Conquer (XXX Vadim Book 3): Club XXX Book 6

by Lana Sky

  Vadim, however? His expression melts, conveying such tenderness…

  I have to turn away and nearly run out to his car just to escape it. His hotel, I quickly realize, is on the outskirts of my old hometown, about ten minutes from my family’s home—the narrowest adherence to my previous guidelines regarding his distance from me. And he wasn’t lying about his room.

  I’m taken aback as I follow him into the narrow, efficient setup. Gone is the sprawling, luxurious penthouse booked by a bachelor accustomed to picking up escorts at random when the urge struck. This small, yet comfortable, suite is the preference for a man solely intent on business over pleasure. Even the bed is a modest full instead of a massive king.

  Instead, the star attraction is a sleek modern style office in the corner, complete with a mini, circular conference table.

  I take up one end while Vadim collapses onto a chair across from me. His stricken expression makes something inside me flinch, and I hesitate, unsure of what to say. He looks so damn tired. Exhausted. Like a man waiting for his execution to finally commence. He’s had enough of this torture.

  But so have I.

  “Tell me something that will make me forgive you,” I demand, letting every ounce of raw anger and pain seep into my voice. “Though believe me when I say that I don’t ever think I can.”

  The pure intensity of my emotions seems to take him back. His posture sprawls out without an ounce of poise to guide it, his fingers raking through his hair—in this moment, comfort takes precedence over putting on a show. He’s fully unguarded, his wall in shambles, and my heart sinks. I’m not sure if I’m well equipped enough to face him like this.

  Gritting my teeth, I’m willing to try, though. “You hurt me,” I add before he can say a word in his own defense. “You really did. How dare you accuse me of wanting to harm Magda?” I’m blinking furiously, desperate to keep from crying. “How dare you?”

  “I’m not sorry for what I did,” he admits, his tone firm. Stubborn, even. The blatant honesty tempers the pain ripping through my chest—at least he’s not lying or trying to manipulate. It’s the truth. “I will always put Magdalene first. Always. But… It wasn’t until I saw you upset that I realized I should have gone about it differently. I know you would never purposefully hurt her.” It seems to kill him to admit as much—the calculating, manipulative Vadim fucked up. He went too far to reach his aims. “You were supposed to demand money,” he continues, his voice lacking any inflection. He could seem robotic if it weren’t for the vast wealth of emotion contorting his expression. His hair is a mess, his eyes fixated on something beyond me. “Money or something else of value to you—”

  “You think I’m that much of a gold-digging bitch?” I lurch to my feet and spin around, definitely on the verge of tears now.

  “But I’ve seen how you are with her,” he mutters as if oblivious to my reaction. He’s speaking without his filter this time—saying plainly whatever thoughts are in his head. A man with nothing left to lose and the world to gain. “You could extort me, but I know you wouldn’t do the same to her. I could live with that. I had to live with that. You weren’t supposed to…”

  “What?” I whirl to face him, my arms crossed, posture livid.

  “Want me,” he confesses, his eyes meeting mine without an ounce of anger or defensiveness. “My money, material things, yes. I told myself I could lose your interest, if it meant keeping you for Magdalene. It would damn near kill me,” he adds, his hand at his throat, stroking the remnants of his scar. “But I could endure it. I could forfeit your body. This game. But never, would I gamble something more.”

  “I don’t know what kind of women you usually consort with,” I croak through clenched teeth, “but most don’t shack up with a man they barely know and fall in love with his daughter for money. Most women don’t forgive mind game, after mind game for money! Most women don’t beg for more from a man only to get his fucking money!”

  “But most people are more than content to use me,” he counters, snarling. Lunging.

  We’re toe to toe in an instant, and I’m woefully unprepared for the vitriol in his voice. His gaze. All of it directed at me. Beyond me. At the whole damn world, he’s raging.

