Chapter 29

Daelyn

There aren’t any windows in Dmitri’s room, so I have no clue what time it is. I crashed on his cot after trying to stay up, silently willing him to come back and be with me. I need comfort, even if I don’t deserve it. When he never returned, I curled into his bed and cocooned myself in his blanket.

His door creaks open and he slips in. “You awake yet?” he whispers.

“Yes.” Sitting up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I immediately look for my cell because it’s a habit to check it first thing in the morning. “What time is it?”

“Two in the afternoon.”

Oh my God. “I’m so sorry.” Leaping out of bed, I get tangled in the blanket and hop on one foot. Shaking myself free, I hurry and fold it nice and neat before fluffing his pillow and lining it up perfectly on the top of his bed. “Let me just—”

“Easy, Daelyn.” He grips my shoulders. “Slow down.”

“I took your bed. I’ve invaded your space. I’m a burden. And I—”

He smashes his mouth to mine.

I shove him back. “I haven’t even brushed my teeth!”

He chuckles. “Your breath’s not that bad.”

His expression shows he’s lying. “Ugh!” I storm over to my bag and dig out my toothbrush. What gives? Last night he said he didn’t trust me anymore and today he’s kissing me first thing and laughing?

The man’s got issues.

Flicking the bathroom light on, I scrub my teeth and stare at myself in the mirror. I’ve seen roadkill that’s looked better than me. My eyes are swollen, the bruise on my throat looks ugly, and my face is pale.

Dmitri leans on the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his massive body as he stares at my reflection. “We’re going to work on endurance today.”

I spit my toothpaste out in the sink. “Okay.”

He pulls his t-shirt off and unbuckles his belt. I freeze with the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth and gawk at him. He slips by and starts the shower.

Trying to remain respectful, I force my gaze back to the sink. It doesn’t last long. The glass shower door lets me see Dmitri through the reflection in the mirror. Every glorious inch of that man makes my pussy swoon. The room steams. My heart races.

His voice cuts through the foggy silence when he says, “You can come in here if you want.”

Is this a trick? Or is it a green light? A little olive branch, if you will.

More like an olive tree trunk by the size of him .

“Umm. Okay.” Confused and excited, I strip out of my clothes and step into the shower with Dmitri. Hugging myself, I stand there like I have no clue what to do.

“Turn around.” He pulls the showerhead down and sprays my hair, back, ass, and legs. “Face me.” He does the same to my front side, then hangs it back up. “Don’t have much,” he says, pointing at the shelf of shampoo and soap. “But it’s all yours.”

My throat tightens. “Why are you being nice to me?”

“Do you want me to be mean to you?” Without warning, he pushes me against the tile and leans his body against my back, pinning me.

God help me, but my response is probably not what it should be. The gasp I give. My body melts and eyes flutter. Fuuuuck he’s sexy when he’s mad at me.

Dmitri caresses my ass. “You’ve been a bad...” Smack ! “Bad...” Smack ! “Bad girl.” Smack !

My ass stings and legs turn to rubber. “Dmitri.”

“Tell me to stop and I will.” His hands glide up my wet skin and he kicks my legs wider while collaring my throat with one hand. The other braces against the tile in front of me. “What’s your safe word, Daelyn?”

“Crocodile.”

I brace for him to thrust inside me and take what he wants.

“I’m going to ruin you,” he growls against my ear.

I nod my consent.

His hand doesn’t squeeze my throat, but the way it feels on my neck is all I focus on as fear slides into place. He could do anything he wants to me down here. No one will help me. No one knows I’m in this place. If I scream, I doubt anyone will hear it through the thick concrete walls.

Damn if my body doesn’t heat up.

He’s not going to hurt me. I trust him completely.

“I want inside you,” he says in a deep, rumbling voice. “I’ll tear you apart to get in there if I have to.”

My eyes roll back, and I bite my bottom lip.

He reaches between my legs and feels how ready I am. “So fucking wet. Dirty little slut.”

I whimper.

