Rosalind
I can do this. If I tell myself that, I’ll surely make it out.
Closing my eyes in front of the mirror, I try to get myself under control. There are pieces of my memory gone, no doubt because I was too young and we were always on the run, but this… this man wants revenge on my father? A man I’ve never met?
I’ve never met him, have I?
Swallowing, I can’t shake the feeling this story is big, deep, and all levels of sordid. What does that say about me? When he touches me, I burn, a burn that stings with need. I want more-I need more. How can I want more when I watched him kill Uncle Max in cold blood? Opening my eyes, I set down the mascara I was attempting to apply.
What is wrong with me? I want this man’s mouth and I don’t even know him.
My hand trembles as I pick up the lipstick. I apply it slowly, hating myself, hating this gorgeous, evil man who can melt me down to nothing with just a look. I don’t want to see other people tonight, especially since they won’t help me. Even the maid won’t. The woman barely looked at me all day, like he keeps prisoners all the time.
Maybe he does. Maybe he kidnaps girls and kills the only family they have right in front of them. Maybe this is all in a day’s work for him.
“Rosalind,” I whisper, looking at myself. “You’re a beauty queen. You can do this.”
I can pretend for a night. He might free me. If I do have a father who’s alive, more than the deadbeat my mom ran from, then he doesn’t care. He gave up. Right? Mom didn’t… My thought trails off.
None of this makes sense. If Uncle Max-Marcus-was a US marshal and we were in witness protection, then who is my father?
Who is my kidnapper?
“Don’t think about it.” I pin up my hair in a loose updo that makes me look like I just tumbled out of bed. The dress he left is risque, shimmery red, so thin that it hints at my nipples, and I’m wondering how see through it is in the right light. It plunges down between my breasts, showcasing a whole lot of flesh. There’s no back, and I’m almost happy he didn’t leave me any underwear-panties would have ruined the effect. While the scrappy number seems to cling to my top, it skims my body, the back starting at my ass and ending not that far beneath it. The slink offers a suggestibility of freedom, of the ability to remove it with a flick, which, I imagine, is the look he’s going for.
There’s a bottle of perfume on my vanity counter, and I open it with an inhale. Rose. It’s beautiful, yet it turns my stomach. The scent somehow links in my brain with this man, Nikolai Wilder, dark and dangerous, who may just kill me, who sets off a burning need within me.
I hate him. I hate this perfume. I hate the control he has over me. I want revenge.
But I can’t do anything if I don’t even know where I am.
All I can hope is Genius called the police and that people are out looking for me. She knows I’m not the type to just run off, not show for the important part of a pageant. We weren’t in the big city, Clarkesville, where I spent the last few years. We’d travelled to the edge of the state, close enough to the sprawl of Queenstown, a place I’d always wanted to go but Mom refused to take me. Clarkesville, a four-hour drive from the pageant, was as close as Mom ever got to the city.
Funny enough, I never thought of her unwillingness to get close to Queenstown. We moved around, Seattle, small California towns, but she often came back east, yet never to Queenstown or New York, never Boston or Chicago. It was like she avoided them.
But Genius, Uncle Max-Marcus-and I had gotten a couple hotel rooms, so it would be obvious I was gone. People would be looking for me.
A wave of nausea hits me when a brutal thought pings in the back of my head.
Unless he killed her.
I start to shake. “No, he wouldn’t…” Not even the most naive part of me believes that. I fist my hands and turn from the mirror, not sure what to do next.
I drag my mind off that horrific path; I know I can’t go there, not if I’m to get through this. He said he’d think about letting me go. It’s all I have, all there is to cling to.
A knock on my door breaks my thoughts, and on stiff legs, I cross to the door as it opens. It’s not him. Instead, the maid appears, eyes down as always. “Mr. Wilder is waiting.”
I’m being summoned. Like a pet.
“Please, down the hall.” Her hands clasp together, but I don’t know if it’s from fear or if she’s trying to interact with me as little as possible. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
I’m about to ask, plead, demand help, but there’s something in her demeanor that stops me. Instinct. Trust no one, listen with every inch of your being, and if you’re in trouble, give in to instinct. This woman is loyal to her boss. She doesn’t know me. She’d tell him in a heartbeat if I said anything. The maid is no ally.
I steel myself internally, preparing myself for the journey. I step out into the hall, keeping my head forward and sweeping the place with a steady eye, counting rooms, looking for exits. The length of the hall tells me this place is big, grand and tasteful, teeming with antiques and quality. He has a maid, so there will be back stairs. Of course, I’m being led towards the main staircase-we’re on the second floor. I got that from peeping out the window earlier, only seeing grass and trees for miles; not exactly indicative of any particular location.
He’s waiting by a sweeping set of stairs and my breath catches. I hate him with everything in me, but I can’t deny that he’s beautiful. Tall, lean, devastating in a black suit, he turns, those dark eyes glittering at me like I’m his prize, his hard mouth curving in a predatory smile that makes my knees weak.
Nikolai holds out his arm as I reach the first step. “My perfect rose,” he murmurs as I stand there, frozen in place. He takes my hand and hooks it around his arm, his fingers pressing down on mine, warm and making my skin tingle. “I’d love to pluck your petals apart until they release their real perfume.”
