Submit Page 9

  I can’t trust. However, with this man standing so close to the only shit I’ve ever worked for, I can’t afford not to.

  He drags me closer to him as my legs shake and my knees knock together. His arm goes around my shoulders, pinning me to his side—not for support.

  “I…” My voice is a rasp. He has to lean closer just to hear me, his lips like ice on the side of my throat.

  “Say it.”

  “I believe you. You won’t hurt them.”

  “And?”

  I inhale a ragged breath. “Only me.”

  Satisfied, he turns back to the car, and I climb woodenly inside, fastening my seat belt this time.

  The tears still fall as he pulls away and returns to the high-rise. From fear or pain?

  I can’t tell.

  He doesn’t carry me this time. I’m left to limp up the stairs behind him, and he’s already in the suite when I finally catch up.

  “Get some rest,” he tells me, his eyes between my legs, tracking the blood dripping down them. He closes the door behind me, watching as I cling to the wall in order to pass him. “I know now,” he says as I start down the hall.

  I look back and find him rubbing his jaw with the pad of his thumb. “I know now what gets you off. Masochism.” He frowns like it’s a dirty word.

  One that I don’t know the meaning of.

  Sighing, he tells me, “It’s the pain you enjoy.”

  He turns away before I can tell if that annoys him or not.

  Honestly, I’m not even sure which answer I’d want to find anyway.

  A knock on the door wakes me before the sky has turned gray around the edges. I haul myself upright, clinging to the nearest support for balance: the bathroom door. Once I’m on my feet, I blink, slowly bringing the rest of the room into focus. The bed is across from me, the blankets rumpled but still mostly intact.

  I didn’t sleep on it.

  I didn’t sleep at all.

  In a daze, I head for the closet and find the clothing Lucius gave me hanging inside it. I pull on a dress at random, too exhausted to examine it. Day? Evening? It’s white, I think, with a lacy collar. Once I peel the black dress off my body, I fold it and leave it on the floor, unsure of where else to put it.

  When I stagger into the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror this time. Really look.

  What a pathetic bitch.

  She watches me with bloodshot eyes, her hair a mess, her bottom lip bloody and swollen. She’s so damn pale. Her pretty fucking dress can’t hide the bruises on her arms. Or the cuts. The blood.

  But the injuries aren’t the worst part by far. Her greedy fingers seek them out, rubbing the open sores, chasing every bit of clarity like an addict with a high. Pathetic.

  I turn away from her and attempt to wipe myself clean. When I drag a washcloth between my legs, I can’t silence a gasp. A groan. A scream. He broke me. It’s not even an understatement: I feel like a goddamn virgin again. A virgin who took a sledgehammer first.

  Biting any noise back, I wash myself the best I can, and the rag comes away bloody. I set it down and rinse my hands in the sink. I don’t know why, but I sit on the edge of the bed afterward, waiting, rather than leave the room on my own. His footsteps return not long after, stalking a lazy path to my door. He tests the handle first, almost as if he expects to find it locked.

  “Kotyonok?” The door opens without resistance and Maxim steps in.

  My entire body reacts to his presence; I sit straighter, my gaze honed in on every inch of his bulky frame. He’s wearing gray today, slacks with a long-sleeved shirt. His eyes drift over in my direction, but rather than command me to change, he jerks his head toward the end of the hall.

  “Come.”

  I trail him into the kitchen, where he makes breakfast, the same way he did dinner, pulling the ingredients from another brown paper bag. Eggs. Bacon. Herbs. He works silently for a few minutes before seeming to remember I’m here. When he looks back at me, he’s still holding a frying pan.

  “Set the table, kotyonok.”

  He cleaned the dining room, or someone else did for him. It’s pristine again, every piece of glass swept from the floor. There’s even a new plate to replace the broken one, and I set it in front of Maxim’s chair, placing a fork and spoon on either side.

  My fingers twitch in and out of fists as I stand in the corner and wait. Almost an hour later, he renters the dining room to place a pan of eggs and a tray of bacon onto the far end of the table. The moment he directs his gaze at me, I jump forward, ready to pile the food onto his plate.

