Torrid

by Nikki Sloane

  He moved so fast, it wasn’t until the sharp pain of his fingers dug into my waist that it registered he was touching me. He was right in my face. His eyes were dark and furious, and all I could see. They threatened to incinerate me. “I. Don’t. Believe. You.”

  I gasped from the pain. Usually I liked it when he was rough, but this was different. It wasn’t sexual. He wasn’t doing it to bring on pleasure. This was pure, raw anger. Punishment.

  “Please, just listen. We can help each other. I want to kill him,” I bit out. “But I don’t know how to and not end up dead.”

  He picked me up and flung me down on the bed, so hard my teeth snapped together and I cried out. I scrambled backward on the mattress, and—

  Oh, God. He stomped to the dresser, yanked the drawer open so hard it went off the slides, and withdrew his gun. “And what the fuck do you think I’m going to do now that I know you’re—” he visibly struggled to get it out, “—a fucking Petrov?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the most honest answer I had. “My father deserves to die, and maybe I do, too, but not Konstantine. My father sent me here to plant listening devices, knowing you’d kill me if I got caught. His own fucking daughter. I’m nothing to him. An expendable pawn, just like those men at the warehouse.” I spoke even and measured for emphasis. “Just like Ivan.”

  At the mention of the man who’d murdered Addison’s family, the barrel of the gun came up, and I died a little. He pointed the gun at me like I was a stranger. That wasn’t fair. Perhaps he thought everything I’d said was a lie, and now I was a stranger.

  “Please, wait a minute,” I pleaded. “Konstantine saved my life. He was the one who pulled Ilia Volkov off me.”

  The name pinged recognition, and it wasn’t surprising. Ilia was sure to have been on the Serbians’ watch list. “Jesus Christ! You killed Volkov? They said it was an accident.”

  “No, it was me, and I’d do it again. But Konstantine . . . He convinced our father that what I’d done was justified. I’m still alive because of him, so, please.” Under the steady aim of the gun, I climbed onto my knees. “Please. You can’t kill him.” I shook so hard, it was a miracle I didn’t come apart. “You can kill me instead,” I whispered, “as long as you take my father out first.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about what you want.”

  Like the first night I’d come here, it was too hard to look at him, and I tore my gaze away. I blinked back the burning sensation in my eyes while I stared at the sheets beneath me. The only sound was my labored breathing and the roaring pulse in my ears.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “Some goddamn answers,” he barked. “The night at the warehouse . . . Tell me how you knew I’d pick you.”

  I swallowed so hard it was audible. I was about to sign someone’s death warrant. “If you didn’t, Aleksandar would have.”

  A slew of Serbian came out of his mouth, and without understanding the words, it was so sharp and laced with anger, I felt little barbs cutting my flesh. In my peripheral vision, I sensed the movement. Vasilije had taken a step closer, bringing his gun closer to my head.

  “He was in on it?”

  “My father used Aleksandar’s gambling debt as leverage.”

  “Motherfucker!” More Serbian rolled from him. More imaginary barbs sliced into my skin, leaving me exposed and raw. All my planning had led up to this moment, and as I felt Vasilije slipping away, I realized how fucking stupid I’d been. I should have just killed my father when I had the chance. I was going to die anyway, but at least that way I would have had my revenge.

  “You weren’t scared last time I held a gun on you,” he snarled.

  I closed my eyes. “Because you might actually use it tonight.”

  “You’re goddamn right. Look at me.”

  I flinched at the cold metal when he pressed it against my temple, and forced myself to drag my gaze up his body. When our eyes met, I couldn’t hold back the cry of anguish. I wasn’t so much sad for myself as I was for the loss of what we had. It was so fucked up.

  His tone mocked me. “Why are you crying when you told me you don’t have feelings? Or was it just another lie?”

  “Almost everything was real. I am the daughter of an opera singer from Kazan. I killed a man who put his hands on me when I didn’t want him to, and after it, I wrote the dark song I’ve only played for you.”

  The barrel traced a line down the side of my face, skimming along my neck. My skin felt warm and irritated in its wake.

