“Lucian. You have to hear me. Please!” Nothing. “I’m sorry.” She encircled his wrist with her fingers and tried to slow him. “I shouldn’t have gone, but I thought you’d forgotten about me. I thought you went back to your life and left me here. Lucian! Look at me!” Her voice cracked at the end. Not in fear for herself but in fear for him. She jammed her feet into the stone floor and yanked on her arm hard enough to cause pain to shoot through her shoulder. “Stop and look at me!”
She might as well have not bothered because he didn’t even acknowledge she’d spoken let alone stop moving. He threw open one of the many doors whizzing by and pulled her into a large window-less room before slamming the door so hard her ears rang. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t cry out. The sound escaped anyway when she saw the only thing within these craggy walls was a large standing structure. It was made of a smooth wood that looked aged and gray and was in the shape of an X. Goddamn shackles and chains were attached to the four ends.
A St. Andrew’s cross.
No, no, no. She didn’t want him to take her like this. She would accept him, probably enjoy the hell out of it, but she didn’t want to look into his eyes as she came apart and see no one staring back at her.
“Stop for a minute and talk to me,” she begged as he brought her across the room. “I want to know you’re aware of what you’re doing.” Rather than try to pull away this time, she did the opposite. She turned into him and grabbed his face. “Look at me. See me, damn you! Can’t you hear what I’m telling you? Can’t you see how I
feel
about you?”
He looked into her eyes and she allowed him to push her back against the structure. She didn’t struggle anymore. She didn’t cry out. She wasn’t tense and thinking of a way to escape. She was breathing hard as she gave in and allowed him to lift her arms. As their gaze held, something deep in her body thrummed, pulsing to life.
“Stay with me,” she whispered as the first shackle bit into her wrist. “I won’t leave you again. I’m sorry, Lucian. I thought you deserted me.” Her other wrist was secured.
“My men prevented my brother’s murderer from dying last night so that I can torture him for the rest of eternity.”
She swallowed the bile that flowed into her throat and wondered how she could have fallen in love with such an uncivilized kook. “I hope that helps you find some closure.” Shit. That was a stupid thing to say. She went on. “Markus would be devastated if he knew what his death was doing to you.”
He shook his head as if ridding himself of a thought he didn’t want. “I have him. And I will keep him.”
“How did you not kill him?”
He grabbed her jaw and pushed his mouth into her cheek. “I held onto an image of you wagging your tail for me.” He rubbed against her face. “Remembering you in that way brought me down every time. Now, I will play with him. Toy with him. Break him into pieces that will destroy his mind.”
The way he’s destroying yours.
“Let me help you,” she begged as he moved back. “Stop acting like I’m invisible and be with me right now. Feel something more than what that bastard has put in your heart.”
His hand slid down to clamp onto her throat. “You are so far from invisible to me, Yasmeen. Do you not see that yet? You fill my vision. My mind. You consume me to the point where nothing else matters but getting to you. Getting on you. In you. It haunts my every waking hour. And you tried to take yourself away from me.”
Even when he was thrilling the hell out of her, he had to go ruin it by bringing them back to being nothing but sexual partners. It was as if emotion didn’t live in him. Or if it did, he didn’t recognize it for what it was. But how could that be?
“I’m more than just a body,” she insisted as he secured a strap around her ribs below her breasts and another across her hips. “There’s more to me than holes to pleasure yourself in.”
What he said next killed her hope dead.
“I cannot see that.” His touch on her forehead was feather light. His fingers sifted through her hair and gently spread it out around her shoulders.
She searched his face and felt moisture slide down her cheeks.
“You are crying again,” he said, a warning heavy in his tone.
She looked away to hide her pain and felt more moisture fall.
“I cannot see that!” he thundered.
Her lids fluttered, terrified because the last time he’d shouted like that, he’d destroyed a dinner set. He went down and pulled her legs apart to fastened her ankles, then clicked a latch and effortlessly tipped the weighty X on an angle. Just enough so her feet were off the ground. He left her, slamming out the door, but returned almost immediately. His suit jacket was gone, and he was carrying a small knife.
She was dead. He’d lost it completely. “No, Lucian. Please…”
He carefully and meticulously cut her clothes from her body, locking stares with her as he sliced through her bra to allow her breasts to spring free. Due to a combination of the cold and his nearness, her nipples were peaked, her breasts tight. With a moan, he tossed the blade and got rid of the ruined fabric. He knelt on one knee and pressed his face against her inner thigh. He did nothing but rub into her chilled skin for a long minute as he murmured in Romanian. The gesture was affectionate and tender, and it didn’t fit with what was happening here. He stood. Her thong he snapped open at the sides and whipped away.
Then he left.
She didn’t call for him. She wouldn’t anymore. Because she knew she didn’t have to. He would return.
She pulled on her bindings so that the few links of chain rattled. Was this to be her punishment? He was going to leave her here in this dungeon, cowering in the dark until she froze to death?
She heard his footfalls fade away and didn’t move. She stared up at the exposed wood beams across the ceiling for who knew how long. Eventually, when she thought the pressure in her chest couldn’t get any worse, she heard him.
The door opened. “How are you feeling, Yasmeen? After one hour? Do you feel alone? Lonely?” He came next to her and slammed his hand on the wood above her head. The scent of his skin was a comfort. “
Abandoned?
”
She wasn’t sure why she spoke when it had been proven once and for all that he wouldn’t hear her, but she tried anyway. “I always feel abandoned, Lucian. Why do you think I take this from you?” Because even though it was obsessive and crazed, the fact that he wanted her like this was nirvana. Could this be how a man like Lucian displayed love?
“Now maybe you’ll understand what I felt when I returned to our sanctuary and found you gone.”
