Wicked Beauty

Chapter One
Natalia

I’ve been a fucking fool.

Mikhail’s words are still ringing in my ears, too loud for me to hear anything else. “I know you’re Natalia Obelensky. And now, you’re mine to do with as I please.”

The cold metal of the cuffs around my wrists reminds me of the predicament I’m in. Naked, cuffed to a bed, a monster of a man kneeling between my legs with his cum still sticky on my thighs from earlier tonight. A man who tricked me. Lured me. Fooled me.

The only fool here is you.

Horror floods me, spiked with bitter regret. I’d made a terrible decision in coming out here with him. In trusting a man who I hardly knew, a man who paid me for my time, enough to go out of the city with him to a house far enough away that I know even if I scream my throat bloody, no one will hear me.

I’m trapped. 

He’s still kneeling between my legs, lazily stroking his thick, rigid cock as he looks down at me with a cruel smirk. I can see, in the newly glaring lamplight, how much he’s enjoying this.

How long he’s been waiting for this.

I still feel foggy from the climax he gave me only minutes ago. I’d been dreaming when he’d slipped inside of me, groaning above me, body rigid with uncontrollable need. I can still hear the words he’d whispered in my ear, pulling me out of sleep as he’d started to fuck me again. 

“So fucking good. I woke up so fucking hard–I had to fuck you again. You take my cock so fucking well, I want to feel you come on it again–”

It had turned me on. I’d been drenched, wet with his cum and my own arousal, and I’d arched up, wrapping my legs around his as he’d sank into me, feeling his almost too-big cock rubbing against sore flesh–but not so sore that I didn’t want him again.

I’d hated him before this. I’d hated him for his arrogance and his entitlement and the way he’d dared to handle me so roughly, both on the night I’d showed up on his doorstep unannounced and tonight, when he’d forced his cock down my throat. I’d hated him most of all for the way he made me want it, for the way he made my body come alive with every humiliating, degrading demand he made of it.

Now I hate him for a different reason.

Think, Natalia. There’s a way out of this. What proof does he have that it’s you?

“I’m not who you think you’re looking for,” I protest, yanking against the cuffs as I stare up at the handsome, forbidden man kneeling between my legs. His gaze is flinty, his eyes cold as chips of ice, and I feel fear flooding me, chasing away my lingering arousal, the last soft whispers of pleasure from my orgasm. “I don’t know who Natalia Obelensky is.”

Mikhail laughs, a deep, coarse sound as his fingers tease up and down the length of his cock, a visual representation of just how much he’s enjoying this. He’s as hard as I’ve ever seen him, pre-cum beading at the tip as his fingers circle and squeeze the head, spreading it downwards. He’s slick and glistening from me, and something clenches inside of me at the sight of that, the proof that I enjoyed everything he did to me, despite myself. 

“I told you.” I look up at him pleadingly, and it’s not a hard act to put on, not when I’m this terrified. I might be lying through my teeth, but I’m begging him to believe me. That much is real, and it makes it easier to act out the rest. “My name is Ekaterina. You know that–you’ve been calling me that! I don’t know why you think I’m this other woman, but I swear to you, I’m not–”

He laughs again, his other hand sliding up my calf. The touch is warm and intimate, the touch of a lover, of someone so used to the body of another that he doesn’t need to touch only the most erogenous parts for his pleasure, but all the rest as well. I flinch away from him, and his hand tightens around my leg, pinning it to the bed.

“That might have worked at the beginning of this,” he purrs, his voice low and dangerous. “When I wasn’t certain of who you were. I had my doubts when I was shown a picture of you. That’s how it came about, you see.” 

His hand slides higher, caressing the inside of my knee, making its way up my inner thigh. “I had an informant. He’s dead now–he pissed someone else off, someone powerful, and she paid me to kill him. It’s unfortunate that I no longer have his services, but that’s how these things go.” 

He shrugs, his hand sliding higher still, his other hand still lightly working his cock in the fashion of a man who is enjoying pleasuring himself, but is in no hurry to come. “I was looking for your father, until I found out someone else had killed him instead. That was unfortunate, too. I thought you’d fled the country. But then my informant showed me a picture of you, dancing at that disgusting club.”

His fingers are at the crease of my thigh, stroking. I feel frozen in place, my breath caught in my lungs, just shy of hyperventilating. I want to kick, to scream, to fight, but I can’t move. Even if I could, what would be the point? I’m cuffed to the bed; there’s no escaping that. I’m so fucked, and not in the way I was earlier.

