Lucius picked another café. I guess he has a thing for coffee. Though, when I finally reach the place, I don’t find the car out front or his little friend lurking beside the door. The moment I step inside, I realize why.
Another man dominates the center of the room. Dominates—that’s the only way to put it. His massive body seems out of place seated on a wooden chair before a round table draped in a fancy white cloth. In sharp contrast, he’s wearing black from head to toe. The color makes his blond hair glow almost. Like his eyes. They flicker in my direction the moment I creep toward the hostess podium, where a smiling waitress is standing to greet me.
“This way,” she says without bothering to ask my name. She instinctively knows which table to stop beside, her eyes expectantly focused on Maxim, who sends her away with a wave of his hand.
To me, he just nods at the chair across from him. “Sit, kotyonok.”
My knees bend on command, plopping me down onto a burgundy cushion. The table is already set. The silverware is legit silver, laid out in a line.
But there is only one place setting: his.
“I thought I should meet with you myself,” Maxim says. “So that there can be no mistake as to what I expect from you.”
His eyes flash, demanding a response.
“O-okay—”
“You should know that this isn’t about companionship,” he tells me. “In fact, this isn’t even about sex.”
One of his hands reaches across the table, the thumb of it coming to brush my lower lip. It’s bitten: a wound I only remember as his touch stirs up the pain. My eyes start to blink, watering. He presses down harder.
When he finally draws his hand away, the thumb is red with blood. He stares at the drop for a second and then rubs it carefully into the tablecloth.
“I only want to hurt you,” he tells me as his stare reconnects with mine. “However I want. Whenever I want. In any way that I can. Do you understand what I mean by that?”
“H-hurt me?” My voice is a fucking rasp as my belly clenches up at the reminder of the damage he’s already dished out.
He folds his hands, watching me for what feels like hours as the café bustles with traffic around us. I swear our waitress has passed us at least five times, serving as many tables, before he speaks again.
“Come here.” He pushes back from the table but remains seated. When I stand, he nods at his lap. “Sit.”
I nervously dart my gaze around the rest of the café.
“Don’t.” The warning trickles from him, so softly that only I can hear it. “Sit.”
It hurts to straddle him. With his size, it’s like attempting to do a split. Pinpricks of pain shoot behind my eyelids the farther I spread my legs, so I focus on sucking in air, one breath after the other. The moment I’m on top of him, he easily shifts his weight, sliding his chair closer to the table. Too close. The rim of it digs into my lower back, but Maxim doesn’t stop. I look down and find him flicking his fingers toward the ceiling.
“Up, kotyonok.”
It isn’t until he attempts to push into the table completely that I understand what he means. Up. I have to brace both hands on the table behind me and haul myself up before his weight traps me between it and his chest. The tines of a fork dig into my thigh as all of the silverware clings together when I scoot backward. My face is on fire, but no one seems to notice the scene unfolding.
“Look at me.” His hand captures my chin to make me. “These people?” He shrugs one shoulder toward the rest of the café. “They mean nothing. If you are to be with me, that is the first thing you will need to learn. Their reactions, their judgment means nothing.”
He slides his other hand beneath my ass, lifting me from the table’s surface altogether. I can only watch. I can only breathe. In and out. My sore pussy throbs as if it already knows just what he’s planning.
“Strip.” He tells me, even as his fingers leave my jaw and go directly to the front of my jeans before I can do it myself. With one yank, he undoes the zipper—undressing me on a table inside a public place.
I can’t process it. I just find myself staring at a balding old man at the table directly across from us. He’s steadily sipping his soup without a care in the world or a glance in my direction.
“Look at me.”
Pain sears between my legs. I look down and find Maxim’s hand there, rubbing against my open fly. A warning.
“Only me, kotyonok.” His fingers rub again, while the ones beneath me hook within one of the belt loops of my jeans.
One hard yank nearly drags me off the table and onto his lap again. I know without him even having to say it not to move an inch, so I brace my weight back against my palms, arching my hips in the process.