  My voice threatened to fail, but I kept going. “You’ve done what I want to. My father’s evil. When I told him what Ilia was doing to me, he didn’t believe me. Or maybe he didn’t care to. Either way, his indifference was betrayal. It was worse than Ilia’s touch. Sergey Petrov could die a hundred times and I’m still not sure it’d be enough.”

  Vasilije kept his gaze on mine as the gun’s path carved lower. It crossed over my collarbone, moving deliberately to the skin covering my heart.

  “You’re the only person who knows what I want,” I said. “Who really knows me.”

  The barrel pressed uncomfortably against my heavy chest. It forced the words from me.

  “You’re the only guy I’ve been with.” I gulped down a breath. “The only man I’ve let inside my body, and inside my head.”

  His eyes flared with perverse lust, and the tip of the gun shifted course. It followed the edge of the lacy bra, kissing my trembling skin and dipping down between my breasts. The air swirled around us, charged with sex and danger. It flowed like a current, bringing on unwanted waves of tingling across my flesh, and causing me to break out in goosebumps.

  My nipples tightened into knots. A muscle clenched low in my belly as he continued to drag the hard steel down the center of my stomach. His pupils dilated and his breathing picked up. Holding this kind of power over me was probably the ultimate turn-on for him, just as it was for the submissive side of me. It was sick, but we were sick together.

  “You’re the only one,” I said, “allowed to touch me.”

  As if he needed validation, his free hand shot out and snaked behind my neck. He tugged me on my knees closer to the edge of the bed and pressed the gun between my legs. The cold seeped in through the lace, but the contact was both painful and pleasurable on my heated skin.

  His gaze went to my mouth and watched as my lips fell open. For a moment, he seemed to consider kissing me, but drew back as he thought better of it. “I’m not going to kiss your lying fucking mouth.”

  The gun moved, and the slide massaged my swollen clit, drawing a soft moan. His broad shoulders lifted in a deep breath, and he didn’t stop me as I laced my fingers together behind his neck and set my forehead against his.

  “You want to punish me?” I should have felt weak, but instead I found strength. “Go ahead, Vasilije. I’m yours. I’m your motherfucking property. You can do whatever you want.”

  31

  Vasilije

  My head was a fucking disaster. Rage boiled in my veins, and the need to punch something was overwhelming. Alek was working with the Russians, and Oksana had betrayed me. I was almost as mad at myself as I was at her. I should have seen this coming. The more beautiful the woman, the more likely she was to fuck you over.

  And wearing that expensive lingerie I’d bought her, and the whore-colored red lipstick, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I hated her. Goddamn her for twisting me up like this.

  I thrust the gun, grinding the top of it against her pussy, and she shuddered. She wanted me to punish her? I’d do it, all right. She needed to feel the way she made me feel.

  I’d lost control once. I’d reacted impulsively and taken a life, and swore I wouldn’t again. Death wasn’t something to be decided spur of the moment. But it was still touch-and-go for me now on whether Oksana should live. She said she wanted my help taking down Sergey Petrov, but she’d also said he was her father and had sent her here. It reeked of a setup.

  My
father’s words haunted my mind. Was it already too late for me?

  Her hands slipped down from my neck and fisted my t-shirt when I stroked the gun between her legs. She moved in time with it, fucking the gun in my hand. I didn’t want it to, but it got me hard.

  “Whatever I want,” I repeated.

  She nodded, distracted by the sensation the weapon was giving her, and whimpered when I pulled all the way back, leaving her quivering.

  “Downstairs. At the piano. Now.”

  Like the obedient pet she pretended to be, she climbed off the bed and followed my order. When she was gone from the room and her footsteps creaked down the stairs, I raked a hand through my hair, not sure what to do. I felt like I should kill her, but I didn’t want to. The knee-jerk reaction went away as quick as I’d had it, and all I was left with was stinging anger.

  Even if I wanted to believe her, I sure as shit couldn’t trust her anymore.

  And I needed to. She knew secrets about me no one else did.

