We are gliding up the highway, and the ride is so smooth and quiet I feel weightless, as if I am floating in the clouds. It is not a soothing sensation. It makes me feel disconnected from the Earth, as if I am floating away without a tether.

“Raise your hands over your head and touch the ceiling,” he says. “Do not move them until I give you permission.”

I obey him quickly.

He stares at me for a long, long moment, his gaze roving over my body. Then he reaches over and places his huge hand on my throat, and I let out a tiny gasp of panic but stifle it quickly. He stares into my eyes as he runs his hand slowly downward, stopping to cup my breast.

A strange, unfamiliar heat rushes through my body. I squirm in my seat, partly in protest, partly in arousal.

I look away, mortified. He barks, “Look at me,” and I jerk my head back, reluctantly meeting his gaze.

He runs his thumb over my nipple, which is swollen and hard.

“The truth is, Willow, that you want this badly. You have ever since you first saw me. I saw the way you looked at me. And I feel how your body is responding to me now. You have permission to answer.”

His thumb rubs back and forth, stroking me, tormenting me. I press my legs together hard, but wetness is seeping through my panties. Will I leave a damp spot on the leather seats? Please, no, not that, I pray.

“I do not, sir. You’re a violent, sadistic sociopath. You’re forcing me into an arrangement that I never made, and I did not look at you in any particular way when you come to visit us, except with fear and hatred.”

That is a lie. I felt that strange pulse of desire throbbing through my body the first time I laid eyes on him. What is it about him? The very things that terrify me also draw me to him. His brutality. His strength. Nobody could ever hurt this man. Maybe on some level, I’m imagining what it would be like to have a man like that care about me, want to protect me.

But there is no mistake here. The only thing he cares about is using me to humiliate my family.

He is still rubbing his thumb across my nipple, which is swollen and aching to be sucked. Where did that thought come from?

“You want me. And you will come to crave what I do to you, more than breath. And when I am done with you and have cast you aside, you’ll beg for more, and your pleas will fall on deaf ears.”

Me, beg for this? Has he gone insane? My body may be burning for him, but my heart and my mind know what he is.

“Never gonna happen,” I spit at him.

“Did you forget a word, Pussy Willow?”

The men in the front seat laugh at me. Filth. Bastards.

My face flames red. “Sir.”

He pinches my nipple hard, and I flinch and let out a squeal of pain.

“That is the mildest punishment I’ll ever dole out,” he assures me.

“Yes, sir,” I choke out.

I bite my lip. I can’t do that again. I have to get used to the new rules, my new life, if I want to make it through the next thirty days. I have to swallow my pride. Keep my head down and survive.

His hand moves to my other breast, cupping and massaging it. My arms are still raised over my head. My pinched nipple throbs, but there’s a strange kind of pleasure in it that I’ve never experienced before.

My heart hammers against my ribcage as strange, unfamiliar sensations wash over me.

“Do you know what I felt when I first saw you, Willow?”

“What, sir?” I bite down on the gasp that wants to escape.

“Nothing.” His blue eyes have darkened to the color of a stormy sea. “You’re a pawn, and I’m using you to destroy your family. To expose their soft underbelly to the world, then tear that underbelly open.” As he slices into me with his cruel worlds, his hand continues its slow, tormenting caress.

Hot tears burn my eyes and spill down my cheeks.

“Weak,” he scoffs at my tears. “Typical of you people.”

I look away again, hyperventilating.

“Look at me,” he snarls again. When I look back at him now, I’m glaring through lashes made spiky with my tears.

A brutal smile quirks his lips. “I want you to know, Willow, that this is just the beginning. It will only get worse.” How can his hands give me such pleasure while his words hammer into me and bruise my soul?

And why does he hate me so much? It’s clearly my uncle he’s angry at – so why is he taking it out on me? I’m not a threat to him, not a business rival, I’m just a girl with no parents and no home of her own. They draped me in designer clothes and sent me off to that fancy college because that was expected of a Toporov, not because they cared about me.

I’m nobody. I’m not worth noticing, much less torturing.

But he doesn’t seem to know that.

He moves his hand away from my breast. His hand slips down between my legs, forcing its way between them, and at that I gasp and shift in my seat. The throbbing between my legs is almost painful; he’s stoked a roaring bonfire of arousal in my body.

Instead of commanding me to part my legs, he stops caressing my breast and reaches down with his other hand, and with one hand on each thigh, he forces them open. Wide. Wider. I am fighting him, legs struggling to close. It’s not because I don’t want him. It’s because I don’t want to want him. He’ll make me orgasm just with his touch, and I will be mortified.

“Do not close your legs.” He barks the order.

Karl and Mikhail have twisted around in their seats, and they’re watching avidly, eyes shining. Feodyr is doing something with his cell phone. He’s not interested in the show. Just another day sitting in a car with his boss torturing someone.

Crying silently, I shut my eyes as Sergei slides one hand into my panties, and I pretend we’re alone in the car. My arms are starting to burn and shake with the effort of holding them over my head, but I don’t dare lower them.

I can’t stifle my gasp of shock when he begins slowly stroking me, starting at my clit and moving along my labia with each stroke.

“I like my women bare. We will take care of that as soon as we get home.”

Sensation is pouring over me now, burning me from the inside. Without meaning to, I move against his hand. I want more. The realization disgusts me.

“Do you like how I’m touching you, Willow?” His deep, rich voice is smug. He already knows the answer.

“Yes. Sir,” I choke out. I can hardly lie, with the juices of my arousal soaking his fingers.

“Do you want me to make you come?”

I squirm harder and moan. The men in the front seat are watching us.

“No, sir,” I mumble. I am desperate to come, the need for release is burning and raging like a fever, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. And I don’t want it to happen with those pigs devouring me with their hungry, scornful gazes.

His fingers slip out of my panties, and I open my eyes with a gasp. He’s staring into my eyes again, with that cruel twist of a smirk distorting his smile.

“What you want isn’t important. You will come for me, but not now. You will come when I say you can, and only then. Understood?”

Now my face is flaming red with embarrassment. “Yes, sir,” I mutter.

“You may lower your arms.”

I do so.

He directs his limo driver to pull over to the side of the road, and he climbs into the front seat and I ride the rest of the way in silence, wondering, Do I disgust him? Is that why he stopped? And why do I care?