Obey: XXX Maxim Book 2 (Club XXX)

by Lana Sky

  “I need to wash you.”

  My stomach churns as I follow his gaze downward. My rust-colored hands reinforce a grim reality: I’m still covered in blood. So is he, though he doesn’t seem bothered by the faint red streaks along his jaw.

  In my bathroom, he guides me into the tub and washes me with his usual hyper-focused attention. My legs garner most of his care. He wrings the cloth directly over the worst of the cuts marring the pale skin—a savage array of lacerations on my inner thigh.

  Reading the name they form over and over to myself doesn’t make the ownership sink in.

  Only when he roughly drags his thumb over an open wound do I feel the tug of that invisible chain.

  You were made for me.

  Once I’m finally dressed, he leads me to the front of the suite.

  “I’ve had your belongings moved to a new location,” he admits, confirming my suspicion: the home he referred to isn’t the shitty two-story dwelling in Horn Hill that I’ve busted my ass all these years to protect.

  Wherever he’s taking me is a new realm. His.

  My lips part, though I’m not sure why. Maybe I’ll gather up the nerve to ask him more? Any words die in my throat as a buzzing tone draws his attention, and he withdraws a cellphone from his pocket.

  “What?” he snarls, pressing the receiver near his ear. Whatever he hears from the other end makes his eyes dart in my direction, his jaw clenching. “No. I didn’t know he was in town. Fuck—I’ll be there.” He shoves the phone into his pocket and heads for the sculpting room. “Go. Lucius will meet you out front. I’ll join you later tonight.”

  It’s funny. His tone is as cold and measured as always, but he’s switched again, shedding any resemblance to the man who held me throughout the night. My brain processes his transformation in mockingly slow motion. How his eyes lose what little light they had. His mouth twists into that stern, haunting frown next. He’s Mr. Hyde in the blink of an eye.

  When I don’t move, he jerks his chin toward the door. “I said go.”

  As expected, Lucius meets me in front of the building. Rather than head for Horn Hill or the hotel, his driver takes us to a townhouse in an upscale section of town, not too far from the high-rise. A block away, to be exact. It’s a gated community right in the heart of Vermillion Heights—one of the most expensive sectors in the city. At first, I assume that Maxim wanted some other errand run first, but no. This is “home”—and it is way too much: an extravagant dollhouse fit for a toy.

  “Here it is,” Lucius announces as the car pulls into the driveway.

  All I can do is stare. Overall, the house is made of stone, three stories tall, with old-fashioned fixtures. It’s slightly beyond Maxim’s sleek, modern style—more classic. It’s beautiful. It’s impossible. It’s borrowed.

  I tell myself that as I unbuckle my seat belt and step out of the car. When I see the house up close, my internal musing slips out. “He can’t be serious.”

  “This way, miss,” Lucius prods, as unshakably calm as always.

  Shaking my head, I follow him up a path leading to the front door. Before Lucius can even knock, a beaming blonde opens it and introduces herself as “Nancy,” the new au pair. At my confused glance, Lucius shrugs—the most casual act I’ve seen from him yet.

  “Mr. Koslov spared no expense in assuring that your family would be well taken care of,” he explains.

  What exactly that means remains to be seen.

  The moment we step over the threshold, I hear screaming.

  “Ainsley?” I rush toward the sound, but before panic can even set in, I register the scene unfolding in front of me: Ainsley and Eric are wrestling in the middle of a breathtakingly huge living room with a real fucking fireplace. The older kids are lounging on leather couches. When they see me, it’s a stampede, and I’m suffocated beneath hugs and a million fucking questions.

  “Frankie, what’s going on?”

  “What is this place?”

  “Is this all ours?”

  Rather than answer them, I shrug and force my lips into the shadow of a smile. “Can I have a tour?”

  Ainsley takes charge to lead me through the house. It’s huge. They each have their own bedroom, and I can’t ignore the knowing shiver that runs down my spine once I see the décor of each one.