  When he beckons me to sit, it isn’t on the table this time. He nods to the chair beside him and draws it closer once I obey, his hand gripping the sliver of cushion right between my legs.

  “Today is your last day with me,” he tells me before starting in on his eggs. He stabs a chunk with his fork and raises it toward me. “Open.”

  I pry my jaw apart to accept the food he shoves onto my tongue. My stomach growls: I’m hungry. I’m starving. The food goes down before I can even taste it. Silently, he offers me more. A piece of bacon. A bite of biscuit. All of it eaten directly from his hand.

  “Have you had enough?” he asks when he finally sets his fork down.

  When I nod, his eyes flash darker.

  “Do not lie.” He lifts the plate and holds it out to me. “Get more.”

  My fingers shake as I add another pile of eggs and a few more strips of bacon to the plate. This time, he feeds me all of it, commanding me to open on cue and demanding with his eyes for me to swallow. Obeying him is like rewiring the nerves in my body so that they no longer take their cues from my brain. Only from him.

  He stands when I choke down the last bite and gathers the dishes himself. The next few seconds pass while I watch him wash the plate in the sink and then carefully dry each utensil before putting them away. He wipes his hands after he’s done and directs his gaze toward my feet.

  “Go put on some shoes.”

  I scramble toward the bedroom, sensing him on my heels. The moment I open the closet, he’s behind me, observing which shoes my hands brush over. He makes a low sound in his throat when I thumb a pair of gray flats, so my fingers jump to a pair of black heels instead. Nothing—a sign I take as silent permission. I rush to pull them on, surprised when he lowers his hand to help me back to my feet.

  “I will not fuck you tonight,” he announces as the nail of his thumb lightly brushes my palm. “So you can stop clenching your thighs together whenever I look at you.”

  My cheeks heat up as if the observation were a slap. I look down. He’s right: My knees are kissing, my legs shaking. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Sorry?” His mouth takes on a different shape than the stern line I’m used to: a slant. The next second, he drops down on one knee.

  Fear rockets through my veins as both of his hands go to the skirt of my dress, winding it up to my waist, revealing the pink cotton underwear I stole from Melanie.

  “Hold,” he commands, and my fingers race to keep the wad of fabric in place.

  I can only stare while he reaches into his pocket and pulls his knife out. The blade hisses as it springs free, stabbing at the air.

  “Don’t move,” Maxim warns as he brings the edge of it against my inner thigh, right below my entrance.

  A whine trickles out of me as the blade edge kisses my flesh, slicing a single line no longer than a fingernail. I still feel it bleeding, drop by drop.

  “Now you have something to apologize for,” he tells me as he tucks the blade into his pocket and stands. “Or you will if you get so much as a drop of blood on that dress.” He lets the threat hang there while motioning for me to lower the skirt. Then he jerks his chin. “Come.”

  I follow him back into the hall, squeezing my thighs together with every step. The skirt of the dress swishes out, away from my legs—but he cut me too deep. Blood drips down.

  “This way,
kotyonok.” His voice leads me into the sculpture room. The one of the woman is gone, replaced by another block of stone: a darker-colored gray this time. After grabbing a smaller chisel and a hammer from the selection on the wall, Maxim sets to work, hammering the shit out of it while I watch.

  Within minutes, I can see why he wanted me to wear shoes. Bits of stone and dust go flying, coating the floor. I back myself into a corner, just watching him. I scan the rest of his body before my brain can register what a bad decision it is to take my attention off the weapons in his hand. His shirt ripples beneath the repetitive motion of chiseling. It starts to bunch up around his waist, revealing a sliver of something that isn’t skin: black fabric. An undershirt? Maybe.

  But, when he lunges into another blow, the cotton shirt shifts. I can make out the ridge of something along his abdomen, like the top of one of those girdle belts Melanie uses when she likes to pretend she didn’t pop out seven children. Going off the muscle shaping the rest of his body, I don’t think he’s hiding a beer gut.

