When Leonid leaves the room, I bend and retrieve the dress, moving on autopilot. I’m not even aware of my breaths sawing in and out. My thoughts are spinning like cotton candy, my pulse speeding like I just ran a few laps around my father’s estate.
Because overriding everything else that my body is experiencing right now, is the memory of his tongue in my mouth. My lips are still parted. I can still taste him, feel him, smell his cologne lingering on my skin.
Should I have pushed him away? Should I have fought his advances and covered my nakedness with the dress or the comforter? I don’t even know what caused me to react the way I did, but what I do know is that he wanted to make me feel vulnerable, and I would rather die than let him succeed.
On trembling legs, I make my way to the bathroom and peer at my reflection in the mirror. My face is blotchy, but that isn’t what catches my attention; it’s the flush on my cheekbones, the glimmer of something unrecognizable in my eyes, the plumpness in my lips. I touch my lips with my fingertip, tracing the feel of his tongue in my mouth. In comparison, my finger is cold and solid, and I quickly withdraw it, trying to erase the memory.
“What am I doing?”
My eyes travel down my naked body, lingering over my full breasts and stopping at my sex. He didn’t even look at me. I gave him the perfect opportunity, but he turned around and walked out of the door without so much as a glance at my pussy, and my face grows hot with embarrassment.
He wasn’t even tempted.
This should make me feel better about my situation—at least there is no chance of him taking advantage of me—but instead, I feel inexplicably … disappointed.
What the fuck was I thinking? Did I think that I could seduce him, blow his mind with the most amazing sex he’d ever had, and then be allowed to walk out of his life leaving behind only a pleasant memory? Me, the twenty-three-year-old virgin whose experience of French kissing was gained from watching Grease on repeat as a little girl.
“Jeez…”
But still, I can’t shrug off the feeling of anticlimax settling inside me. I would never confess this to Leonid, but my sex is still tingling from his proximity. I feel like the moth drawn to the glow of a lightbulb. My traitorous pussy, against all the red alerts flashing like beacons inside my head, was drawn to the promise of his touch, and his indifference is a stinging rejection.
I go back to the room, pull the dress on over my head, and sit on the bed, staring at the door, waiting for his return.
Why did he come? I cannot believe that he wanted to check I was okay. Is teasing me part of his game plan? My cheeks grow even hotter at the thought that I played right into his hands.
I replay what happened inside the cold room in my head—it’s the only way for me to suppress the throbbing ache between my legs, focusing on the knot of hatred inside me for that woman.
Time slips slowly by.
My heart literally performs a somersault when I eventually hear the key turning in the lock and then slows to a serious thudding beat when Tamara comes in with a tray of food.
I stand anyway. “You brought food.”
Her eyes slide up and down my body, noting the fit of the seal gray dress. “Pakhan is busy. He asked me to look after you.” She sets the tray down on the desk and turns around to face me.
“I thought…”
I stop myself from telling her that I’d hoped to leave the room. That I’d hoped to get a second chance to eat with Leonid now that I’ve learned my lesson. That I realize that now Leonid is my only chance of escaping this situation in one piece.
“You thought wrong, printzessa.” She narrows her eyes, and I get a fleeting glimpse of her sister that sends a shudder through my body. Tamara might be a little softer around the edges, but if pushed, I’ve no doubts that she is capable of the same levels of cruelty.
Once her footsteps have receded along the corridor outside the room, I go to the tray and check out the food on the silver platter. A spinach and ricotta omelet, perfectly folded in half, a tossed salad in a vinaigrette dressing, and a wedge of cheesecake drizzled in strawberry coulis.
I’m ravenous after the hours spent unconscious and the ordeal of the cold room, so I sit at the desk and clear the plates, washing the meal down with a can of soda.
Satisfied, I go back to the bed and sit down.
I don’t know what to do with all this empty time. I am used to being kept busy, and I make a mental note to ask Tamara to bring me something to read when she comes back to collect the tray.
Time drags. I go to the window and peer outside at the clouds drifting lazily by in the bright blue sky. I watch the birds hopping across the lawn and nestling in the trees. The sparrows, finches, blue jays, and starlings. How I envy them the freedom to fly away when the whim takes them; they have no idea how lucky they are.
There is no one in the extensive gardens. Not a soul. I can’t help thinking what a waste of land and a massive property this is when there are so many families out there without a roof over their heads. Then I remember that my family is just as guilty of amassing wealth and living a life of luxury, so how can I judge?
Subdued, I check out the window and almost cry out loud when it opens. Peering at the door over my shoulder, I open it wider and lean out. It’s a long way down. If I jumped, I would break both my legs at the very least, and I can’t risk being held here as a patient as well as a prisoner. There are no drain pipes near the window either, no ledges that I could potentially use to break my fall, and the ground beneath me is concrete.
Sighing heavily, I go back to the birds but leave the window open so that I can breathe the fresh air. I play a game I used to play as a child, mentally ticking off the different colors as they fly away and seeing which color is the most common. I list all the species I can think of, then, when I run out of ideas, I switch to listing dog breeds instead.