  He knew—Maxim. He knew that Ainsley likes pink and Daisy prefers purple. He knew which room to supply with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sheets and who to equip with an enormous dollhouse.

  All of it feels too carefully catered to detail to seem accidental. No, he researched me. My life. My family.

  And he chose a place Melanie will never be able to sneak her way into.

  “Are you all right, miss?” Lucius asks once we return to the foyer.

  “Yeah,” I lie. My heart is racing, my palms slick. I’m not okay. Fear is a new kind of poison dripping through my veins. It doesn’t make my thoughts feel any clearer. I’m just on edge.

  As Maxim warned me himself, there was only ever one winner of the game.

  So when is he going to finally pull the trigger?

  All I can do is hope that the bullet comes before I get used to this. Before I get even more stupid—let my guard down any further.

  I rarely pray, but here goes it: Please, God, let him end this before this goes too far.

  Before I forget that this was only ever a game.

  Chapter Three

  Maxim doesn’t arrive until after sunset, but the sound of him prowling across the foyer contrasts sharply with childish shrieks and bits of laughter drifting from the living room behind me.

  I race to meet him, and my heart goes haywire as I watch him dominate the doorway. His shoulders are back, his posture neutral. If I didn’t know any better, he could be a kind neighbor welcoming a new family into town.

  Not the devil who owns me, body and soul.

  “Stay,” he says when I start for the door. “We’re having dinner here tonight.”

  “W-what?” By the time I finally remember how to move, he’s already halfway across the room. “Wait—”

  “Who’s at the door?” Ainsley demands, her cherub face peeking from around the doorway to the living room.

  Oh god.

  A suffocating pins-and-needles feeling comes over me as I observe Maxim towering over her tiny frame. When she spots him, she creeps to my side, her arms like iron bars around my waist.

  “I’m a friend of your sister’s,” Maxim says, but there is a noticeable difference in how he responds to her versus me. For one, a warm smile unfolds over his mouth and his eyes lose a bit of their natural ice. When he sinks to one knee, I nearly jump out of my skin—but he only extends his hand, his expression one of pure charm. “I am very pleased to meet you.”

  Ainsley, who’s painfully shy around strangers on a good day, manages to smile back. She even shakes his massive hand with one of her own.

  Score one Maxim Koslov.

  I watch awkwardly, unsure of what to do. “Should…should I give you a tour?” I ask as Maxim rises to his full height.

  “No.” Shaking his head, Maxim advances down the hall with unnerving familiarity. “I’m sure dinner is ready.”

  “Dinner?” I ask, creeping in his wake, Ainsley in tow.

  He must have called ahead. Planned this. The table in the dining room is already set for eight—by Nancy, I suspect. I hadn’t even noticed.

  After a whirlwind moment of introductions, I find myself shoved into a chair while all six kids take turns shouting over each other in a battle to narrate their week. What a difference a few fucking days of security can make. It’s almost like we’re a normal family for once.

  There are no requests for new shoes or field trip dues. Just “I made a friend at the new school. Her name is Suzie.”

  “I actually passed a damn test.”

  “You look tired, Frankie. You look so tired…”

  Alone, I’d have to fend the questions off by myself. Laugh on cue, smile, pretend. That
was the price of security in the old days. I smothered my yawns of exhaustion and took one for the team. I sacrificed, even if it meant lying.

  I’m not tired. The words are on my tongue, but for the first time ever, someone beats me to the punch.

  “I am terribly sorry to have kept your sister away,” Maxim says, his voice smooth and self-assured. “I’ve been keeping her busy these past few weeks.”

  Considering his sleek, black business shirt, red tie, and slacks, he resembles the type of man who might mean those words in the platonic sense only.

  God, how appearances can be deceiving.

  “She works for you?” The question comes from Mikie. His eyes are sharp, resembling how I guess I did whenever Melanie brought a new patsy around.

  I don’t know whether to panic or be proud. My heart is a swollen ball of nerves exploding in my chest.

