Murderous doesn’t even begin to explain the atmosphere as soon as we leave the Pakhan’s office.
Adrian doesn’t say a word during the entire ride, but he doesn’t have to. Not that it’s surprising. He’s the type who lets his anger build, the type who’d hand out pain to prove a point.
The type who makes you fall into his proximity and forces you into marriage, then tells his bosses that you mean nothing.
I don’t know which part sliced me open the most. His coercion or how he talked about me in front of his higher-ups.
The silence in the car is suffocating, feeding off my boiling rage and Adrian’s simmering ire.
Kolya and Yan are also quiet, not daring to look behind them.
It feels like forever until Adrian’s second-in-command slows to a halt outside of a large metal gate that opens with a loud creak. Soon after, we’re going down a long, endless driveway and then stop in front of a mansion.
It’s grandiose, larger than life, dark and cold. Just like its owner.
So this is my new gilded cage.
I used to at least have some semblance of control in my apartment, but now, Adrian has stopped pretending or making an effort for my sake. His caring attitude and the soft ways he treated me were only a façade, a preparation phase so he could get me here.
In his monster cave.
Adrian steps out before the car properly stops. I flinch at the sound of the door slamming from his side, despite arming myself with anger all the way here, despite my new resolve to ruin his life as he destroyed mine.
When he opens my door and I attempt to grab my crutch, he pulls me out in one firm yank. I try resisting him, but he throws me over his shoulder like some Neanderthal and barges inside the house. My large veil falls down his back and skims the ground. Blood rushes to my head from the position and the humiliation of being seen this way by all of his damn guards who followed us from the church.
I don’t even get to focus on my surroundings as he eats the distance in large steps as if he’s on a mission.
Twisting, I bang on his back. “Let me go!”
He doesn’t respond, not when I dig my nails into his jacket, and not even when I bite and squirm. It’s like he doesn’t feel my hits, as if they’re the rebellion of a toddler.
“Let me down!” I scream.
His hand comes down hard on my ass and I yelp as the slap echoes in the air. But my muscles don’t lock up until his sharp words pierce through my chest. “You screwed yourself over tonight, Lia, so it’ll be wise to shut the fuck up. You don’t want to test me right now.”
I go limp in his hold, and it’s not only due to his threat.
If I want to come out of this marriage unscathed—or as unscathed as possible—I need to be smart when dealing with him and pick my battles.
Adrian’s anger doesn’t seem to lessen, even after I stop struggling. If anything, his strides widen as he carries me down the hall and kicks the door of a room open, then slams it.
He places me down on the bed, and if I’m not imagining things, I’d say he was gentle so as not to hurt my leg. But of course I’m imagining things. Adrian’s caring side is merely a damn illusion that he uses for his own favor as he pleases.
What’s the use of thinking about it, when he stained my entire life with today’s wedding and everything that followed?
The pregnancy is the only thing that I don’t mourn, because I felt—and continue to feel—an instant connection with my baby. However, Adrian is far from being the model father or husband. He’s just using the child and the marriage to crush me under his thumb.
He yanks his jacket free and throws it behind him, then unbuttons his shirt, revealing his taut, muscular chest and his rippling, cut abdomen.
I look away from him because I refuse to get caught up in his physical beauty, in how attracted I actually am to him.
All of those feelings are hormonal and physical reactions. They mean nothing.
I lean on my hands on the bed, carefully maneuvering my dress and my cast on the mattress so that I’m sitting with both legs stretched out in front of me. He can show me his worst tonight, but I’ll separate my body from my mind and my heart. It’s time I wake up and see Adrian for what he truly is—an unfeeling monster.
He removes his belt and loops it around his strong hand, and when he speaks, his voice is laced with a subtle threat, “What did I tell you before we went into Sergei’s office?”
I lift my chin and purse my lips.
He steps closer, or more like, he stalks, similar to a large cat with a black soul. “What did I say, Lia?”
“I wasn’t going to let you talk about me as if I were an object and stay quiet about it. I might have lost my dream, but I haven’t lost my pride and self-worth. I won’t allow you or your stupid bosses to humiliate me.”
“Wrong answer.”
He reaches for me and I flinch back out of pure survival instinct. Everything in me tells me to escape this man, to stay as far away from him as possible. But wherever I go, he’s standing there like a permanent shadow. It’s been like this since the first time I saw him kill a man in cold blood.
