Chapter 38

I’m angry.

No, scratch that.

I’m fucking pissed.

At my mother, yeah, because—well, I’ve been pissed at her my whole cursed life. But more than that by several orders of magnitude is the single name pounding through me with every beat of my pulse.

Pasha.

To steal a phrase from Ophelia: how dare he? How dare he collar me like some fucking mutt? I didn’t consent to this shit!

Consent. Ha! Does he even know what that is? Or does he just dance through life openly manipulating everyone and everything into doing what he wants?

That thought makes me freeze in my tracks.

Did he manipulate me into believing that he was some kind of hero, just to get in my pants? I’d believe it if anyone told me that’s exactly what happened. The Pasha I met at the auction and the Pasha currently lording over my every inch of existence seem like two entirely different people.

I find charm attractive. Smiles. A great sense of humor.

I don’t sleep with insufferable egos.

The back of my mind whispers, Conrad, as a reminder of how I have absolutely slept with insufferable ego aplenty, but I shove that shit back down and tell it to shut the fuck up.

I don’t have time to dig into the past.

I need to put my foot down in the here and now.

I shudder as I enter the penthouse. You know, the one he manipulated me into. Corralled like cattle. At this point, it’s amazing to me that he hasn’t just whipped out a hot poker and told me to bend over so he can stamp his name right on my damn ass cheek.

Teeth clenched, I charge into the steamed-up bathroom and rip open the shower door.

“Did you brand me?”

Pasha wipes his eyes. “The hell are you talking about?”

“This!” I rip off the necklace, ignoring the painful pinch at the back of my neck where the clasp breaks open. “Is this a fucking collar? Like I’m some property you can just tag as yours? Finders fucking keepers?”

He sighs. “Daph⁠—”

“No. None of this ‘Daph, listen’ bullshit. I want the truth! Did you mark me? With this?” I shake my fist at him, the necklace dangling from my clenched fingers.

His jaw clenches. I have to make a solid effort to ignore the way the hot water is dripping down his muscular chest and washboard abs and…

No. No distractions. I’m not going to be manipulated by this pretty man again.

Pasha, however, has other ideas.

He grabs me by the waist and hauls me into the shower, ignoring my yelp of surprise when he moves me under the spray before pinning me to the wall.

“Of course I marked you.” He says it like it’s the most obvious, acceptable thing in the world.

I need to be angry. I should shove against him and tell him to stay the hell away from me.

But if I touch him, I’ll be touching his chest.

His naked, warm, wet chest.

It doesn’t help that he’s caged me in. He’s bracing his hands against the wall on either side of my head, and I get the impression that if I were to try to duck under them, he’d just catch me and shove me right back to where I am.

And, God help me, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to leave at all.

“Well, don’t!” I clench my fists and keep them at my sides. I won’t give in to the growing temptation hammering at the back of my brain. “I am not your property!”

“No,” he agrees, “but you are the mother of my child.”

“Like that has anything to do with it!”

“It has everything to do with everything.” The most infuriating thing about this confrontation is how goddamn calm Pasha remains, whereas I’m moments away from screeching like a vulture and slapping that smirk off his face. “If you think I’m going to let you wander around the city unprotected and unmarked, you’ve lost your damn mind.”

My bottom lip trembles. I don’t know if it’s more rage or my willpower crumbling, but he notices. He notices and locks his gaze on my mouth, heat flaring in his eyes.

“Do you not realize how fucking tempting you look?” Pasha lowers his hands, but only to graze down my sides and pin me closer to the wall with his body. “Do you not even notice the way men stare at you, just as hungry for you and your beautiful moans as I am?”

My breath catches in my throat.

Can’t say I’ve noticed that in particular, nope.

“So forgive me,” he drawls sarcastically without an ounce of actual apology, “for wanting to make sure that no one in their right mind gives in to any wrong ideas.”

I swallow back a moan. His hands keep rubbing, stroking, caressing me as he speaks.

“You’re mine,” Pasha rumbles in my ear. “And I can think of so many different ways to make sure the whole world knows it. This is only the beginning.”

I scoff, but only so he doesn’t notice how close I am to moaning. “Is this just some one-way street, then?”

He pulls back, but only far enough to look me in the eyes.

Like he’s waiting for me to do something.

Like he’s waiting for me to answer that question for him.

My lips crush against his in a searing, angry kiss. I don’t just thread my fingers through his wet hair—I tug and pull him to me so he knows I’m not playing around.

He wants to stake his claim? Fine.

I’m staking mine.

I suck on his tongue until I feel him moan. Only then do I ease up enough to nibble and tease around his mouth. Pasha presses me harder against the wall and wastes no time in peeling off my soaked dress, careful around my baby bump but possessive and firm everywhere else he touches.

“You think you’re the only one who’s been marked?” he growls against my neck as he rips down my panties. The second I kick them off, his hand cups my pussy in a way that feels like claiming. “You think you haven’t done the same to me?”

My head is swimming with pleasure. Just his touch on the surface, just that press of his hand against my heat, has my lashes fluttering closed and my lips parting in soft gasps. “Wh… what? What are you talking about?”

“I had a meeting today.” Pasha kisses a fiery path down to the tops of my swollen breasts. My bra is barely containing them at this point; I’m gonna need to replace it with a maternity version soon. “Had to deal with this desperate cougar who keeps trying to get in my pants.”

The hand between my legs slowly starts tracing my outer lips. Against my better, more logical judgment, my hips start rolling and soon I’m grinding myself against his palm.

