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

by Lana Sky

  I’m not the only one impatient, it seems.

  “Don’t move,” he commands as his fingers creep beneath the waistband of my “healing attire”—a pair of his sweats. I shiver in anticipation, my eyelids threatening to shut as his heat bastes my belly and below.

  A true torturer, he takes his time, unwrapping me as meticulously as one would a cherished present. I can’t prevent a moan from escaping my throat as I’m fully bared to him, deliciously exposed.

  With his gaze fixated on my flesh, he grunts in appreciation. “And to think,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. “I was almost foolish enough to risk losing this…”

  This. A prize that he claims with a single, devastating stroke of his thumb, making me lurch into his touch, a gasp breaking loose.

  “Beautiful.” He sounds like a repentant sinner, more than ready to prostrate himself before an altar in a quest for redemption. And damn, does he endeavor to earn every ounce of mercy…

  I gasp as his lips nudge my inner thigh, swiftly inching downward, forcing me to cling to the counter. As a result, I wind up opening myself to him further—a vulnerability that he eagerly takes advantage of. Soft, his tongue feathers over my piercing first in teasing, slight swipes. Followed by his lips. His teeth.

  Everything.

  I whine, gripping the counter to the point of pain, too far gone to feel the discomfort in my back as I arch into his embrace. Holy crap, he’s gotten too damn good at this since the last time. Far too soon, I’m nearing the brink, drowning in the quick, searing glances he throws my way in between every tasting lick and nibble.

  Like I’m his alone…

  To consume.

  Own.

  Destroy.

  When my orgasm finally arrives with the strength of a freight train slamming into me, I moan shamelessly, my voice echoing throughout the room. The only way to save face is to fist my hand in his hair and tug, drawing him to his feet. Still holding him captive, I spin, switching positions.

  Taking care not to rip my sutures, I sink down carefully, relying on his touch to steady me. Then I impatiently tug his pants down and eagerly return the favor.

  “Merde!” He hisses as I flick the end of his piercing with my tongue and suckle, swallowing him whole, holding his gaze as I do so.

  His eyes flicker, unfocused, and heavy-lidded. One flick of my tongue, and he’s experiencing another revelation, after revelation, after revelation. Before me, the man is born anew, empowered with a lifetime’s worth of pleasure he’s spent so long denying himself.

  Soon, he’s rocking into me, grating out various broken bits of French. I make a mental note to do everything I can to learn the language as I suck, sending him spiraling into his own release. Spent, I lean against his thigh, stroking patterns into his perfect flesh. It’s so easy to just coexist with him, even in the aftermath of such a filthy, intimate act.

  There is no shame between us. No more boundaries. Just silence, and understanding, and a peace so heavy it hurts.

  And to think, I’ve spent so damn long denying myself of this. Will I let a bitch like Irina barge in and take this fragile calm away?

  Hell no.

  But a part of me warns that I may not have a choice…

  “Shit!” Vadim jolts to attention, gently helping me to my feet, before scrambling to adjust his pants and wash his hands in the sink. Confused, I copy him, even as my brain struggles to process what set him off.

  “What’s wrong?” I follow the line of his gaze and quickly discover the source of his alarm.

  A tiny figure races across the terrace—but gone is her exuberant energy from earlier. Tears spill down her cheeks, her cries audible even before Vadim lurches to the door and wrenches it open. He has her in his arms in an instant, and as I follow him out, I spot two figures hurrying from the woods in her wake.

  One is a huffing Ena, his gaze alert despite the obvious exertion of having run after a seven-year-old.

  By his side is a tiny blond, her expression constricted with concern. Spotting me, she sighs in exasperation. “He didn’t mean to! I tried to tell her that he only looks scary—”

  “What’s wrong, ma chérie?” Vadim murmurs to Magda, stroking her hair. “What happened?”

  She shakes her head, hiding her face in the crook of his shoulder. Frowning, he glances at Ena, who shrugs.