“I wasn’t sure that it was you. I could tell from the picture that you didn’t belong there, though. You were far too beautiful. No one with looks like yours, a presence like yours, talent like yours, would squander it working in such a pigsty unless they were desperate. And I knew that a woman running from her family name, a woman that was heiress to a fortune and power, who many dangerous men would be interested, might be desperate enough to hide in plain sight in such a place.”

His hand slides between my thighs, cupping, the heel of his hand pressed against my clit as he holds me there. “I had to be sure. I have such plans for you, Natalia. Such a need that only you can satisfy. I couldn’t do that to just any woman. It had to be you. So, you see, I am quite certain that I have the right woman–and that you’re lying to me.”

As he speaks, I feel his hand shift, the heel of his hand grinding harder into my clit as two of his fingers push inside of me, curling as he rocks his cupped hand against my pussyMy flesh is sensitive and sore, battered from the hard, rough fucking I took from his massive cock earlier, and I cry out, my back arching as I strain against the cuffs, letting out a scream of frustration and terror.

I hate him. It floods through me, along with the sharp and unwanted pleasure of his hand, fucking, rubbing, sending spirals of sensation through me that I can’t escape, can’t twist away from. His hand is moving faster on his cock now, his jaw set with a determined expression as he says those last words, you’re lying to me, and then he yanks his hand free from between my thighs, leaning forward over me.

“No!” I cry out, kicking at him as I try to twist out from beneath him, fear filling me. “Get the fuck away from me! I don’t want you to–”

He pulls back, laughing, in the last moment before I’m certain he’s about to thrust inside of me. I stare up at him in bleary confusion, trying to comprehend what’s going on–and then I see something in his hand. Something he grabbed from the side table as he’d leaned over me, while I was distracted with fighting him off, thinking he was going to fuck me again.

My blood runs cold when I see that he’s holding a knife.

He flicks it open, the silvery blade gleaming in the lamplight. “Oh, we’re going to have such fun, malen’kiy. But I should warn you–I don’t like being lied to. It makes me angry. And making me angry, as you found out not so long ago, has consequences.”

His fingers lazily brush along the length of his cock again as he rises up on his knees, leaning over me with the hand that’s holding the knife outstretched. He presses the tip against the very base of my throat, in the hollow of my collarbone, a slow smile spreading across his face.

I thought I’d known fear–before this, tonight, seconds ago. In this moment, with the sharp point digging into my flesh, poised to cut me open like a still-living cadaver, I know that I’ve never, ever known what it means to be truly afraid.

“I showed you what it means to lie to me, to disobey me.” His tongue runs over his lips, his hand moving a little faster on his cock with the memory of that night, when I’d appeared on his doorstep for help and instead found myself pinned against his front door, his tongue in my ass as he’d made me beg to come despite my furious threats and refusals. When he’d humiliated me beyond anything I’d ever experienced–and made me come harder than I ever had in my life.

“But next time–” he drags the tip of the knife downwards, pressing down a little, not hard enough to break my skin, but enough for me to feel it. “Next time, it might not be so pleasurable. I have you where I want you now, malen’kiy. You cannot escape, you cannot run. So I can draw a little blood, if I wish.”

I feel my heart leap into my throat as he drags the blade down between my cleavage, pausing, and with one sudden movement, his hand sweeps to one side, beneath the curve of one breast.

I scream. I can’t help it. I have a vision of my flesh opening, blood pouring down the pale expanse of my ribs and belly, pooling in my navel, as the knife digs in. The sound comes out guttural and horrid, and Mikhail starts to laugh, shuddering over me as his hand stops stroking his cock for a moment.

When he’s gotten control of himself again, his blue eyes flick upwards, holding my gaze. “I can’t decide,” he says slowly, as the tip of the knife presses into the soft flesh of my breast, dragging upwards to my nipple, “what turns me on more. The sound of your moans–or the sound of your screams.”

I can feel myself starting to shake, and I try to stop it, to control the fear, terrified now of moving at all with the knife pushing into my skin. His hand is sliding over his hard, straining length again, as he circles my nipple with the knife, pricking the very tip of it sharply enough to make me gasp and strain against the cuffs again as he pulls back.

“God, you are fucking exquisite,” he breathes, the knife pressed just above my ribs. His hand moves a little faster, his words thickening as his arousal intensifies. “So hungry for what you don’t even understand–how much pleasure pain could give you.” He tips his head back, his eyes rolling back as his hand spasms around his cock, the knife pressing down harder against my flesh. “I’m going to enjoy teaching you, watching you give in to your desires, before I finish this for good.”

