I close the box and carry it down the hall to the guest room. The door is closed, and I can see light underneath it. She's still awake.
I could knock and see if she answers. I could hand it to her directly, watch her face as she opens it, and see her reaction.
But it’s better to let her discover it on her own, I think, give her time to process without my presence influencing her response. Better to let the gift speak for itself.
I set the box down carefully outside her door, along with a note I've written on heavy, thick, creamy cardstock. The message is simple:
You'll wear this for me. Soon.
It’s not a request. It’s a fact. A promise of what's to come.
There is no escape. There's only surrender.
And whether it takes days or weeks or months, she will surrender. Because the alternative—a life without this connection, without this intensity, without me—is unthinkable for both of us.
I press my palm against the door, imagining I can feel her on the other side. So close. So impossibly close.
"Soon," I whisper to the darkness. "Soon, Mara.”
She'll surrender.
She'll be mine in every way that matters.
And then, finally, everything will be as it should be.
21
MARA
The days blur together in a haze of luxury and captivity.
After that first night, I feel like I’m losing track of time. Which day of the week it is feels hazy. The days have no structure, no rhythm, nothing to distinguish one from another except the slow, suffocating passage of hours. I wake up in the guest room—my prison, though Ilya will never admit it—and I lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to think of how I’m going to get myself out of this.
Every day begins the same way—waking up in the most luxurious bed I’ve ever experienced, on sheets that feel like silk to the touch and a duvet as soft and fluffy as a cloud, surrounded by absolute luxury, the kind I coud never hope to aspire to. I lie there for long time, every morning, and there’s always a small thought that pries its way into my head… an insidious whisper that wonderswhat if?
What if I just… let him have me? What if I let myself have him… and all of this?
It’s so tempting, like the apple offered to Eve, and there’s never been a more beautiful snake than Ilya. He’s gorgeous, wealthy, powerful, and utterly obsessed with me. I’m sure we’veonly tapped the beginning of what it’s like to go to bed with him. He’ll give me anything I ask for, I’m sure of it… except my independence.
And that independence; my career, my life, my entire existence, is what I’ve cultivated all my life. I can’t just give it all up for a man, no matter how beautiful he is or how consuming his desire for me feels.
Or mine for him.
I don’t want to admit it, and I do my best to hide it from him, but I feel like I’m burning up from the inside out, aching for something that I never knew existed until he showed it to me. I never knew sex could feel like that. I’ve had my share of it, and some of it was even good, but that…
Now I understand why people write songs and poems and novels about it. What there is between Ilya and I is something else. Something remarkable, and rare.
That doesn’t mean I have to give in to it.
I wait for a moment, every morning, before opening my eyes, hoping that when I finally do I’ll be in my own room and this will have all been some beautiful, insanely pleasurable nightmare. A hell that makes you want to stay because the only fire that’s burning is the kind you want to let dissolve you into ash.
But it never is.
I force myself out of bed eventually, usually around nine or ten. There's no reason to get up earlier—I have nowhere to go, nothing to do, no schedule to keep. The thought of Claire and the gallery and what’s happening in my world is enough to drive me mad, so I try not to think about it, even though it’s all but impossible.
This morning, four days into my captivity, I take a shower first thing. Alongside the toiletries that he purchased to match mine, there’s what must have stocked the guest bathroom before I came here: expensive French soap that smells like lavender,shampoo and conditioner with more French names that I don’t recognize, and expensive moisturizer. I use those, because I don’t want to use what he purchased specifically for me. That feels like giving in, like accepting this, and I can’t bring myself to do that.
The shower is a luxury I can’t be mad at. It’s so much bigger than the one in my comfortable but small apartment. I stay under the hot spray for a long time, trying to wash away the feeling of being watched. Because even here, even with the door locked, I feel his presence.