“I’m going to fuck this pussy until it only remembers me.” He shoves the tip of his pierced dick inside me. “ Only me.” He pushes in a little more. “Because this cunt in mine until I say otherwise.” Dmitri bottoms out, making me gasp for air and rise on my tippytoes to accommodate his size.

“Yes, King.”

He mumbles something that sounds like fuck, but I honestly can’t be sure. He’s railing me too hard and between that, my blood pressure spiking, and the rush of water over us, I can’t hear clearly.

Our bodies slap together. I think I’m going to shatter.

My head tips back against his chest as he reaches around and rubs my clit. My climax starts crawling towards me, digging its hot nails into my belly and dragging itself towards my pussy.

Dmitri lets go and pushes me forward, so I have to hold the wall while he fucks me.

My orgasm retreats.

He plays with me like this, edging me over and over, until I’m so dizzy with need, I slap the tile in frustration.

He laughs and pulls out, jerking off until his orgasm swirls down the drain between my feet. Then he washes up and opens the shower door to step out. “I told you today’s lesson is about endurance.”

With that, the motherfucker ghosts me.

???

Dmitri

She’s too easy. One quick session in the shower has her entirely riled up. The little monster couldn’t get herself off after I left. I heard her try. Poor baby . Look, I may be willing to help her defend herself, but I’m still allowed to have some retaliation. She is, after all, here to fuck my life up.

Except feeling her tight, wet pussy fit so beautifully around my cock is a dance with the devil I should probably hold off on. We didn’t use a condom last night or this morning. Daelyn’s clean, per my requirements set on rewards with Silas, and I’m clean because I’m a Dom at the Monarch. But raw dogging is not something I do. Ever. Jesus, why do I keep slipping with this woman?

I don’t even give a little foreplay with her. My addiction to her body brings out the primal side of me. I can’t stop myself from getting inside her as fast as possible. I swear my vision goes white with the first thrust every time. All I want is to mount her, fuck her until she passes out, and then coax her awake so I can do it all over again.

Sophie was right, regular girls bore me. At least Daelyn keeps me on my toes, even if she’s bad for me.

My girl comes out of the bathroom looking downright murderous. She thinks she’s hiding her frustration behind a stoic expression, but I know the telltale signs of a sub in need. Her wet hair drips on the floor as she storms over to my cot and pulls an outfit from her bag.

If she’s a good girl, and does what she’s told, maybe I’ll give her a reward later. For now, I give Daelyn her cell phone. The instant she sees it, her eyes light up, and she snags it from me.

A few seconds later, she’s calling Addie. “Hey you!”

I hear a female’s voice from the other end but can’t make out what she’s saying.

“That sounds so fun! Well, be careful. Don’t get eaten by a shark or I’ll be so mad at you.”

Addie says something else and then Daelyn’s phone buzzes in her hand.

“They just came through.” Daelyn smiles again. “Okay, love you, babe. Have a blast. I’ll call you later, okay?”

She hangs up and looks at the texts, her eyes shining bright, and I swear it looks like a completely different woman. She’s happy. Relieved. Content. I don’t think I realized that I’ve not seen her look like this before. Addie did this. Addie made Daelyn’s mask fall effortlessly.

Curiosity gets the better of me and I step closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of a photo of the woman who can work such a miracle on Daelyn. Before I get the chance, Daelyn closes the app and locks her screen, handing it back to me. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” I slip the phone into my back pocket. “Time to stretch.”

I’ve laid one of my mats out for her already.

Yanking her wet hair into a low pony, Daelyn gets on the floor and starts warming up. The smile is gone from her sweet face, and her mask is back on. She’s bendy, I’ll give her that. Once Daelyn’s warmed up, we go over the combos I taught her yesterday. She’s a little sloppy and slow, which is fine. I don’t expect her to be a savant in the ring on day two.

We go at it for three hours before I allow her a break.

“That felt better.” Daelyn wipes the sweat from her brow. “Can we do it again?”

“As many times as it takes for you to feel confident, Firefly.”

