The sight is so intensely erotic that I feel like I can’t breathe. Alexandre is almost animalistic in his pleasure, his entire being focused on his throbbing cock, not caring about the cum on his hand and wrist and floor or what it might get all over, only his desperate need for release. It’s all the more intense because I’ve seen the other side of him too, the one that can’t stand dust and insists on the apartment being cleaned top to bottom every day, the one that was both angered and turned on by my arousal soaking his rug.
I’m not surprised that even as his orgasm recedes, I can still see cum dripping from the tip of his cock, sliding down his shaft as he half-collapses against the bedpost, still squeezing and lightly stroking as the aftershocks ripple through him. He’d been hard for so long today that I can only imagine how intensely he must have needed to come, how many times he’d had to force it back, holding onto his control with an iron grip. His orgasm must have been blindingly good, and the thought of him fighting back that need does nothing to calm down the desire that I can still feel pulsing through my veins.
I want to go to him all over again, cross the room and drop to my knees in front of him so that I can lick away the lingering drops of cum clinging to his cock, take his softening length in my mouth until he’s hard again, suck him until he’s throbbing and solid between my lips, and then—
Then what? Are you going to fuck him? Do youreallywant to do that? You can pretend long enough to get off and indulge your fantasies, but at some point, you’ve got to come back to reality, and—
The photos are still spread across the bed, shattering some of the fantasy. I still can’t see them very well, although I can definitely make out a few feminine shapes. They’re all definitely Polaroids, some newer looking than others, with black ink scrawls across the bottom in various handwritings.
You know what that is. Youknow.
Maybe I’m being paranoid.
Or maybe I’m just gaslighting myself into thinking better of this man than he could possibly deserve. I snatch my hand away from my pussy, squeezing my thighs together as I feel the damp silk between my legs clings to my skin. I start to think rapidly about how to retreat before he decides he needs to pee or get some water or a midnight snack and catches me. He’ll punish me if he does, and something tells me that, especially now that he’s had his orgasm, it won’t be as embarrassingly pleasurable as spreading myself open for him and masturbating for him.
You saw what you wanted to see, naughty girl,the voice in my head whispers, and it sounds alarmingly like Yvette, mocking me.Go back to bed now, before he catches you. Run!
I don’t run. I know better thanthat. I do back up hastily, though, as I see him straighten, reaching for the photos with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his cock and is now drenched with his cum. I get one glimpse of him dispassionately scraping them into a pile, gathering them up as carelessly as he might a stack of papers, in distinct opposition to the way I saw him staring down at them as he stroked himself earlier.
Whatever he’d felt, whatever he’dallowedhimself to feel while caught in the iron grip of his lust, he’s locked it back up now. I saw it on his face just before I retreated, the animalistic need gone, his jaw relaxed, his face impassive and cool, as he usually is.
The Alexandre that I usually know. The one who caught me in the study today.
The one that I still want, just the same.
I feel strangely guilty for spying on him as I scramble quickly back down the stairs, moving as fast as I can while still trying not to make any noise, for watching him without his knowledge in his most vulnerable moments. I’d at least been aware that he was watching me earlier when he’d demanded I put myself on display for him. Still, as far as I know, Alexandre has no idea I was hiding behind the door.
If he had?I honestly don’t know. The man I’d been watching had been so caught in the throes of lust and emotion that he might have ignored me, at least for the moment, rather than take a chance on losing the promise of his onrushing climax. But I’m not naïve enough to think that even if he’d tabled dealing with me in favor of an orgasm—which is fair enough—that he wouldn’t have turned his attention back to me the second he was finished coming.
And not in the way I’m craving it, either.
Whatareyou craving, exactly?I ask myself almost bitterly as I slip noiselessly down the hall and back into bed, tucking the covers tightly around me as I slide down onto the pillows.Love? Companionship? Affection? Safety? Pleasure?
And out of those, what could Alexandre really give me if I chose to ignore the circumstances of our relationship and gave in only to pure longing? Safety, perhaps, as long as I didn’t anger him, and even then, he seemed inclined earlier to force himself to temper his rage rather than hurt me.
Affection, probably. It’s easy to remember how he’d fed me, carried me to the bath and bathed me, gently undressed and dressed me again, petting my hair and patting me on the head before leaving me for the day. When I please him, he’s more than affectionate with me, even if it’s with the clear detachment of an owner to his possession—his pet. His little doll.
Companionship?I doubt it.I swallow hard, trying to imagine Alexandre being myfriend. Maybe in time, if we got to know each other well enough, but even in this brief time, it’s become clear to me that Alexandre keeps to himself. I don’t even think Yvette knows more than half of him, perhaps, which I privately think is why she’s so desperate to keep any other woman away from him—probably in hopes that in time, he’ll fall for her.
Alexandre says that Yvette is his friend, but I suspect that a “friend” to Alexandre is different from what it means to others.
Love? I bite my lower lip, forcing myself not to cry at the thought. Imissbeing loved, and not just romantic love. I miss Sofia, the way we laughed together, the way we finished each other’s sentences, the way we knew each other, down to our bones.The best worst roommate I ever had.My best friend and the truest example of love I’ve ever had. I know it must be killing her to have lost me, to be a world away, married and pregnant and unable to come after me. If she weren’t pregnant, or maybe even just out of her first trimester, I think she might actually have come after me.
Fat chance. Luca would handcuff her to the bed permanently before he let her run off into danger like that.
The thought brings me up short. I hadn’t liked Luca at first—I’d thought he was arrogant, overbearing, and cruel to Sofia. But in time, he’d softened, and I’d gotten to know other sides of him. I’d come to appreciate what he had done for Sofia and was willing to do for her, and even begun to care for him, like a brother that I’m on tentative good terms with. Now it would be something of a joke that he’d lock Sofia up rather than let her risk herself for any reason, regardless of how she felt about it or her opinion.
Alexandre had wanted me to stay out of his study and his bedroom for a reason. What that is, I don’t know—but I’m certain he hadn’t wanted me to find the bill of sale. He could be hiding things, or he might be protecting me—from knowing too much, from something that might hurt me. While cruel in their own way, his actions might possibly come from a place of caring.
So why is he worse than Luca, or Viktor, even?Viktor definitely hadn’t been kind to Caterina in the early days of their marriage. He’d all but bought her, as Alexandre bought me, except Viktor had bargained with peace instead of cash.
I struggle with it, lying there in the dark–with what the real differences are between the men that my closest friends love; the men who, I hope, arrived in time to save them even if they were too late for me. Deep down, I want to find a reason that they’re the same, that Alexandre is no worse than any other white-collar criminal I’ve known—just an eccentric billionaire instead of a mafia boss or Bratva beast.
But my thoughts keep drifting back to the other girls, if they really were here. What Alexandre might have done to them, what might have happened.Who was here before me? Whose clothes am I wearing? Whose things am I using? Did she sleep in this same bed? What about the ones before her, whoever she was?
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, driving the thoughts back before they can drivemeinsane. I don’t have any of those answers, and I can’t ask Alexandre for them. Which, coupled with the fact that I now know he paid ahundred million dollarsfor me, means that I should be keeping my distance from him as much as I can. Obeying him without question. Putting up walls around my heart and everything else I can lock down emotionally, rather than letting myself be overrun with desire.
Pleasure.The last thing I’d thought of, the last thing I need. That Icrave, aching for it, but not in the way I used to, for the sake of it. Now I crave it because I feel so lonely all of the time because I want something to fill that space inside of me, to feel like another person cares about me, if only because they’re taking the time to give me pleasure.