  “My mother? A whore who sold me into slavery for the price of a year’s worth of rent,” he snarls. “My father was a monster who inducted me into his family of vipers, pitting me against his true heir every fucking waking moment. My whole life has been spent at the whims of others. Trying to assume what it is they want. How to achieve it. How to prostrate myself for their fucking benefit. No one has ever offered me their love—”

  “You’re wrong,” I say, standing fearlessly in the midst of his tirade. Even as his eyes take on that cold, mistrustful gleam, his teeth bared. I don’t look away. “Everyone loves you! Ena. Milton. Your old partner, Hiram. Even Maxim, I think, loves you in his own way.”

  Why else would his henchman drive me to the hospital at five in the morning? Lucius may be kind, but I doubt his concern would extend beyond the boundaries of what his employer would allow.

  The fact that he greeted me at all was testament enough—Maxim permitted him to.

  “You’re just too blind to see it. Your instinct is to always assume the worst. Always lash out when you feel stretched too thin.”

  “My instinct?” he echoes in a dangerous, vicious hum. His hand raises to my throat, his thumb tracing a quivering artery. I shiver, a heartbeat away from backing down…

  But I stay, enduring the ominous caress, even as he curls his fingers around my neck entirely.

  “My instinct is telling me that you’re lying,” he tells me softly. “You only aim to get inside my head. Because, your love? I want it,” he admits in a growl so resonating I sway. “But I am not stupid enough to think I could ever have it. Ever have you. Not without a price.”

  “Why?” I counter, forcing myself to meet his gaze. The more I challenge him, the more unsteady his dark irises become, glazed over and unfocused. Crazed. “Why can’t I just love you? Why can’t you just trust me? Like when the mother of your child comes calling, and all I want is to know how to help you—”

  “Because…” He encircles my throat in his fist, applying pressure…pressure. More. As I gasp, his eyes flash, nostrils flaring. Like my fear is a welcome addition to this tension—something he’s used to navigating. Manipulating. “Because who could love me?” He says it all so fervently… I think he means it.

  Every last word.

  As if in emphasis, he tightens his grip slowly, letting me feel the flesh of my throat conform around his fingers. Collapse. My breaths feather at first, followed by that terrifying constriction of my windpipe. The building terror that he’s cutting off my air. Choking me—but in the gentlest, lingering of ways.

  Because I’m not resisting him. A fact he only realizes just as my breathing wheezes, a hair’s breadth from being cut off completely.

  “Merde!” He lets me go, staggering away from me, horrified. Panting, he stares down at his hands, his voice a broken rasp, “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be,” I say, my voice surprisingly strong even as my throat aches slightly with the remnants of his touch. “At least you aren’t hiding how you really feel for fucking once. Is that what you want to do to me? Hurt me?”

  “No!” His eyes flash at the mere idea of it. “Never—”

  “But you have,” I cut over him. “You are. Every fucking time you push me away. Play with my mind. How can I trust you if you won’t even trust me?”

  “I’ve let you into my life,” he points out, regaining his stiff, imposing posture. At his sides, his fingers curl and uncurl again—a mere hint as to the extent of his frustration. “I’ve let you around my daughter. You don’t call that trust?”

  “I don’t know anymore,” I admit, my voice breaking. “But I trusted you. That is what love is. Sometimes, it means being a petty bitch and second-guessing everything, but in the end, I trusted you.”

  Desp
ite how he fucks with my head. Plays with my soul. Makes me hate him. Want him. Crave him.

  “So now what?” he wonders with a cold, harsh laugh. “You leave after tempting me with the one thing I will never have?”

  “No!” I scoff in exasperation. I think I even stomp my foot, I’m so frustrated. “You always had it!” I practically shout at him. “Always! You were just too fucking paranoid to see it.”

  And I refused to. Why? Who falls in love with a stranger after barely a few weeks?

  But how many strangers are like Vadim?

  As tormented as him?

  As beautiful as him?

  As utterly frustrating as him?