  “Yes,” Maxim replies without missing a beat. Seated beside me, he dominates this section of the table, dwarfing me and Daisy, who is sitting on the other side of him. Though his blond hair may be neatly slicked back and his hands free of blood, he’s imposing.

  I can’t ignore the way the kids are mysteriously quieter around him, either. It’s like they can sense what I would have in their place.

  Nothing about this man broadcasts normal.

  But, as if to prove me wrong, he shifts in his seat and his bulk suddenly seems less intimidating and more ungainly. The smile he’s wearing helps. A little. To someone on the outside looking in, the expression might seem friendly. To me, it’s a warning.

  The scary part? I’m not sure of what. His glance in my direction conveys a silent message: Relax.

  “Is it illegal?” Mikie demands, placing both hands flat against the table. Good boy. Stupid boy.

  I try to meet his gaze. Shake my head. I’d be giving myself away, but what the fuck does stealth matter now? I know what happens when Maxim is pushed too far. The thought of him going at my brother with one of the polished steak knives from the table steals my breath away and my eyes dart to the door.

  “Would your sister participate in anything illegal?” Maxim wonders.

  His voice is neutral enough to draw a nervous laugh from the others, and the sound simultaneously drowns out my gasp as his hand settles over the small of my back. Thick fingers caress my spine, imparting a simple message: I told you to relax.

  The room spins as a new voice joins the fray, announcing dinner. A maid? Whoever she is, she’s smiling, but her pretty face drifts in and out of focus as she places a platter of food at the center of the table.

  The kids attack in a blur of flying plates and silverware, and the chaos provides enough cover to disguise the warm lips that graze the side of my neck.

  “Breathe. As I told you once before, I will not hurt them.”

  I didn’t realize just how much I needed that reassurance. Some of the tension leaves my body in a sigh—some. Despite everything, one bastion of Maxim Koslov’s character seems to hold true: He isn’t a liar. At least, not intentionally—but any second the game could change.

  Then again, believing him is the only shred of comfort I have to hold on to.

  Dinner passes in a blur. Afterward, I juggle Ainsley on my lap, but I’m barely tethered to the warm, casual atmosphere everyone else seems to be feeling. My eyes don’t leave Maxim once.

  I’m hunting for the usual hallmarks of his anger: flashing eyes, clenched jaw. Instead, I find a new discovery that blows my mind. He keeps smiling, but it doesn’t seem forced. He speaks when someone initiates conversation with him—which, of course, is everyone, all at once. They flock to the relative newcomer, feeding off the novelty of a strange man who doesn’t seem to be a criminal. Not outright, anyway.

  They aren’t up in arms like the way I’ve taught them to be around Melanie’s conquests. I could write it off as just another part of Maxim’s strange charm, but I know the truth. And it hurts.

  They trust me.

  And, what’s even stranger, Maxim doesn’t seem to forsake that. I can sense it in the way he keeps his posture open and relaxed even though such a stance doesn’t come naturally to him. Neither does the small talk he endures.

  “…and then I punched him,” Ainsley says proudly, concluding her narration of one of her escapades on a playground. She eyes Maxim, her mouth wrinkled thoughtfully. “Have you ever punched someone?”

  Maxim furrows his eyebrows as if seriously considering the question. Then he shrugs. “I prefer other methods,” he says.

  It’s like being in the fucking Twilight Zone. I don’t know how to react. So I just watch. I suffocate.

  And, as if it’s easier than breathing, Maxim Koslov effortlessly manipulates my family the same way he does me.

  There’s something seductive in the way he speaks when he’s not growling out a command or a warning. His rich baritone caresses every word, making them ring out like musical notes.

  I’ve never seen Daisy so relaxed around a stranger. He flatters Daisy with gentlemanly compliments, and he even gives Ainsley a “pony ride” around the living room when she demands it. He jokes with Mikie and the boys too.

  I’ve never seen a man go out of his way to encourage this reaction in them all and the shock of it all chokes me.