Another tug later and my pants are down my thighs. He inhales when he sees what lurks underneath. I can’t look, so I stare up at the ceiling as my jeans are pulled the rest of the way off and tossed aside. He doesn’t bother with the same method for my panties.
A metallic clink proceeds the icy scrape tickling my inner thigh a second later, centered in a single point that grazes a path over to my hip. I can hear people laughing. Talking. No one gasps but me when the tip of the knife slides beneath the waistband of my panties. I feel a hard jerk and then the fabric is slowly peeled away by his hands. They’re rough. Like sandpaper. Cold. Warm. I can’t fucking explain just what he feels like. Maybe it’s because pain mingles with every deliberate touch. His nails lead the charge, sharper than the knife.
“Look at me, kotyonok.”
His voice turns my body into a slave. I see what he’s done. What’s he’s doing. While I watch, he slices through the other side of the thong. Then he gathers up the black fabric and pitches it onto the floor.
I can’t help the sound that tears out of me when I look between my legs. Two purple bruises in the shape of handprints make twin marks on my inner thighs. Just beyond my pussy is a slight scarlet smear.
“You have a delicate little cunt. I hurt you. Without intending to.” The pad of his thumb drifts down, running between my legs, coming away red. He doesn’t look pleased about that. His eyes darken to the shade of his shirt as he raises his fingers to my mouth, pressing his thumb against my bottom lip.
I know what he wants. It’s sick, but I fucking know. My tongue drifts out, flicking the bloody smears away, and I swallow hard without tasting.
Chuckling, Maxim lowers his hand—and rams it between my legs. His thumb circles my entrance. Once. Again. Harder. When he raises it again, his eyes contain a dare.
“Taste, kotyonok.”
I lick my lips first, tasting bitter, dry flesh. I try to focus on that flavor as I lean forward, sticking my tongue out on cue. I’m about an inch away from his hand when I realize what he wants.
When my tongue finally touches him, it’s like licking a frozen pole in the middle of winter. The icy, numbing jolt feels the same. Disgust makes me gag. Just swallow. All I have to do is swallow and I won’t taste.
But he’s watching me, waiting as my taste buds slowly register the substance they’ve picked up. Salt. Musk. Me. Drool floods my mouth, urging me to spit.
“Swallow,” Maxim commands.
I do, and somehow, it all goes down without a fuss.
“Good.” He pushes back from the table just enough so that he can take me in without having to crane his neck. His eyes flicker up and down the length of me before settling between my legs. His nostrils flare, inhaling my scent as my flesh is bared to him.
It takes everything I have in me not to slam my thighs together. Focus on him. I don’t take my eyes off his face, trying to decipher any hint of what he might be thinking. Insanity most likely. He has to be insane. And, any minute, the manager of this place will storm over and order us out.
I tell myself that. I comfort myself with what a part of me knows is just a lie.
“Why do you want this?” Maxim wonders. His fingers fan out along his jaw, smearing blood onto his gold stubble. “You’re young. You can find other clients. You don’t seem familiar with sadism.”
Sadism. My brain blanks at how dangerous he makes that word sound. The scary part? I don’t even know what it means—I don’t want to.
“I asked you a question.” His eyes flash, and he sits straighter.
“I need the money,” I blurt out.
Rather than seem insulted, he nods in response, still rubbing his chin. When his hand shoots out in an arch, I flinch, thinking I missed something, but a waitress appears at his shoulder seconds later.
Her eyes skim over me, her pretty smile perfectly in place. “How may I serve you, Mr. Koslov?”
Maxim waves his hand toward the table, and the woman nods before taking off.
“Did you really read the contract?” he wonders after she’s gone. His eyes flick up to mine and narrow a dangerous fraction of an inch. “Be honest with me.”
“Yes?” It’s the Melanie in me that wants me to lie—but the man intimidates even my fucking genetics. “No.”
“You didn’t,” Maxim says, deciding for himself which answer of the two is correct. “I suggest you educate yourself, kotyonok.” He bends forward, rummaging through something at his feet. A bag? He withdraws a folder from whatever it is. “Read.”
He tosses the stack between my legs.