A jolt runs through me. Even as innocent as I am, the sexual promise of those words shock me, make things inside me quiver. They make my pussy ache. What is wrong with me?
He laughs softly as we head down the stairs, and I latch back on to my hate as we cross what I presume is the great hall with large, towering doors. Two burly men stand guard, a sleek panel to the right. The panel will be the alarm, the men for show, I know. It’s obvious-Wilder has taste, so the men are for show. Is vanity his weakness?
“Oh, Rosalind,” he says as we move down the hall towards voices and laughter. “I know you’re trying to find a way out. You won’t, not unless I release you. If you’re looking for weakness, my little Rose, I don’t have any. Not even a heart.”
There’s an oak door in front of us leading downstairs, light and chatter spilling out, and I press my lips together to stop from saying something I might regret. I’m a beauty queen; I can parade around and pretend for a night.
“So, if you’re thinking of appealing to that, forget it.” He pulls me to a stop as he looks at me with a hard look, those dark eyes both ice and flame. “But I am a man of vast appetites.”
Without letting me respond, he spins me back around to walk through the door. The men inside are sitting around a large, polished dining table, sharing a bottle of scotch. There’s more than one look my way, a double take, whispers.
“Nikolai. Introductions?” asks one fat man wearing too many gold rings.
“This is Rose.” He doesn’t elaborate past his nickname for me.
My head spins as Nikolai sits, taking the last chair. Am I meant to stand? My internal question is immediately answered when he looks up at me, a flicker of a glance, and pats his knee.
Oh my God. I’m meant to sit on his lap. I swallow as my vision swims, everything going numb. Obviously annoyed at my lack of movement, he taps his index finger, not looking up at me, but the meaning is clear. Taking a deep breath, I sit, perching on his lap. His fingers dance lazily down my bare spine as he ignores the stares and whispers, instead engaging the man to his right.
Food is served, and though there’s some in front of me, I don’t touch it, except to push it around my plate. I want wine, but my glass is empty. Conversation flows around me, and I’m completely left out-thank goodness. I try to focus on it, on something, anything I can use, but I can’t. Instead, all I can focus on is how low his hand is now, dipping into the lowest part of my dress as he slides his fingertips back and forth across my ass.
Without warning, he reaches under the table to part my legs so I’m further onto his lap, his fingers a whisper on the delicate, sensitive flesh of my inner thighs. I stifle a yelp as I feel his fingertips come into contact with my skin, wiggling back a bit as his hand comes to rest on the top of my thigh. I swallow when I feel how hard he is against my back. Big. Hard.
Way too there.
I almost blush in mortification at how wet it makes me.
He shifts as he talks to someone across the table, his hand starting to move, slowly, until he’s at the folds of my pussy, practically radiating heat by now.
Nikolai slides his fingers along the outer lips, and God help me, I want to moan at the feeling. He’s moved up now, running a whisper of a finger across my clit. It’s a hell of a tease when he puts his mouth to my ear.
“Little Rose, don’t make a fucking sound.” He slides two of his fingers into me as he whispers in my ear, filling me in a way that makes me swallow a gasp.
I’ve fooled around, but I’ve never had anything inside me. He slowly moves his fingers in and out, the sensations are like nothing I’ve ever felt. Everything in me is focused on my core, on him inside me, on the building pressure in my spine. His breathing changes and I’m trying not to moan, not to writhe as he picks up speed, and I can’t help pushing down on his fingers as the pleasure in me grows.
Nikolai adds a third, then starts to move his thumb over my clit, back and forth, pressing down, playing me inside and out, like I’m an instrument to make sing. I slide back a little, gripping his thigh as the pressure builds as he keeps going, stretching me out, curling up to hit a spot that makes me almost leap up or slam down, I don’t know which. I bite my lip so hard, I taste little pinpricks of blood wash over my tongue. I bite to stop screaming, to stop moaning as waves of something big start to wash over me.
I’ve come before, but they were little laps of pleasure. Pings. This is huge, a tidal wave, and I can’t stop it. He knows, too, because he doesn’t change the rhythm he’s found and I’m trembling, coming apart in a room full of strangers.
Without warning, I explode, the pressure too much, the inner muscles of my pussy clenching down hard on his fingers. He slowly shoves them deeper and presses down hard on my clit as I twitch. It’s a fine line I’m riding-half pleasure, half pain. Just when it gets to be too much, he pulls his fingers from me.
Nikolai turns, makes me meet his eyes. I’m sure he can feel me shake on his lap, the boneless jelly of my legs as they splay around him. I can barely move. He just stares at me as I drift back to Earth, suddenly all too aware I’m in a room of men who probably know what just happened.
Nikolai lifts his hand to his face, his fingers shiny with my release, and that’s when I notice the tattoos peeking out from the wrist of his collared shirt, dipping down to his hand. It shouldn’t be so hot, but damn it, it is. He smiles, just a little, not breaking eye contact, as he licks my taste off his fingers. He does it slowly. Deliberate.
His expression tells me everything.
Instead of the taste of blood, it’s the taste of my arousal on his tongue, and something tells me now he has it, he might never let me go.