Vadim’s smile doesn’t waver. “Protective.” His voice carries. “Your mother had one just like it. Right up until they scraped her off the crypt’s floors.”
Roman’s grip on my waist becomes crushing—five points of bruising pressure grinding into my hip—and he’s shaking with the effort of not killing his uncle right here.
“Roman.” I keep my voice barely above a whisper. “You’re hurting me.”
His grip loosens. A fraction. Then he activates the device.
The pulse hits sustained and relentless, and my knees actually buckle, and only his arm around my waist keeps me upright.
“Our box awaits.” His voice is ice. “Enjoy the performance, dyadya.”
Our private box is red velvet in the shadows.
The moment the door closes, Roman deactivates the device, and the relief is so sudden I have to grab the chair to keep from falling.
“That was cruel.”
“That was necessary.” He guides me into the seat. “Vadim saw a woman too distracted to notice anything. You’re welcome.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
The lights dim. The curtain rises.
Roman activates the device again.
The vibration matches the bass notes—low, throbbing—and I feel it everywhere, in my chest, in my cunt, in the base of my spine.
Roman’s fingers slide under my dress.
“Eyes forward.” His breath is hot against my ear. “Watch the opera.”
His touch is feather-light, barely there, just enough to part me, to find where I’m swollen and slick, to circle my clit in lazy patterns that make me want to scream.
“Roman—” I can barely get his name out. “Someone will—”
“No one’s looking at us.” His fingers push inside me alongside the device, and oh god oh god oh god. “You’re so wet I can hear it. Think anyone else can?”
“I hate you.”
“You said that already.” He continues rubbing my clit while he increases the power, and my vision whites out at the edges. “Come for me, Anya.”
“I can’t—”
“You can. You will.” He presses his thumb down, hard, pinning my clit against the vibration.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck—
The pleasure spikes, turning sharp and agonizing, and I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but shatter.
I bite my knuckles to stifle the scream building in my throat. My vision goes white out. I am falling apart in a box at the Bolshoi, unraveling completely under the hands of the monster I married, and the worst part—the absolute worst part—is that I have never felt more alive.
The violin reaches an impossible high note.
Then explodes.
Wrong sound—wood shattering, strings snapping—and my brain catches up with what my ears are telling me.