  “I know.” With a maturity well beyond her young years, the smaller girl steps forward, her gaze focused on her friend. “Max came home,” she explains. “I tried to tell her that he only looks scary. Come back, and you’ll see, Mags. Promise! I bet he’ll even play tea party with us if we ask him to—”

  “No! I don’t want to go away!” I barely recognize the childish whimper as belonging to Magda. She’s trembling, her chest heaving with choking, gasping sobs. “I don’t. Don’t let me,” she wails, clinging to Vadim, who looks stricken in the face of her fear. “Don’t let him take me—”

  “No one is taking you anywhere,” Vadim insists. He cuts his gaze to Ena, radiating authority. “Secure the perimeter.”

  The man nods and marches off. “Yes, Sir.”

  Left behind is Ainsley, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes welling. Before another disaster can ensue, I step forward and gingerly link my hand in hers.

  “I’ll take her home,” I say, starting off in the direction of Maxim’s property before Vadim can argue.

  I glance over my shoulder to find him carrying Magda into the house, speaking to her calmly all the while.

  “I’m sorry,” Ainsley whines, her nostrils flaring. “He’s not mean, honest!”

  “I believe you, honey.” Though internally, I’m questioning a little girl’s interpretation of “mean” where a man as imposing as Maxim is concerned. Halfway to the house, we’re met by a panting figure who races from the underbrush.

  “Thank God!” Francesca exclaims, clutching at her chest. She races to her sister’s side, bundling the girl in her arms. Despite my best efforts, Ainsley is crying soon enough, and my heart breaks for both girls for very different reasons.

  “Mind if I join you?” I ask Francesca as she starts back toward her house. She looks alarmed and glances warily over her shoulder—but eventually, she nods. “Sure.”

  She comforts her sister the entire trip back, and the girl sports the beginnings of a smile by the time the house looms above. A towering figure stands waiting to greet her near the edge of the terrace.

  She squirms from her sister’s arms and races over, tugging insistently on the pantleg of a man most would eagerly avoid. Dressed in black from head to toe, he stands with his arms crossed, his blond hair streaming loosely behind him, his gaze on me.

  “I’m sorry,” Ainsley tells him, her voice hitching. “I don’t know why she got so scared.”

  But I do. Stepping forward, I force myself to meet the man’s steely gaze. “Can we talk?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Francesca stiffen, but Maxim? He eyes me for so long I nearly sway with relief when he finally nods and turns into the house. Inside, I’m once again reminded of the glaring similarities—and differences—between the two brothers.

  This house has a softness to it Vadim’s lacks. Perhaps it lies in the pops of color sprinkled throughout the relatively muted color scheme—hints of red, yellow, and blue in the form of pillows or throw blankets or potted plants. Or the scattered toys that hint toward a bustling family life. Or it could just be that Maxim, as foreboding as he seems, dominating this spacious room, has settled into a relationship that may or may not have softened some of his harsher edges. At least where Ainsley is concerned. Maybe even Magdalene?

  Clearing my throat, I face him. Here goes nothing. “Vadim needs you,” I blurt in a rush. “Now, more than ever. I don’t know what’s between you two.” Something tells me that Maxim’s tale of their feud may differ slightly from the one Vadim told. The details don’t matter. “He needs you. Your niece, needs you.”

  He flinches as something unreadable crosses ov
er his dark, unsettling eyes. “Niece?” He grunts as his rumbling voice echoes through the room. “You believe that?”

  “I know it,” I counter swiftly. Crossing my arms, I level him with an eyebrow cocked, ignoring the fire searing through my shoulder. “Do you really want to deny that? You can look at her and see for yourself. And you can see that they both need you.”

  “Is that so?” He lumbers to a far corner of the room, turning his back to me. Without the distracting intensity of facing him head-on, I’m left to inspect the rest of his bulk, adding up more clues to cement the brothers’ strange idiosyncrasies. Their panache for tailored, Italian-style suits for one. Maxim’s is black, and yet despite wearing it, there’s a primal intensity to his form that doesn’t portray quite the level of icy businessman Vadim can. This man looks less business and more…not legal. I recall a hint of a conversation I heard between Vadim and his friend Milton. I’m more convinced than ever—Maxim—much in the way Irina hinted about Vadim—doesn’t play by anyone’s rules.

  Hopefully, not Irina’s.