I’ve gone back to calling her that nickname. It keeps slipping out and honestly, I don’t want to stop. She might be my enemy, but she’s still mine.

Daelyn disarms me three more times but gets madder about it instead of happy. “Damnit!” She throws my knife on the ground. Fisting her hair, she walks in circles around me.

Maybe a short break is in order.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I ask, picking up my knife and heading to my mini fridge to grab her a bottle of water.

“What?”

“You asked me, and I told you. Now I want to know yours.” I keep my tone level and body disengaged.

She takes a long pull from the bottle, guzzling it down. After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she says, “I once had two slices of cake for breakfast when I was told I could only have one.”

My anger flares. “Bullshit.”

“Bullshit is you saying that crying in front of your mother is the worst thing you’ve ever fucking done.”

It takes all I have to not punch a wall. Keeping my hands at my side, I suck in three calming breaths and sit on my cot. “The day I cried in front of her set a series of very bad things into motion directly afterwards.”

“How?”

“I was upset about something and broke down in tears and screamed at my mother. She got mad and busted my skull open with a vodka bottle from the freezer. My dad walked in on us fighting and finally learned that she’d been abusing me for years. She was pregnant at the time too, so instead of going after her, he lost his head and took his anger out on someone else. That someone else died and my father went to prison, where he was recently murdered. So yeah, my showing vulnerability to my mother was the worst fucking thing I ever did because it cost me everything.”

Daelyn drops her attitude immediately. “Jesus, Dmitri.”

“Your turn.” Sitting with my elbows on my knees and hands clasped, I keep my tone level and bored. “The suspense is killing me.”

“Okay. Here it goes.” Daelyn tosses her hands up. “I’ve done a lot, but the highlights probably include being an accomplice to robberies, a liaison for a drug cartel, facilitating seven hand offs for unregistered guns, I’ve committed arson by burning down a competitor’s barn, and once, when I was eight, I stole a pack of pop rocks from a convenience store.”

I don’t think she’s joking.

“Drug cartel?”

Daelyn nods. “And arson.”

“And guns.”

“Don’t forget the pop rocks.” She sighs as if the confession has lifted a weight off her chest. “I’ll take full blame for the pop rocks, but the other shit I’ve done, I didn’t have a choice. I mean, I guess I did. It was do it or suffer the consequences.” Daelyn shrugs, shaking her head. “I didn’t think I could survive too many more consequences.”

I want to kill the man who owns her.

“He’s got videos of everything,” she says quietly. “Every bad deed I’ve done for him. He’ll use it to get Addie taken away from me if I don’t…”

“If you don’t fuck my life up and ruin me.”

“Yes.”

Part of me wants to protect her, the other part of me wants to scream. I have no clue how much of what she’s saying is even true. It could all be lies, a grand ploy to get me to trust her again. Why else would she admit to all that? One call to the cops with this information, and I could put her in prison. Hell, if the cartel she’s involved with finds out she just ran her mouth, it could get her killed. How far down the rabbit hole is this woman?

And how deep am I willing to go with her?

Daelyn drains the rest of the water bottle and tosses it in the trash. “It was a slippery slope. Sometimes I try to pinpoint when the first big mistake was, but they all blur. I can excuse so much of it. He’s… very persuasive.”

“How old were you when you met him?”

“Twelve.”

I’d bet my eyeteeth he’s older than her. He groomed her. Brainwashed her. It doesn’t make what she’s done right, but it gives me a little more ammo. “What’s the worst thing he did to you?”

Her brow pinches. “Probably this.” She holds her hands out. “Sending me into your life.”

Ouch . My heart deflates.

“I should have known better.” Daelyn readjusts her ponytail. “After all this time, I should have known he wasn’t going to let me off so easy. One fuck and I was supposed to be done. Out. And now…”

My dead heart turns to ash hearing her say all this. But I can’t be pissed that she fucked me that first night as a way to get out of her bad situation. I didn’t give two shits about her that night. I was a raging beast with a heat-seeking missile between my legs. I wanted to fight, fuck, and blow steam off. I didn’t need anything but a warm hole. Still, it hurts on some base level of my black soul that she’s only here to fulfill a job.