  Torturing me aside, this is the most terrifying weapon that he’s ever used. Pain is fleeting, but this? Normalcy is addictive—a drug I’ve never had. One that’s too dangerous to ever indulge in.

  “That’s it. It’s getting late,” I blurt as the time creeps toward midnight.

  When I finally usher the kids off to bed, it’s like I can breathe again—and the instinct that took root the moment he arrived flares at full force. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?” Maxim doesn’t miss a beat as he takes me by the arm and steers me toward the entryway, far from any listening ears—some of the kids must be watching from the stairs.

  “This,” I croak as the door closes behind us. I don’t think air trickles into my lungs again until we’ve gone halfway down the front path. “I didn’t… It’s not good for them—”

  “I didn’t come here for them.” He’s dropped the charming act. All that’s left behind is tension, which gnaws at the air between us. “This is what I can give you. More than pleasure. More than pain. More than sin.”

  I lick my lips, priming them to ask a dangerous question. “Like what?”

  “More,” he snaps. “Safety. Financial security. Support.”

  My brain instinctively shies away from those three words. I’ve never had them. Never needed them. Do I want them? I shake my head, my hair flying. Hell, I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him or myself.

  “Why?” I ask.

  The contract, he should say—trading brutal sex for his money. Instead, he raises an eyebrow. “You can always tell me to leave.”

  It’s a warning. I see his posture from the corner of my eye: broad, stiff, unmovable. His scent floods the air, filling my lungs. There is no escape.

  Just surrender.

  “Thank you,” I croak. “But it’s not good for them. Getting attached to someone. When this is over…”

  “Ah.” Maxim releases a low, rumbling chuckle that chills me to my very core. “You are still under the impression that this will be a temporary arrangement?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  At least until the moment he gets bored, anyway. When he finds another woman to play with. Still, his words keep echoing in my head. I will never let you go. A part of me expects him to say them again. Reinforce it.

  Never.

  “Temporary,” he says. A shadow flickers across his gaze as his fingers spread, gripping me tighter before releasing me. “If you say so.”

  He turns away, leaving me to follow him to the car. But while I walk, I can’t shake the feeling that he laid down a trap.

  And I stepped right into it.

  Chapter Four

  He makes me sleep in my room alone, but in the morning, his voice d
raws me awake.

  “I need to wash you.”

  Later, when I’m dried and dressed, he enters the sculpting room and a terrifying thought sinks in. Despite everything, it is possible to forget what Maxim is. For five minutes maybe, when his shoulders aren’t tense and his face is relaxed as he performs a hobby he obviously enjoys.

  Something other than fucking.

  But then, as if the universe has a vendetta against letting him appear human, something or someone quickly makes him raise his guard again.

  This time, it’s the door to the suite flying open and two men barging inside the studio. Make that one man, and he’s dragging the other. I recognize the first’s features before his voice rings out, tinged with a familiar accent. The British man from the club.

  “I have a gift for you.” He inclines his head at the man he’s holding by the collar of a tattered sweatshirt. “My biker friend here may have some information that can help you with your…problem.”

  A scruffy beard obscures most of the blood streaming from what I think is the man’s badly broken nose. One shove from the British man and he falls forward on his hands and knees. His dark, beady eyes flicker anxiously to Maxim. I wonder if he’s from the same “biker” club as Melanie’s last bastard.

  “I know who you are,” he says, spitting out blood. “You think you can kill me? The whole crew knows what you did to—”

  “Good,” Maxim says over him. “I didn’t hide it. And unfortunately for you, I won’t kill you. Yet.” He sinks down low, still dangling a chisel from one hand. “First, I have a few questions I need to ask.”

  The biker goes three shades paler, but he bares his teeth, keeping up the tough act. “Like what, you motherfucker? We didn’t fuck up your shit if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Maxim’s eyes narrow and his hand flexes, tapping the edge of the chisel against the floor in a slow, lazy rhythm. “Oh? And you wouldn’t happen to know who did, would you?”