The sky turns a darker shade of blue, and violet starts to seep in from the horizon like spilt ink.
Tamara returns with another tray of food and removes the earlier tray at the same time. Her eyes linger on the open window, but she doesn’t order me to close it, and I wonder if she’ll return with a key to lock it, or if she is praying that I’ll fall and break my neck.
“Tamara?” She hesitates near the door at the sound of her name, her expression giving nothing away. “If I’m not allowed to leave the room, could you please bring me something to read?”
She nods once and leaves. No wonder Leonid is so moody if his conversations are all so one-sided.
Day slides into night, and no one comes back. Not even Tamara.
I remove the dress, hang it up in the wardrobe, and climb beneath the comforter naked. But sleep eludes me. Instead, my brain resorts to tormenting me again with images of me and Leonid, his tongue in my mouth, his hands slowly removing the dress from my grasp.
What had he said? “You wouldn’t have to ask if I’d touched you. You’d be begging me for more.”
My hands instinctively drift down towards my sex and part my folds gently. The tingling between my legs instantly resumes as if it had just been waiting for me to pick up where my captor left off. I slide my legs open across the silk sheets and insert a finger. It comes out slick, and I find my clit, rubbing it back and forth, back and forth, so gently it feels little more than the kiss of a breeze on a summer’s day.
Then, I imagine how the scene would’ve looked to an outsider, me naked, Leonid fully dressed in his expensive tailored suit, towering over me with my head tilted back as he forces his tongue between my lips. With my free hand, I cup my breast the way Leonid did, squeezing my nipple until it hardens. I spread my legs even wider, my finger rubbing my clit harder.
What if someone else had entered the room and found us like this? What would Tamara have thought? Would she have been jealous, disappointed, angry?
How would Leonid have reacted?
In response to the theoretical question, my brain immediately plants an image in my head of Leonid with his face buried between my legs, his tongue deep inside me.
My movements become frantic. My breathing becomes ragged. And my orgasm comes hard and fast, my body jerking, and my thighs clamping around my hand as I curl into the fetal position and fall into a deep contented slumber.
I’m woken by the aroma of grilled bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes and freshly brewed coffee. Dammit! I can’t believe that Tamara snuck into the room again while I slept. The woman is like a fucking ninja. Has she never heard of knocking?
I sit up abruptly, the comforter sliding over my naked breasts, at the thought that it might have been Leonid instead. Would he have stood there watching me sleep? It’s ever so slightly creepy if he did, but my pussy doesn’t seem to agree with me.
I stand up and cross the room naked, stuffing a pancake into my mouth with my fingers and filling a cup with steaming black coffee. It isn’t until I’m halfway through my breakfast that I notice the newspaper folded neatly beside the tray. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I asked Tamara to bring me something to read, but I unfold it and scan the headlines, my stomach lurching when I read the latest news from the White House and a smaller article about a shooting in a residential area.
No mention of me.
Not that I should be surprised. My family would never go to the press—it isn’t the mafia way. My disappearance would imply a weakness in the Sedric camp; it would undermine my father’s position and alert the other mafia families to an impending power struggle. But still, this media silence feels like another barrier to my rescue. I’ve been here for days, and to my knowledge, no one has tried to find me.
My breakfast sits heavily in my stomach.
I shower, wrap myself in a fresh fluffy towel, and wander back into the bedroom to find the tray removed and an oversized T-shirt folded neatly on the end of the bed. I use it to cover my nakedness, towel-dry my hair, and sit down at the desk a second time, scouring the pages simply for something to occupy my mind.
Another two days pass by with the same routine. Three meals a day are brought to the room with clean clothes and fresh towels.
If he’s trying to torture me with lack of human contact, it’s working. Never before has silence sounded so loud and angry like a tiger on the hunt for its next meal. Now, the thought of him cupping my breast in his hand and sticking his tongue down my throat makes me want to rip his limbs from his torso and shove them up his smoking-hot ass.
Then, on day four, Tamara comes in between meals and eyes up the T-shirt I’m wearing and my bare legs. “Here, get dressed.” She holds out a silky chestnut-brown dress and waits for me to take it.
“Nah, I’m good.” I shrug. I’m done playing Leonid’s stupid mind games, dressing for him only to spend the rest of the day imprisoned within these four walls. “Brown isn’t my color.”
“You don’t want to go for a walk? Fine.”
She turns around to leave, and I blurt out, “Wait! I can go for a walk?”
She eyes me coolly. “I thought you were good.”
I snatch the dress from her, before she can change her mind and go back to my captor with the news that I’m happy in my little prison. Dragging the T-shirt over my head, I don’t even care about Tamara seeing me naked. I pull the dress on and slide my feet into my sneakers.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, printzessa. We’re going outside the house, that is all.”
I match her stride along the hallway, grateful that she didn’t feel the need to cuff my hand to hers or fasten a rope around my neck.
Outside is outside. Even if I am confined to Leonid’s magnificent, landscaped gardens.
