Then, abruptly, he pulled out.
Before I could protest, he flipped me—gently but firmly—until I faced forward, bent over the table.
Seraphina sat mere feet away, pale as death, eyes wide with shock and humiliation.
Dmitri entered me again from behind, one hand fisting my hair, the other gripping my hip.
The new angle was devastating—deeper, harder. I couldn’t hold back the screams of pleasure.
“Yes... yes... Dmitri!” Each thrust sent waves crashing through me.
I locked eyes with Seraphina, a triumphant smirk curving my lips despite the ecstasy rendering me boneless.
Shame burned in her gaze; she looked ready to vanish into the floor.
Dmitri’s pace became relentless, his ragged breaths hot against my ear. “Come for me,” he growled, plunging deeper and faster.
I gasped, again and again, each wave of sensation pulling me closer, until suddenly everything shattered—an orgasm crashing through me like a storm.
My body convulsed uncontrollably, cries tearing from my throat as the world narrowed to the heat and force of him.
He followed moments later, burying himself deep with a primal groan that vibrated through my back.
He collapsed over me, peppering kisses along my shoulder, my neck, as we both trembled in the aftermath.
Slowly, gently, he pulled me upright and into his arms.
I was limp, boneless, but he carried me effortlessly—naked, sated—up the stairs to our bedroom.
He laid me on the cool sheets, sliding in beside me.
I curled into him immediately, desperation I couldn’t hide driving me to press as close as possible.
His arms wrapped around me, strong and warm.
I knew questions burned in his mind—why this intensity from a woman he believed he’d known only days? But he asked none of them. He simply held me, fingers tracing lazy patterns on my back until sleep claimed me.
When I woke, blinding light stabbed my eyes.
I squinted, blinking rapidly, confusion mounting.
This wasn’t the bedroom.
Chapter 17
PENELOPE
The blinding light pierced my eyelids like shards of glass, forcing me to squeeze them shut again.
My head throbbed—a dull, relentless pulse radiating from the base of my skull down into my neck and shoulders.
Every movement sent jolts of pain through my body.
Disorientation washed over me in thick waves, fragments of the night before flickering across my mind: Dmitri’s arms around me, the steady heat of his chest beneath mine, the deep, sated sleep that had claimed me almost instantly.
But this... this wasn’t his bed.
The surface beneath me was unyielding, splintered wood digging into my bare skin. My wrists were bound behind me with coarse rope that bit with every subtle twitch, and my ankles were tethered to the chair legs in the same merciless fashion.
