The plan is veering off course, because the man they have sent me to kill isn’t acting the way they informed me he would.
Andrei Petrov is proving to be unpredictable, and I don’t do unpredictable.
ANDREI
I watch her eat, cutting the steak into tiny little pieces and chewing each piece for ages. I finished my steak minutes ago, but she’s
not even halfway through. The silence between us is almost deafening.
I want to talk to her and tell her how much I long to dominate her, but pushing is a bad idea. With her, I can’t seem to read what she’s thinking. In the past, the virgins are often thankful when I tell them. They become calm and easy around me, sometimes even chatty. Instead, she is tenser.
She looks blank and unmoved by the truth I’ve revealed. Although, she might think it’s all a trick. I know they go through some terrible abuse during their time training to be ready for their masters.
“How is your steak?” I ask, watching her pick at another mouse size bite.
She barely glances at me. “Good, thanks.”
I wanted to hear her speak more, but she’s not very talkative. Her voice is heavenly. There’s a part of me that wants to assert my dominance and insist she lay with me—I own her. It’s just not my way, and I will not change that because of some weird primal need for her.
“Do you have any idea what option you might choose?” I ask.
Inside, I’m panicking about her answer. If she tells me she wants to work elsewhere, it will make me crazy. Putting her to work here would be far more tempting and seducing her. The thought of another man claiming her innocence makes me sick.
She blinks at me twice, before shrugging. “I don’t understand why I have one.”
I can’t help but smile at that. “Because I don’t like to fuck women who don’t want it.” I shrug. “That, and I’m against slavery.”
“That seems odd,” she says, picking at the steak on her plate.
It wasn’t large but at this rate she won’t be able to eat it all, it will take forever. It’s often the same with the girls I get from the auction. They’ve eaten tiny amounts of food during their capture.
“In what way?” I ask, tilting my head to the side.
“You’ve just purchased a slave and funded the entire trade.”
I smile at her observation, but leave it hanging between us. She need not learn that my attendance and purchase is a way of maintaining my public image as the brutal pakhan I’m thought to be.
“Where are you from?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I don’t know.” She keeps her gaze averted, and I know she’s lying.
Why would she lie to me?
She has told me her name, which she could remember. There’s an ever so slight twinge of a Russian accent to her voice, but she is trying to mask it.
Her American accent is practiced and almost credible.
She knows where she is from but doesn’t want to tell me.
I laugh. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
She tenses, turning to ice in her chair.
What is with this woman?
There’s something unusual and intriguing about her, something I can’t quiet put my finger on. I shift in my seat under her watchful, intense gaze. It’s a little baffling, considering the men who trained her have directed her not to make eye contact at all.
“How old are you?” I ask.
She straightens, before answering, “I’m twenty-four years old.”
I don’t let her see the surprise at learning her age. She seems older, somehow. Not because she looks old, but there’s a strength in her I’d never expect from a girl of her age.
What has she been through to make her so hardened?
“Come here,” I command, holding a hand out.
She swallows, before standing and walking toward me.
“Take my hand.”
She gives me a hesitant look, before entwining her fingers with mine. A hot desire spreads through me as we touch, setting my skin on fire. I know she senses it too, as her eyes widen for a moment. I pull her onto my lap, forcing her to sit on my knee.
She gasps, glancing at me with her hands folded in her lap.
I run my hand through her red hair and gaze into her eyes. “How did a girl as beautiful as you stay a virgin for so long?”
Tension ripples through her, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “I don’t know, sir.”
I shake my head. “Call me Andrei, for the moment.”
Her sparkling green eyes flood with confusion and she doesn’t respond. My eyes fall to her full, luscious lips and my cock throbs in my pants. Ever since she sat down to dinner, I’ve been harder than stone.
The dress she picked is more than a little revealing, allowing me a perfect view of her full cleavage. I pull her close to me, lacing my fingers behind her head.
Her eyes remain blank and unfeeling. There’s something this girl is hiding, I can feel it in my bones. She’s been through a lot and learned how to mask her emotions.