I spot the man in the dark suit at the bottom of the staircase, all bunched up muscles and thick thighs beneath the well-cut cloth. There’s another stationed by the sliding glass doors that open onto the garden like they expect me to try and bolt when I can see the bulge of their guns beneath their dark suits.
I might be desperate but I’m not stupid.
My stomach twists when I recognize the man from the dining room when I was introduced to Leonid. I think his name was Sergei. He nods at Tamara and falls into step on the other side of me. I wonder if he has been assigned to me in place of Ivana, and the thought gives me a surge of renewed strength. If I’m right, Leonid is deliberately keeping us apart for my own protection.
“You have twenty minutes.” Sergei’s accent is clipped, his voice not quite as deep as Leonid’s. “Don’t even think about trying to escape.”
“Why would I when the alternative is being held captive in such scintillating company?”
I walk slowly. If twenty minutes is all I’m allowed, I want to savor every moment. I tilt my face towards the sun, the rays seeping through my skin and warming my bones. The gardens are extensive, lush lawns leading down to a series of tennis courts, old-fashioned walled gardens, and what appears to be a maze. There are Japanese-style pagodas in lacquered red and black, and covered seating areas clothed in climbing roses, the whole expanse surrounded by woodland.
I gasp. I can’t help myself.
I have always loved the gardens of my father’s estate, mainly because it was my mother’s favorite place, but this… This is something else.
“I’m glad that you find my home pleasant.”
I didn’t even hear him coming. My heart races, fueling my silent anger at being confined to my room for so long. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
I keep walking and am surprised when he replaces both Sergei and Tamara.
“Aren’t you busy delivering ransom notes or organizing your next abduction or something?”
I don’t need to look at him to hear the faint snort escape his nostrils or to sense the smirk on his lips. “I delegate such trivial matters to my men.”
Ugh!
“So, what, you gave the order to have me kidnapped and then sat back with a bottle of Jack and waited for me to arrive?” I don’t know why this bothers me so much. It’s obvious that’s exactly what happened.
“It was Negroni actually. I don’t drink whiskey.”
He heads down towards the maze, and my legs follow without me even thinking about it. “I based this maze on the hedge maze at Hampton Court Palace in England. Have you ever been?”
“I…” Deep breath, Gianna. I only have twenty minutes, and if he wants to talk about mazes, who am I to argue? He might lose track of time and let me enjoy my taste of freedom just a little bit longer. “No, I haven’t.”
He enters the maze and turns left. And I follow.
The dense silence shutting us off from the rest of the world is almost immediate. I try to peer through the seven-foot hedges, but it’s impossible to see beyond the surface branches. I gaze up at the solid blue sky and turn three-sixty, but it’s like being cast adrift on the ocean, and when we turn the next corner, I already feel lost.
“Do you know your way around the maze?”
I study his profile, the aquiline nose, the deep-set eyes and heavy brows, the narrow lips and strong jawline. Separately, his features are unremarkable, but thrown together, he would turn heads in a crowded casino. Not that I’ve ever been inside a casino. But there’s something about him that makes me think of roulette tables, vodka shots, and women draped in diamonds and little else.
“No. That would be impossible.”
We turn another corner, and then another, and panic that we’ll be stuck in here until Sergei rescues us makes my pulse race. Is he deliberately trying to get us lost? Are Sergei and Tamara under orders not to come looking for us? And is it such a bad thing if they are?
I should be enjoying my extended period of freedom, but all I can think about is being trapped inside the maze with Leonid Ivanov knowing that no one would be able to hear me if I cried for help.
He stops and faces me, and it occurs to me that he is almost as tall as the goddamned hedges. He tugs a lock of my hair forward over my shoulder. “Are you afraid, Gianna?”
“Of getting lost in the maze?”
“Of getting lost in the maze with me.” His voice is so smooth, it’s almost hypnotic. Is this how he gets his women to be submissive—by hypnotizing them?
“Should I be?” I raise an eyebrow questioningly.
“It depends…” His knuckle caresses my cheek, sending shivers down my spine.
“On what?”
Something has shifted between us since the last time I saw him. I can’t tell if he is testing my trust in him, or if my attempts to seduce him and get him to see me as an attractive woman rather than the sister-in-law of his rival have worked. Either way, my pussy is screaming at me to let him touch me and see what happens, while my brain is hardly putting up a fight.
“On whether you think you will find your way out before I do.”
I lick my lips. “Is that a challenge?”
He smiles. And my heart does this funny fluttery thing that belongs in every rom com ever made. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“Are you serious?”
I mean, I know that Sergei is probably waiting at the entrance with his finger on the trigger of his gun, but even so, what if I managed to crawl out of the maze beneath the hedges or get so lost that no one ever finds me? I could spend all day hiding behind corners and running when I see them coming, couldn’t I?
He inclines his head. “Sure. Why not.”
“Okay.” I back away from him, heading the way we came.
“There is one condition to this game, Gianna.”
I stop, my blood gushing in my ears. Here it comes. The veiled threat to stop me from trying to escape. “If I find the way out before you do, I get a kiss.”
