Only one, however, offers me hope for the future. It might be an illusion, but it’s the only hope I have, so I choose it.
Opening the bathroom door, I hug my towel around me as I pad into the bedroom. The contract Viktor has been trying to get me to sign was still on the bed where he’d left it. Picking it up, I glance at Viktor’s back before sitting on the edge of the mattress near the nightstand. I ransack the drawer in search of a pen, finally finding one that wrote when I scribbled practice circles on the back of my hand.
I didn’t think I’d made that much noise, but once I go through the pages and sign everywhere I’m supposed to, when I look up, Viktor is watching me.
He doesn’t move. For the longest few seconds of my life, I don’t think I do, either. We stare at each other, my heart jackhammering in my chest, before I put the pen down, pick up the contract, and holding my towel closed, walk it over to him.
The closer I get to him, the better I can hear the hum of my father’s angry tirade coming through the phone. If Viktor’s listening to it, he doesn’t show it. I approach him, every fear I’ve ever had clamoring for me to rethink this, but there was nothing to rethink. Maybe I’m making the biggest mistake of my life,but at that moment, all I feel is… relieved. Once I hand it over, there’s nothing to do but wait—wait for my father’s reaction, wait for Viktor to make good on his promises, wait for my year with him to be up. Will he really let me go then? Will I even want to go once my time was up?
I don’t know. My only attraction to escape was I would finally be away from my father. Being with Viktor did that as well.
Maybe I’ll like being with him.
Viktor held out his hand, and I look at it for only a moment before quietly handing him the signed contract. I’m his now—for better or worse.
“Thank you,” he mouths.
Please don’t let me have made a big mistake.
He winks, then motions for me to drop the towel.
Just like that, from potential savior to jackass.
“My offer has just changed,” he says into the phone. Snapping his fingers twice, he points first at the towel, then the floor.
Clutching it tighter around me, I shake my head and back away from him. As if I wasn’t feeling vulnerable enough as it was.
He takes a warning step toward me, showing me the flat of his spanking hand. To my father, his voice is chilling sincerity.
“You have until nine tonight to hand me documentation showing you’ve given my wife full ownership of the Crown. Every percentage you own, all authority and control you hold. Be sure you sign it over to Clara Antonov. That’s A-N-T—”
My father hangs up.
I don’t know if Viktor even bothers to hang up the phone before he tosses it on the bed. The next thing I know, I’m racing for the bathroom with him right behind me.
“You think you don’t have to obey just because Daddy’s on the phone?”
I let go of my towel the second I feel the tug of his hand catching the back of it. I should be scared. God knows, it’s what I’d felt just seconds ago, but when he yanks the towel off, instead of yelping, crying, or begging him to stop, I let out a shriek of laughter.
Nervous laughter but still laughter.
I barely reach the bathroom before his straining fingertips skim my shoulder, searching for a firmer grip on the nape of my neck. I shriek again, but he has me.
Swinging me around, he pulls his strength at the last second, bumping me against the bathroom counter instead of throwing me over it.
“No! No!”
He ignores me. Yes, was the flat of his hand briskly spanking all over my bottom while I waffled between laughing and shouting. He isn’t striking hard, just hard enough for the sting to quickly blossom into a smarting fury. No matter how hard he spanks, my bottom, which already received two such treatments, plus a paddle smack, needs no encouragement to rekindle its former tenderness. Heat flares in the deep muscle of my flesh, and I can’t hold back. Groans and moans punctuate my fading laughter until the only sound was the crisp smacks of his open hand and my own ragged breathing.
Why does this feel good?
Why, instead of fighting him to escape, am I fighting myself not to writhe so much, I accidentally break free?
I shouldn’t worry. His arm wraps around my waist, his hand shoving under my belly and down between my legs, and grabs my clit. He isn’t gentle, but I don’t care. My legs are already parting, giving him the access he needs to get a better hold, to grip me tighter, to do whatever he desires to make me feel better… or worse.
My legs shake, and I can’t help moaning again, the guttural lust barely recognizable as my voice.
He isn’t just spanking me, he’s rubbing, too. His hand caresses the blazing heat he’s rekindled, from one bottom cheek to the other. His other plucks, strums, and rubs my clit until I can’t think of anything beyond the pleasure he’s stroking from me.