There’s no way to make him understand.
I’d never seen this side of Leks before — the crazy, unreasonable side, but now I see that it was there all along. He’s been betrayed so many times that he truly believes there’s nobody he can trust. Including me.
He thinks I lied about loving him. Lied about the best thing that’s happened in my entire life. I’m realizing that was the only true thing I’d experienced my entire life. Marrying Leks was like looking up from a painting only to discover that the real view out the window was more beautiful. And it only lasted a month. One single month of the life I wanted. I guess that’s all I will get.
I’ll take whatever shred of his affection I can get, no matter how twisted or harsh it is.
I don’t reply, tears springing into my eyes.
“So what do you say?” He stands over me and I can’t stop myself from staring at his jawline, his dark tattoos. Familiar, but not. Not with this newly harsh face, this belief that I’m part of the world that has wronged him his entire life.
And even with that, I can’t resist him. Can’t stay away from his harsh midnight-blue stare and his disappointment in me.
“Will you be my slut, Natalia?”
No part of me considers saying no.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I nod.I don’t want to see the satisfaction in Leks’s eyes as he realizes how much I need him, how desperate I am for him.
He pulls away and leaves the room. I sit waiting for him and feeling like the lust-weak idiot I am. When he comes back, it’s with a length of rope.
My lips part in surprise and I suck in a breath. He wants to tie me up.
His lips quirk into a smile at my reaction.
“Maybe you really do want me, Natalia, but while we’re here, it’s on my terms.”
The process of Leks tying me to each corner of the bed, with ropes tight around my ankles and wrists, does nothing to stop the ache of need. In fact, with every rough binding that he tightens around my limbs, I only grow more breathless with anticipation.
Then the fucking sadist walks away, leaving me tied to the bed with only the heat in my core for company.
33
NATALIA
Idrop into a state of reduced awareness. Silence is painful right now. It gives me no way to shut down the questions that flood my mind. Regret and pain rips through my body like a thousand shards of glass piercing my skin. I don’t know how long I lie there for, my only sense of time the shifting shadows on the ceiling.
It’s only when Leks clears his throat at the door, golden afternoon sunlight filling the room, that I realize he’s been staring at me. I squeeze my eyes shut again. God, I need him to touch me, but I recognize nothing in those flat blue eyes.
“Look at me,” he commands and I obey on instinct, hating the way that I can read no tenderness in his face. He stands beside the bed, his dark eyes meeting mine in a challenge. “Do you want me to touch you, Natalia?”
As if I didn’t beg him to hours ago. I nod, succumbing to the helplessness I feel. “Touch me, Leks,” I breathe.
He trails his hands over my body and my breathing becomes shallow, my pulse rapid.
In an instant, my body recognizes that I’m his, and always will be.
His hands continue their slow path over my body, tracing me like he’s a sculptor moulding my every curve.
I let out a whine when he stops, straining against the ties which bind my ankles and wrists to the bed. I’m trying to get closer to him, even after he’s refused to listen to a single word from me.
Fuck, it’s humiliating how much I want him.
Even when he’s given menothingfor days, when he will barely look at me, I still crave his touch. He left me here for hours, and I’m still grateful to see him.
I might not have his respect, or his love, but he still wants me like this. And it will break my heart to give myself to him, knowing how cruel he’s being, but I will do it over and over again.
I can’t get enough of him.
