by Skye Warren
I can count on his determination to find a way.
“Upstairs,” he says as soon as we walk in the door.
It’s blazing daylight outside, but in his house it’s like we’re down in the basement. The windows are tightly sealed, shutters and blinds and curtains locking out the cheery sun. The only light comes from overhead, recessed lighting that leads the way to my room.
My room. I slept here for a year before I convinced Ivan to let me dance at the club and could afford my own place, such as it was. And in that year I never put up a picture, never painted a wall. Never did anything that would mark the bare walls as my own.
I stand in the center of the room, waiting.
He stops at the door, his eyes hard and glittering like diamonds. “No.”
I raise my eyebrows. “No?”
He nods toward the stairs. Keep going. The third floor.
The place he never let me go.
My heart beats faster at the realization that he might tear that wall down.
I take a step toward the door. “Your room?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t seem pleased about it. No, he seems furious. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To sleep in my bed and suck on my cock.”
I flinch at the crude words. It is what I wanted, but he makes it sound dirty. No, he makes it sound sinful. And it is a sin. That’s all I’m made of, sin after sin, sewn together with a string of desire.
“Move,” he says shortly, and I know he’s going to make this as painful as possible.
I climb the stairs with trembling legs, clinging to the railing so I don’t trip and fall. He’s right behind me. I know he’d catch me. He’d drag me up to the room if he had to.
At the landing, I don’t know which way to go. “At the end,” he says, nodding to the right.
The room is massive, but it’s only fitting, considering the bed. There’s a heavy-looking dresser. Other than that, it’s sparse. Kind of like my room one floor down.
“Strip,” he says.
I face him, understanding dawning. This is his punishment for running away. He’s going to give me exactly what I’ve always wanted—sex with him. I wanted that because then he’d be treating me like a woman. Like an equal. Only, he’s not going to do it like that. He’s going to do it painful and cruel. He’s going to make it hurt.
My hands can barely work the button on my jeans, and I shove them down. There’s no grace now. He’s seen me dance onstage. He knows what I look like, practiced, seductive. He’s never seen me like this, falling apart. I’ve never felt like this. Even the first time I met him, afraid and alone, I had determination. I had hope. Now I don’t even have that.
You’re going to disappear from the side of the road tonight, and no one will ever find you.
I take off my tank top and drop it to the floor. Now I’m completely naked.
And he has all his clothes on. I want him to take them off, but I know he won’t. He doesn’t ever. And besides, that wouldn’t make it a punishment.
“Ivan,” I whisper.
“On the bed.”
My eyelids fall shut and push the gathering tears down my cheeks. “Ivan.”
“No?” he asks. A hand clamps onto my wrist, pulling me across the room. “All right then. The dresser. Bend over.”
I don’t really have a choice, the way he throws me against it. I catch myself on my palms. The sound of a zipper comes from behind me, and I look over my shoulder. I can’t see anything, but I can feel it. God, he’s already lined up against me.
I’m just repeating his name now, a plea and a prayer. “Ivan. Ivan, please.”
I brace myself for the pain, but then he’s gone. His fingers press against my pussy, almost as blunt and far more rough. They slide along my folds, feeling my slickness.
He chuckles. “Do you want this, little one? Your body says yes.”
I’ve never done this. I’m a virgin. Please don’t hurt me.
The words catch in my throat. His fingers are on my clit, rubbing me from behind. I groan and rock my hips into his touch. It’s the only relief I feel, the only relief I’ve ever felt. He fondles roughly, which only seems to drive me higher. My legs are like jelly. The only things holding me up are my hands on the dresser and his fingers on my clit.
I don’t think he knows I’ve never done this, not with how rough he’s being. He must think I gave it up sometime in the club or at one of the parties. His fingers are too fast, too hard, and I’m on the brink of orgasm, hovering on the razor’s edge. He takes his hand away, and the loss is a physical pain, sharp and cold.