It’s black, containing a pile of pages that flutter as I flip it open and smear blood over them. It’s the same list Lucius showed me, but this time, I inhale every fucking word. It’s more than just a catalog of injuries and their corresponding prices.
So much more.
To start with, my eyes pick up where they left off: In the event of accidental death, the designated relatives of the aforementioned party will receive a lump sum amount of $500,000.
I wheeze, sucking in air. The rooms spins for a second, but I keep reading.
Clause 4: The aforementioned party will remain with the undersigned for a duration of specified time, not to exceed forty hours per week.
Clause 5: The aforementioned party will submit fully to all terms stated by the undersigned. To void the contract at any time, the aforementioned party must invoke the use of the designated “safe word,” nullifying the contract and forfeiting the entirety of the remaining payment.
I tear my eyes away from the page and find Maxim watching me.
“I’d have to stay with you?”
“Read silently,” he warns. “When you finish, we will discuss it all.”
My throat jerks to swallow as I keep reading. It’s all I can fucking do.
When I finally finish, my palms are slick. I can’t seem to breathe in deeply enough. The light in the room is blinding. At the same time, it’s too dark. Maxim’s face is covered in shadow. I can only make out his smile: pure-white teeth in a beautiful, lethal row.
“I’m finished.” I set the folder aside, letting it slip through my fingers and onto the edge of the table. It slides off, but Maxim doesn’t reach for it and something warns me not to even try.
His eyes cut over my shoulder, just as the waitress appears beside me. On one of her hands is a steaming plate of food: steak, potatoes, and roasted vegetables. In the other is a mug of dark liquid. Coffee, I guess.
Maxim nods toward the table, and I start to climb down.
“No.” His hand grabs my thigh, pinning me in place while the waitress sets his plate down right between my legs.
The hot rim sears whatever bits of my thighs come into contact with it. I fling my legs apart as far as I can, only to graze the mug of steaming coffee with the left one as the waitress sets it down too.
“Thank you,” Maxim says, sending her off.
He turns his attention to his food, sizing up every item on his plate before reaching for a fork. I’m partially sitting on the one his fingers settle over, but he doesn’t prompt me to move my thigh. He clenches the handle instead and pulls. Sharp, harsh pain bites so deep that I can taste it. My eyes flutter shut.
“Open, kotyonok.”
My vision snaps back into focus as he stabs at a roasted carrot and raises it close to my chin, allowing the smell to tickle my nose. A frown tugs at his mouth before I realize what he meant. Open.
I pry my lips apart far enough for him to slip the piece of carrot between them. Shit. It’s too hot. I have to choke it down, my eyes watering.
“Good,” Maxim growls, and I instinctively know what action satisfied him: not my obedience, but the pain.
He reaches for a steak knife and I shift my weight to lift my right thigh slightly in case he grabs it the same way he did the fork. His fingers close over the handle of the sharpest one. He pulls and then flips the blade at the last minute so that the edge bites into my skin regardless. Not hard enough to draw blood, just enough to sting.
“I didn’t say you could move,” he warns before cutting into his steak. Pink liquid pours out from the first cut. It’s cooked rarer than most people I know would dare to eat. Without batting an eyelash, Maxim slices off a piece and spears it with the fork. “Open.”
I obey. As the minutes pass, he winds up feeding me more of his food than himself. I quickly pick up on the method to his madness: He takes his time, giving me every morsel that wafts the most steam. After each bite, he watches me chew and I wait for his silent cue to swallow. He nods afterward. I breathe.
“Good, kotyonok,” he tells me before taking a bite of steak for himself. “Very good.”
My heart skips a beat, riding a merry-go-round of pain and fear. I think it’s over. He doesn’t seem interested in the final slice of steak and lets it linger on the edge of his plate while he samples the veggies. It’s the very last thing left when he finally stabs it with the fork and raises it.
He sighs, his eyes between my legs. My skin is on fire, but I don’t dare look away. I just wait.
Slowly, he lowers the steak. Too low. I can’t fight the noise that breaks from my throat when he drags the meat along my inner thigh.
“I wish I could taste you myself.” He sounds curious. Hungry. He wishes he could taste me, but I know why he can’t.
