9
LUKA WAS GONE a long time, much longer than I’d thought he’d be, and it put me in the awful position of hoping he’d come back. I was uncomfortable, thirsty, and I had an eyelash in my eye.
So I used the time to think about what homework I would start first when I got back to my dorm room, and I ran through the checklist of the other odds and ends I wanted to take care of before Thanksgiving break. I didn’t want to think about what had happened in the last eighteen hours or my current situation. I had a secondary application for Michigan University’s medical school I still needed to finish, and an essay to polish for my dream school, Johns Hopkins. I’d already been accepted into Duke, but it was my second choice.
Sounds of activity far off traveled down the hallway to me. Thumps, and heavy footsteps, and male voices. My pulse quickened. Did I scream for help, or would it incur Luka’s wrath? Before I could make a decision, the noises ceased.
A little later, the door opened without a knock and Luka returned, carrying a black overnight bag and a bottle of water. He shut the door behind him, dropped the bag beside the loveseat, and set his gaze on me.
I was thankful I’d stayed relatively calm, which kept the dress shirt covering my breasts.
“That took longer than I thought it would,” he said. “Your roommate’s annoying and dumber than a box of rocks.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. “What? You talked to Avery?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He set down the bottle, unzipped the bag, and pulled out clothes. What—? He held up the tan A-line dress trimmed with black that I’d worn for my video interview with Duke’s admissions department.
“How did you . . .?”
“Brent, one of Vasilije’s frat brothers, is dating your roommate.” Luka laid the dress out on the chair, retrieved the water bottle, and sauntered toward me. “She was helpful getting things from your room, but she doesn’t know anything about your schedule.” He sat beside me on the bed. “Because, as I mentioned, she’s dumber than a box of fucking rocks. Why the hell are you friends with her?”
So many questions stormed into my mind, it was difficult to find an answer. “I’m not, really. You went through my things?”
He placed the pads of his fingertips on my collarbone and began to skate them down my bare skin where the shirt wasn’t closed. “Yes. I had them brought here.”
The goosebumps he gave me could have been from his words and not just his touch. What was he talking about? “What things?”
His expression was casual. “All of them. I had your dorm room packed up and moved the boxes into another guest room.”
“What?” The invasion of privacy was overwhelming.
Luka blinked slowly and his expression was guarded. “I told you, this is your home now. When you’ve earned it, you can have your things back.”
My mouth hung open, and as my fury built into a crescendo, his gaze hardened.
“Or you can throw a fit about it and I’ll take my shirt back.”
I closed my eyes and forced myself to take in a calming breath. I was smarter than this. I wouldn’t succumb to an emotional reaction, not if I wanted to outplay him. When my eyes fluttered open, I found him scrutinizing me.
“Will you please,” I said, each word deliberate, “untie me now?”
He paused. “Only if you let me tie you up again right after.”
“After?” Dread coated my voice.
He waved a hand toward the bathroom. “I assume you need to use the restroom.”
Luka was right, I did, but . . . “I thought you said I only needed to be tied up so you could get me clothes, which you did.” He’d gotten all of my clothes.
“Do you want to use the bathroom or not?”
I exhaled loudly. “I do.”
“Okay.” He grabbed my wrist and began to undo the knots. “You’ll come right back to the bed when you’re done, and drink this.”
He made me leave the door open as well, which was infuriating. After I finished, I rolled my aching shoulders and returned to him with trepidation. Our time apart had recharged Luka, and he appeared ready to go after me again at full force.
It would be so much harder the second time to lie down on the bed, and as I lingered in the doorway, I considered not doing it. He must have sensed it.
“Come here,” he commanded.
I sat cautiously beside him on the side of the bed, leaving distance between us. He unscrewed the bottle, passed it to me, and I gulped it down until it was gone, taking my time. Stalling, really, but I couldn’t put it off forever. I held the dress shirt closed as I willed my body to lie down on the bed, fidgeting to maximize coverage. Luka took one of my wrists in his hands, and rubbed the rope marks with his thumbs, mesmerized. A darkness flickered in his eyes.