  I scanned the room, searching for options, and when my gaze landed on the black plastic bag on my nightstand, I went for it. She claimed loyalty to me, but she was going to have to prove it.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, I glanced down and hesitated.

  She sat at the piano like a statue, her back stiff and her fingers waiting on the keys. Bright moonlight poured from windows, casting a silver glow. Her white skin against all the black lingerie was fucking gorgeous. Picture perfect, but I was too pissed to get out my phone. The image would probably stick in my memory forever anyway.

  As I walked across the hardwood toward her, she swiveled just enough to look at me. She sighed softly when she saw I didn’t have my gun anymore, but eyed the bag I held in a fist with a hint of anxiety. Good. She should get used to feeling uncomfortable.

  I dropped the bag and it thudded loudly on the floor, making her flinch, and I strode into the kitchen. What I needed was in the bottom cabinet, closest to the basement door. The roll of black duct tape was practically new.

  Her anxiety ratcheted up, and her eyes went wide with fear when she saw it.

  “Whatever I want,” I reminded in a hiss. “Stand up.”

  I ignored how she was trembling, tore a strip off, and plunked the roll down on the piano keys. The noisy, unsettling sound echoed under the ceiling. Her heels clicked frantically and she stumbled when I pulled her around to the other side of the bench. I wanted her behind it, facing the piano, and I put a hand on her back, shoving her forward.

  “Down,” I growled. “Knees on the floor.”

  Oksana took in huge gulps of breath, but did as told. She knelt behind the black lacquered bench, and tucked a lock of her hair behind an ear, probably too nervous to know what to do.

  “Lean over and grab the legs.” I guided her to set her chest against the flat of the wood, and watched her hands curl around the uprights. The piano was my mother’s, and I didn’t want to damage it, so I knelt beside her and wrapped the strip of tape with the sticky side out around both her wrist and the piano bench leg. I fumbled for the roll of tape and tore off another strip. This one I used to cover the sticky part.

  “Vasilije, I—” she whispered as I worked to do her other wrist with the same technique.

  “Shut the fuck up.” I didn’t want to hear a goddamn thing from her right now.

  When I finished, I looked at my work and a surge of lust hit me. I was depraved. The Russian girl kneeling over the bench and bound to it was shuddering, and it got worse when I trailed my fingertips over the length of her spine. Her lies had left me feeling weak, but the control I had now settled the emotions churning inside.

  It helped me focus on a goal.

  Her head hung down and the curtain of her hair draped to the floor. I had total access to her body, and she had to be expecting me to start taking my anger out on her ass any second. But she’d be wrong. I jerked the back of her panties down, exposing her nakedness, and jammed two fingers inside her pussy.

  “Oh,” she groaned. Didn’t sound like she’d enjoyed what I’d done, but I didn’t fucking care. I didn’t do it for her benefit.

  “I want you wet, so I can shove my cock inside you, you lying cunt.”

  She gasped at my brutal words, but her body tightened on my fingers. I pumped them in and out, watching them grow slicker with each deep thrust. The muscles flexed in her back as she tried to move her arms. Did she hate being tied up? Completely at my mercy? Or did the girl like it?

  I did.

  I yanked my fingers out of her, undid my jeans, and dug out my nearly hard dick. My brain was still beyond pissed, but I needed my body to get on board. I spat in my hand and stroked myself. Liar or spy, the whore was still my property.

  Wasn’t she a whore? Fucking me only because she needed something?

  I moved behind her and urged her knees apart. They slid easily across the wood because of the sexy thigh-highs I’d bought her. I held my dick steady and ran the tip along her seam, half expecting her to tell me to stop, and not sure I would if she did.

  Instead, she sighed.

  I gave her all of my dick in one cruel thrust. She gasped and made a choked sound, but said nothing. I delivered another vicious thrust, stabbing into her tight heat, and tried not to lose focus.

  For the first time, I was fucking with the goal of not getting the girl off. Oksana needed to feel as used as I did, and I established a brutal tempo, driving my body deep inside her. I let the anger at her betrayal fuel me.

