rises to his knees, rocking back on his heels with the gun held at his side, his eyes fixed between my thighs.
“Open your legs,” he murmurs hoarsely. “As far as they’ll go. Pull your panties to one side, spread yourself for me… fuck, kotenok, just like that…”
I see the heat in his eyes as I obey, the wanton, desperate lust on his face, and a sense of power ripples through me.
I’m half-naked on a warehouse floor with a mob boss between my thighs, a gun in his hand, and yet…
I feel powerful. Because I’ve driven him to this.
His need for me, his desire, has made him this way… only for me.
I spread the folds of my pussy open, rubbing my index finger over my swelling clit. A moan slithers past my lips, my eyes closing as pleasure sparks over my skin, and I feel the heavy metal of the gun barrel tap against my knee.
“Open your eyes,” Ilya commands. “Keep them on me, Mara.”