He enjoyed seeing these marks of his control on my skin.
I shuddered.
He spoke as he wound the rope once again around my wrists, binding me to the bed. “Your roommate’s an idiot, but she knows things about you I don’t.”
Normally, that would make sense. I lived with her, after all. But instead I wondered how it could be possible. Avery paid no attention to anyone but herself.
His voice was uncharacteristically soft. “You’re going to Duke after you graduate?”
I opened my mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. Had Avery told him that? The realization came quickly. No, Avery probably hadn’t. If he’d packed up my dorm room as he said, he’d found my acceptance package in the top drawer of my desk.
“I . . . haven’t decided yet.” Duke was expensive. Hell, all of the schools were. I’d be up to my eyeballs in student loans until I was forty.
“Why not?” His tone was almost angry. “That’s a great school.”
“I have others I’m waiting to hear from.” I tried to organize my thoughts. Why were we talking about this? The restraint on me made me feel off-balance and knocked my filter askew. “I don’t know if I can afford it.”
“Your parents?”
A different level of discomfort grew, one which had nothing to do with the situation. “They don’t have a way to help.”
What I really meant was we were struggling. My parents owned three hundred acres of farmland. Some seasons we came out ahead, but most years we merely survived, and it seemed like it had been year after year of bad luck recently.
“Not everyone lives in mansions on golf courses,” I added under my breath.
His expression could almost pass for amusement. “You do . . . now.”
“I don’t live here, Luka.” For effect, I jolted against the knots and the rope went taut. I was captive, surely he knew I would bolt the first opportunity I got.
“This is where you belong,” he said. “I own you.”
His fingertips crept beneath the collar of my shirt, nudging it over, threatening to expose my naked breast. The muscles low in my belly clenched, and I shifted subtly away, but I could only go so far. He could do whatever he wanted.
“You’re going to tell me your schedule now,” he said.
As I lay beneath him, anger swelled. “No. I held up my end of the deal, and you didn’t.” I glared into his deep black eyes. “You said you’d only tie me up for a little while.”
His gaze followed his fingertips. They skimmed at the line of buttonholes on the shirt, down between the valley of my breasts, and over my quivering belly.
“Yeah, well . . .” His fingers stopped at the top of my panties. “I have something I want to use first, but it’s taking longer to charge than I expected.”
The way his voice was tinged with excitement made my heart thud and my pulse race.
“What are you talking about?” Again, I tried to scoot away from his fingers, but they continued to skim over me. They drew a line down my thigh, tracing patterns.
“I had my assistant pick something up for me this morning while you were sleeping. It’s been charging for the last five hours.” His hand froze. “Should I get it?”
I was fairly certain the answer was no, but he didn’t wait for a response. Luka got up, exited the room, and shut the door behind him. In the quiet, my nerves swelled like an ocean during a storm. I imagined the worst possible scenarios. I fully expected him to return with a torture device. And . . . he had an assistant?
The door swung open abruptly, and he returned, carrying something small enough to fit in one hand. His expression was an enigma as he came closer. Was this interest? Desire? Lust? His eyes were magnetic.
He revealed it to me as he sat, and the bed shifted under his weight. It was black, U-shaped, and one side was larger than the other. I stared at it critically. The thing looked like it was made out of some kind of rubber, and I hadn’t the faintest clue what it was.
I gasped when he set it down on the bed and put his hand right on top of my underwear without warning. I jolted against the straps to no avail. I couldn’t stop him. My words wouldn’t dissuade him. His thick fingers probed and circled, rubbing me on my clit, even as I pressed my knees together and tried to get him to stop.
Luka’s voice was dark and sinful. “I want you to get off while we’re fucking, but I know that’s not going to happen just yet. So we can train for it.”