“She kept throwing herself at me,” he continues. “Again and again and again. And all I could think about was you.”

He works my bra open and tosses it aside, replacing it with his mouth on my nipple. Ohmygod, it feels even more sensitive there now than it did a few days ago. Every warm, deep tug sends ripples of intense pleasure skittering down to my clit.

“Not exactly a turn-on,” I pant. “Talking—fantasizing—about some other woman…while you’re… you’re…”

Pasha switches breasts; his hand delves two fingers inside my wet slit. And yet I still find myself feebly trying to push at his shoulders. We need to talk about this… We need to… unh, fuck…

He captures my wrists in his one hand and cages them to the shower wall above my head. With a mournful sigh, he lets my nipple fall from his mouth and rises up to press his forehead against mine. He sighs in a way that makes me pause.

Is he… is he as breathless as I am?

Am I underestimating how much I affect him?

“You’re not hearing me, Daphne.” Pasha slows his fingers inside me until they’re pressed against that sweet spot I need him to rub—but he won’t move. Only the heel of his palm works my clit in slow, intentional agony. The cruelest tease. “I’m not fantasizing about another woman. I’m telling you that I could have any woman I want, and I want you. They’re all nothing to me. Ashes. Dust. Meaningless. Useless. There’s only you. Not some desperate heiress or giggling, insipid socialite. You.”

He captures my shuddering moan within another possessive kiss. When he lets my wrists go, he eases his fingers from me and I almost beg him to go back to what he was doing.

But then he’s gripping my ass and lifting me in his arms. My legs spread around him, draped over each arm.

“Look at me, Daphne.”

I don’t even realize I’ve closed my eyes until he says that. When I do, all I see are his. Huge. Burning so bright, I feel like I’m staring into twin black suns.

Then, with one groaning thrust, he’s inside me.

This isn’t my first time taking him. But I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the way he stretches me around his thick shaft. How he makes me feel every single inch in depths I never knew existed before him.

“This,” he snarls once he’s fully seated inside me. “This is what I want. You. Only you. Always you.”

When he moves, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer for another kiss. I can’t move on my own—not with the way he’s impaled me like this—and some deep, primal part of me sings with distinct pleasure just at the thought.

His.

His to enjoy. To savor, to angle just how he wants so we’re both feeding each other our moans and gasps and grunts.

His to crave.

His to protect.

It doesn’t take long to push me over the edge. Pasha holds me there, squeezed against the wall and balls-deep inside me, not giving me anywhere to buck or writhe my release out like my body wants to. But being this helpless only intensifies every spasm, every limb-tingling surge of pleasure, until even Pasha is gritting his teeth so he doesn’t tumble with me.

It’s not until the spasms subside that I realize I’m biting his shoulder.

“Sor—”

He cuts off my apology by ripping my face up so he can claim another kiss. Tongue sliding along tongue, making sure I ride out every aftershock on him.

When he lets me go, he snarls, “Don’t you ever fucking apologize for what you to do me. For what you make me do to you. If I hear ‘Sorry’ on your lips again from now until the end of time, well… I’ll have no choice but to fuck that ‘Sorry’ right out of you.”

He sets me down, but it’s only a fraction of a second of catching my breath before he whips me around, flattens my hands against the wall, and shoves himself right back into my throbbing pussy.

“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs.

He feels even bigger at this angle. Every thrust pushes me up onto my toes, until my legs tremble and I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.

We go faster. His hands roam everywhere and every thrust comes with whispered little snatches of words that make me shiver and shudder and come even harder.

“Mine.”

“Perfect.”

“Take me like my perfect little slut.”

A fist grabs the nape of my wet hair and pulls my head back. Pasha sinks his teeth into my neck, right below my jaw, and sucks.

“I’ll mark you however I fucking want,” he pants in my ear. “I’ll keep marking you until everyone knows that you’re mine. Until there’s no room for doubt. With diamonds, with lovebites, with handprints on your ass and your thighs and your throat so they all fucking know whose queen you are.”

All I can do is moan.

He thrusts deep and my pussy spasms and my head swims and finally, finally, my legs can’t take it anymore. I fall off Pasha’s cock and go slithering to the ground—but that’s fine, because when I turn around, he’s still right there. I act without thinking, like his hands and his words have turned me into exactly what he called me.

His queen.

His perfect slut.

And God help us both, that’s exactly what I want to be.

I reach up and circle his huge dick with both hands. Rising up on my knees, I suck him down. I keep my eyes open so I can see his face contort in surprise and then, right on its heels, the most savage, growled pleasure I’ve ever heard from him.

It’s almost enough to make me come all over again.

Don’t ever apologize for what you do to me, he said. How can I, when it feels this good to know that he makes that noise for me and me alone? Not any other woman alive can do to Pasha Chekhov what I’m doing to him right now.

So when he roars and explodes in my mouth as he splutters, “Fuck, Daphne…” I don’t bother apologizing.

I just swallow his salty cum and let myself be exactly what he wants me to be.

Pasha braces a hand on the wall to steady himself. His chest keeps rising and falling as he struggles to catch his breath.

And he’s staring at me with something like wonder in his eyes as I smile up at him and lick the rest of him off my lips.

He reaches down to pull me up into his arms. The water is soothing against our hot skin. I can already tell I’m gonna be walking funny for a while, but I have zero regrets.

I also cannot remember why I even barged in here in the first place.

Pasha tips my head back so I can see the smug pride in his eyes. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel some smug pride in my own right.

“A woman like you should never be on her knees,” he murmurs. “But damn, do you nearly bring me to mine.”