Standing in that spotlight, blinded by it, but knowing that beyond there were men watching me, delighting in my humiliation, it caused a spear of shame to lance deep inside of me.
Virgin.
Now they all know I’m a virgin, not that it matters. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it still stings me with embarrassment. That’s supposed to be a private thing.
I’m not even sure how they found out.
Did they interview people at my high school? Pay off a gynecologist?
I shake my head, trying to push those concerns away as the giant metal gates start to creak open.
But then my mind just surges back to the moment Artem Elgort leapt from the balcony and into the light.
Standing there like a giant Russian bear, all seven foot of him pulsing with … with what?
Anger?
Hate?
Lust?
I almost laugh, the thought is so absurd. The only reason I was being auctioned is because I’m a virgin. I’m the ugly duckling compared to those other poor girls who were sold tonight. I’ve got lumps and bumps where they’ve only got sleek, shiny flesh. I’m the odd one out, like I’ve always been, the anomaly.
But when Artem strode over to me, his jaws tight and almost square, his eyes a penetrating oaken shade, his body pulsing with irrepressible tensed muscles, the fabric of his iron suit straining … when Artem approached me with his steel hair and a whisper of something in his eyes, for a second I thought I saw it.
Desire.
Then he took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, and I felt the thrumming inside of him, the vibrations of his body.
Ten million.
Why?
As we drive up to the house – more of a mansion, a Disney-style sprawling wonderland of a building, draped in moonlight – my mind does all kinds of flips to try and work out why he would buy me.
I never knew my parents, but now I’m starting to wonder if perhaps Artem did, in some way, and when he saw me there—he had to save me? The daughter of his old friends, now dead? The orphan left behind?
It’s a weak theory, but it makes way more sense than the idea that Artem Elgort, one of the most powerful men in the city, the world, richer than God and more handsome than Adonis, would want me for me.
It doesn’t matter anyway. He bought you. He’s just as bad as the others.
I try to hammer that into my mind as the garage door opens automatically, sliding from the grey Medieval rock of Artem’s estate, a piece of modern technology incongruously taking a chunk out of the building … and then sliding closed behind us as the overhead lights blink on, revealing a vast cavern filled with sports cars and jeeps and motorbikes.
As a girl who’s been poor her whole life – orphanages, brief stints on the street, a series of shattered hopes and dreams – the sight of all this wealth can’t help but make me draw in a gasping breath.
The driver glances in the rear view, a small smile on his face.
“Yes,” he says. “Mr. Elgort is a very wealthy man. A good man, too. You’re very lucky to be here.”
“A good man,” I repeat.
I almost add, “But a good man wouldn’t buy a person. A good man wouldn’t own a person. A good man wouldn’t be the boss of the Bratva.”
But I don’t, because if there’s one thing you learn in a life like mine, it’s how to survive.
And that’s what I intend to do.
At all costs.
The driver takes me to a room that is far nicer than I ever could’ve imagined. I had envisioned a cell similar to the ones the auctioneer kept us in at the club.
Bed, four walls, a roof, a toilet, nothing else.
But this is like a hotel suite.
There’s a four poster bed with dangling purple silk drapes, curtains, whatever the heck they’re called, and wide French windows overlooking the rear garden. In the moonlight I can make out the length of the garden, something that could be a fountain, water flickering.
There’s an ensuite that’s all sleek marble with a waterfall shower and heated flooring. The closets are already full of clothes, in assorted sizes, and I’m no fashionista, but even I recognize the brand names.
The driver leaves me and – click – locks the door behind him.
I go to it, testing the handle.
The door rattles in the frame, but it stays locked.
I’m on the third floor. Sheer drops all around.
Perhaps I could survive the fall, but then what? I limp my way to the wall, hop over that, and then limp my way past the spotlights and the guards?
I sigh and walk over to the bed, sitting down, tempted to just lie back on the silk and let it eat me up.
I’ve never felt comfort like this mattress, the way it seems to massage my thighs.
But I don’t fall back. I stay sitting, telling myself that this is wrong, I’m a prisoner, I need to get out, get out now.
My mind keeps returning to the moment Artem draped his jacket over me, the warmth of the material, still hot from his body. I close my eyes and see myself turning to him, staring up into his eyes, and telling him I want him, want him right now.
My sex tingles and my nipples get hard and hot.
I imagine putting my hand on him and rubbing his manhood through his pants, and in my fantasy I know exactly what I’m doing, exactly how to please a man even if my experience level is a big fat zero.
My traitor mind keeps on, filling me with searing desire, as I imagine Artem’s mouth wide open around my sex.
His tongue attacking me.
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m a prisoner.
I open my eyes at the knock on my door, heavy and confident.
Immediately, I know it’s Artem.
It’s the way he knocks.
A man in charge.
“Yes?” I say, surprised at how small my voice sounds.
“It’s me,” Artem rumbles. “Can I come in?”
