Viktor
I’m in hell.
I can feel the flames licking at my body. They wrap around me, snapping and burning me. Sweat pours down my face and drips between my shoulder blades.
“Viktor?” the sexy temptress calls to me.
My nostrils flare and air rushes into my lungs. Only the air isn’t clean. No, it hasn’t been clean in over a week. The smell rushes my senses, and I feel my dick twitch against my shorts.
I’m in hell, and Isabel Marchant is my guard. The one holding me prisoner. The gorgeous woman with a steel rod for a spine. Tough and sweet. Soft and firm. Heaven and hell.
For one long week, she’s been coming to my home—pushing me. Always pushing me and fuck if it hasn’t worked. Not once have I seen pity in those brilliant eyes. The times I’ve seen pride shine in those deep pools, I’ve felt like I could climb Mt. Everest.
Her soft hands have touched, grabbed, guided, and pushed me every single day she has come over. All in the name of physical therapy. At times, the touches between us linger a little longer than they should. Our breaths catch, and we stare, but neither of us cross that line.
Fuck if I don’t want to cross that line. To make her cry out my name. To make her body bend to my will. To make her mine in every way I possibly can.
At the end of each session, her magical fingers massage and work the tissue at the end of what’s left of my leg. The first time her delicate and feminine hands touched my ravaged leg, I wanted to kick her out of my home, to shout and yell obscenities.
I’m a broken man. The sight of my injury makes me cringe. This gorgeous woman touching it? It makes me want to crawl into a hole and die. She sees my discomfort, but the stubborn woman only ignores me.
After a week of no pity or disgust, I’ve managed to lie back and only grind my teeth. Her simple touch is for medical purposes, and I know this. My body on the other hand begs for its turn. Each time her skin touches mine I have to force my mind elsewhere. It’s either that or subject her to my erection. And hell if I haven’t gotten hard multiple times a day since meeting this woman.
“Viktor?” she says again, annoyance clear in each letter of my name.
I smile. “Yes, beast master?”
She chuckles, and my chest squeezes at the sultry sound. “Stop calling me beast master. Now work on your push-ups. You need to strengthen your upper body.”
“Ah…You want some more eye candy to dream about, Belle?”
I smile when Isabel rolls her eyes before asking, “Belle?”
“Well, you won’t let me call you beast master. Plus I like Belle better anyway.” My gaze drifts from her to the mat under me. “No woman is going to look at my bum leg and scars and be like, ‘Yeah, I wanna takethat beastfor a ride.’ I’m a broken man. They’ll just move along to the newer, younger, andwholemodels.” Frustration and anger boils under my skin at the confession.
The silence is deafening. I sneak a peek up at her and see shock and anger flash in her eyes. I can’t bear the fact that I did that, but it’s the truth. I straighten my body into position as she asked and start my push-ups. I’ve increased my amount in a week. I’m also doing them when she’s not around. I hope I can get back to the one-armed strength I used to possess.
On my exhale, my arms straighten and a smile teases my lips. One week of Drill Sergeant Belle has done more for my body than the weeks in the hospital or in rehab. I don’t remember feeling a shred of hope in those days. Then again, I was visiting my mom who was in a state of coma that was all my fault.
“Viktor.” Her hand lays on my lower back.
I pause. I hold my body in plank position and stare at the ground. Ripples of anger roll through me. “Don’t fucking show me pity,” I snap and look at her. “You’ve never looked at me with pity, don’t start now.” I couldn’t bare it if she started now.
Her lips stretch into a thin line. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
My brow raises in surprise. Never has the always-professional temptress cursed, and hell if I don’t find it sexy as fuck. Make-up sex with this woman has to be phenomenal—her body meeting mine thrust for thrust as we race to ecstasy.
“First off, you arefarfrom broken. Secondly, you’re not a beast. You may have the manners of a beast, but ‘beast’ isn’t the noun I’d use for you. Although, there are plenty of women who enjoy a rough ride with a surly man. And lastly, if any woman looks at you with anything other than awe for rising after being knocked down? Then she doesn’t deserve you.”
My throat thickens, and my nose flares at her words. There isn’t anything I can say. My arms begin to shake, and I force myself to push out the rest of this exercise.
I cast her a side glance. The emotions swirling around inside me are a jumbled mess. All thanks to this beautiful woman who is only spending time with me because I’m paying her to. Okay, not me but my insurance company and aunt. It’s all the same though. She’s not here by her own free will.
Mom would have loved her.
Where the hell did that thought come from?I ask myself, and a growl of frustration rumbles through me.
Belle’s hand touches my shoulder. An electric current flows down my spine at the skin on skin contact. “Hey, I don’t want you hurting yourself. Why don’t we try—”
