Page 10 of The Vagabond

My eyes fluttered shut.

I reminded myself this was just another role. Another body to endure. Another hour I had to outlast.

His hands gripped my upper arms—not hard or cruel, but made to look like it. His fingers pressed into the soft skin just enough to leave the kind of impression Kadri expected. The illusion of dominance and threat.

He walked me backward, slow, steady, like he had done this before. When the back of my knees hit the edge of the bed, I fell, my breath catching as the mattress swallowed my weight. Then he was on me. Fully clothed. Pressing down. His head buried in the crook of my neck, and for a moment, it felt real. Like comfort, and safety.

But then he whispered in my ear;

“Come on, Maxine. Put up a bit of a fight. What would you do if this was anyone else?”

Maxine. He said my name.He knows my name.

I reacted on instinct. I shoved him. Hard. A real, feral push with everything I had. He let himself fall to the side—deliberate, staged—but I didn’t make it halfway off the bed before his hand closed around my arm and dragged me back. His strength was terrifying. Not because he used it—but because I knew how much he must have been holding back.

He pinned me, slammed me into the mattress like he was furious, and for a split second, I forgot it was a game. Then he tore the top of my dress open. Fabric screamed. My chest was bare. He stared at me. Too long and intense. His throat bobbed like he was trying to swallow down the guilt, the fury, the burn behind his eyes.

Then his head dipped. His mouth closed over one breast, then the other. He bit down on my nipple—hard. I yelped. The pain was real. Sharp. Immediate.

Kadri was going to love that.

“I’m sorry,” Devon breathed against my skin, over and over.His voice was a prayer, broken and low. “I’m so fucking sorry, Maxine. Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

It came out on a ragged breath, and I didn’t even know if I meant it. All I knew was if this was the only way out, I would walk barefoot across glass to make it happen.

I kneed him in the gut—reflex, routine, scripted. It landed with enough force to look good on camera, but not enough to hurt him. His grunt was all performance. He shifted, moved fast, straddled me. Pinned my wrists to the mattress like I was dangerous enough to hurt him and he wanted nothing more than to corrupt me.

One hand fumbled with his belt, the other still holding me down. Then I felt it—the rasp of metal, the slide of a zipper, and the heat of him as he reached into his pants. His cock sprang free. Thick. Hard. Flushed with blood and heat.

I averted my gaze. Sold the revulsion. Pretended I didn’t feel the way his touch lit something dangerous inside me.

He leaned down, pressed the head of his cock against my entrance—bare, hot—and rubbed slow, aching circles into my folds.

I was wet. I hated that I was wet. I hated that I wanted him.

His lips crashed into mine. Hard. Desperate. Messy. I opened my mouth to him even as I twisted my head like I was fighting.

It was a ballet of contradiction—every push matched by a pull, every protest laced with a yes I couldn’t say aloud.

My hips rose. Instinct. Treason.

And then—he growled. Low. Animal. His hand snapped back, and with a vicious yank, he ripped my underwear in half.

He didn’t enter me. Instead, he thrust against me. Brutal. Punishing.

His cock grinding against my slit, over my clit, again and again, hips slamming into mine with a rhythm too perfect to befaked. The friction was overwhelming. Raw. Electric. And I couldn’t stop it.

A moan clawed its way up my throat—I bit it back, but it trembled through me anyway, a raw shudder I couldn’t contain. His hand shot up, wrapping around my neck, fingers tightening just enough to make the world tilt. As if by choking me, he could strangle the sounds spilling from my lips, silence the soft, desperate moans that betrayed just how wrecked I was under his touch.

He didn’t look at me. He looked at the wall. At him. At the man watching behind the glass.

And with one final thrust, he came—hot and heavy. His seed spilled over my pussy, my thighs, the bed. Coated me like sin. Like proof. He rocked against me once, twice more, then collapsed forward, his breath jagged, his chest heaving against mine.

His mouth found my ear again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

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