Chapter 20 #2
I set a punishing pace, each thrust claiming what’s always been mine.
Her bound wrists slide against the sheets as her body tightens around me like a fist. Heat surges up my spine.
I drive into her, brutal and precise, until her cry fractures the air.
She shatters a second time, rippling around my cock, nearly driving me over the edge with her.
But her surrender to me isn’t enough. She was using this to further her own agenda.
Did she think she could escape me while I slept next to her? What was her angle?
I hold her hips and drive in again, her body taking every inch like it was made to be filled by me. Sweat beads along my temple. Silk creases under her knees. She sobs out a sound that is all hunger, no fear, and it drags me closer to the edge than I like.
I slow. Torture for both of us. I want her answer to settle in my bones.
“Say who you belong to, and I’ll let you fall.”
“Yours,” she breathes, throat rough. “Yours, Roman.”
The last restraint snaps. I take her hard, deep, a rhythm that says everything I won’t let my mouth admit. Her wrists strain against the belt, the leather creaking with each thrust. She rides me back, greedy, needy.
Her pussy tightens again. The slight tremor that gives her away a second before she breaks.
She shatters, a violent ripple that drags a hoarse cry from deep inside her.
Her cunt milks my cock, hot and slick, and I thrust through it until the pressure becomes a razor.
I give in with a curse, spilling into her, every muscle pulled taut as wire until it all goes blissfully slack.
For a long moment, there is only the sound of our breath, ragged, uneven, alive.
I pull out and undo the belt before it leaves a mark on her.
Her hands fall to the sheets, and she curls them into fists as blood rushes back.
I rub life back into her fingers, kneading each palm until the tiny tremors settle.
Her breath evens by degrees. I let her go and pick up the belt.
The thought of her slipping away is a fist closing around my throat.
This time I wrap the belt around her neck, pulling it tight enough to assert pressure, but not enough to choke her.
“Are you planning to leave me, malyshka?”
Her terrified gaze locks onto mine as her hands go up to the leather, cutting into her throat. “No,” she croaks.
“Did you seduce me so you could plan your escape?”
The truth flashes in her eyes for a brief moment, and it crushes my soul.
I ease the leather at her throat and let air back into her. Her gasp stabs me, hot and ugly. I hate that I put it there, even as the monster in me purrs at the mark I leave.
“Try again,” I say, quieter now. “Did you plan to use this to slip my leash?”
Her eyes shine, torn between pride and the need for oxygen, and I see the flicker of calculation she didn’t bury fast enough. It lands like a blade just under my ribs.
“Yes,” she whispers, shame and defiance braided into one word. “I thought about it.”
Her fingers touch the leather, not to tear it away, but to anchor herself. Brave. Reckless. Mine. “I thought about it,” she whispers. “I thought if I… if you slept, I could go.”
The admission burns. It is something like grief, salted and alive. I take it anyway. I asked for the truth. I swallow it whole. “Noted.”
I remove the belt and toss it aside. Her throat bears a faint ring I want never to fade. I cup the mark with my palm, feeling her pulse stutter against my skin, then I let go and move back because if I don’t, I’ll do something I warned her about.
She rolls to her side and draws her wrists to her chest, flexing fingers I already brought back from numbness. The instinct to lift her, to force her against me until she forgets any door exists, snarls under my ribs. I smother it. Control is the weapon that keeps us both alive.
“Look at me.”
She obeys, eyes glossy, mouth swollen, hair a tangle that makes my cock twitch again despite the blade in my chest. “I won’t run,” she says, too fast, like she can plaster over a crack with words.
“You won’t get the chance.” I reach for the glass on the nightstand and hold it to her lips. She drinks, throat working, and the sight tastes like an apology she can’t form.
When she’s done, I set it down and take her jaw between my fingers, not gentle, not cruel.
“No more games, Zoya. If you want me in your bed, you ask. If you want my hands off you, you say stop. If you want my house to become your prison again,” I lower my voice until it cuts, “try to leave me in it.”
Something flickers in her gaze. Fear. A darker heat. “What are you going to do with me now?”
“Keep you.” The simplest truth is often the ugliest. “You sleep in my room until after the funeral. You move where I say. The bolt stays open, as promised. You get your paper and your pen. You get cutlery, since you behaved.” A glance at her neck.
Mine. “You try to turn my bed into an exit again, and I will make the cage small enough that you can measure it in handspans.”
Her chin tips. Pride won’t let her nod. It makes me cruel because I need her to understand, and I need to punish, and I need to forgive, all in the same breath. “Say you understand.”
“I understand,” she says quietly, but then her eyes flash. “I want to live, Roman, but not as a prisoner!”
“Then stop making decisions that force my hand.”
I turn my back on her, feet planted on the carpet as I contemplate locking her in again.
Her cool hands touch my shoulders, and I turn my head to the side. “I don’t want to run, Roman. I am yours.”
“Then why the hesitation, malyshka?”
“I am not used to being owned.”
I breathe in through my nose slowly. “Your instinct is to run, to survive. I can’t be angry about that. But know this, if you run from me, Nik will be the least of your worries. Are we clear? Do you understand the lengths I will go to in order to return you to this house, this room, this bed?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I understand.”