I can’t help the sad smile curving up on my lips.
“But what about the guilt?”
Not just for the past, but for the present too?
“It’s yours to deal with however you want,” he replies. “All I can do is help you with it.”
His familiar heat returns, seeping into my skin and settling in my bones through the humid air. He’s close now, so close that I can feel his heartbeat, or maybe that’s mine, drumming away in my ears like a warning.
Not until you ask me to.
“I want you to hurt me,” I breathe.
There’s no more defiance left in my voice. Only meek and wanting submission.
His hands move down. One cradles my neck while the other hooks under my arms. And then I’m lifted up onto shaky feetuntil his body presses mine against the tree. I can feel every inch of him—his broad chest against my tingling nipples, his powerful arms tightening around my belly, his pounding heart beating in time with my own, and the unmistakable throb of his erection pushing between my legs.
“How do you want me to hurt you?”
The question cracks me open because he’s not refusing anymore. He’s not lecturing me or telling me that I need to forgive myself or any of the things a normal person would say to a woman falling apart against a tree in the dark.
He’s meeting me in the dark, in a place where neither of us should ever want to go.
“Put me on my hands and knees,” I tremble. “Do to me what you’ve wanted to do to me from the very beginning. Make me scream. Make me yours. Take everything you want from me until there’s nothing left of me that can ever belong to anyone else. Because I’m yours.”
“Is that really what you want?”
The question is soft and careful. It’s the final guardrail before we both careen over the edge.
I look into his eyes and I tell him the truth. “Yes.”
For a long moment, there’s nothing. Just the sticky heat and the stars and the sound of my heart trying to escape my chest.
Then his hand around my neck tightens until I can feel it pressing against the racing pulse of my throat. The darkness creeps back into his eyes. His jaw clenches, and then in a low, husky voice, he whispers.
“On your knees,malyshka.”
37
SLAVA
She sinksto her knees as commanded, and places her hands on the ground while her chin rests in my palm.
The summer night wraps around us like a held secret—warm, sticky, and alive with the songs of insects in the chateau gardens.
Bella Farnassi kneels before me on the ground, with tears streaking her face and her dark hair falling over her shoulders.
My chest squeezes.
This is everything I wanted, isn’t it? And now that it’s here, why am I holding back? A few weeks ago, I would’ve shoved my cock deep in her throat already. But now, all I can do is look at her.
You’re terrified she won’t fall for you back.
But is that even true? She practically confessed her feelings for me just now, didn’t she?
No, I think. She may have confessed, but she still won’t allow you in because she can’t let go of that past. That’s why she’s askingyou to hurt her. Because in doing so, you can knock down that wall and you can finally have her.
When I continue to stand there, looking at her, she turns her chin and takes my thumb into her mouth. Then, she starts to suck.