Adrian wraps both hands around my waist and flips me, forcing me to lie flat on my stomach with my head on the pillow. He rips the zipper down my back and yanks the dress away, letting the white silk pool by the bed. Since it has a built-in bra, I’m in only my panties and my veil that’s now draped by my side.
When Adrian sits next to my good leg, I stare out of the corner of my eye to find him looping the wide leather around his hand a few more times. The sight liquefies my insides, both in utter fear and maddening anticipation.
“You seem to have forgotten how things go, Lia. But I’ll be happy to whip it out of you until you learn your place.”
“And what am I? Your mute wife? The wife you forced into marrying you?”
“Keep telling yourself lies if you think it’ll help you cope better, but you and I both know you want this. You want to be mine to fuck and punish, to own and deprave.”
“I never agreed to anything when comes to you, Adrian. You’ve coerced me into everything since the beginning.”
His jaw tightens and a shadow darkens his face. “Coerced you? Did I coerce you into waiting for me every night or coming undone around my cock or tongue or fingers? Did I coerce you into craving the lash of my hand or belt? You’re practically shivering in anticipation, Lia, so don’t you fucking dare say I coerced you. If anything, I freed your sexual fantasies. You know it, I know it, and your shrink would know it, too, if you weren’t ashamed to admit it.”
“So now you think of yourself as my savior?”
“I never claimed to be. What I am, however, is your husband and you are mine.”
“I’ll never be yours. Not willingly.”
Adrian grabs my hair and veil, tugging my head back in a merciless grip. “You are mine, Lia. In fact, you always were, so it’s best you admit it.”
“No.”
His hot, threatening breath tickles the side of my face. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”
“No.”
“Lia…you really don’t want to anger me more than I already am.”
“You’ll whip me, anyway, so do it and leave me alone.”
“Oh, I won’t leave you alone. Not unless you fully admit you’re mine.”
“Never.” I hold his fast-darkening gaze with my determined one. It may not be wise to provoke him, but that’s not my aim. I’m only protecting myself so he won’t take the small parts I still own. If I give them up, he’ll stomp all over them and me, then toss me aside to die in a locked room.
“Very well. It seems you’re in a hurry to start your punishment.” Adrian lets my head fall on the pillow and runs the tip of his belt down my naked back. I shiver as my body’s memory of him kicks into gear.
If there’s anything I can’t deny about my fucked-up relationship with him, it’s definitely the physical connection. We have more chemistry than I could ever imagine, and I hate that right now. I hate that he has this hold on me or how much I crave his touch after weeks of being starved.
I hate that I miss his callous handling of my body.
I hate that I love our difference in size and how easily he can overpower me, throw me down, and own me.
His hand bunches around my panties and he rips them off. I gasp as the ruined material brushes against my folds before he throws it away. It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, how many destroyed pairs of panties I have. It doesn’t get old and he never fails to turn me on.
“When I order you to do something, you don’t think about it, you don’t try to defy me, you fucking do it. Is that clear?” His words are as calm as the up and down motions of his belt on the hollow of my back and the curve of my ass.
“Then you should’ve gotten a toy, not me.”
A swish echoes in the air before the belt comes down on my ass. I cry out as the burn settles on my skin and zaps straight to my core. It’s been a long time since he took his belt to me or touched me sexually, and my body—that has been revolting against the lack of stimulation for weeks—is now resurrecting from the ashes like a phoenix.
“Don’t talk back to me.”
“I won’t let you break me,” I manage between strangled pants. “If you wanted an obedient pet, you should’ve gotten a different wife.”
My self-worth is the last thing I have, and I will fight till death before I let Adrian take that away, too.
“You are my wife, Mrs. Volkov, and I will whip and fuck that fact into your body until you act like it.”
Swish. Slap.
Swish. Slap.
I gasp, my lips trembling at the ferocity behind the hits. He really is out to punish me and isn’t pulling any punches. But the most embarrassing part is that I don’t only feel the hit on my ass. It’s simmering under my skin and sending pulses to my aching core.
“You will not talk back, whether in front of me or anyone else in the brotherhood.” Slap. “You’ll keep your thoughts to yourself.” Slap. “You will not go against me in public again.”
Slap!
I’m sobbing by the end of his words, my voice hoarse, my heart hammering so loud, I’m scared it’ll spill on the mattress and leave me vacant once and for all.
“Is that clear, Lia?”
“Yes…yes…” I’m telling him what he wants to hear so he’ll end the torture. It’s not only about the welts. It’s about the frightening friction in my core that heightens with each of his merciless lashes.
