Page 60 of Control: XXX Vadim 1
“Tell me?” I risk asking even as he stiffens, his gaze turning distant. “I know I’m prying—and if you don’t want to, I won’t push it. But I want to know. I’m willing to listen.”
I sense his wall wavering, threatening to solidify against me. Driven by an impulse I can’t name, I brush my fingers through his hair and cradle his jaw. Finally, he blinks. When his gaze fixates on mine again, it’s more intense than ever.
“I was property once,” he says bluntly. “Take that as you may. I can’t…” He swallows hard, shaking his head. “Some things I won’t relive in full. Do you still want to hear it?”
“Yes,” I croak without an ounce of hesitation. “I’ll listen to whatever you’re willing to tell.”
“I was property,” he repeats. “Little more than a slave but without the benefit of even that title. My worth registered in the tens of thousands, and yet at my core? I was worthless. Soulless. I was nothing.”
My heart pounds as an ominous foreboding makes me settle against him, pressing my ear to his chest. Despite the obvious pain in his voice, his heartbeat is sluggishly slow. Too slow. As if his body is completely disconnected from the horror in his mind. Tremors ripple through him, reminding me of the way he shook around Maxim. It’s like he’s freezing from the inside out, even as his skin blazes.
“My last ‘owner’ possessed acres of property in some European country, untouchable by the authorities. They called him ‘the collector’ and he more than lived up to that name. Animals. Weapons. Vehicles…people. He loved horses, you see. He had stables filled with them. And when things got unbearable, they were my escape.”
The detachedness of his voice creates a horrific picture. One so sickening, I can’t even envision it fully—a nightmare far beyond my picturesque upbringing in southern California.
“The bastard would send his goons after me, and more often than not, I’d be severely punished,” Vadim says. “But for whatever reason, when all else in life had lost any appeal, that haven remained tempting enough for me to risk seeking it out at every opportunity. One horse, in particular, drew my notice. A young filly who the stable hands had deemed ‘incorrigible’—” He smiles in that rare, genuine way that makes my heart ache. “She retained her spirit despite their attempts to break her, and was prone to lashing out and biting.”
“Zzazza?” I say softly.
He nods. “She never attacked me. Not even the first night I snuck into her stall to hide, bloodied, and broken. Whenever anyone came by looking for me, she’d snarl and bite, but never at me.”
“How did you escape?”
“One day, my ‘owner’ decided that I was a liability worth eliminating. He had me beaten within an inch of my life and called in one of his guards to finish the job…” Something terrible constricts his features. A raw pain, unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. The type of agony that can only be experienced to understand—a loss of yourself. “I begged for my life,” he confesses hoarsely. “Like an animal, I begged. Pleaded. Sobbed. I will never understand why then—I had been through worse before. Never once did I plead. But I did, even though I knew the guard would laugh and kill me anyway. I had resigned myself to death. But I was wrong...” He frowns as if still stunned by that fact. “The guard aimed his gun at me, and then turned it on my bastard owner and pulled the trigger. There was no hesitation in him. No ounce of wavering or struggle. He merely made a decision, and that was that. He helped me escape, and since then, he has never made a decision I do not trust.”
I swallow hard, my eyes burning. “So maybe I can try to be nice to Ena a little,” I say with a watery laugh.
“He is one of the few men I trust in the world,” Vadim swears. “And he makes a mean chocolate cake if you do manage to get in his good graces.”
“Ah, so the man prefers chocolate as well,” I say, filing away the fact for later.
“I enjoy many things,” he says, sliding his arms around my waist, drawing me even closer. Near my ear, he murmurs, “Many of them new revelations.”
“Such as?” I wonder smugly.
“Such as kink,” he says, his voice deepening. “I never knew sex could be so…stimulating.”
My breathing hitches. I can’t shake his previous confession. Did I really push him too far?
“In a good way,” he adds before I can fear the worst. “It can be…pleasurable.” He pauses as if fighting to find the right words. “I am not used to that experience.”
And yet, he hires escorts seemingly on a regular basis. Does the lack of connection—paired with his obvious joy of manipulation—make it easier for him, even if pleasure isn’t his main goal? It’s an admittedly cold way to approach such an intimate act. No wonder he’d been so alarmed by my enthusiasm the first night we met.
“I never knew that research could be involved,” he adds with a rasping laugh. “That, too, I have come to enjoy.”
My grin expands across my face. “Do youloveour kink?”
“With you, I do. I may even come to love your filthy mouth. The things you say.”
“Little me?” I turn to face him and flutter my eyelashes. “I would never say anything vulgar! Like that, I really, really want you to fuck me. Now. Hard.”
His eyes narrow as he snatches me to him and promptly rolls over, trapping me beneath him. “Challenge accepted.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Far too soon, night starts to fall, and we reluctantly leave the safety of the bed for reality. He enters the shower while I comb through the closet and compile two outfits muted in nature—a black suit for him, and an ebony dress for me—fashioned with a modest neckline this time.
I pick out his tie as he gets dressed, and I approach him cautiously, looping it around his neck. “Nervous?” I ask, trying to make my tone more joking than serious.
