Chapter 23

Lydia

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I stare in front of me, hardly believing what I see. This is beyond what I ever imagined I’d find in Viktor’s possession.

An old bottle with the golden letters reading Opulence, a perfume I used when I was younger.

Where did that come from?

A napkin with a smear of lipstick and a torn page from a notebook that looks eerily familiar. I don’t recognize the napkin, of course, but when paired together with the other things…

When I pick it up, my skin prickles as if someone’s standing behind me right this very minute.

I look over my shoulder and see no one.

There’s an empty coffee cup with my name scribbled on it from a coffee shop.

Lydia

The letters are smeared now as if someone… rubbed their finger over the thick black lettering over and over again. A ring of coffee still stains the bottom.

An old grocery list in my handwriting.

And the one thing that makes me clutch my chest while I rifle through the pages: an old, tattered copy of Wuthering Heights. When I open the cover, “Liberty Academy” is stamped in faded purple ink.

He took this. I was a child the last time I held this. And if there was any doubt about these items—why they are here and where he got them—my high school photo, curled around the edges and in the center of this small collection, removes all possible uncertainty.

“You found the shrine.” Viktor’s deep voice booms behind me.

I spin around on my heel, still clutching the worn book in my hand. His gaze skates down the length of my body. He loves it when I wear nothing but his tee.

Oh no, buddy. We are not getting sidetracked.

“What is this?” I ask, my voice high-pitched. The hand holding the book trembles slightly.

Viktor shrugs a massive shoulder with not a trace of guilt. “What do you think it is?”

I take a step back and shake my head when he moves toward me. “No, don’t touch me. Don’t come near me, Viktor.” When he ignores me and takes another step forward, I rear back and whip the book at his head as hard as I can throw. He ducks just in time. The old book falls to the floor, loose pages fluttering down like dead leaves from the maples outside.

He advances on me, and before I can stop him, he captures me, his hands on my wrists, and lifts me straight into the air.

“Not now!” I scream at him, clawing at him. “Put me down!” I pound on his back with my fists, but they’re little fluffy snowballs against a glacier. He doesn’t even flinch.

“Viktor!” I scream. “Let me go!”

Despite my best efforts, my heart is pounding, and I’m so fucking wet. I can scream and rail against him, but he’s immovable.

This is him. This is us. My protests only ignite my own need for him. Still, rage courses through my veins, even though I know exactly where this will end up. He’ll either spank me or fuck me or both.

“Fuck you!”

With a growl, he lets me down and spreads me belly-down over the table. The bottle of perfume falls and shatters, and the napkin flutters to the floor like the falling petals of a flower. The faintest scent of perfume fills the room.

Without a word, his heavy palm slams across my ass once, twice, three times. I can’t breathe, gasping over the table. I clutch the edge, and he lowers his mouth to my ear.

“I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember,” he growls. “You know that. I haven’t hidden it.”

“This is creepy!” I scream as he shoves his tee up so it’s around my breasts, the rest of me nearly naked for him.

Another slap of his palm makes me go up on my toes as his hand falls hot and heavy. I scream myself hoarse until it hurts, but it does no good.

“Stop shrieking at me. I told you if you didn’t watch that mouth, I’d give you a use for it.”

“Fuck off!” I yell. I feel wildly out of control like I’m spiraling into an abyss, and there’s no way for me to stop myself. He spanks me again so hard I can’t breathe.

“Fine, then,” he snaps. “We’ll do this another way.”

He spins me around and shoves me to my knees.

“You should apologize!” I glare up at him, but I’m sopping wet and so needy; if he swiped one finger across my clit I’d probably explode right now. I’m still angry with him… but this is how we do things. I’m the puppet, and he’s pulling my strings. This is our dance, and I was the one who stepped onto the dance floor.

He holds me down with his left hand. I swivel my head and snap at his fingers seconds before he pulls them away from me and unbuckles his belt with his right hand.

“Lydia,” he growls. “If you’d only fucking listen.”

“Listen to your fucking justification about why you’re obsessed with me? Fuck off! Ow!”

His belt slaps against my ass so hard I can’t breathe, the searing leather instantly welting me. He reaches down and fists my hair with his other hand. I scream as he yanks out his cock.

“Don’t you even?—”

Another yank of my hair, and my mouth falls open in a scream seconds before he shoves his cock down my throat. Arousal washes through me in a tidal wave at the feel of his hardened, throbbing cock, satin-covered steel, filling my mouth. He fucks my mouth with a savage thrust. My eyes water.