  “Someone is trying to hurt him,” I say in response to his obvious skepticism. Vadim once joked that Maxim probably thought he was Magdalene in a child-sized suit, and I’m starting to realize that statement might not have been entirely an exaggeration. “Someone is trying to hurt his daughter. Does that mean anything to you? Or do you enjoy having little girls run from you in terror?”

  He grimaces, and I have my answer. No.

  “Vadim may need you when the time comes,” I add, taking a step toward him. “If you give a damn at all, you’ll answer the door when he does.”

  “Oh?” Maxim scoffs, whirling to face me. I assume some form of an insult is poised on his tongue when he stiffens, his eyes homing in on my left hip. “You’re bleeding,” he says.

  Shit. Sure enough, without the overriding concern for Ainsley or Magda clouding my senses, I can feel the fiery pain ripping down my left side in full force now. A glance downward reveals a splotch of scarlet seeping through the gray fabric of my borrowed sweatshirt.

  After trudging over a mile through the woods, it’s not surprising to assume I may have ripped some of my stitches.

  “Well…” Wincing, I start for the back door, praying to God that I don’t track blood all over the floor. “I’ll be leaving—”

  “No.” The big man rocks on his heels as if wrestling with indecision. Finally, he sighs and cocks his head. “Lucius!”

  As if conjured from thin air, the kind, older gentleman, who I’m beginning to suspect may be a saint, appears near the doorway leading to the foyer. “Sir?”

  Maxim nods curtly in my direction and then marches for the terrace. “Take her home.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Lucius beckons me forward only to pale when he sees the blood staining my ensemble.

  “It’s just a scratch,” I insist with a faint grin.

  Minutes later, I’m racing up the front path and barreling into Vadim’s house. I find him in the process of leaving Magda’s room, closing the door softly behind him. From beyond his shoulder, I see her asleep on her bed, clutching It to her chest with one hand, while her other stuffed toys form a protective perimeter around her. Courtesy of her father, I suspect.

  His eyes meet mine, brimming with a tenderness that makes my chest tighten. At least until he notices the blood and yanks me into his arms. Dazed, I find myself being lowered onto the bed seconds later, wrenched to lie face down as he draws my sweatshirt up.

  “Damn it,” he hisses in disgust. “You’ve ripped them.”

  I sigh dejectedly, pouting. “Are you going to play sexy doctor and stitch me back up?”

  “No,” he says without an ounce of humor. Rising to his full height, he draws a cell phone from his pocket. “This is well beyond my skill set.”

  A hint of unease seeps in at the thought of being poked and prodded by a real doctor. “What if I promise never to get up again?” I say mournfully.

  “Nice try.” He shoots me a stern look before dialing a number into his phone and bringing the device to his ear. “I need your help,” he says to someone I suspect most definitely isn’t Maxim. “Preferably now.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  As it turns out, he called Milton. The man must be a doctor of some kind because he stitches me back up in no time, but with a stern warning as he packs up his supplies. “Rip these, and you’ll have a nasty set of scars to look forward to.”

  Adequately cowed, I lie flat as the two men exit the bedroom, heading downstairs.

  And the second they’re out of earshot, I slither onto the floor and practically crawl to the mouth of the stairs, straining my ears to listen.

  “So, I’m beginning to suspect that you didn’t cause Maxim’s headaches in Moscow,” Milton declares, his voice drifting from the direction of the kitchen. “The attack was too vicious. Even you aren’t that bloody ruthless. He managed to salvage what he could of the supply, but the setback will take months to fully recover from. I suspect that was the aim all along—he’ll be distracted for a while, at least.”

  “Good,” Vadim says with chilling vitriol. “Maybe the bastard will finally realize that I’m not the only Boogeyman lurking in the shadows.”

  “Trust me,” Milton insists with a harsh laugh, “he is well aware of that. Anatoli is still ‘lurking’ as you put it. Even now, I bet the old fucker is itching to get back into the game. Especially after losing Sevastyn.”

  “Dear old grandfather?” Vadim says with a hostility that makes me suspect he doesn’t cherish this particular family member the way I do my old “Pop-Pop.” “I will admit I’ve left the old bastard alive solely because he torments little Maxi so damn well. And, perhaps I’d been arrogant enough to assume that, with Sevastyn dead, he couldn’t get up to much trouble on his own.”