  I drift my gaze back to his hands and let myself become hypnotized by the way he hacks away at the hunk of stone. With anger. With rage. For hours and hours and hours.

  In the process, he makes something beautiful: a face, delicately roughed out in the middle of the shapeless chunk. Just like that, he’s beaten life out of nothing with only strips of metal and his goddamn fists.

  Am I impressed?

  Horrified?

  I don’t know as he finally turns to face me, wiping his hands on a rag snatched from the table along the wall.

  “Come here.” He reaches out when I’m close enough, kissing my cheek with the pad of each finger. The bite of a probing nail erases any gentleness from the gesture. My heart starts to race, even before he nods toward the wall. “Turn around.”

  I do, feeling his eyes scan the back of my skirt, hunting for blood. I’m holding my breath.

  “Lucius gave me the results of your testing last night,” he says. “You are clean.”

  That should be a good thing. Especially considering what he did with his mouth last night. But, once again, I get the feeling that he isn’t happy. Just irritated. Confused. I’m beginning to realize that a puzzled Maxim is a very dangerous thing.

  He clenches his jaw and seems to chew over the words he wants to say. “Most women in your position are not.”

  I flinch at the thought of it: him fucking and sucking a million different women, infected with god knows what.

  He laughs as if seeing the thought cross my brain the moment I think it. “I know what precautions to take. A man with my tastes cannot be choosy.” The laughter dies off. “But you are young,” he adds, frowning. “You are clean. There are other men who could pay regularly for sex should you know where to look. You haven’t.”

  He pauses as if waiting for an answer, but I don’t know which one to give.

  Maybe that I’ve been there, done that. No amount of money is worth my pride—or so I used to tell myself.

  “I’ve had women prettier than you come to me before,” he says. “With tighter cunts than yours. Women who suck cock better than you could dream.” He drags his thumb across my cheek in a gentle caress. “I’ve fucked them harder than I have you. I enjoyed them more. None of them lasted the week.” He takes a step forward, urging my head back so that I meet his gaze directly. “You will not last the week. Get on your knees.”

  I sink without breaking eye contact, obeying the command he doesn’t issue out loud. Look at me. One of his hands fists itself in my hair, holding my head in place, while the other tackles the clasp of his pants.

  My heart slams against my rib cage as I crouch in a layer of dust while he pulls out his cock, already hardening, and aims it toward my mouth like a bullseye. I open. He rams in, deepthroating me without warning this time.

  I choke. I gag. I breathe in through my nose and suffer through it. He groans with every inch he claims—but I’m too sore. Too raw. He can’t fit himself in all the way, only getting half of his length in my mouth at one time. He finishes anyway, grunting out.

  It’s only when I feel the first spurt of cum hit the back of my throat that I realize he didn’t bother with the condom this time. My throat clenches up on instinct, trying to spit him—it—out.

  His hand comes from nowhere, the fingers pinching my nose shut, his voice a husky, hollow rasp. “Swallow it.” He thrusts again. Another hot burst floods my mouth, threatening to spill from my lips if I don’t take it down. “All of it. You lose a drop and you will be punished.”

  The tone of his voice chills me to the core. So I gulp, gagging with him still in my mouth, fighting to swallow everything he gives me. All of it. His fingers tighten with every attempt, his breaths fanning my forehead. “That’s it. Fuck, take it.”

  He thrusts so hard that I see black, and my throat woodenly jerks to accept the final load he has to give. He doesn’t make me savor the taste at least, but I know better than to let myself throw up when he finally wrenches himself out.

  I hit the floor on all fours, breathing in. In. In. In. My stomach lurches, pissed off and full. It’s something I’ve never done. Ever. Something dribbles down my chin and I swipe at it in a panic. Drool.

  “That was just a taste,” Maxim says above me. “The next time I fuck you, you will clean me of every drop.”

  My body jumps at the mention of fucking. I can’t move. I just watch his shadow flicker on the wall as he steps over me and heads for the door.