“You talk to me before you lose your fucking mind,” he grates, lifts his hand and snaps the belt across my ass again. Tears blur my vision. “You had your chance. Now, you’ll suck while I talk, and you listen to me.”

I whimper and suck, closing my eyes as I drown in sensation and warmth. I want this so badly; my protests and anger ebb away with every vicious thrust of his cock. Again, he thrusts, and I gag, my eyes watering.

“Yes, I was fucking obsessed with you,” he growls, his hand on my cheek painful as he holds me in position. “Not was. Am. When I go to bed at night, all I think about is you. When I wake up in the morning, where you are and if you’re safe are my first thoughts. Even now, I fucking pat the bed the second my eyes open to check for you.”

He thrusts, and I lick and suck, taking this all in as he throbs in my mouth, and my clit aches to be touched.

“Yes, I stalked you. Yes, I fucking tracked you. Yes, I spent years seeking revenge on the bullies who fucking tormented you. Where do you think I got this scar? One of the assholes cut me, but I wear it with pride because it’s a battle scar. The memory of what I did for the woman I love.”

My eyes go wide, and still, I suck—licking the tip just to gain some control, but he’s impermeable, immovable, his gaze locked on mine as he lifts the belt and snaps it across my ass. “And maybe I thought of this, Lydia. You, here, on your knees with your mouth wrapped around my cock.” When he whips me again, I feel a trickle of arousal slide down my leg. I stifle a whimper.

“Maybe I imagined what it would be like to fuck you. To be near you. To fucking own you. But most of all? Most of all, I thought about what I would do if you were mine. How I’d never let anyone harm a hair on your head.”

He slaps my ass with the belt again while I obediently suck his cock, before he drops it to the floor, grabs my head with both huge, rough hands, and forces me to suck him deeper. I gag, but he keeps fucking my mouth. “I told you. All I’ve ever wanted was you. All I’ll ever want is you. All I’ll ever need is you.”

His hips jerk, and I can tell he’s just on the verge of coming when he grasps my head and yanks me off of him. “Bend over that fucking table before I jerk off all over you, tie you to my bedpost, and set this fucking house on fire.”

Oh dear God.

I’m reeling from what he’s saying, what he’s doing, my mind a blank slate and my body deliciously pliable. I bend over the table and spread my legs, unable to stop myself if I wanted to. His hot, thick cock lines up at my entrance while he fingers my ass, and my mouth falls open in a silent scream.

He bends his mouth to my ear. “I love you, Lydia. And yes, I’m obsessed with you. I have no regrets. None.”

He thrusts in me so hard I scream, bracing myself on the table. I’m so full, so perfectly filled with him, that I can’t think beyond the need to feel him thrust again, and again, and again. I need him. I want him. I’m fucking dying to have him come in me.

“You are mine, Lydia,” he growls as the first wave of ecstasy consumes me. “Mine,” he says with another savage thrust. “And don’t you ever fucking forget that.” As his hot seed lashes into me, he fists my hair and yanks my head back. “Tell me. Tell me you’re mine,” he demands before he sinks his mouth to my neck and bites.

I scream, hot pain melding with pleasure as he thrusts into me again and again. Bliss explodes in my body, my pulse racing as it washes through me. I grip the table and give myself over to the kind of pleasure only Viktor could ever give me.

This. This is what I want, what I need. I can’t be with a man who doesn’t love me like this. I can’t be with a man who doesn’t make me fucking burn for him.

I scream his name while I come. I take every drop of his seed until I collapse to the table. The torn bit of paper clings to my damp skin as the cup rolls off and bounces off the floor.

“I’m yours,” I say with abandon, breathing into him. “Yours, Viktor.”

As always, when we’re spent, hot, and sweaty, and he's come back to his senses, he lifts me to his chest and carries me to the bedroom. This time, though, he takes off all my clothes so he can inspect me.

He kisses the red lines of welts on my ass and thighs.

I hiss in a breath when he frowns and shakes his head. “I like those,” I tell him. I do. I love looking at them in the mirror and remembering how I got them. I love the pain they bring. I smile wickedly to myself at the sting the day after he welts me.

“Stay there,” he says. “I’m cleaning you up.”

He comes out with the warm washcloth and washes me all over before he kisses my temple again. “I love you so much, Lydia. So much.”

My eyes feel heavy as I lie next to him.

I haven’t told him I loved him yet.

It seems so fast as if I’m in a race car that’s gone out of control, and at any minute, I’m going to careen into something that destroys me.

I fall to sleep with his arm slung around me and wonder what is so wrong with a girl like me that I can only come when it hurts and only love when it’s wrong.