He comes back to face me. “I told you not to engage with Dmitri. You did.” His eyes hold mine. “I told you not to answer personal questions. You told him about your mother and why you study poisons.” His jaw flexes. “You discussed your research. You made yourself a target. And then you threatenedto kill me in front of a room full of men who would love to help you try.”
“I didn’t threaten you,” I say, even though yes, I pretty much did. “We were talking hypothetically.”
“You were showing off,” he says flatly.
His hand moves, sudden and fast, and clamps around my throat. “You made me look weak.”
His thumb drags once along my jaw, and the tenderness in that small movement makes my chest ache worse than his grip.
“On the bed,” he says. “Face down.”
Fear hits, making me sway. My feet don’t move.
“Roman—”
“On. The. Bed.”
I go. What else can I do?
My legs feel weird, like they don’t belong to me, but I manage to walk to the bed and climb up, lying down on my stomach. The sheets are cool against my chest, my thighs. I can smell him in the fabric, and it does stupid things to my already scrambled brain.
Behind me, a drawer slides open. I turn my head and see the belt in his hand.
Fuck, he has to be joking, right?
“No,” I say, panic punching through the numbness. “Roman, don’t—”
“Wrists above your head,” he says.
I don’t move. I can’t.
The mattress dips beside me as he climbs on. His hand grabs my wrists and drags them up to the headboard. The leather wraps around them before I can even process the movement.
“Stop—Roman, stop—”
The belt cinches tight. The buckle slides through. When I pull, there’s no give. My shoulders strain; the iron bar of the headboard bites into my skin.
“Four times,” he says. His hand rests in the center of my back, holding me down. “One for each rule you broke. You’ll count.”
Terror and something hot and humiliating twist together low in my belly.
“Please,” I say into the sheets. “I’m sorry, okay? I just—”
“You’re not sorry,” he says quietly. “You’re scared. There’s a difference.”
I feel the movement of his arm behind me more than I see it. The air shifts. My whole body braces on instinct, muscles clenching, lungs locking around nothing.
The belt lands. The leather bites. Heat and pain follow an instant later, a burning stripe blazing across my ass that makes my vision spark white at the edges. A hoarse sound tears out of me. Half sob, half curse.
“Count, Anya.”
“One,” I choke.
“Why?”
“Because I talked to Dmitri.”
His hand is there almost immediately, smoothing over the sting, pressing into the heat he just created. The contrast makes my head spin. Pain. Then his palm. This fucks me up.