  “I want you gone after midnight, if I don’t return before then.” He cocks his head for one last glance at me. His eyes settle over my hips and narrow. “In fact, I will return,” he adds, “to administer your punishment.”

  I follow his gaze to the front of my dress and feel my heart sink to the pit of my stomach. A tiny pinprick of red has seeped through the fabric, but I don’t move, even after he leaves. I just lie here, counting my heartbeat. Too fast. Too slow. Faster.

  The room’s dark by the time I finally decide to run. Escape. I go back to the bedroom first, even though I don’t plan on taking the suitcase. I just stare at it, Melanie’s shit in a place she would love. Would it bother her, having her brains fucked out every night?

  Probably not. It wasn’t like she had much left anyway.

  I back myself into the hallway, closing the door behind me, and take a step toward the entryway. My only way out. Freedom.

  But something makes me turn, and I follow the hallway deeper into the suite, taking the path Maxim’s footsteps do whenever he storms away after leaving me half conscious and bloodied on the bed. They lead me to a closed door the very end of the hallway. My fingers shake as they grip the knob and twist it open.

  I see black. Everything, from the walls to the floors, is the same shade. So is the massive bed placed against one wall. The pillows, the sheets. The lamp shades. The wardrobe in the corner. The doors leading off to either the closet or the bathroom.

  All of it is black, with no ounce of color other than the silvery glow of the light bulbs.

  I thought my room was creepy with its closet of borrowed clothing. But it, at least, seemed lived in, even if for only days at a time by numerous people.

  This room is a crypt. It has that heavy, stale air the show floors in furniture stores do: completely untouched. Unlived in. My house has more signs of Melanie than this room does of Maxim. The man isn’t just fucking insane. He’s a goddamn ghost.

  I can’t reach the front door fast enough. My fingers pry at the handle, wrenching it open. Then slamming it shut.

  Stay.

  Go.

  Run.

  My head aches as it tries to process several different options at once. He knows where I live. He already threatened my family once. The fear that has grown since the moment he first ordered me down to my knees spills over. It rides a single thought I don’t want to face: He’ll kill me.

  And I need the money. Money. Money. Money.

  Rent is a black hole I am only now beg
inning to climb out of. One month here could give me enough money to scrape my way out of debt for good—or long enough to breathe. Think. Do something other than fuck, cheat, and steal to get by. This money could give me hope.

  Most of his women lasted only a week, but I need a month. One fucking month.

  You need to leave, a part of me urges. But it seems to know the same thing I do.

  I can’t, and he finds me there an hour before his deadline, still standing in front of the door.

  Chapter 9

  “You’ve made up your mind,” he says coldly, his gaze sweeping me over from head to toe. “If you continue to ignore my generosity”—he steps over the threshold, leaving the door open behind him as his hand cups the side of my face—“I will no longer extend it. Leave.”

  He gestures to the open door with a wave of his hand and even steps aside to let me pass.

  I don’t move. “I need the money.” It hurts to say it, worse than any thrust he could ever inflict on my throat or my pussy. Knowing how pathetic I am hurts. It’s the only kind of pain I’d rather suppress than feel.

  “Fair enough.” He reaches back to close the door behind him and steps in farther, cutting into my personal space. He smells funny: like spice. Like food. He must have eaten somewhere else.

  My stomach grumbles.

  He laughs. “Hungry, are you?” His hand leaves my chin, goes to my throat. “My seed wasn’t enough to satisfy that greedy little mouth?” He cradles my windpipe, still brushing my jaw with the pad of his thumb. “Let me discover for myself just how greedy the rest of your body can be.”

  He steers me back. Back into the living room, shoving me onto a firm surface. The couch. I tense while he nudges my legs apart with his knee before his hands claw at the front of the dress.

  He rips it up. Off. I wait, panting and half-naked, while his eyes trace out a small path up and down the length of me. Down my throat. Between my breasts. Over my stomach.

  “Lie back for me,” he commands.

  His body is stone against mine, crushing me against the leather. His lips trace the line of my throat and then part slowly enough for me to feel his teeth nip at my flesh before they sink in.