“This is what you wanted,” he says. “You think I didn’t know the way you looked at me? Fuck, you looked at me like that the first fucking night I met you, and you didn’t even know what it meant.”
He pushes the head of his cock against my slickness. Oh God.
The memories come back to me. I slept in the same room as my mother, on a mat on the floor. The room was connected to Leader Allen’s. He would wake her in the middle of the night, bring her to his room. The door was open. I could hear everything. And sometimes, when I crawled across the floor, see everything.
Kneel, he would tell her. And she would get on her knees beside the bed and pray. When she was done, when she had begged forgiveness, he would lift her up enough so her body was half on the bed. Then he would pull up his robes and—
A sharp pain presses me open, and I gasp. It hurts too much to speak, hurts too much to cry. My body is rejecting him, pushing him out—and losing the fight. I hold on to the dresser like my life depends on it, but it won’t matter. I’m being split apart. I can’t imagine I’ll survive it, but at least when I die, it will be over. It feels like my whole body is impaled.
Rough hands grab my hips, thick fingers bruising flesh. Another push and he’s farther in. God, how is there more? A sob finally escapes me.
“Ivan.”
“You’re so fucking tight,” he says between clenched teeth. “How the fuck are you so tight?”
My inner muscles clench and release, fighting his entrance every step of the way. I couldn’t relax them even if I wanted to. The burn is too much, the stretch is too wide. I pant against the dresser, my hands clasped together, praying for it to end.
“I’ve never—” My breath is coming too fast. Blackness is closing in. It’s like in the basement, except his hands aren’t around my throat. No, this time his cock is pushing inside my pussy—and it’s even worse. I can’t breathe, can hardly speak. “Never done this before.”
He freezes.
A long minute passes where the only thing I can feel is the throb of his cock, and the only thing I can see is black. I’m still conscious—barely. I’m panting, struggling to keep breathing, to stay here with him. To experience this thing I’ve wanted for so long, even if it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
“What did you say?” His voice sounds far away again, but strangely controlled. Completely unlike how he sounded two minutes ago, his fury uncontained.
In a painful wrench, he removes himself—it somehow hurts worse than it did going in, the salt of him stinging the tears in my skin. Without his hands or his cock, I collapse on the ground, leaning against the dresser. My hands are covering my sex, protective, though they do nothing to take away the pain.
A hand fists in my hair and pulls. I’m facing him, looking up at him while he looms over me. He’s still wearing his suit, his cock hard and jutting out. It’s an angry red from arousal, tinged glossy and pink with my blood. And it’s terrifying. It would have scared me if I had seen it anytime, but now that I know how much it can hurt, I’m even more scared.
He gives me a little shake by my hair. “What did you say?”
My throat feels raw, as if I’ve been screaming even though I haven’t. “I’m a virgin,” I whisper.
Or at least I used to be.
Chapter Sixteen
I always thought it was a little ironic, my virginity. My so-called virtue. I sho
uld have been keeping it safe to save my immortal soul, but the truth is I assume I’ve already lost any chance at heaven. I’m far from innocent regardless of what has or hasn’t been inside my pussy. I’ve given men lap dances, seen their come stain their pants as they explode. I’ve even fooled around with guys at parties, flirted and almost fucked.
Ivan’s expression is more angry than incredulous. “How the fuck is that possible?”
I manage a watery laugh, my voice somehow wry through my tears. “I’m a cock tease, Ivan. I thought you knew that about me.”
His hands curl into fists. “What the fuck were you saving yourself for? For marriage? For love?”
He sounds almost more disgusted by the idea of love than he is by marriage. “Maybe.”
The truth is I was saving myself for him, but I can’t deny his words. I did want him to love me, to marry me, even while I understood how impossible that was. I have a long history of wanting the impossible. I wanted Ivan to love me, even though he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word. He’s made of ice. I wanted to feel powerful with my body, even though most of the men who come through our doors would hold me down and fuck me if they got the chance.