  The viciousness in his tone is chilling—a reminder of the cold aspects of his personality the fatherly tendencies in him obscure so well.

  “Enough,” Milton scolds. “Let me tell you why I’m here. You remember when you told me about your problem?”

  “Irina,” Vadim hisses. “You’ve tracked her?”

  “Someone who goes by that name anyway, yes. You won’t like what I’ve learned, though,” he adds gruffly. “Especially where your daughter is concerned.”

  Vadim sucks in a breath, and I imagine his eyes taking on that cold, ruthless gleam I’ve wisely grown wary of. “Tell me.”

  “She’s a prominent player in the Circle. What’s left of it, anyway. You mentioned Sevastyn? Well, without him at its head, the trade’s been all but splintered,” Milton says, his voice wracked with utter loathing.

  And my stomach turns. Circle. Trade. Do they mean the horrific crimes Vadim suffered as a child? A slave trade.

  “Your Irina’s found herself scrambling for territory,” Milton continues. “Though, her come-up was relatively quick, to begin with. The bitch got her hands on a large sum of money in a fairly short timeframe a few years back. Now, she runs her own ring—not with children, but women. All unwilling, exploited, or sold, nonetheless. She trades them to the highest bidder and has made quite the name for herself, mainly using aliases, mind you, but my contacts are clever. I’m sure it’s her. She prefers to operate primarily under the name ‘The Madam.’”

  “Fils de pute! Son of a bitch,” Vadim snarls. A faint thud resonates throughout the house as if he slammed his fist against a firm surface like a table. Or the wall. “And she has the nerve to seek me out? To toy with me. I’ll kill her—”

  “You may not have to,” Milton suggests. “She’s made plenty of enemies for herself. Give me time, and I’m sure I can spin the right kind of trap. Hell, you might be able to sell her for a profit.”

  My heart stops. Given the man’s grim tone, something tells me that wasn’t a figurative statement.

  “Don’t joke,” Vadim counters, and I manage to breathe again. He sounds disgusted by the suggestion, at least. Or is that pure rage coloring his voice? “My only con
cern is Magdalene. I won’t let that bitch harm her—”

  “Neither will I,” Milton swears, his voice hard. “If you’re antsy, I was able to track down a lead on the orphanage she came from. Ask around, and you may find more information. The identity of who alerted you to her, at least… Because here is the part you really won’t like—two years ago, rumor is ‘The Madam’ was looking to traffic a little girl. Caused quite the stir if you can imagine. Her aim wasn’t the trade, mind you. Just the black-market adoption circuit—”

  “Like that makes it any fucking better!” Vadim’s voice breaks. He sounds horrified. Gutted. It takes everything I have—and the fact that I’m terrified to stand up—not to run down to him, eavesdropping be damned. “I was hoping the bitch had given her up out of…I don’t know, love? For Magdalene’s sake. How can a child face the fact that their own mother wanted to sell her like chattel?”

  “We did,” Milton says in a tone that makes me suspect he too has a traumatic past behind him. One comparable to Vadim’s. Or worse. “And we fucking survived, didn’t we? So will she. She has you. And if you want this information, maybe you can find out who did rescue her. And why.”

  He leaves the offer in the air, and by the time the two men return to the foyer, I’m not sure whether Vadim has accepted the information or not.

  As Milton leaves, I slither back toward the bedroom as quickly as I dare. I nearly make it to the bed when a set of heavy footsteps breaches the threshold, and a disapproving voice rings out, “Caught you.”

  “Damn it.” I risk glancing at him, my eyes bug-wide, my lower lip protruding. Somehow, it’s easy to suppress the horror of what I’ve heard. Too easy. Denial. “Please don’t punish me. Too hard. We can start with a spanking.”

  “Insolent witch.” He cracks a smile despite the concern twisting his features into a haggard, grim expression that tugs at my heart like nothing else. Crossing to me, he takes me into his arms but doesn’t set me down right away. His eyes stare into mine, demanding an answer to a question he doesn’t ask out loud just yet.