  She groaned when I clenched a handful of hair at the top of her head and jerked her back so she was staring at the ceiling. I was savage with her. I braced my other hand on her hip while I fucked her, and the slap of my body hitting hers was as loud as it was whenever I spanked her.

  She grunted. It sounded like pain mixed with pleasure.

  I let go of her hair and tore my shirt up over my head. I was on goddamn fire, consumed with rage. “Tell me to stop,” I challenged.

  She stayed silent.

  I knew a way to get her to back down. I snatched up the plastic bag, stuck a hand inside, and grabbed the bottle of lube. I dumped two pumps’-worth in between her cheeks and, as she tensed, a joyless grin spread across my face.

  “Tell me to stop,” I goaded.

  Her silence was infuriating, but it made me harder. I flexed inside her, strangling back the need to fuck her until my cum dripped out of her pussy. I moved my hand onto a cheek, my thumb seeking the spot between that she’d ruled off limits.

  “If you don’t say anything, you’re gonna get a thumb in your ass.”

  Her chest was heaving, and her body ricocheted with the impact of my punishing thrusts, but no words came from her. Not in English or Russian. I pushed the pad of my thumb down, burying the finger inside.

  “Oh,” she cried, and sucked in breath through clenched teeth.

  Fuck me, it was hot. It was wrong and dirty, but I couldn’t stop. I’d push her until she made me stop. Oksana was stubborn, but so was I, and she’d be the one to break first. “Say you want to stop.” My tone dared her to do it. “Say it, or I’ll give you another finger.”

  Her voice was clipped. “Do it.”

  “Yeah? God, you’re filthy. What a filthy, fucking slut you are.”

  I had no idea if her reaction was to my words, or the way I retracted my thumb and began to work my first two fingers inside her virgin ass. It was so tight, and I could feel the fingers moving against my cock as I fucked her. The sensation was amazing.

  “Oh, my God,” she whined.

  I jerked to a stop, throbbing inside her pussy, and pulled myself together. I’d gotten right to the edge and needed to back off. I pulled out my fingers and slapped her ass, making her yelp. “You better tell me to stop, or I’m going to fuck this ass.”

  She jerked against the tape, and the bench squealed an inch across the floor. “Nyet.”

  “Da.” I knew the Russian word for ‘no,’ just as I knew the one for ‘yes.’ I pulled o
ut of her, sat back on my haunches, and gave her a matching red handprint on her other cheek. “You tell me no in English.”

  Her legs shook as she knelt over the bench, and her hands squeezed the uprights so tightly, her knuckles were white. Her muscles were tense, and her back rose and fell with hurried, uneven pants. “Do whatever you want,” she said. “I’m yours.”

  “If you say so,” I patronized.

  32

  I silenced the sirens in my head that said I was too fucked up and about to go past the point of no return. I squeezed some more lube in my hand and slicked it over my pulsing dick.

  Oksana’s skin was soft and warm against my legs as I came back to her. I fisted my cock and used my other hand to hold her open, and lined up where I wanted to go. My gaze darted from her, to my dick, and back again, waiting for her to announce I’d called her bluff.

  But she didn’t. I pressed against her, and—

  “Oh, shit! Slow!” she cried. The head of my cock was just seated inside her.

  Slow is not the same as stop, my dick relayed to my brain. I spanked her. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do.”

  Her body’s grip was so strong, my vision blurred. When she swallowed a huge breath, I pushed deeper.

  Inch by slow inch, she took me inside.

  The sensation was different. New and dirty. I owned her completely now, and liked that I hadn’t shared the experience with anyone else but her. Fuck me, it felt so good. I dragged my hand over her back, caressing her skin as she grew to tolerate where my dick was.

  I swore every cuss word I knew in Serbian, and then repeated it in English so she’d understand. I drew my hips back, and slowly pressed forward. She made a noise I hadn’t heard before and didn’t understand. It could have been pain or pleasure.

  “Do you like it?” I asked, expecting her to lie.

  Her voice was strained. “No.”

  “That’s too bad. I like it.” I eased my hips back and forth, sliding my cock into the tight ring of her asshole. “You don’t like being used? Now you know how I feel.”