And most of all, I wanted to be free from my past, free from Harmony Hills and its scriptures. Now that someone is leaving Bible verses at the Grand, I know I will never be free. Not only from a man, but from the teachings I thought I’d left behind.
“It’s too late now,” he says, his tone indecipherable.
I look down between my legs, where my hands are still cupped protectively. Too late. “Yes.”
His hand fists his cock, stroking once, twice. “I hope you don’t think I’m going to take it easy on you because of this.”
Fear tightens my throat as I watch him. “It hurt too much. It’s too big.”
“Not too big. Your body was designed to take men. To take me. Now get on the bed.”
I scramble to the bed, skirting him as far as I can, as if his cock might reach out and impale me while I’m not looking.
I’m sore between my legs. It was only a dull throb when I sat on the floor, but when I move, it’s so much worse, fire licking me from inside. It wasn’t just precum from his body that stung my cuts and tears. It’s my own wetness too, because I can’t deny how he makes me feel. Even when I’m hurting, when I’m dying from the pain of him stretching me, breaking me, I want him.
That’s how we are together—depraved and beautiful.
I scramble beneath the covers, hiding my body, the cool sheets a thin barrier.
He studies me, his expression softening a fraction. But if I thought it would make him gentle, I’d be wrong. He grasps the corner of the sheet and pulls. It slinks to the ground, leaving me bare. Cool air washes over me.
One large hand circles my ankle. That’s the only warning I have before he pulls me toward him. Then I’m sprawled on the bed, legs open to his view. “I didn’t prepare you before,” he says, and it’s the closest he will ever come to an apology.
Then he bends his head, and I gasp. “What—”
My voice is choked off when his lips find my clit, a gentle kiss. Pleasure arcs through me, and I twist my body. “No, wait,” I tell him. “Wait.”
He lifts his head only slightly, raising one eyebrow. I can read his expression. He has no intention of stopping because I want him to, but he’s curious about what I’m going to say. I’m curious too, because I don’t even know. I can’t even think. My brain shorted out the second his mouth touched my sex.
“I’m—I’m bleeding,” I tell him. There’s blood on his cock, and it’s mine.
Amusement flits over his face. “You think because there’s blood on your pussy, I can’t lick you?”
“Yes,” I whisper. A flush makes my face hot to hear him say the words, to even think about him tasting me—tasting my arousal, tasting my blood.
His expression hardens. “It’s mine, Candy. Your blood, your body. Your virginity. You belong to me now. You don’t get to tell me no. And if you think I’m not going to fuck you, or lick you, or do anything I damn well please because of a little blood, then you have a lot to learn, little one.”
Then his head dips again, and it’s like electricity zings from the base of my sex up to the top of my clit. He presses his tongue against my hole, soothing the place that he hurt, making it burn even more.
The soft fabric of his suit whispers against the insides of my thighs. Rough fingers play with my folds before they hold me open for his assault. His tongue is wet and hot and knowledgeable as it flicks me, using just the right rhythm. My hips rock up to meet him. Unforgiving hands press my thighs down, forcing me flat on the bed.
He focuses on my clit, merciless as he lashes me again and again.
I clutch the sheets and twist my upper body, my legs held down by him. The orgasm hits me like a tidal wave, pushing me under and stealing my breath. I can’t even cry out, can’t beg or scream. I can only jerk my body against the bonds of his hands as the orgasm drags on and on. My lungs burn from lack of air. Even then he doesn’t let up, his tongue dipping into my hole, drinking the juices I make for him.
Only when he pulls back can I finally suck in air—and let it out on a pitiful wail.
My defenses are broken, battered. He tore them down with single-minded intent, and now what’s left of me? I want him to do it again. More than that, I want him to be naked while he does it. I want him to be as vulnerable as I am, as open to me as I am to him.
Clumsy hands push at his suit jacket. “Take it off,” I say brokenly. “Take it—”
Gray eyes narrow. “Stop, Candace.”