“Don’t,” I whispered, filled with unease. My hips moved to get away, but I worried all I was doing was making it easier for him, and then an even scarier thought took root. What if I was doing it on purpose? His touch felt weird. Almost, sort of . . . good.
I was sick. How could I be responding to him, even a little? Shame stormed through me.
“You’re so fucking sexy, Addison,” he said. He dragged air in through parted lips as he watched me squirm. “So sexy, and all for me.”
His hand moved faster, grinding the cotton of my panties to my flesh, teasing. I struggled against my bindings, but even that added to my enjoyment of the experience in a twisted way. I couldn’t get free. And since I was his captive, the vilest part of myself whispered I might as well get something from it. Take pleasure from him the way he took it from me.
I clamped my teeth together, but it didn’t silence my breathless moan. It slipped out quietly, but Luka definitely heard it. It kicked him into a new gear, and his fingers dove beneath my panties to touch me where I was hot and aching.
“Oh,” I groaned. My eyes slammed shut and I turned my head away from him, trying to shut him out. It was the most bizarre thing ever. I’d spent countless nights envisioning him touching me like this when it was my own hand, and now that it was him actually doing it, I thought I should picture someone else.
I grew damp as my body rocked appallingly against his hand. The disgusting voice in my head wanted to beg him to put his fingers inside me, so I pressed my lips together to stay silent. I forced all thought from my mind, since any pleasure brought guilt, and I was feeling a lot of both of those.
“Open those perfect blue eyes and look at me,” he ordered.
I blinked open and stared up at him, wishing for him to stop and wordlessly pleading with him to continue. Heat moved in waves from his touch. The pads of his fingers fumbled over my slippery skin, but never dipped inside as I was beginning to crave them to.
“I want to watch you come.” Luka gripped the waistband of my panties and slowly worked it down until I was exposed.
I issued a nervous whine. Some of it was fear, and some of it was an emotion too scary to put a label to. He picked up the small, weird U-shaped object, stretched it open wide, and then eased the smaller end of it inside me.
I moaned with confusion. Pleasure and discomfort simultaneously, but then pleasure won out. The larger end fit tight up against my clit. Luka gave me half a smile, which I was beginning to recognize was his pleased look. My underwear was tugged back up in place, so I was effectively wearing the toy he’d halfway placed in my body.
It was surprising when he moved to the loveseat and sat down, digging his phone out of his back pocket. What was he doing? Hadn’t he said he wanted to make me come? The distance between us felt enormous and weird, which made no fucking sense. Shouldn’t I be relieved he was on the other side of the room, more interested in his phone than he was in—
“Oh!” I cried, arching up off the bed.
The toy inside me was vibrating. It started slow and the vibrations swelled, only to stop, then resume again. A relaxed rhythm of ebbing and flowing that brought my nerve endings to life. I stared at Luka, my mouth hanging slack.
“Are you,” I said between cycles of vibration, “controlling it?”
He teased a smile. “It’s an app on my phone.”
I turned my gaze up to the ceiling, bashful. It was almost as bad as being naked, him watching me while the vibrations made my cheeks flush warm with color. The powerful waves were strange and addicting.
It was tortuous pleasure as well. Just as it began to feel really good, the tempo would crest and cease, leaving me on a cliff. I’d slide slowly away from the edge, only for the next wave to pick me back up, carry me to the top, and repeat the pattern.
“You don’t own a vibrator?” he asked, like this was normal conversation. “I didn’t find one in your room.”
Oh my God. “No,” I said quickly between the pulsing waves, “I don’t.”
“Why not?”
The pleasure radiating from between my legs was . . . distracting. My mind wanted to focus on it, rather than Luka’s question. “Because I’m a virgin?” I threw it at him with attitude, only to realize my mistake. “I was.”
I didn’t have to look at him, not that I could anyway, to sense the victorious look splashed on his face.
“You’re saying virgins don’t like orgasms?”