  “But what was I to you, huh?” I demand nastily. “Collateral? A tramp you could just throw away—”

  “Never!” He’s before me in an instant, his hands cupping my skull, drawing me into him. Near my ear, he croaks, his voice hoarse, “You were what happiness always was to me. A futile dream always out of reach. At least before…”

  “Before what?” I’m trying so damn hard to maintain my composure. My anger. My hurt. But it’s splintering, breaking apart with every second his breath bastes my throat. With his fingers caressing my skin. His gaze so deep and unending I’m drowning in it.

  “Before you taunted me with it.” His eyes slide shut as his mouth grazes my lower jaw brazenly, his lips parted, tasting me. Inhaling me. “That’s what you’ve done, isn’t it? Tease me. Dangle a world I never imagined for myself, but you never reveal the fucking price—”

  “Because there isn’t one!” My voice lacks any real anger. I’m lost in the urgency of his touch, my hips arching into him before I can help it. “You can’t buy love.”

  “Only take it,” he says with a fervor that leaves me reeling. Hungry, he grips me tighter, drawing me further against him. “Claim it—”

  “No. You earn it,” I snap, devastated by the fact that he truly seems to mean those words. A man so lost he sees affection as something worth stealing, never his to take without a struggle. “It is given freely. Like when you let a man put his hands around your throat because you know he won’t hurt you.”

  He blinks, his eyes fluttering open, dark with confusion. As I watch, they glaze over, hardened with resolve.

  “I will earn you,” he tells me. But when he presses his mouth to mine, I doubt a verbal confession is on his mind.

  Because conversation never gets us very far in the long run. Only one form of communication seems to supersede all others when it comes to the two of us.

  And he initiates this discussion with his touch sliding down to my ass, snatching me into him. Gasping, I run my hands down his chest, letting my nails rake at the fabric of his shirt, gouging the flesh underneath. He sucks in a startled breath, his gaze radiating confusion—but the confusion quickly morphs into something else when I keep traveling lower, finding the fastenings of his pants.

  With a deftness I didn’t even know I was capable of, I unhook the front clasp and yank down the zipper. Waiting beyond the barrier is his cock, stiffening against me, pulsating so strongly I swear I can count his heartbeat like this.

  His very being is in the palm of my hand.

  And groaning, he submits to me, letting me cradle him…and then tighten my grip so firmly he lurches, a growl revving in his throat. His hands grip me in retaliation, snatching me to him, grinding me over the contours of his body.

  And we both cry out.

  Days without him and my body reacts as though I’ve committed a crime. The ultimate act of self-harm—denying myself of this. Him.

  Sensation returns like a gut punch, drowning me in a heat so potent it’s like I’m burning alive.

  But in this instance, I’m not suffering alone.

  He grunts at the feel of me as if punched with every grasping handful. Ruthless, his lips capture mine, his hands roving, nails scraping. Groping. Claiming. I’m putty in his hands, a slave to his whims as he drags me toward the bed. Only to change tact at the last minute and shove me against the window instead.

  He spins me to face the glass as his body cages me in from behind. I feel his hands in my hair, working their way down to my shoulders. My throat. He encircles it, gripping it again, tightening those slender fingers. Tighter. Tighter. At the same time, I feel him grinding himself shamelessly against my lower back, teasing his erection to the point of straining against the confines of his boxers.

  It has to be uncomfortable, I realize somewhere at the back of my mind. Painful. But it’s like he waits until the second I’m writhing, my thighs grinding together just to find relief.

  The second I do, he cradles my throat, guiding my head back until our gazes connect from this angle—me straining up, him staring down, his eyes unfocused, glazed with lust.

  A silent understanding passes between us. One that makes me buck into his grip and brace my hands over the window glass. Without hesitation, he plunges his hand beneath the skirt of my dress, finding my thong, wrenching it down my legs.

  I writhe shamelessly, arching into his touch. Gasping out when his grip on my throat cinches—tighter than before. My eyes water, my lungs straining, lips parting.

  But at the same time, he brushes his thumb over my clit, pairing the physical discomfort with pleasure and…

  Holy, gosh darn kink.

  My brain melts, every nerve going haywire. There is something inherently sinful when he stops holding back. Reacts without calculation or forethought. Adjusting his grip on me with one hand, he wrenches me onto him, plunging inside me on the first thrust.

