I’ve never had a strong attraction to anybody.
Until now.
My attraction to Mikolaj is a compulsion. It’s nothing as simple as lust. It’s every emotion wrapped into one: fear, intimidation, arousal, fixation, and anguish. It’s so intense that nothing as normal as a crush could hope to compare to it. It’s a force of nature. It’s a goddamn tsunami.
It takes control of me.
I know he’s feeling it, too.
But he pushed me away, and he brought me back to my room and left me here.
Why?!
One tiny corner of my brain is still thinking rationally. It tells me, “Because he knows this is doomed. He knows he’s going to kill your brother, your parents, and even you. And the tiny shred of morality left inside of him says that it’s wrong to fuck you before he murders you.”
It’s a sobering thought. One that should shake me out of this madness.
I roll over under the blankets, closing my eyes, trying to force myself to go to sleep.
I’m plagued by the throbbing between my thighs. The itching and burning of my skin. I wanted him to touch me so badly. Why didn’t he run his hands down my body at least?
If he had just kissed me again, I could be satisfied. I could go to sleep thinking of that.
But he refused to touch me at all.
It almost makes me angry.
He told me to convince him. Then he sat there like a fucking robot.
Yeah, I’m definitely pissed.
I used to be a girl who would curl up and cry when she was disappointed. Well, not anymore. I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of doing what people say. I’m tired of being locked in this room.
I slip out from under the blanket and pad barefoot toward the door.
I’m still naked, other than my underwear. I never recovered the nightgown—it’s probably still down in the billiards room.
I try the door handle. It turns silently under my palm.
I’m going to take that as a sign. Mikolaj didn’t actually lock me in my room. He’s not sloppy. Either he did it on purpose, or subconsciously he wants this as badly as I do.
I creep out of my room and down the dark hallway.
I remember how terrified I was, the first time I did this.
I’ve spent more than a month in this house now. I know its sounds as well as I know the sound of my own heartbeat and my own breath in my lungs. I know exactly how to avoid Andrei, who’s supposed to be keeping watch tonight. I hear him in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of milk. He always drinks milk, never water.
I cross the main floor.
I hear another sound, up the staircase that leads to Klara’s room. It’s a low murmur, like two people talking quietly, not wanting to be heard. I’d bet my arm it’s Marcel. I’ve seen how he looks at Klara, and how she looks at him, when she thinks no one will notice.
They won’t hear me. They’re too wrapped up in their own whispered conversation.
That means I just have to watch out for Jonas.
I cross over to the west wing, the forbidden part of the house. It’s only been nine hours since Mikolaj chased me out of here. He looked so angry I thought he’d strangle me right then and there.
Before I was propelled by simple curiosity. Now I’m driven by something stronger.
I climb the staircase and walk silently down the long hallway. As I pass Mikolaj’s office I peek inside, in case he’s stayed up working. It’s empty.
I come to the master suite with its heavy double doors. I turn the latch and slip inside, thinking for certain he’ll still be awake. It’s only been an hour since he dropped me off at my room. I expect to hear his low, clear voice, demanding to know why I’m back here already. But the suite is dark and silent.
I cross over to the bed.
There he lays. My beast. My enemy. My captor.
He’s naked on top of the covers, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. For the first time, I have a full view of his body.
Every inch of his skin is covered in tattoos, except for his hands and face. His body is a living, breathing piece of art. It’s a complete tapestry of patterns, images, and swirls in shades of gray, blue, and oxblood.
Beneath the tattoos, planes of lean, hard muscle. He’s more ripped than a male dancer. I see the deep cuts of his abs, then his hipbones, then the waistband of his boxer shorts, barely covering his cock.
My mouth waters and I have to swallow hard.
I almost put that cock in my mouth.
I don’t know how in the hell I got the courage to do it. I unbuttoned his pants and it jumped out like a snake, twice as big as I expected. It was terrifying and I had no idea what to do with it.
At the same time, I was fascinated by that smooth, bare skin. It looked like the softest skin on his whole body. When I held his cock in my hand, it felt like it had a life of its own, twitching and throbbing against my palm.
I expect him to wake up any second, with me standing over him. He’ll probably be furious.
Right now, his face is totally relaxed.
I’ve never seen it like that.
It makes me realize how beautiful Mikolaj is. His features are so sharply defined, they’re almost godly. What would he look like if he were happy, if he actually smiled? It would be too much. I don’t think I could stand it.
I stare at his face a long time.
I’m looking at the man he could have been. A man without anger or bitterness. A man without pain.
Now my heart is hurting, and I don’t know why. Why should I have sympathy for the Beast?
But I do. Some bizarre connection has grown between us, without either of us wanting it.
I slip into his bed, expecting him to wake any second.
He’ll wake up now that I’m lying next to him.
Now that I’ve rested my hand on his stomach.
Now that I’m sliding it into his shorts . . .
He sighs—a long, slow, masculine sigh. It makes my thighs squeeze together.
I have his cock in my hand. It’s warm, half-hard, getting harder by the moment.
I bend over and take it in my mouth.
I can smell his skin, warm and musky with sleep. And I can taste his cock, which has a flavor all its own—rich, salty, and compelling. It floods my mouth with saliva. My tongue slides easily over his smooth flesh, the head of his cock filling my mouth.
The harder he gets, the wider I have to open my jaw.
I have no clue how to give a blowjob properly. I’m just trying things out as I go—sometimes licking, sometimes sucking, sometimes just sliding my lips and tongue around on it.
Really, I’m just doing whatever feels good to me. But it seems to work well enough, because his cock has gotten equally as hard as it was before in the billiards room, when I danced for him.
Mikolaj’s hands thrust into my hair, holding my head on both sides.
I glance upward and see that he’s fully awake, looking down at me.
I thought he’d be angry or annoyed.
Those are the only two options I was expecting.
Instead, I see an expression I can hardly understand. It almost looks like gratitude.
He’s holding my head, rolling his hips so that his cock slides in and out of my mouth in a steady rhythm. I keep licking and sucking as best I can. His breath is coming quicker, and he’s making little sounds, something like a sigh and a groan mixed together.
He starts thrusting harder and his cock goes too deep, hitting the back of my throat. I gag.