I laugh grimly. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
I bite down a moment later, stunned at the sassiness in my voice, wondering where the heck that came from.
Artem Elgort is the leader of the Bratva, a man who could have me killed in the most gruesome way with the snap of his fingers, and I’m going to sass him?
He opens the door and strides in, still wearing his sleek suit, looking eerie and handsome in the light from the lamps. They glow fire like.
He stalks across the room until he’s standing over me. I stand up instinctively, feeling the heat emanating from him. His intense brown eyes seem to flare. I wish I could read him. What is he thinking right now?
He seems angry, his jaws taut, everything in him tense like he could snap any moment.
“I want you to spend the next few days getting comfortable here,” he says, voice a deep growl.
“And after that?” I whisper, sassiness deflating.
“After …” A smirk toys with his lips. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes, Anna. But get comfortable, make yourself at home. I want you to think of this as your home, if you can.”
“A home is a place you can leave,” I say quietly, heart pounding, a voice inside screaming at me to shut up before this man loses his patience and makes me pay. “A place you come back to after a long day. If I can’t leave, it’s not a home. It’s a—”
“But you can leave,” he says.
“What?” I mutter, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“You can walk up to any of my guards at any time and ask them to take you back to the city,” he says. “I hope you don’t choose to do that, but the choice is there.”
“Are you joking?”
He just stares.
“Woah, okay, I guess you don’t make a lot of jokes, then, judging by that reaction?”
That same almost smirk.
He stares.
Then he says, “Do you have any interests, a hobby to keep you busy?”
“I like cooking,” I say, mind
spinning about a million miles per hour. I can hardly believe that this is happening right now. “I love it, in fact. But I’ve never had much opportunity to pursue it, but—well, it doesn’t matter.”
My dreams don’t matter.
“We have four kitchens here,” he says. “Make use of them whenever you like. Or leave. But Anna, I have to tell you, if you left me …”
He just stares, jaws getting tighter. There’s something in his eyes I can’t quite read, something that skirts the line between violence and … and what?
I don’t know.
And that’s the problem.
If you left me, I would hunt you down and torture you in the most grotesque way you can imagine. I’d make you scream until the second I mercifully ended your life.
A chill moves through me as I stare up at this man, my body pricked in a cold layer of sweat.
Intellectually, I know that this man is a criminal, that he purchased me, that he could kill me any time he wanted.
But he’s telling me I’m free to go.
Is it a trick?
Is he testing me?
Maybe if I walked up to one of his guards and asked to leave, they'd smile cruelly and take out their gun and point it at my head.
“Mr. Elgort knew you were a traitor slut,” he’d say, and then pull the trigger.
Bang.
Lights out.
That’s the end of my story.
“Anna?” he growls. “Are you staying, or are you going?”
“This place is nice,” I say tactfully. “It’s beautiful, in fact. But I’m … if I stay …”
Words fail me.
He moves even closer. His chest is pressed almost right up against my face now. For a crazy second I think I can hear his heart pounding out of his stony pectorals.
“If you stay, what am I going to do to you?” he says, reading me better than I can read him, clearly.
I nod, words failing me now.
I find I’ve wrapped my arms around myself and that I’m biting my lip as nerves dance through me sharply.
That same near smirk glides across his mouth as he steps back.
“Just make yourself comfortable,” he says. “We’ll discuss all of that … later. I’d do it now.”
Do what now?
“But tonight has not been good for business. There is a man, Emilio, and he … Anyway, I’ll see you soon, Anna, very soon.”
He turns and stalks out of the room, closing the door behind him.
I stare.
I can’t believe it.
I can leave.
He’s not going to hurt me.
What the heck just happened?
CHAPTER THREE
Anna
It takes me almost a full day to summon up the courage to approach a guard and ask to leave. I spend the morning mostly in my bedroom, taking a long shower, letting the waterfall shower surge hot over my body.
I wrap myself in the plush silk bathrobe and sit at the French windows, looking over the grounds as the early-September sun rises over them.
I was right about the fountain. It’s a huge thing, the sort of fountain you’d expect to see at a Russian duke’s palace, and further back the grounds stretch on for what seems like miles.
I spot tennis courts, what looks like an outdoor sauna, a running track.
I have to keep reminding myself that luxuries don’t make up for the fact that I was kidnapped – not by Artem, but still – and sold.
He bought me, for fuck’s sake, and that’s just something that reasonable, civilized people don’t do.
And yet as I go to the closet and look for something comfortable to wear for the day, I feel warmth moving through me.
It doesn’t help that last night, I dreamt of Artem.
In the blurry surreal shades of the dream, I imagined Artem grabbing me and shoving me back onto the bed last night. I saw the muscular Bratva boss strip off his shirt and his jacket, revealing his muscular flesh, revealing his pectorals that press against his skin trying to break free.
I saw him lean over me, his breath painting me warmly, and then felt the tickling sensation of his hand sliding up my thigh, further, deeper, wetter …
And then I woke with a gasp, cursing myself for the dream, and also cursing myself for having to wake up and ruin it.