I stare up at him in mute horror as he shakes his head, his entire body shuddering as if to regain control, his hand slowing again, back to the lazy, edging strokes. He draws the knife down further, down the flat, shallow expanse of my belly, the tip of his tongue tracing the edge of his lower lip.

“I don’t understand what you want with me,” I whisper, trying to keep myself very still. “I never met you before you came to the club. I don’t know who you are beyond that. I’ve never done anything to you–”

Mikhail chuckles, the tip of the knife tracing around my navel, hooking just inside, and I have to bite back another scream as he tugs on my flesh ever so slightly. “Oh, but you have, malen’kiy. You just don’t realize it yet.”

“I’ve given you everything I can–”

He shakes his head. “No–not everything. But I suppose I should tell you why I’m so certain that you’ve lied to me, that you’re the woman I’m looking for.”

The knife stays hooked in my navel, tugging ever so often as he speaks. “I really did wonder if I’d found the right woman. Even as much time as we spent together at first, I couldn’t be sure. And I had to be sure. I couldn’t make such a terrible mistake, to capture the wrong woman. So I tracked down someone who might know. A man who used to work for Adrian Drakos, in Santorini.”

I’d been wrong about how terrified I could be, yet again. It takes everything in me to keep my expression the same, not to show any recognition, how the mention of that name and that place shatters every last hope I had that there might be some strange misunderstanding here. I don’t know if I succeed, but he stays exactly as he is, still speaking as his cold gaze rests on mine.

“I drugged him, took him back to a place that I keep for just that sort of purpose. He tried to fight, of course. He tried to lie to me–” 

The knife presses harder against my skin as he says the word lie, and I grasp onto that, file it away for my own safety, the reminder that lying to Mikhail is something that needs to be done carefully, not recklessly.

“But I got the truth from him in the end.” A slow smile twitches at the corners of Mikhail’s mouth, chilling my blood. “He heard a final argument between you and Adrian, before you left. You only had a Russian passport, so it was the only place you could go. Back to Moscow, back to the place you’d fled.” He grins at me, a cold, knowing smile that makes me want to burst into tears with how cruel it is, how it seems to make it as if he can see down to my very soul. “Back to the place where you killed your father.”

The knife jerks out of my navel, and I tense, another cry slipping out of my mouth. I can’t help it. I look down, certain I’ll see my own blood, but there’s nothing there–and that terrifies me even more than the alternative, because it tells me a horrifying truth.

Mikhail is skilled enough at this sort of thing that he can manipulate a knife in such a way that he can hurt me without drawing blood–and if he wanted to, he could make me feel so much pain that I would forget there was ever anything else in the world.

He drags it lower, to the very top of my pubic bone, pressing down. “I understood, then, that the information I’d been given was correct, that every suspicion I had after meeting you was, in fact, correct. That the beautiful dancer who seemed so out of place, was–because she was a woman in hiding, trying to make enough money to flee in the one place that she thought no one would look for her, because Natalia Obelensky would never have so much as gone into a place like that, let alone worked there. And you came so close to success.”

He grins, tracing the tip of the knife down to just above my clit, as tears fill my eyes. “If it wasn’t for me, you would have gotten away with it, wouldn’t you? But then I found you. I saw through you. And now, Natalia–you are mine, and there’s nothing you can do but accept that.”

Fuck that. I swallow hard, clinging on to any last shreds of stubborn bravery that I can muster to fight back. I know that lying is a trigger point for him, that I have to tread carefully, and I have a moment of feeling utterly lost as to what to do next. 

I don’t know whether to keep playing the game of pretending to be someone else, or to admit that he’s caught me, and throw myself on his mercy.

What kind of mercy does a man who masturbates while tormenting you at the point of a knife have? He has his plans for you already set. If you give in now, you’ll lose any chance of escape.

I let out a shuddering breath as the tip of the knife circles my clit, pricking the slick flesh lightly as he keeps tracing it along the outer folds of my pussy, his hand a steady rhythm on his cock now. He groans, a deep sound of pleasure, letting out a sigh as he runs the knife up the crease of my thigh.

“We’re going to have fun together, Natalia, before I’m finished with you. I promise you, tonight isn’t the last time I’ll make you come–or the last time you beg for it.”