With one tug, her lips are on mine. I kiss her slow and gentle, but she tenses in my arm, resisting at first. After a few moments of persistence, she gives in and allows me to kiss her. My tongue delves into her mouth, searching it with a frantic passion.
I’m not sure if she is giving in because she enjoys it, or if she is sticking to her training. Either way, I relish the taste of her. I can read most people like a book, but she’s impossible to figure out. I bet she gave the shestyorka a hard time. It makes me even more excited to claim her in every way, if she agrees.
I let go of the back of her neck, freeing her.
She leans away from me, eyes wide. The pretty pink staining her cheeks is cock stirring and her irises are dilated with desire. I keep hold of her, sensing she wants to get off my lap. Even if she doesn’t want to reveal that she’s turned on by me, she is.
“I would like an answer by tomorrow, Vera.”
She gazes down at her hands, chest heaving. “Either I stay here with you as your sex slave, or I live elsewhere and do housework at one of your other homes. Is that correct?” she asks, clarifying her options.
“You wouldn’t be my sex slave. I would treat you with respect and allow you freedom, but you would need to allow me to dominate you in bed.” I narrow my eyes at her. “I know you won’t be familiar with bondage, being a virgin.” I let my hands slip to her hips and dig my fingertips in. “I’d be sure to ease you into it.”
She shifts in my lap, making me even harder.
“But, it is something I crave with any sexual partner,” I add.
She tenses. “Sexual partner?”
I chuckle. “I like to think you would be my sexual partner, yes.” I stand with her and lift her up.
Her knees shake as I return her to the ground.
“Sleep on it and give me an answer in the morning,” I say, setting my hand on the small of her back to guide her out of the room. “I’m sure you are exhausted.”
She says nothing, letting me escort her out of the dining room and toward the stairs. We walk together in silence across the vast entrance hall. I let her walk first up the stairs, following her. It’s impossible not to admire her from behind in her tight, form hugging dress.
Once we reach the top of the stairs, she turns toward me, lacing her fingers together.
I step close to her. “Goodnight, Vera.” I kiss her cheek. “Please retire to your room,” I say, nodding toward the doorway.
Her eyes widen and she searches for something. It takes me a moment to realize she’s expecting an armed escort. “No guards here. You are free to roam the house, but you won’t be able to leave.”
She stares at me for a long moment, judging my seriousness. After a long moment of silence, she speaks, “Good night, sir.”
I grab her hand, forcing her close. “I told you to call me Andrei,” I say, letting my breath tease over her lips. She is so close I could taste her again, but I don’t want to push. She still has to make her choice, pushing might make her opt to leave.
My fingers are itching to wrap around her soft, long neck. I give in to the temptation, letting my fingers tease over her skin at her neck. “Do you understand?”
She nods her head, eyes wide. Still, there’s no fear in them. Everyone fears me, and I’m not used to this kind of reaction. I close my fingers around her throat, and she doesn’t bat an eyelid. “Let me hear you say it.”
“I understand, si—Andrei.”
I smile and give her an appreciative nod. “Good girl, now get some rest.”
She gives me an odd bow, before turning to leave. It’s impossible not to watch the way her hips sway as she walks in that tight dress. My heart pounds faster as she slips inside of her room, leaving me. My cock aches in protest. The primal desire to grab her around the hips and force myself inside of her tight body so clawing it feels like I might combust.
A virgin so pure and so fucking beautiful next door to me, sleeping the other side of a wall. I hope to God she agrees to be my submissive. The pleasure I’d get from her submission and forcing a reaction out of her body would be beyond satisfying.
Can I break through those walls she has erected? Do I want to?
The darkness she hides behind those walls will be great. I’ve been through terrible things, and I’m painfully aware of what it is like. I’ve always hated the life I was born into, and that I have to be the man I am today. Or more to the point, the monster I am today.
Maybe behind it all there are secrets too dark to unveil. I can’t understand why I’m so desperate to find out what makes her tick. She’s more intriguing to me now than she was when I purchased her.
She will be my most interesting conquest yet. A mystery I long to solve.