Confusion dances through me, making it difficult to think clearly.
But the guard.
I finally get up the courage around dinnertime, my belly rumbling with lack of food, my body screaming at me to use the well-appointed kitchen I passed on my way out to the front of the house.
I keep expecting somebody to stop me as I walk the grounds, but the guards don’t pay me any attention.
They just let me wander.
Eventually, I walk into the path of a patrolling man in a black suit, an ear piece dangling from his ear.
He is tall and wide, but standing next to Artem he’d look wiry and scared.
Which is bad.
Not that he’d look small compared to Artem. Most people would. No, it’s bad that I’m already at the stage where I’m automatically comparing the men I meet with Artem.
He. Bought. Me.
Why can’t I get that into my head and make it mean something? Why can’t I care?
“Excuse me,” I say, trying to make my voice sound sure and strong.
The man turns, eyebrow cocked, but says nothing.
“I’d like to …”
I lick my lips.
“I’d like to go home now, please.”
He nods. “Sure. Do you have an address?”
I think about giving him the address to the orphanage, watching him for any sign that this is a trick, that any second the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath me and I’ll discover I’ve been standing over a nest of vipers this entire time.
What are his orders?
I imagine Artem sitting by candlelight, his face severe as he tells his men, “If she says she wants to go, ask for an address. Make her believe that we’re really going to let her go. And then drive her into the middle of nowhere and kill her. Do what you want with her before that, but kill her, and bury her deep. Make sure nobody ever finds her.”
But why? Why even give me hope in that case?
“Ma’am?” he says. “Your address?”
I lick my too dry lips, thinking about giving him the address of the orphanage, but I’m not sure I can really call that my home. I never fit in there.
I never fit it anywhere, that’s the truth.
“Would you really take me home?” I ask.
The man frowns. “Yes,” he says. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s what Mr. Elgort has ordered and – well – I shouldn’t say this, but he’s not …”
He shakes his head.
“What?” I urge.
He’s not what?
“No,” he says, suddenly back to business. “If you want to go home, we’ll take you. If not, please, enjoy your time here.”
Part of me screams to order him to take me back to the city, but the sad truth is that there’s nothing there for me.
So instead I turn around and stride into the house, walking through the hallways with their massive ceilings that seem to make my footsteps echo three times as loud, past watching paintings, a suit of armor, the stone staircase. This house is an interesting mixture of modern and medieval, like a time traveler’s lair.
I walk into the kitchen, staring in wonder at it, the obsidian island in the middle, the stove built right into another obsidian counter. The oven opens from a sleek, hidden drawer. The knobs appearing when you need them via a button. I explore all of it, my heart thudding like a song of victory.
All my life, I’ve dreamed of being able to use a kitchen like this. I don’t know what it says about me that, despite the fact I’ve never even had the chance to pursue it properly, my biggest passion is cooking.
But it is, and I can’t change that.
>
The small kitchen at the orphanage, a few classes in high school, those are what have sustained me through the years.
But this?
This is something else entirely.
I find the giant refrigerator well stocked and set about making myself an omelet, enjoying the simple pleasures of cutting with an ultra-sharp knife, of sitting at the table overlooking the vast garden and closing my eyes to savor the taste of the food. I even enjoy washing the dishes afterward, using the jet-washer to blast them clean.
Then I turn to find Artem watching me from the doorway, his arms folded, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. I wonder if he ever actually smiles, or if he’s incapable, if in his criminal world smiling is simply not allowed.
“Having fun?” he asks.
“Sorry,” I mutter, instinct making me servile, worried that I’ve overstepped the mark even if he said I’m specifically allowed to use the kitchens.
“Sorry?” he says, stalking forward in his sleek suit, dark blue today. He stands close and closes his eyes, inhaling. “Incredible.”
“The food? I doubt there’s any smell left, to be honest, after all the washing.”
He opens his eyes and stares, making me think, for a silly second, that he’s going to lash his hands out and wrap them around me, squeezing onto my hips and then my ass. I can feel his hands squeezing me, massaging me, before lifting me up and placing me on the kitchen island. Then pushing me so that I’m lying on my back and his manhood is there, grinding against me, rubbing until he’s hard and I’m soaked and—
What the heck is the matter with me?
“I never said it was the food,” he growls.
What, then? What the heck is it?
Even closer, and now he’s standing so close to me that if he wanted he could lean down and press his lips against mine. Not that he’d want to do that, of course, but he could, right now …
And then his cell phone buzzes from his jacket pocket and he lets out an annoyed sigh.
“Not tonight, it seems,” he snarls. “You see, Anna, people think the life of a boss is all leisure and enjoyment. People think all you have to do is sit back and let your empire run itself. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. The life of a boss is work, work, and more fucking work—if you want your empire to stay standing longer than a day.”
Sold To The Bratva Boss: An Instalove Older Man Younger Woman Possessive Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 193) Page 2