I close my eyes, struggling to keep control of my panic. I still don’t understand what his purpose in all of this is–why he wants to keep me captive, hurt me, even–

Don’t think that far ahead. You’ll lose your mind if you do.

All I can think is that he’s someone who wants to avenge my father–someone who worked for my father and believed in his leadership, maybe, someone I didn’t know about. Someone obsessed with the power of Konstantin Obelensky. Someone so furious that I’d been a part of the events that killed my father that he’s decided to take revenge on my father’s behalf. 

But it sounded as if he didn’t know that I was a part of it until he’d tortured that poor man. And he was following me before that, trying to figure out who I was. So that can’t be right–

I feel as if my mind is scrambled, confused, unable to make sense of any of this right now while I’m here in this moment, a knife still tracing patterns down my inner thigh. 

I have to at least try to fight back, as terrifying as it is. I can’t let this arrogant, vengeful man get the better of me so quickly. 

If this is how my life is going to end, I’m going to make him fucking work for it.

I yank against the cuffs again, glaring at him with as much distaste and anger as I can muster through my fear. “You’ve made a mistake,” I tell him as haughtily as I can, forcing as much fear out of my voice as I can manage, as if I’m absolutely certain of it. “I’m not who you think I am. If you were so worried about getting the wrong woman when you first saw me, congratulations–that’s exactly what you did.”

Mikhail smirks, his eyes still just as cold. He pauses, flicking the knife closed as his other hand stills, and as he tosses the knife to the other side of the bed I have a moment’s wild hope that somehow, despite all odds, he believes me. I can’t be that lucky.

He laughs, slow and deep. “Who would you like me to believe that you are, then?” There’s that sharp edge of danger to his tone, warning me away from the lie, but I’m not about to stop now.

I’d purposefully steered away from giving him too many details about the fake persona I’d created for our “dates”, not wanting to create something that I could potentially trip over later. Now I’m glad for that decision, because it means that I don’t have to remember what I told him before as I scramble for a story to concoct, something to try to convince him that he really has made a mistake.

“I told you,” I manage, forcing the words out past the lump of fear in my throat. “My name is Ekaterina. I’m from Moscow–my family had money, but my father lost it all in gambling debts. He killed himself when my mother found out, and she abandoned me, left me in a state home. When I aged out, I tried to find other work, but I ended up working at the club where you found me eventually, trying to make enough to figure out a different path. It seemed like decent money, and I thought it would only be for a little while.”

I feel the tiniest bit guilty, knowing I’ve stolen little bits of that story from my half-sister, but I tell myself she’d understand. No one can be expected to come up with a wholly original cover story in these circumstances. “I’m not the woman you’re looking for. I don’t know who she is. Please,” I add, softening my voice in a way that I hope might add something to my story, even though I despise asking him for anything. “Please listen. You’ve got the wrong person.”

He leans over me, his hard, muscular body stretched over mine, making me shrink back into the bed. And then, as he stares down at me, he laughs in my face.

“It’s going to be such a pleasure breaking you, Natalia,” he breathes.

I can’t help myself. A surge of anger floods through me, and I jerk on the cuffs, rearing up and spitting in his face the way he’d laughed in mine. “Fuck you!” I scream, all my attempts at calm reasoning fleeing, and Mikhail laughs again, leaning back as his hand quickens on his cock, his knees pushing my legs apart as he starts to stroke his reddened, straining cock in earnest.

“That’s fine,” he purrs, his voice a low rasp. “If you want to do this the hard way–well, that will be all the more pleasurable for me.” He hesitates, and then shudders, his mouth opening on a low keen of pleasure. “Oh god, I–”

His hips jerk forward as he moans, his cock throbbing as the head of it swells, and I realize what’s about to happen in the moment before he angles himself forward, the first spurt of his cum splashing onto my clit, dripping hotly down my pussy as his face contorts with pleasure. “You’re mine,” he snarls, his hand stroking feverishly as his cum streaks across my skin, over my belly and breasts and thighs, lacing me in it as his gaze rakes over me, hot and possessive. “And you will never escape.”

I lay there frozen, in stunned silence as he finishes, shuddering above me as the last of his cum drips onto my skin. He lets go of his cock, sliding off of the bed, and he stands next to it for a long moment, looking down at me bound and covered in him.

“Krasivyy,” he murmurs. “Beautiful.”

Slowly, he reaches out, brushing a tangle of hair away from my face. “I’ll let you rest now, kotenok. You’ll need all your strength later.”

He bends down, scooping his discarded clothes up from the floor. 

And then, without another word, he’s gone.