Chapter 11 Inessa #2
I try to pull away, but he doesn't let me go.
His eyes search mine, looking for something I'm not sure I want him to find.
"Don't we?"
The heat between us is suffocating, undeniable, terrifying in its intensity.
I can't catch my breath.
I don’t even want to blink.
I hate him, and in the same fucking breath, I need him.
Between my legs, inside me, on top of me.
Fuck if I don't hate myself now too for wanting him.
He releases my wrists and frames my face with his hands.
"Tell me to stop."
I should.
Every rational thought demands it.
But rationality abandoned me the moment Oleg told me about the warehouse, about my people lying hurt because of choices I made, alliances I accepted.
"I can't."
His fingers tighten on my jaw, his thumbs grazing my cheekbones, and the darkness in his gaze burns hotter than fire.
“You can’t,” he repeats, the corner of his mouth curving in triumph.
“Good. Because I don’t intend to stop.”
His mouth crushes mine before I can spit back an insult.
The kiss is hard, bruising, his tongue driving past my lips as if claiming more than my body, claiming my very breath.
My hands, free now, ball against his chest.
I shove, but he’s immovable, and the taste of whiskey mixed with him has me swallowing my resistance instead of voicing it.
I’m panting when he tears his mouth away, only to drag it down the side of my neck.
“You hate me, Inessa?” His voice vibrates against my skin.
“Then show me.” His teeth nip the place where my pulse races, and my knees nearly buckle.
“I do,” I gasp, though the word breaks apart when his hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back so he can devour more of my throat.
His other hand drags the hem of my dress upward, shoving the fabric over my hips until the cool air hits my bare thighs.
My nails claw at the front of his shirt, pulling until buttons scatter across the floor.
He growls approval, pressing me harder against the desk so the wood digs cruelly into my back.
His chest is bare now, muscles flexing as he grinds against me, the heat of his cock straining against his trousers a fiery brand against my thigh.
“Say it again.” His hand slides between my legs, rough fingers stroking through the damp silk of my panties.
“I hate you,” I bite out, but the sound warps into a whimper when he pushes the fabric aside and thrusts two fingers inside me.
My body betrays me instantly, clenching around him and betraying my very own words. I don’t hate this as much as I want to.
“You hate how much you need this.” His thumb circles my clit, and I arch off the desk, strangled moans leaving my lips despite the fury on my tongue.
I dig my nails into his shoulders.
I'm desperate, furious, aroused beyond reason. “Fuck you.”
“You will.” His growl is low and dangerous, his fingers leaving me empty a second before he wrenches his belt open.
The rasp of leather sliding free makes my blood roar in my ears.
Then without warning, he drags my panties down, bunching them at one ankle, then shoves his trousers low enough to free himself.
My eyes catch on his thick length, and I curse my own body for the flood of heat between my thighs.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, dragging the head of his cock over my slick folds, smearing me with my own arousal.
“Burning for the man you swear you despise.”
I try to spit a retort, but the breath seizes in my chest when, instead of driving into me, he suddenly pulls back.
My ass barely touches the desk before he yanks me forward, dragging me until I’m perched on the very edge.
The rough scrape of wood bites my thighs, but then his knees hit the floor, and the sight of him kneeling between my legs robs me of all thought.
“Yuri—” My protest dissolves when his hands grip the backs of my thighs, shoving them wider.
His mouth finds me with no hesitation, tongue spearing into my soaked heat before dragging up to my clit.
My head slams back, a cry ripping out of me.
“You taste like fury,” he growls against me, then seals his mouth over my clit, sucking hard.
His fingers dig bruises into my thighs to hold me open while his tongue works mercilessly.
I clutch at his hair, meaning to shove him away, but my hips betray me, grinding against his face, chasing every flick and curl of his tongue.
“Fuck—stop,” I pant, though my body begs the opposite.
He ignores me, tongue circling, lashing, sucking until my legs quake against his shoulders.
“You’ll come for me,” he mutters, lips wet against my flesh, “because you can’t help yourself.”
“God damn you,” I gasp, and then the wave crashes over me.
My thighs clamp around his head as his mouth drags me under.
Pleasure shreds me, and I cry out his name.
He doesn’t let me go until I’m convulsing, shuddering, begging wordlessly for a break.
When he finally lifts his head, his mouth glistens, eyes blazing.
“Undone,” he says simply, and then he rises, and before I can recover, he’s clearing the desk.
Papers scatter, monitors rattle, and his hand forces my back down flat.
With one savage thrust, he drives into me, filling me to the hilt.
The sound I make is broken, but he’s already fucking me hard, hips slamming into mine, the desk groaning beneath us.
His hand grips the back of my neck, holding me against him while the other fists in my hair, jerking my head back just enough so his words burn against my ear.
“Do you feel what you hate? Do you feel who owns you?”
Each thrust is punishing, the stretch brutal and perfect, driving me to the brink again.
“I hate you,” I sob, but my body clenches around him greedily as I desperately claw at his chest.
He snarls, a raw sound deep in his throat.
“Then hate me while you come on my cock.”
His hand abandons my hair, sliding around my hip to find my clit.
The rough rub against the swollen bud is too much. I break, shattering with another orgasm that tears through me so violently, I nearly collapse.
He follows, hips pounding faster, groans ragged against my shoulder until he buries himself deep and his release crashes with mine.
The heat of him floods me, his grip crushing, his body pinning mine as we both convulse in the wreckage of it.
Breathless, ruined, still trembling, I realize with sick clarity… I may despise him, but my body belongs to him all the same.
The shame of my utter failure crushes me the instant he pulls out and uses the back of his hand to wipe his face clean.
His still-dripping cock stands proudly on end as I sit up, tugging my dress back into place, avoiding his gaze.
I still hate him—I think.
And I still want him to stay away from my businesses.
That much I know for certain.
"You disgust me," I snarl.
"Do I?" he asks with a smirk.
I stand, smoothing my hair with shaking hands.
"You and what you've turned me into."
"I've turned you into nothing you weren't already."
"I wasn't someone who forgot about her responsibilities the moment a man touched her."
"You weren't someone whose responsibilities were used as weapons against her."
The words stop me halfway to the door.
"What does that mean?"
But Yuri has already turned back to his monitors as he sinks into his chair and tucks his dick away.
"It means you're learning."
"Learning what?"
"That in this world, caring about people makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability gets you killed."
I think about my employees lying in hospital beds, probably wondering why their boss hasn't come to check on them.
I think about the families depending on paychecks I may not be able to provide, the clients whose orders will never be filled.
"I won't become like you."
"You already are."
The words follow me out of his office, down the hallway, up the stairs to my room.
They echo in my head as I strip out of my wrinkled clothes, as I step into the shower and let scalding water wash away the scent of him from my skin.
But nothing can erase the memory of how completely I surrendered to him.
Nothing can wash away the devastating realization that when he touched me, when he claimed me on his desk, I stopped caring about everything else.
My people are hurt.
My business is crumbling.
My entire life's work is turning to ash while I'm trapped behind these walls, playing prisoner to a man who may be orchestrating my destruction.
And for those desperate minutes in his office, none of it mattered.
I press my forehead against the shower tiles and let the water run until it turns cold, hoping it will wash away the truth I don't want to face.
That my body recognizes something in Yuri that my mind refuses to acknowledge.
That despite everything—the forced marriage, the imprisonment, the systematic destruction of my independence—I wanted him with a desperation that terrifies me.
The water runs cold, but the shame remains burning under my skin.