“Good.”
I release a breath when his large palm touches my assaulted skin and he slowly kneads my ass. That usually means he’s done torturing me—or close to it.
His hand slowly parts my thighs as far as they can go with the cast, and I can’t help the moan that escapes as his fingers brush against my soaked folds.
“I see you’ve missed your punishments, Lia.”
I burrow my face into the pillow to muffle my voice. I don’t want him to hear me so wanton like this, and most of all, I don’t want him to know he has this hold on me.
“Deny it all you like, but your body belongs to me.” He cups me harshly. “This cunt belongs to me.” He slaps my burning skin and I whimper. “This ass also belongs to me. But if there’s still any doubt in your mind, by all means, say it, and I’ll punish it out of you.”
My breathing is chopped and fractured, and it’s not only because of the pain. It’s his words. Damn them and damn me for letting them have this effect on me.
“Shouldn’t I continue punishing you, Lenochka?”
“No…”
“Then do you belong to me?”
I purse my lips.
He raises his hand and brings it down on my ass. I shriek as my burning skin explodes with pain.
“Do you fucking belong to me?”
“No…never…”
“Lia…don’t make me break you.”
“You’ll break me more if I say those words,” I sob, all of my pain receptors pulsing at the same time.
He slaps me again and I wail, my body wiggling sideways, but he holds me down by the hair. “Say you’re mine.”
“No.”
Slap. “Say. It.”
My tears soak the pillow and I feel like I might pass out. Like his next strikes will knock me out cold. But they don’t. All they manage to do is torture my ass and core. He’s using his hand now, but my skin is so tender and stimulated that even the merest hit reverberates through my whole body.
“Stop it…Adrian…please…”
“Not until you say you’re mine.” His voice is harsh, non-negotiable.
“I can’t…” I sob.
“Yes, you can.”
“No! You’ve taken so much from me already. I will not hand you my last pieces. So if you want to whip me to death, do it. I will not say those words, even with my last breath.”
I expect him to do what I suggested just to prove a point, but Adrian releases a long exhale and throws the belt away. The sound it makes as it hits the floor sends a small jolt through my chest.
A rustling of clothes comes from behind me and I can imagine him getting rid of his shirt and pants.
He wraps a hand around my jaw and lifts me up using it. The utter possession and the haunting darkness in the gesture leaves me panting. “I’m going to fuck you as my wife and you’re going to scream for me.”
Adrian plants his knee between my legs and holds me by the hip as his cock forces its way inside, his chest covering my back at the same time so that his head is mere inches away from mine. Despite being wet and more than ready, his entrance into my body always hurts like it’s the first time. My backside burns when his groin slaps against it.
“Ahhh…that hurts…”
“Not more than your fucking stubbornness, apparently.”
“Adrian…”
“What?”
“Do something.”
“Like this?” He reaches underneath me and twists my swollen clit.
“Ohhh…”
“Or this?” He thrusts inside me, and even though his groin still hits against my tortured skin, it adds friction and a carnal type of pleasure.
“Yes…ohhh…yes…”
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my mouth, his eyes hooded. “Moan for me. Let me hear that throaty sound that’s made only for me.”
That’s when it clicks.
Adrian has always loved it when I release sounds during sex. It seems to get him harder and his pace builds up to a maddening level, like right now. The slap of flesh against flesh and my own arousal echoes in the air as he holds my eyes and everything in me hostage.
But even as he confiscates my body, as he steals it from me, there’s just one thing I can steal from him in return.
I’m breathing harshly when he moves at a pace that he knows will get me off. But when the orgasm hits with wrecking force, I bite my lower lip so hard, metal explodes on my tongue.
Adrian’s monstrously beautiful face contorts and I hold his gaze as I mute the sounds he loves to hear so much.
He took away my freedom. I’m taking away his pleasure.
Adrian might have started as the only one with power, but I’m slowly finding mine. I might not have guns or an army of guards, but I’ll kill him with silence.
His hold tightens on my jaw as he stills at my back and warm liquid fills my walls.
He pulls out of me, but just so he can slam back in with renewed energy.
Oh, God. How could he get hard again this soon? Usually, he gets hard fast, but not this fast.
“We’ll have a redo, and this time, you’ll fucking scream, Lia.”
“Never,” I mutter.
“Then we’ll go at this all night until you do. You’ll bow to me, wife.”
Not in this life, husband.
