Somewhere along the lines from when I offered to help him, my idea had been twisted into his thinking he could use me. Like that.
Oh, God. What have I done?
What do I do now?
I hurried up to the bathroom to take a shower. That seemed like the first step.
I felt filthy. Contaminated and dirty.
My boss, my owner, my captor—whatever that Mafia man was supposed to be to me—he’d made me feel used up.
Taken advantage of. I was no longer a virgin, and I would forever be marked by him. Adrik Volkov was the first man I’d ever been with. That would be a permanent mark on me.
Under the hot spray of the water, though, as I calmed down in the privacy of the shower stall, rational thought slowly returned to me.
The longer I stood there, the mist and steam soothing me, I could think clearer. Without smelling his cologne on me. Without feeling the touch of his hands on my hips and his dick stretching deep inside me.
All that reached my nose was the clean scent of soap.
All I felt now was the massaging pressure of the water raining down on me.
I wasn’t back there in the office. I was here, in this moment, and I was alone to finally think it through.
He didn’t take advantage of me.
I wiped my face under the water before taking a deeper breath.
He didn’t use me.
While he was very brutal and rough, thrusting into me with a punishing force, he hadn’t raped me. He couldn’t have.
When I stood there to get my phone, with my heart on my sleeve and so worried about how distraught he was, I offered to help him.Helpcould mean so many different things. I hadn’t gone back for my phone with any specific intention to offer him my body as a form ofhelp.
I had only been able to see him so vulnerable and upset that I wanted to do something—anything—to make him feel more in control and not lashing out with anger. He perceived my offer of help in a forbidden and wicked way, but it was on me. I had taken the initiative to reach out to him. Even though he’d taken it to mean something very sensual and naughty, I stood by it. I couldn’t be upset about the fact that he had accepted what I’d offered, turning it into an acknowledgment of the simmering chemistry we kept denying and ignoring.
Stalling under the shower, I reflected even more.
I could wrestle with how I'd caved to him. For hours, I could overthink it all.
But I couldn’t deny the truth that I was misinterpreting the aftermath of it.
“He didn’t use me,” I whispered to myself.
And it took one to know. I’d been used and taken advantage of, then dismissed, by my father. For years. He’d taken advantage ofme in the form of employment. He chained me to my job at his financial firm without a way out.
I didn’t have a way out of this job, either, on the Volkov estate. There was no open-door policy that meant I could walk away from here.
More than anything, the knowledge I had about those accounts had kept me trapped at my father’s firm and here, too.
But the difference was in assuming the control my father had over me could be the same as the command Adrik had over me here.
Finishing with the shower, I tried not to acknowledge how sore I was between my legs. I tried not to allow a sense of pride that I had taken him so hard, either. I got dressed, willing the ideas and memories out of my mind.
Phantom touches hit me. I could still feel the grip of his fingers on my hips. I could still hear the rough exhales as he rammed into me. I could still taste the heat of his kiss, and I could still smell the scent of sex that had filled the room.
He was so rough with me. But deep in my heart, I suspected that he had tried to be tender, too. Somehow, he wasn’t a monster. Just a man who had needed me and needed that violent but orgasmic release. When I lay there on the desk with my eyes closed, I felt him watching me. Although there could be no truth to what I wanted to claim, it had seemed like he was watching me with compassion. Maybe even gratitude or reverence.
“What are you thinking?” I asked myself with a scoff. I shook my head and headed downstairs.