“Do you regret it?” I tilt my head and look at her again, desperate to read her facial cues and body language.

She blows out a shaky exhale. “No.”

I’m not sure how to take that. No, because she likes me, no, because I’m helping her, or no, because she’s almost done her mission and will be free of this guy.

Tell me who the fuck he is, goddamnit. Who owns you?

“Come here.” I crook my finger at her. She crosses her arms, looking scared. “I’m not going to hurt you, Firefly.”

Gulping, she comes a little closer and I grab a small silicone pad from under my pillow. I’d stashed it there while she was in the shower, not sure if I’d use it or not. But the hard work she’s putting in calls for a reward.

I strap the pad to my thigh and cock my brow at her.

Daelyn’s confusion is adorable. “What is that?”

“A grind pad. Take your shorts off and ride my thigh. You look like you need a release.”

Her cheeks redden. “You can’t be serious.”

“Well, if you don’t want a reward…” I start unfastening the strap.

“Wait.”

I freeze, clenching my molars to keep from smiling.

“I’m not going to be able to come with that thing, Dmitri.”

“Yes, you will.” I’ll make sure of it.

“If this is another endurance test, I’ve endured enough already, fuck you very much.”

“Shut up and ride.”

She slips out of her shorts and straddles my thigh. “I hate you for this.”

“Hate me hard enough to cream all over my leg.”

Daelyn whimpers as she positions herself against me. Her splotchy cheeks make me believe she’s embarrassed, and I don’t want shame to spoil the fun we’re about to have.

“Take what you need from me.” I stiffen as Daelyn clutches my shoulders to support herself while she mounts up. “And keep your eyes on me while you do it.”

Daelyn squirms, seeking friction that makes her feel good. Locking eyes with me, she moves back and forth, her cheeks blazing red now. Gyrating against me for a few minutes only increases her frustration.

I pull out my knife and flick the blade open. My girl’s eyes widen when she hears it, but she doesn’t take them off me. Not even when I run the sharp tip across her chest, circling her hardened nipples. We work carefully with each other, playing a dangerous game.

Fisting the front of her sports bra, I cut it open, freeing her tits. The swells fall in front of my face, making my mouth water while she rides my leg. I capture one with my mouth, grazing her nipple with my teeth, biting down hard enough to make her gasp. Daelyn’s grip on my shoulders tightens, her nails digging into my skin while her speed picks up.

Grabbing a fist full of her hair, I tug it hard enough to make her back bow, which gives me easier access to her tits. She hisses through clenched teeth, her pace speeding up. Pinching one nipple hard, I make her cry out and her thighs shake. She grinds against me faster.

“Tell me who owns you.”

Ignoring me, Daelyn closes her eyes.

I pinch her nipple again and twist it. “Eyes on me, Firefly.”

Her eyelids fly open, her breaths quickening as she grinds on me harder, faster.

“That’s my good girl.”

She whimpers, swirling her hips for better friction.

“Tell me who owns you.” I want the name of the man who put her in so many dangerous situations. “Say his name, Daelyn.” I tuck the blade away but hold the handle against her throat. She’s so far gone, chasing her release, that I don’t think she notices. “ Say it .”

“Mmmph.” Her body shakes and I can hear the wet noises her pussy makes gliding along the textured pad. My girl is drenched.

“You want to be filled, Daelyn? Stuffed with cock, and stretched around my length until you can’t feel anything else?” I shove the knife handle harder against her neck.

Her brows pinch. Eyes get glassy. Her pretty little mouth parts when she starts panting like a dog in heat.

“That’s it, slut. Chase your release. Soak my thigh with your cum.” I drop the blade on the cot and use both hands to hold her hips, helping her move faster on me. She’s so fragile in my hands. So powerful. “Come on, baby.”

Daelyn trembles so hard I think she’s going to rattle apart. And then she stops. “I can’t!”

Shoving off me, Daelyn storms over to the wall, and slaps it while she screams.

The girl’s gone mad.