  It’s fire.

  The force and pressure apply friction to my piercing from the inside, and I yelp at the sensation, feeling an orgasm build damn near instantaneously.

  Rather than feed the flames, he rocks his hips, withdrawing just as swiftly. His grip on my throat returns, applying more pressure as his lips feather kisses down my collar. The conflicting actions make my body go limp, my eyes rolling as he slams back in.

  In.

  Again.

  Again.

  I let him pin me against the window glass, murmuring praises. Gasps. Nothing as he controls my intake of air, teasing me with just enough space to gasp before his fingers clench. Body rocks. Cock thrums against my inner walls.

  Rippling convulsions assault me, contorting my body from the inside out.

  Never in my life have I come so violently before. I almost fear the incredible rise because I know the fall could be deadly. Only his grip serves as my sole safety net as the pleasure ebbs and flows in shattering waves.

  “You do want something from me,” he grates into my ear as I mewl wordlessly, on the brink of another earth-shattering release. “My love, is that it? I can’t give it,” he confesses, bucking so hard I’m sandwiched between him and the window glass, my body bared for anyone passing by who happens to look up.

  My addled, deranged mind skips ahead, envisioning a future with him. Exhibition with him, letting the world watch him take me like this. Claim me like this…

  Pain sears through my earlobe, and with difficultly, I refocus my waning senses on him. His teeth nip me again, ensuring he has my full attention.

  “My love? You’ve already taken it from me,” he growls, his body thrumming as he jerks, spilling himself inside me, heightening the depths of his confession. “Always. From the first fucking time you teased me with your praise. You’ve taken this from me…”

  His bed, as it turns out, is too damn small for us to even lay on comfortably. We wind up lying naked on a sheet spread before the window, watching the world advance beyond this realm, bathed in darkness.

  In the dizzying comedown, he only moves to salvage something from his pants, pressing it to his ear in the dark. “Goodnight, ma chérie,” I hear him murmur, revealing the sole person worthy of drawing his attention in this moment. Even now, he strives to keep his promise to her, always. “I will see you tomorrow. Please tell Tiffany’s parents she decided not to return too late and risk waking anyo
ne. Goodnight.”

  He hangs up and settles down beside me, forcing a physical connection I have no chance of resisting—his arms encircle me, a prison of heat.

  Silence falls again. Finally…

  “I guess this means no more trolling the bars for fake wives. No more bringing strange women to your penthouse suites,” I tell him, stroking his bare chest, loving how the moonlight paints him in silvery tones. “It seems as though you may be a family man now.”

  “What a fate,” he says mournfully. One of his hands runs through my hair while the other possessively cups my hip. “And you can no longer flaunt your skills at attracting a variety of different men, it seems. Never will anyone else have you.”

  “Never ever,” I agree with playful despondence. “But…”

  I shift, craning my neck to see his face more clearly. The man is the picture of contentment, his eyes gleaming in the dark, his lips devoid of their natural resting frown. If I squint, his expression could almost be deemed a smile, soft and curling like the fall of his hair.

  “There is one obstacle we need to overcome,” I tell him sternly.

  He raises an eyebrow. “Oh.”

  “Yes.” Sighing, I collapse against him, nestling into his touch. “We need to get you a million more books on kink. All the research you could ever need.”

  Holy crap. My throat still aches, but damn was it worth it. Already, my body is humming at whatever tricks the man could have in store. I’m tempted to risk pissing him off again if only to experience the depths of his depravity all over again. Jim made normal sex into an ordeal.

  With Vadim, makeup sex is a world unto itself, let alone the vanilla stuff. A woman could get seriously drugged on his cock. Though, I could think of far worse fates.

  Like being stupid enough to lose him for good.

  “I’m an idiot for bringing this up now, I know I am,” I confess, apologizing in advance with a kiss pressed against his nipple. “But I need to know…”

  The one question I’ve been avoiding up until this moment, dancing around my feelings for him—as well as the shadows looming in his past.