Chapter 12
Kara
He stood there, all arrogance and ice, issuing commands like the world had never told him no. The yacht, the sunlight, even the sea seemed to bend around him.
Dmitri Markov didn’t fill a space; he ruled it.
I hated him for it.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Every word that came out of his mouth was calculated. Even when he threatened me, he didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. There was something about that composure—about the quiet certainty of it—that pulled at me in ways I didn’t want to understand.
Roman had flirted with me. Lev had tested me. But Dmitri… it was clear that he could dismantle me without ever touching me.
I should have been terrified.
I was terrified.
But beneath that fear, a vivid heat sparked into life.
It was the calm way he said my name, like it belonged to him. The way his gaze never faltered. The way he closed the distance between us until I could feel his breath brushing against my skin.
He was control made flesh. And control was always the thing that undid me.
I tried to focus my anger on the fact that he had invaded my sanctuary, that he was here to use me just like everyone else, but I found myself just watching him with genuine curiosity. I realized I wanted to see what he’d do next.
My pulse betrayed me, beating faster every time he spoke.
He wasn’t beautiful the way Roman was. Roman was the kind of man who caught the light and reveled in it; Dmitri was the kind who swallowed it like a black hole. He was carved from restraint and danger, and it felt intoxicating to be the sole focus of that much power.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I muttered, hating the way my voice shook.
“Like what?” he asked, calm as ever.
“Like you already know what I’m thinking.”
His mouth curved, just slightly. “I do know. You’re broadcasting it loudly enough.”
That did it: the spark, the heat started in my chest and crawled up my neck and down into my belly. Bastard. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to run. I wanted… God help me, I wanted him to keep looking at me like that.
He turned toward the railing, his profile sharp against the sun. “You can try to hate me, Kara,” he said. “But you’d do better to start understanding me.”
“I don’t want to understand you.”
“You already do,” he stated quietly.
Maybe he was right.
Because in that moment, as I stood there with the sea burning gold around us and his shadow stretching long across the deck, I realized something that scared me more than ARCHEON ever could.
Dmitri Markov didn’t need to touch me, threaten me, yell at me, or fuck me to make me feel undone.
He just had to exist.
His face turned back toward mine and his gaze dropped. It was a gradual, deliberate sweep, and I felt it like a physical touch. It lingered at my breasts, my nipples, which had tightened beneath my thin swimsuit until they were hard, unmistakable points against the fabric.
Heat flooded my face. He’d noticed. Of course he’d noticed. Dmitri was the kind of man who missed nothing.
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “You’re wondering if I’m going to take you the way my brothers did.”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t force the denial past my lips. It was true. I was wondering. I was terrified of the answer and desperate for it all at once.
I managed a breathless, “No.”
He took a step closer, and the air went out of my lungs.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he murmured. “It’s not up to you.”
My throat went dry. My heart hammered against my ribs like a frantic, trapped bird. “Then…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
His gaze roamed slowly up to meet mine, and it was ice cold. “I’m going to take you, Kara, but not the way my brothers did,” he said. “I’m not going to be gentle.”
And then he moved.
It wasn’t a lunge or a grab. It was just… an adjustment of space. One moment, there was two feet of air between us. The next, his hands were on my arms, his grip like iron bands, and he was pulling me toward him. I stumbled, my bare feet scrabbling for purchase on the smooth, sun-warmed teak.
“Get your hands off me!” The words ripped out of me, high-pitched and scared.
I struggled. I thrashed. My hands flew up, claws out, aiming for his face, his expression utterly unconcerned.
It was like fighting a statue. He didn’t even flinch.
His fingers tightened on my arms, a precise, painful pressure that cut off circulation and made my hands feel numb and useless.
He turned us, his movements economical and terrifying, and backed me up against the polished railing of the yacht.
The hard, unforgiving metal bit into my back.
“Stop fighting,” he commanded in a low rumble that held no emotion. It wasn’t a plea; it was a statement of command.
“Fuck you,” I gasped, renewing my struggle, shoving against his chest with all my strength.
Every bit of my struggle was fruitless.
