“Oh, really?” I bat my eyelashes like an ingénue. “Are you going to break into my room and steal a dress as payback?”
“I’ll steal more than a dress.” His sigh is filled with seething frustration. It tightens around my core like a rope. His fingers bite into my shoulders. The prick of his nails against my skin hits me in my pussy. He’s rough, and I like it. Heat floods my senses. My core swells with delight. A dark, delicious feeling thrashes through my veins. Why do his touches arouse me so much?
“No.” Air slams into my lungs. I realize what he means. He plans to touch me, maybe even kiss me when he breaks into my room. When he narrows his eyes in a warning, I realize it won’t end with a kiss. “You won’t.”
“I will, and I am going to.” Dmitry raises an eyebrow. “Put on a good show for me like you promised, babygirl, and I might even let you come.”
I gasp. “You’re not serious.”
“You’ll find out, won’t you?”
Dmitry straightens slightly, catching my hand before I can move. His grip is firm, not painful, but final. “Now you’re going to introduce me to the right people, smile when I touch you, and let me do what I came here to do. Understood?”
I nod before I can think.
He smiles then, small and satisfied, and pulls me back toward the ballroom. My heart beats too fast, my skin too hot. I tell myself I hate him, that I want to escape. But the truth hums beneath everything else.
When he touches me, I feel seen. When he commands, I listen.
And that scares me more than anything.
FOUR
Dmitry
There’sa special place in hell for men like me.
Tonight, Aleksei is holding a meeting of the Griffin Society. I pressed a few discreet cards into the hands of some of the people I met at Friday night’s party. Callista and I haven’t made contact since then, but I’ve been using my drone to check up on her activities.
She pleasured herself after the gala. She gave me a good show like she promised, baring her pussy and grinding her pretty fingers into her tight cunt. The drone couldn’t get a perfect shot but I saw enough.
And now I want to taste that cunt, too. I want to feel her pussy juices running down my chin as I eat her out and make her come. I want to slurp up her arousal as I grind my tongue against her aching clit, reminding her that I own her. That I’m the one who makes her body ache and yearn at night.
I swallow, watching the last bit of footage from the drone. I’ve watched it fifty times at least. But this is my favorite part.
When her back arches on the bed, and she says, “Yes, Daddy. Please. Tell me I’ve been a good girl. You should praise me more.”
I didn’t know why she was pissed off at me at the gala, but now I do. She wanted me to praise her. For being a good little submissive.
Stalking her is the only way I have of infiltrating her mind, her psyche. It’s how I find out her deepest needs, and make sure I can use them to my advantage. I had no idea that Ms. Golden Girl had a praise kink and a desire to be dominated.
Looks like I’m not the only one who is into kinky sex. She’s hiding more than I imagined under that mask.
That intrigues me more. I haven’t been inside her room in two days, and I can’t go tonight, either, because I’ll have to go home with Aleksei after the meeting. He’ll ask questions if I don’t, and I can’t have my brothers finding out about my fucked-up hobby.
The old Allister library is quiet at night. Its gothic arches swallow sound, its stained-glass windows catch the moonlight in cold fragments. Most students think it closes at midnight. They never notice the east wing light flicker after hours.
That’s where we meet.
Aleksei walks beside me through the narrow hallway. His face is half covered by a black hood, the bottom half visible, all sharp jaw and stubble. He prefers mystery to disguise. Power, not secrecy.
“You’re quiet,” he says as we approach the oak door that leads to the restricted archives. “Something on your mind?”
“Nothing,” I say, though it isn’t true. My thoughts are full of Callista—her defiance at the gala, her voice trembling when she challenged me, the way it made me want to break her pride just to see what lay underneath.
Aleksei studies me for a beat, but he doesn’t press. “Keep your focus tonight. The new recruits need to believe you more than they believe themselves.”
Inside, the library’s lower hall is lit by a ring of candles. The long tables are gone, replaced by a single iron lectern at the center. Shadows crawl up the vaulted ceiling.