“No, I’m saying,” I swallowed a breath and stifled a moan, “I didn’t need battery-operated help.” And, really. When was I supposed to use a vibrator? Besides being so busy I barely got seven hours of sleep, Avery never went to class. It meant she was always in the room, playing on the internet or watching TV.
“So you took care of yourself the old fashioned way?” he teased.
I ignored him as much as I possibly could, so I didn’t see his finger move. The pattern on the vibrator changed to greater peaks and valleys, with more time between the swells. It was so good, and so horrible at the same time. My greedy body shifted subtly, wanting more whenever the vibrations went into a lull, diminishing to practically nothing.
“I want to hear you say,” Luka continued, “you thought about me while you were sliding your fingers inside your pussy.”
I gasped inward, and blinked rapidly, focusing on the spot on the ceiling. There was no way in a million years I’d admit it, even if it was true.
He was persistent. “You said last night you’d spent the past two years thinking about me.” His deep, seductive voice invaded my head. “Did you, while you were touching yourself?”
My face flamed as hot as the sun, and even my ears burned. My mouth was a desert. I couldn’t keep my composure like this while he had me bound to the bed with not just rope, but with his filthy questions and dark gaze.
“Eyes on me,” he said. “Look at me, Addison.”
It was scary and yet strangely erotic. Luka appeared to sit comfortably in the oversized chair, one elbow resting on the armrest, and his phone in his hand. Although his posture was relaxed, he still had presence. There was a gravity to him, and I could feel his control from clear across the room. Through the window, it was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to set, so it cast long shadows over his handsome face. He looked powerful and confident, but most of all, transfixed by me.
“No lies,” he reminded. “Did you think about me when you touched yourself?”
His determined expression, coupled with the steady pulse of pleasure, was too much to handle, and I cracked. “Yes,” I whispered.
His smile began in one corner and spread across his lips like gasoline on a fire. I stopped breathing. Luka was smiling. Not a half-smile, but a bright, wide one where I could see his perfect teeth, and light in his eyes. It changed his whole face, morphing him into a man I barely recognized. Utterly gorgeous.
“Shit,” he whispered appreciatively as his smile began to pass. “That’s so fucking hot, picturing you like that. Did you get off to me? Did you imagine those were my fingers inside you as you were doing it?”
“Yes,” I said on barely a breath. I hadn’t fully recovered from his dazzling smile, which was now completely gone.
“You know what my fantasies were? I’d bend you over professor Kwon’s desk and fuck you until you begged me to come on your perfect tits.”
There were no words. Luka’s statement unzipped my head and poured molten hot lava all over my brain, frying rational thought. It was vulgar and dirty, and yet the shocking image he painted turned me on. Because I was a good girl and would never think of saying such a thing, but Luka saw me like that. In his fantasies I wasn’t shy, awkward, or inexperienced.
He tapped the screen of his phone.
“Oh,” I moaned. Was he rewarding me, or increasing my torture? The pattern changed to a steady and deep vibrating pulse. I dug my heels into the bed and bowed upward. I needed . . . relief. He kept me dangling right at the edge and it was going to tear me apart.
“Looks like it’s feeling good now, isn’t it?” His tone was indecent. “Are you thinking about what that would have been like? If I’d fucked you after class and made you go back to your dorm with my cum sticky on your chest?”
I whimpered and closed my eyes. The heat and need he’d created in me was a powerful drug and obliterated my inhibitions. I would have done it, in what had become our mutual fantasy. If he’d ordered me to in his authoritative voice, I would have followed just about any directive he gave me.
I strangled back a moan.
“Yeah, I bet you’d like to come now, wouldn’t you?”
Without though, I struggled uselessly against the rope. If the toy lodged inside me had just a little more contact with my clit . . . A soft whine fell from my parted lips as I rasped in air. It wasn’t a denial. If anything, it sounded like confirmation, and Luka gave a wicked chuckle.
And then everything stopped.
My lungs emptied in a burst, my skin cooled, and my heart thudded. No! I’d been so close.
“Your schedule, and then you can come.”