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“Mischa.”
His name holds its own power. Too fucking much for my head to contain. He bucks at the sound of it, hunching forward to sink his teeth into my shoulder so hard that I see white.
My lips part, but rather than a cry, something else slips from them, broken and bleating. “Mischa…”
The word ends on a moan as he flips me over, pressing my face into the sheets. With my body prone, he enters me from behind. His hips slam into me, and I take him as deep as I can—then even further than that. I taste him. I’m consumed by him. He beats his ownership into my battered flesh and rakes his name into my skin with his teeth.
I lose track of how long it lasts. How brutal he becomes. Bruising. Punishing.
Thoughtless.
Reckless.
Boneless.
I’m a mass of exposed nerves when he finally groans into my ear, flooding me with his release, but he never moves. I’m crushed beneath his weight, too exhausted to resist the unbearable pressure. A part of me considers lying there, letting his bulk drive every ounce of air from my lungs until there’s nothing left. I could die like this.
“Hey.” As he finally rolls onto his side, stars dance across my vision. “Look at me.”
He’s frowning when I do. With one hand, he reaches out to flick the sweat-soaked hair from my face. Whatever he finds makes him scoff in disgust.
“Still there,” he declares, rolling onto his back. “Tell me, Little Rose. What would it take to drive him out of your skull for good?”
Robert?It’s a comical question, though he doesn’t seem to see it that way. His voice is gruff. Stern. Serious.
“Twenty-three years,” I reply, alarmed by how dead I sound. How tired.
“What a shame,” Mischa muses. “I don’t have that kind of time.” He shifts, turning his back to me.
I wait, but he doesn’t stand yet. His heat prickles my skin, a foreign sensation. Robert never extended his presence beyond this point. Only now can I entertain the small possibility that it might have been some shred of mercy on his part.
After all, he never wanted to ruin me, break me, destroy me…
He just wanted to own me. I still wear his shackles, and I’m at a loss as to how to find the key—or if one even exists. What would it take to drive him out of my skull for good?
“He kept me blind.”
Mischa stiffens at the sound of my voice, but I’m more shocked than he should be. I’m not used to speaking like this. Freely. Unease mingles with the breathless aftermath of the sex, churning my thoughts into a senseless mass that makes it hard to discern what’s smart and what is…not.
“He never told me anything,” I add. “And he used my ignorance as a cage.”
There’s so much I don’t know about the Winthorps, or my mother, or theMafiya. So much I’m not sure I ever want to learn.
“If you want to erase him, then…” The words linger on the tip of my tongue, too stupid to utter out loud. Too reckless. I’m tempted to swallow them down.
But no. I’ve already piqued the monster’s interest. One taste of my bleeding soul and he wants more.
“What?” He’s harsh, impatient. Curious?
I raise my gaze, hunting for his body through the dark. He’s faced me again without my realizing it, meeting my probing stare with a brutal scowl of his own.
“Name your price, Little Rose.”
Perhaps he’s not far off. Maybe my cage never required a key. Just a price some mercenary would pay to buy his way in.
“Open my eyes,” I say simply. “Let me learn this world for myself and tell me everything. Everything he never did.”