He took my wrists in one of his large hands, pinning them to the railing with an inescapable grip.
His other hand went to the thin string of my swimsuit tied at my hip.
He tugged once. The fabric gave way with a soft swishing sound.
The other side followed. My suit bottoms fell away, becoming a useless scrap of Lycra floating down to the deck at my feet.
I was mostly naked now, exposed to the sun, the sea, and his cold, assessing gaze.
I expected a sneer, a gloating comment. I got nothing but his flat, predatory stare.
He released my wrists only to spin me around, forcing me face-down over the railing.
The cold metal pressed against my stomach and breasts, the vast, indifferent ocean spread out below me.
My hands flew out and gripped the railing, knuckles white, my body a rigid line of fear, abject arousal, and bold defiance.
I was trapped. Bent over. Presented. Utterly exposed.
I heard the rasp of his zipper, a sound that was more terrifying than any shout.
Then the unmistakable brush of his cock against my entrance.
I was already slick. My treacherous body, flushed with adrenaline and that dark, shameful heat, was already wet for him.
I could feel the arousal between my thighs, a humiliating testament to my own undoing.
“Please,” I sobbed, the word a ragged, desperate plea against the wind. “Don’t.”
He answered me not with words, but with a brutal, punishing thrust that buried him to the hilt. I screamed, a harsh, ragged sound that was torn from my throat by the sheer, shocking force of him. There was no preamble, no gentle stretching to accommodate his size.
He was just… inside me. A hard, unyielding invasion that stole my breath and sent a searing, blinding pain through my core.
This was nothing like Roman and not even Lev. Lev had been a storm, but this was an earthquake that was reshaping my very foundations from the inside out.
He didn’t wait for me to adjust. He didn’t give me a moment.
He set a fierce rhythm, his hips snapping against my ass, the sound of skin slapping against skin a raw, violent percussion in the quiet sea air.
Each thrust drove the air from my lungs, each impact a fresh wave of pain that was quickly blurring with pleasure, making my pussy clench and my body quiver with desire.
His hand came down on my ass, a sudden, stinging blow that made me cry out. He didn’t stop. He spanked me again, then again, taking up a relentless, punishing rhythm that matched the ruthless pounding of his cock.
In no time at all, my ass was on fire, a hot, throbbing mess of pain, but the sensation was connecting directly to the traitorous ache between my legs.
“Look at you,” he grunted in a raspy, possessive growl against my ear. “Taking it so well. Your body knows its master.”
Master.
The word echoed in the sudden, chaotic haze of my mind. I hated him. I hated the word, the claim, the casual, devastating way he was dismantling me, piece by painful piece.
I felt a tug, then heard a loud, tearing sound. My swimsuit bikini top, the last flimsy barrier of my modesty, was ripped from my body. He was fucking me, and at the same time, he was stripping me bare, destroying the last remnants of the woman who had walked onto this deck thinking she was safe.
He leaned over me, his fully clothed chest a solid wall against my naked back, his mouth brushing my ear.
“You’re going to come for me, Kara,” he commanded.
“You’re going to come on my cock, and you’re going to look at the ocean while you do it.
You’re going to see how endless it is, and you’re going to remember how small and powerless you are in this world against a man like me. ”
His words were a violation as intimate as his cock. He was remaking the world around me, turning the sun, the sea, the sky into instruments of my submission.
And it was working.
The pleasure was building, a slow, creeping tide that was impossible to fight. I was so close already. I bit my lip, trying to hold on, to cling to the last vestiges of my self-control, but it was no use.
“Don’t fight it,” he urged. He reached around, his fingers finding my clit. He circled it with teasingly slow circles, causing a fiery bolt of pleasure to ricochet through me with wild abandon.
I came hard, stars twinkling behind my eyelids as my core squeezed tight, over and over again until I was screaming.
He didn’t stop. He just kept fucking me, his thrusts never faltering, his fingers digging into my hips.
My hands slipped from the railing, my body going limp, boneless. I would have collapsed, fallen into the endless blue below, but his arm wrapped around my waist, an unyielding band of steel that held me up, held me in place for his continued merciless assault.