Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
“Is this my new prison?” I look around the small room. It’s plain, but there’s a round sea window with a built-in seat beneath it. I climb up and lean my back against the frame, looking out the window at the water. With a good book, this could be a sweet little nook. I can pretend I’m on a yacht.
“Yes.” Adrian walks around the room exploring things. “Not bad,” he says. “Could be worse. At least we have a window.”
“Come up here with me,” I invite. To my delight, he does, hopping up and leaning his back against the opposite side, his long legs tangling over mine
“What about my cage though?” I pretend to pout. “You said I get a reward and cage time.” I’d been one part turned on, one part scared at the time. I can’t believe I let him put me in that box and never freaked out. I guess the gummies helped.
It would be easy to demonize Adrian for this, but I see the good in him. He’s trying hard to spare me from trauma. Maybe I’m being foolish and romantic, but part of me can’t help but believe he’s a hero trapped in a villain’s role.
Of course, it’s one he volunteered for.
Adrian sends me a feral grin. It's the first smile I've really seen on him, and it makes him look boyish and devastatingly handsome. “I plan to occupy myself with nothing other than using and abusing you for the next two weeks.”
If he weren’t smiling, I would take it a totally different way, but instead, his words light a white-hot flame of desire in my core.
He grips my calf and slides his hand up and down my knee-high sock. For a moment, I pretend we're dating. He's my doting boyfriend, and this is our vacation on a cruise. The loving boyfriend I never had. Of course, I know nothing about Adrian Turgenev. Not what he does for a living nor the foods he likes. Not even his favorite TV show.
Adrian removes my shoes, tossing them one by one to the floor beside the single cot. He picks up my foot and starts massaging it.
“Feeling guilty?” I ask with a knowing smirk.
“Perhaps,” he says.
“You should.”
He accepts that as his due. “You deserve all the rewards now malyshka,” he tells me. “You were a very good girl.”
My breasts tighten at his words. Or maybe at his touch because the foot rub feels heavenly.
“What are the rewards?”
“Well, I'm not bad at giving foot rubs.” He’s working my foot with both hands now. He is actually amazing at it. But then I start wondering whose feet he rubs. Where he learned this talent. I want to murder every girl he ever seduced with that boyish smile and these firm thumbs working along the pads of my toes.
“Whose feet do you rub?” I ask, trying not to sound as jealous as I feel.
“I used to rub my mother's,” he says. “She was sick with cancer, and it was something I could do for her.”
“I'm sorry,” I say. “Did…did she make it?”
“No.”
“How old were you when she died?
“I was fourteen. Nadia was just ten.”
“How old are you now?” I ask.
“Twenty-six.”
“What about your dad? Is he alive?”
Adrian gives a faint nod. “He’s a drunk. He started drinking when my mom was sick. Now he’s pretty much drunk all the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is.”
“I was nine when my mom disappeared,” I tell him.
Adrian frowns. “What do you mean disappeared?” His brows dip like he already knows the answer.
I shrug. “I like to think she ran away. But I don't know. There are many things I don't know about my father and what he's capable of.”
I've never said it before out loud. Never voiced this horrific fear I have that he’s the reason she left not only me but possibly the planet.
“Kataryna,” Adrian says softly, his gaze filled with sympathy.
Tears pop into my eyes, and I quickly shake my head to send them away. “I know–poor little rich girl, right? Everyone assumes the crime lord's daughter is a pampered princess living a charmed life. But I'll tell you–it's fucking lonely. I don't have any friends in this world, Adrian, not even one.”
What am I doing? I can’t believe I’m throwing myself a pity party and inviting Adrian–a guy I would prefer to impress not embarrass myself with–along.
“That can't be,” he asserts, his brown gaze intense, like he wants to make it true. Wants to convince me otherwise.
“It is true,” I tell him. “Why do you think I'm out making random connections with sweaty boys at a rave? Falling for a guy who's holding me prisoner?”
Oops.
Oh my God, did I say that out loud?
I must be losing my mind.
Adrian stops breathing, his eyes wide and startled.
I wave a dismissive hand. “Kidding. I don't mean that.”