He’s waited so long to do it. Minutes, hours. Years. He could have come inside me and been done. That’s not what monsters do. He’ll make this last for just as long he wants it to. I could be held underneath him for eternity, feeling his cock spear into me, rubbing me raw.
His expression is torn, somehow both despairing and smug. I must seem like some kind of sacrificial lamb to him, a sacrifice on the altar of his wickedness.
It’s how I feel as the pain consumes me, threatening to tear down my sanity. I think I might really be losing it. My sanity, my consciousness. I almost wish I could black out, so I wouldn’t have to feel this. He could fuck my limp body until the end of time, and I wouldn’t feel a thing.
The bed rolls with every thrust. The scent of our combined musk fills the air, along with the metal of my blood. It feels like I’m adrift on an angry ocean, and he’s the storm bearing down on me. He batters me without a care for how I’m ripped apart and torn.
He closes his eyes against whatever he sees in my eyes, focused on his own pleasure now. He’s in his own world, fucking me, using me, drenching his cock with me again and again.
His breathing is harsh, surrounding me. I listen to him breathe in and out, the sound pained. Tortured. Does this hurt him, fucking me forever? Or is he always hurting, the caress of my inner flesh a temporary reprieve from a lifetime of suffering?
His eyes fly open, and I see in them so many things—possession and hunger, anger and fear. He shouts into the huge room, and it echoes off the walls. He jerks roughly, losing his rhythm. Then again.
Then he stills, pushing and pulsing against my hips, his whole body trembling.
He stares into my eyes the entire time, letting me see everything inside him, a vortex that sucks me in deep. His cock flexes as he bathes my sex with warm come. It stings the newly stretched skin, and I flinch as we both hold ourselves rigid and locked.
The second the last pulse of his cock ends, he wrenches his entire body away from me, pushing off the bed.
It’s strange to breathe easy after being constrained for so long. Strange to have nothing on top of me, between my legs. I can’t move, though. I’m collapsed on the bed, just wreckage left behind.
His hand is shaking as he runs it over his face.
He gives me one last look. Full of accusations. And longing?
Then he stalks from the room, leaving me behind in a puddle of my own arousal and blood.
Chapter Seventeen
I wake up back in my bedroom to the sound of knocking. I only vaguely remember leaving his room and wandering through the third floor. There were so many of them. I actually got lost again, confused about which floor I was on—expecting to circle back to where I started only to discover new rooms. Ivan was nowhere to be seen, so when I found my bedroom again, I took a shower, fingers careful against tender skin, and then climbed into bed.
Voices drift up the stairs, and I force myself to sit. The room spins for only a few minutes, and then I gingerly place my bare feet on the cool wood floor. I find my clothes in the dresser, along with some new things I know I didn’t buy—a pink dress with a white pinafore. I finger the silky-smooth fabric, a strange pang of longing in my chest. He must have ordered Luca or someone else to get my clothes from my apartment. That means I won’t be returning for a while—probably never.
I’m limping by the time I make it down the stairs. Ivan fucked me with the intent of hurting me, and he succeeded. Through the open door, Blue’s low voice confers with Ivan, while Lola shoots questions at them both. Why didn’t you call me when you found her? Was she okay? She might have needed me.
Bless her.
Somehow she took it into her head that we were friends, years ago. She started caring about me, and then I couldn’t help but care back. I tried to be like Ivan, cold and ruthless. At sixteen, cast out and alone, it had seemed like a romantic ideal I could try to reach.
Try and fail, anyway.
I care about Lola. I care about the rest of the girls. I even care about the Grand, which is a building.
And most of all I care about Ivan.
Luca is standing in the hallway a few feet away from the entryway. A respectful distance, but one where he can still hear everything. He watches me approach in silence, taking in my limp.
“What a good guard dog,” I purr when I get close.
His eyes are hooded. “Did he hurt you?”
He already knows the answer to that. “Why, are you going to defend my honor?”
That earns me a dire look before he stares straight ahead.
The room falls silent as I step into the doorway. I straighten, hoping to hide my soreness. Ivan’s gaze finds me first, snapping to me as if he knew I’d been there. He looks like he usually does, rough but well crafted, his tailored suit caressing his powerful body. I would never have imagined those scars underneath, such a smooth veneer covering a rough underground. It mirrors the flash bang of Tanglewood itself, covering up a gritty underworld. Ivan stares at me, and I stare back—both of us reeling, I think, from what we did last night. What we shared. I gave him my virginity and he gave me honesty, but I think his gift was greater.
Lola breaks the silence, rushing across the room and flinging her arms around me. “Oh my God, we were so worried about you. Ivan called us when you went missing.”