This time, he really does laugh, a deep, sexy rumble that makes his shoulders shake and somehow transforms his dark features into something that stirs my heart.
“Call it what you want, he’s a conniving son of a bitch is what he is.”
“Did you… tell him no?” I wonder. Please, God, I hope he told him no. I can take anything—his brutal punishments and vicious fucking, his cuffs, his cage even, but I can’t bear the thought of anyone else’s hands on me. I can lay down my pride and take this… for Calina… but God, if he ever makes me be with another man…
“He hasn’t officially asked yet,” he says. “But he’s implied it, and when he does ask, I’ll tell him to go to hell.”
“But wait,” I tell him. “Does that mean our coming here tonight was in vain? That you’ll gain nothing from this?”
Why do I even care?
But he only bends over to place a kiss to my forehead. “You let me worry about that, kisa. We have much to barter, and you’re not on the table.” His gaze goes to my nearly-empty glass. “Didn’t I tell you to drink that slowly?” But he isn’t angry. He’s almost… amused? Shaking his head, he tsks at me. “You be careful to listen, Calina, if you want our evening to end well.”
I nod, just before he takes me by the elbow. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want the man with the ugly, beady eyes, and thick, sweaty hands to look at me. I know now what’s on his mind and I war against my internal battle. I’m standing closer to Demyan, eager for his protection. But I can’t lose sight of the fact that he isn’t my savior.
“Come,” he says. “I need some time to cool off before we rejoin the party. I have many things I need to discuss with Amaranov, and I won’t be able to do so professionally if my thoughts are focused on how I want to cut off his dick and shove it down his throat.”
I laugh out loud. I think it’s the first time I’ve laughed in days, or even… God, months. I don’t laugh when I visit Calina. I haven’t found anything funny in so long, I forgot how good it feels. How the heaviness I’ve carried since my father’s death and Calina’s injury lightens a little with laughter.
His hand glides to the small of my back, his own lips twitching as I laugh. I can’t seem to stop the giggling that bubbles up inside me.
“What’s so funny, malyshka?”
How do I tell him it’s his fierce overprotectiveness? That I like how he wants to keep me all to himself?
“Perhaps you’ve had enough to drink,” he says, removing the nearly-empty flute from my hand and draining it himself. “I’d like you sober for tonight. No more alcohol.”
I open my mouth to protest when my body zings with a shockwave again and I gasp. “You’re so mean,” I whisper, grasping onto his elbow to stabilize myself. “So mean.”
He only chuckles and pushes open a door that says restricted.
This room is darker than the rest. Smaller, and cool like a cellar. I take in a deep breath to steady myself, as he plays with the device in his pocket and tortures me.
“That’s not fair,” I choke out. “I can’t… it’s like… how would you like it if I just randomly stroked your cock?”
He shrugs easily. “Oh, I don’t think I’d object to that.”
I blink when I realize we’re in another room with art displayed on large tables, hung from walls, and behind large glass fixtures. “What is it with you and the icons?” I ask. “You said they remind you of your mother. Can you tell me why?” I chatter on, eager to distract him from torturing me toward climax.
He leads me to a stone bench on the side of the room, and pats the vacant place beside him. I sit gingerly, my body still primed for pleasure.
“My father was a monster,” he begins, not meeting my eyes but running one finger along the glossy edge of the empty champagne flute. “Who somehow tricked my mother into marrying him. She was planning to become a nun, if you can believe it. She was a woman of strong faith and moral conviction. But early on, before she took her vows, she was seduced by my father. She became pregnant with me, and she left the church.”
I sit in silence. He’s giving this to me freely, his history. Something that I know without him telling me that he doesn’t reveal easily or often. He likes to keep things close to the chest. Maybe that’s the only way for him to do his job.
“Do you have any other siblings?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not anymore. Four years after I was born, they had my baby sister.” Looking away from me, he casts his eyes on an image of the virgin Mary, her hand placed on her swollen abdomen, eyes cast heavenward. I don’t say anything, allowing him to speak as little or as much as he’d like.