I’m bleeding. I could be dirty. Lucius mentioned something about a blood test I have yet to take.
“Soon,” Maxim says, shattering any coherent thought into a million pieces. “As for now, open, kotyonok.”
I obey, turning my brain off as he places the blood-stained meat on my tongue. I don’t think about it. Not the taste. Not the flavor. I simply swallow, but a sharp pinch on my hip stops the food from going down.
“Not yet.”
I have no choice but to let the food sit there, at the back of my throat. His eyes stare into mine, pinning me in place. Daring me to make a move without his say so. It feels like hours before he lowers the fork and nods.
I choke the meat down.
He smiles—or at least his lips lift higher than their usual stern line. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
“And now—” He sits back in his chair, tilting his head up to meet mine. “You may now ask your questions.”
The folder is still on the floor. I glance at it and Maxim smiles again.
“Start with the one I know you can’t stop thinking about.”
I have to suck in a breath to get the words out. “I gotta—”
“Sentences.” My punishment is a pinch on my hip, sharp and demanding.
“I mean, I would have to stay with you?”
He’s right. That damn clause keeps circling my brain. Only the look in his eyes keeps me from dwelling on it. That dangerous promise. I only want to hurt you.
“Yes,” he says while my heart shrivels up. “Three nights a week for the first week. To acclimate. Five nights after that.”
“But I have kids.”
His face doesn’t change, and I can’t tell if he thinks it’s a lie or not. Slowly, his gaze returns to my pussy.
Oh. “T-they’re not—”
“You may have a few days to make arrangements,” Maxim says over me. “If you need additional funds, contact Lucius.”
“But I—”
His eyes flash in warning. “Anything else, kotyonok?”
“Kotee…” I give up trying to parrot the term. “What does that mean—”
“Next question.”
My brain changes tactics automatically. “T-the safe word?”
According to the contract, it was the only way out of this agreement. One word that could end it all. A kill switch.
“Yes?”
“What is it?”
He brushes his jaw with the tip of his thumb. “The women typically decide that for themselves.”
The women. More than one. More than me. Desperate enough—pathetic enough—to do for anything for cash.
“What do they usually pick?”
He cocks his head and seems to think for a minute. “The usual tropes. Red light. Stop now. Enough please. However, I suggest you select something you would never typically say. Once you utter the safe word, our contract is null and void. You only need to say it once.”
Pick something that I would never say? Melanie herself, showing up once again out of the blue to fuck up everything, made one choice pretty fucking tempting.
“What will it be?” His tone demands an answer.
“Happy.”
That creepy almost-smile shapes his mouth again. He sits forward, his hair framing his face. “It is typically a phrase. Something you would never say.”
“Then I’m happy. I am happy.”
I can’t tell what he thinks of it. He just nods. “As you wish, kotyonok.”
“So…” I lick my lips, flexing my fingers against the table. “M-may I ask another question?”
“Ask away.”
“When would I start?” My voice catches, sticking the words at the back of my throat. It feels like asking about my execution date. “And get paid?”
Maxim flexes his arms at both wrists, straining the muscle coiled beneath his shirt. “You can contact Lucius within forty-eight hours once you’ve made your arrangements,” he says. “As for payment.”
He lunges forward and I flinch, but his hands reach between my outstretched legs, toward his feet. He snatches something else from what’s there: a briefcase I see when I crane my neck. Whatever he lifts from it is black. Thick. An envelope.
He slides it onto the sliver of space in front of his plate. “Take this in advance. A taste.”
He stands, flicking the edge of his collar between a forefinger and thumb. “Wait ten minutes before you leave,” he tells me. “Don’t move. I don’t even think you should blink—not for as long as you can stand it. You leave so much as a second too early?” His thumb grazes my chin again, still red with my blood. “You will be punished when I see you again. Do you understand?”
I nod and he turns away from me. I watch him go, and he draws attention with every step he takes. It’s only after he leaves that the other diners finally seem to notice me. Sitting here, half naked. Shameless. Motionless.
In the end, I don’t wait ten minutes before leaving.
I wait fifteen.