He hitches the head of his cock against my pussy. My whole body goes tense, knowing exactly how much it will hurt. “No. Don’t. Please.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take it off.” I’m begging, pleading. I don’t really want him to stop. Even if he splits me in two pieces, I want him to do it. I just want him to be naked when he does it. Naked with me. Intimate. “At least the suit jacket. Please.”
He tenses up, clearly angry. “Stop asking for that. You won’t like what happens.”
That again. “You don’t know what I like,” I cry. “You don’t.”
I think that’s a lie. We both know it. The way he just played my body, his tongue against my clit, proves he knows exactly what I like. The way I came, so hard my body almost broke under the strain, proves it too.
He laughs, an almost metallic sound. “You want me to take my clothes off.”
My voice is shaky. “Yes.”
“You want me to strip for you?”
“Yes.” Stronger now.
A knowing expression lights his pale eyes as his hands go to his lapels. He looks dangerous like this, almost insane with it. It makes me scared for what I’ll see underneath. I never thought his clothes were anything more than a wall between us. I never even realized they might be armor, the same way ruffles and glitter have been for me.
He takes off the jacket in rough, careless movements. It drops to the floor in a whisper of expensive fabric. The shirt comes next, one button at a time. His eyes never leave mine. There’s challenge in them. He expects me to balk. But why?
When all the buttons are undone, he opens each cuff. Then he shrugs off the shirt.
It joins the jacket on the floor, but I can’t focus on that. Not with his chest bared to me.
Not with the scars.
They steal my breath away. There are too many scars to count, a patchwork quilt of pain. A lifetime of war and abuse. Some of the girls at the Grand came from rough backgrounds. Some of the customers too. So I recognize the small, circular marks as cigarette burns. They are old and faded and poignant. Crisscrossing them are slashes—knife wounds? Not straight enough for that. Maybe the torn edge of a beer can. Or the jagged blade of a broken bottle.
He hasn’t stopped moving under my perusal. He takes off his belt buckle and pushes down his pants, then his boxer briefs, too proud to flinch when I
see what’s underneath. I flinch though, and let out a sound of pure, undiluted horror.
The scars don’t stop at his waist. They continue down, over lean hips and muscular thighs. Cuts and burns and dark, disfigured patches where I don’t even know what happened. It’s such a contrast to his smooth, cultured appearance in his bespoke suits that my mind can’t really comprehend what I’m seeing. This is more than fistfights. More even than the gun and knife warfare of criminals. This is torture. Long-term torture from many years ago.
When he could have only been a child.
My eyes fill with tears. “Oh God, Ivan.”
“No,” he says roughly. “You wanted to see this. A monster fucking you.”
“Daddy—”
He covers my mouth with his hand, cutting off my plea.
Then his cock is pushing into me, spearing me slowly but inexorably. My muscles flutter and clench against the invasion. It hurts just as much the second time—more, somehow. I feel my eyes go wide and then fill with tears. My body jerks against his weight, fighting him, completely involuntary as I push him away.
I don’t mean to fight though. As much as it hurts. As much as it burns. I wouldn’t say a single word to stop him from doing this. Not after seeing what pain he’s endured. This can never be worse than that.
His hand remains over my mouth as he presses in to the hilt. The black hair at his base feels foreign against my bare pussy, scratchy against oversensitized skin. I’m dizzy with being this full, almost light-headed. I think his hand is blocking some of my air too, and I have to move. I don’t mean to fight him, but my body does it for me, jerking against him, trying to squirm away and buck him off. I fight his hand too, pulling at it, trying to get more air. No matter how much I struggle, it doesn’t work. He’s too strong like this. Too determined. Too cruel.
A monster fucking you.
That’s what he called himself, a monster. And that’s how he seems. Not because of the scars I can see moving over me in a blur. Because of the light in his eyes, the one that says he’ll make this hurt. It’s a promise he makes, a promise he keeps as he pulls back and then plunges in again. There’s no time to adjust to his size; he just starts fucking me. Pounding me. The pain overwhelms me, and I feel tears stream down the sides of my face, shockingly cool against the heat of my body.