“I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry. But you can’t screw off like that without letting me know what’s happening. How could I know you would return? What if you left me for months?”
He walked out, and she heard a door open a long way down the corridor. He was back a few moments later, and she looked down when he placed something in front of her. Her stomach dropped to the floor when she saw what it was.
“Oh, no. Don’t you fucking dare,” she breathed.
The small stand was about four feet high. It had a broad base, a timer, and a black wand pointing straight up in the place of honor. She tried to jerk away when he pushed it forward to get the vibrator between her legs. She was barely able to move.
“You’re a cruel fucker.” She was horrified by what she knew he was about to do. At the same time, her body was blooming with a wet heat. Preparing. “Why are you doing this to me? Please help me to understand why it has to be like this.”
He didn’t answer but took the cord and flipped a small metal plate on the floor. He plugged the prongs in and turned to look up at her as he fixed the wand so the rubber head was pressed snug against her pussy. Directly under her clit.
“Can’t you see I’m trying to forgive you for what you’re doing? I’m defending these decisions you’re making, excusing your behavior. But I’m scared I won’t be able to do that for much longer. Don’t bring us there, you frustrating pain in my ass!” She screamed the last bit because he was staring at her breasts. She calmed herself and tried once more. “I want you; not the toy.”
Their eyes met, and the powerful Romanian holding her captive deliberately leaned over and extended his tongue to lick a long, slow circle around her clit. He sucked the knot of jumping nerves into his hot mouth with one deep, beautiful pull that shook her to the core. Then he released her, and the vibrator clicked on.
Yasmeen tried as hard as she could to hold off, but in less than a minute, the stimulation that burrowed straight into her pussy caused a powerful orgasm to rip through her. As she wailed, her body shaking, her muscles contracting, Lucian came up and kissed her mouth with a possession she tried to deny him but couldn’t because she was drowning in pleasure. He thrust his tongue in a slow and deliberate imitation of fucking that left her starved for him.
The sharp pinch of her nipples being bitten had her eyes springing wide. When he drew away, she looked down to see he’d placed two small clamps that were attached by a sparkling silver chain. Holy shit. He gave the chain a little tug which caused the final wave of her climax to beat the hell out of her.
“The timer is set for twenty minutes,
iubita mea
. If I come back to see you less than soaked with sweat and trembling uncontrollably, you’ll get another twenty.”
He walked out, leaving her to suffer through the pained pleasure of one forced climax after another.
♦ ♦ ♦
Yasmeen couldn’t have said which was worse, the releases themselves, or the fact that she was alone in them. She had nothing to concentrate on but the orgasm of the moment wracking her body, the letdown, then the rise of the next. The fact that they were empty, solitary, mechanically given was one thing. What was worse, was the fact that her body writhed and her hips tried to pump and her nipples ached and she moaned and moaned through each one, adoring it as much as she fucking hated it. Pleasure was pleasure, and she was feeling it. Was overloaded with it. Was slowly being killed by it.
Lifting her head that weighed five thousand pounds, she blinked the sweat from her eyes as another climax began to crest. She found the numbers ticking down on the timer. Four minutes left! How could she do another four minutes of this without her heart exploding?
Her body started its descent into heaven/hell, her core blooming as it greedily opened and dripped with juice, readying her for a fucking she wasn’t going to receive.
Her blurring gaze moved beyond the numbers when a movement at the door caught her eye. Her owner.
He paused, his attention focused solely on her as he leaned a shoulder into the jamb and crossed his arms. She panted, reaching for the end, needing it, craving it, and when it came, it was the most powerful one yet because he was here. As demented as it was, she was overjoyed by the fact that he’d come back to join her in the torture. And that increased the pleasure ten-fold, so much so that when she bore down, opening herself to this one completely, something broke inside her and she screamed his name. It was plaintive and desperate. It was raw and filled with the pain of knowing he didn’t want her for her.
Hearing it, Lucian was at her side in a blink, a low, soothing growl pumping from his throat. He yanked the cord from the floor and ripped open his pants. She was still climaxing when the wand was shoved away, and he entered her. He spoke his own language as he fucked her, the wet sound of the sex mingling with his deep voice. For long minutes he used her prone body, and she howled through it, furious because she couldn’t touch him, couldn’t wrap around him as she so desperately wanted to. What if this was the last chance she had? Because a last chance inevitably came for her. It always did.
He opened the clamps on her nipples and removed them, and the sensation of blood flowing back made her want to lose her fucking mind. She wanted to beg him to suck on her, but if he touched her, she’d probably kill him. “Goddamn you!” she cried hoarsely as her swollen pussy lovingly accepted its master, releasing for him yet again.
Her reality left her as the climax pulled her under.
She surfaced to the sound of him coming, that dark moan of his rolling out when he pushed to the root inside her and filled her with his ejaculate. Yes. God, yes. She did this. She brought him to the point where he lost that control, even if it was only his body. Pride and love glowed in her heart. It fucking glowed bright enough to burn.
As she attempted to recover, she weakly burrowed her face into his neck, kissing his hot skin, licking at him so she’d have more of him inside her. In her body, her mouth, her heart. That she knew would be his forever. As she would be. She sucked lightly, desperate to leave her mark on him the way he had on her. Would his behavior change if he knew she’d fallen in love with him? Would he soften toward her at all if he knew him and his invisible friends now lived in her heart?
His hands gripped her waist and followed the line of her body up until he was cupping her breasts and strumming her tender nipples with his thumbs.
“Never again, Yasmeen,” he said quietly.
She didn’t have to ask what he meant.
“You will not attempt to leave me again,” he specified anyway. “Do you understand?”
As her body melted into a shapeless heap of skin without bones, she silently lied to him for the first time by nodding.