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I also don’t want to think about the way he touched my face in his bedroom in the cabin, how he kissed me softly and whispered to me how beautiful I was. I don’t want to think about the way he’d cupped my cheek in the hotel room before I’d overheard his phone call, how he’d looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing in the world and made me wonder, just for a moment, if there could be more for us.
Clearly, I’d been wrong. I’d been so wrong. And now his touch makes my stomach curdle.
“We’ll start with something simpler I think, since you’ve obeyed so well today.” Viktor runs his fingers through my hair, gently at first, until his hand slides around the back of my head and I feel them twist, knotting in the thick locks and pulling my head back so that I’m looking up at him.
I let out a small whimper of pain despite myself. His hand is tight in my hair, holding my head in place, and his gaze rakes over my face, over the still-healing bruises and pause on my lips, then back up to my eyes.
“I meant what I said, you know,” he says quietly. “You are very beautiful, Caterina. My beautiful bride. And I don’t intend to mar that beauty the way those beasts did, if you’re afraid of that. But I will punish you nonetheless.”
He reaches down then, undoing his belt with one hand, and I know what’s coming next. He starts to undo his zipper, but then he pauses, his hand going still.
“I was going to fuck your mouth for my own pleasure,” he says thoughtfully. “But I don’t think a disobedient wife has earned the right to suck her husband’s cock, even as a punishment. So we’ll start with something else instead.” Viktor takes a step back. “Stand up and strip for me, Caterina. All the way. Every bit, until you’re bare.”
Somehow that’s worse than being forced to suck him off. I don’t want to touch him in any way, not anymore—or at least that’s what I’m telling myself, despite the traitorous shivers of arousal that I can feel crawling across my skin. But he knows how I feel about my body, about my appearance now. And he knows how vulnerable it will make me feel to strip down for him.
But I know I have no choice.
Slowly, I get to my feet, keeping my eyes down. I kick off my leather flats, pushing them away, and Viktor clears his throat.
“Look at me while you do it,” he instructs. “I want to see your face.”
It just keeps getting worse.I look up at him, trying with every bit of self-control I have not to let him see the anger in my eyes, the resentment. I try to look meek, repentant even, a woman who knows she was wrong. It’s the only way I’m going to survive this. That’s all this is anymore, just like it was with Franco, a game of survival. And no matter how much that breaks my heart or how sick it makes me to know that Viktor turned out to be no better, I have to get through this.
In a way, he’s worse because Franco was never this diabolical. He was never capable of planning such a complete and utter deception.
I thought I’d married a monster before.
But Viktor is so much worse.
I raise my eyes to my husband’s icy gaze, meeting them without so much as a flinch.
And then I bend down, reaching for the hem of my dress.
CATERINA
Every inch of clothing that I remove is excruciating.
Not physically. Something like undressing isn’t really painful anymore, thankfully. But as I pull my dress over my head, I can feel his eyes raking over me in a way that isn’t sweet or caring anymore. It feels as if he’s flaying my flesh from my bones with his gaze, taking me apart, taking whatever dignity I had left. I can feel the weight of his gaze, the anger in it, the cruelty, and as I let the dress fall to the floor and stand there in the rose-colored silk underwear that he purchased me, I can feel myself starting to shiver.
And yet, underneath it all, I feel a glimmer of heat. There’s lust in his gaze, too, even if it’s a cruel lust. And something deep within me wants to know what he’ll do next, how far he’ll push me, what he’ll make me feel. I hadn’t forgotten the shock of arousal I’d felt when he’d bent me over my bed and spanked me, the way I’d felt horrified and humiliated and terribly turned on all at once, confused more than anything else. I hadn’t forgotten how it felt when I went back to him, and he took me in every possible way, forcing an orgasm from me as he fucked me hard and took my ass for the first time.
If this were a different sort of night, I would feel the urge to fight back, to be defiant, to bait him. But I’ve gone too far, and I’m afraid of what might happen if I do. I’m afraid ofhim.
My husband. A man with all the power in the world over me.
“All of it,” Viktor says clearly, his voice thickly accented and harsh. “Don’t make me ask a third time, Caterina. Or it will be so much worse for you.”
I nod, my throat suddenly tight. I reach for the clasp of the silky wireless bra, feeling my nipples stiffen under the silk despite myself as I undo it. I don’t want him to see even a hint of arousal, but something about undressing under his harsh gaze while he remains fully clothed sparks something in me, flushing my skin as I slide the straps down my arms. I tell myself that it’s just the heat of the fire, that it’s built too high, but I know that’s not the truth.
I know as I let the bra fall to the floor that even if I were given the chance to leave this room, I’m not entirely sure that I would.
Slipping my fingers under the edges of the silk panties, I push them down my hips, grateful to have them off if only so that he doesn’t get a chance to see the way the silk has started to cling damply to my folds, the rose silk darkening at the space between my thighs.
I don’t want him to know that this is turning me on—not yet, anyway. At some point, I know he’ll find out regardless. And that shameful thought sends another flush of heat over my skin, turning my cheeks red for a reason that I know has nothing to do with the heat of the fire.
“Very good,” Viktor says approvingly, his eyes skating over me as if he were appraising art or something else that he wanted to possess. Something that would belong to him.
I already do.
