12
LUKA LAUNCHED TO HIS FEET, blocking most of the overhead light, and backlit like that . . . he looked menacing and scary. I sat upright, my back straight as a board and my knees pulled together. I didn’t like being talked down to or scolded.
It happened in slow motion. His hand extended out to me until it was an inch from the tip of my nose, and his fingers moved, producing a crack that reverberated like thunder. Play your part, Addison. It was humiliating and I wasn’t sure if I could do it. Spreading my legs for him on command made me feel sick and inferior.
But if I didn’t, what would happen? Would he retrieve his belt from the bedroom and find a different way to use it on me? Or would his powerful hands wrap around my throat and leave marks this time? I was too terrified to find out.
I peeled my legs apart and looked away, not wanting him to see I was blinking back tears.
“Jesus, you look so good.” He was back on his knees again, only this time his hands smoothed gently up my thighs, captured my waist, and pulled me tight to him. His mouth dropped kisses from the base of my neck to the shell of my ear.
He’d said he controlled every part of me, so I put myself on autopilot and found a way to retreat inward. He wasn’t kissing me anymore, it was a husk. A shell who simply looked like me. When he ordered me to kiss him back, my body performed the task, but the connection he’d been able to forge before didn’t work this time. He was sending lust and passion, but receiving none in return.
Abruptly he pulled back, mumbled something about needing to hurry, and tugged us both to our feet. When the shower was over and he handed me a towel, I flung it quickly around myself, relieved. He had no problem being naked, and I was annoyed at how comfortable he was without a stitch of clothing on.
“What else do you need to get ready?” he asked.
My face heated. “New underwear?” He’d brought me the dress and a clean bra, but forgotten that.
His expression was plain. “No. You won’t wear anything under your dress.”
It was crushing, and went against everything I knew. I was meeting his father and he wanted me bare and exposed? This was another instance of Luka flexing his power over me, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
We both dressed quickly, not saying a word, and when it was done, he crossed his arms and casually leaned against the bathroom counter, watching me expectantly.
“If you had full control over my closet, why the dress?” I asked, towel drying my hair.
“Because it’s important you make a good impression.”
I slowed my movements, considering his statement. He’d told me his dad was an asshole. That didn’t sound like Luka cared much for his father. Why was he concerned with what the asshole thought of me? And wasn’t Luka an adult?
“I also assume,” Luka continued, “you’ll want to look your best. You’ll feel more comfortable like this.”
“I’d feel more comfortable with underwear.”
Amusement flashed and then vanished from him. “No. I like you like this, knowing I can touch you anytime I want.” To prove his point, his hand darted between my knees and traveled up swiftly, brushing through my cleft.
I gasped and stepped away.
“So shy again. Where’s the girl who likes my belt wrapped around her delicate, little throat?”
He was saying it to get a reaction from me, and I unfortunately delivered. My gaze swung to the floor in confusion. My bravery seemed to be directly proportional to the amount of control he held over me. Now that I was dressed, I felt like I had some power back, but my courage had evaporated.
“That was . . .” I started, but had no idea how to finish the sentence. “That wasn’t who I am.”
He made a noise which was almost like a chuckle, but it was dark and wicked. “You’re wrong.” Luka had his hands on me in an instant, creeping around my waist and sliding up my back. “I’m gonna rattle the monster’s cage.” He brushed his lips over mine. “And then I’m gonna let her out.”
As his mouth claimed mine, I wondered if he was implying what I thought he was. Would he really release me? He kissed me now like a man who craved ownership and I was his prized possession.
The kiss ended abruptly, and he pulled back. “I’m distracting you.”
I was so far past using the word distracting to describe Luka, his statement was almost funny. He returned to his post leaning against the counter and pulled his phone out. We didn’t speak again as I dried my hair with a hairdryer and then set about putting on makeup. He was right, after all. I hated not looking put together, and if Luka said I needed to make a good impression, I was going to do it. I’d become obsessive about succeeding.
I snuck glances through the mirror at him while I put on mascara. He was reading something, scrolling through the phone, and a serious look etched his face. He was a dark shadow of the man I thought I’d loved in secret.
Talk about ridiculous. I hadn’t spoken to him once the whole semester. I’d studied him relentlessly, and inferred what I could, but love? I was so hopelessly naïve. I didn’t know the real him. I’d only had surface data, like how he took his coffee and that he preferred a messenger bag over a standard backpack.
The memory stormed in and the words came before I could stop them. “I almost bought you a cup of coffee once.”
His attention lifted from the screen. “What?”
“You usually had a Starbucks cup in class. I thought about buying one and bringing it to class for you.” I despised not only how shaky my voice was, but that I was telling him the story at all.
He blinked, visibly intrigued. “How did you know what kind I drink?”
“It was always marked on the side of your cups.” I finished capping my mascara and dropped it into my makeup bag. “I was determined to be outgoing and talk to you. So one day I ordered your tall, dark roast, got to class early, and . . . I couldn’t go through with it.”
He pushed off the counter and stood. His expression was focused. “I would have liked that. Sounds like you wasted an opportunity and a cup of coffee.”
“No, I drank it.”
His lips pulled up into the half smile. “Fuck,” he said, brushing his hand over my arm. “I would have eaten you for breakfast. And you would have enjoyed every goddamn minute of—”
There was a short knock at the bedroom door, followed by a male voice. “Sir, your father’s waiting in the dining room.”
The half smile faded. A black storm of disgust crawled over his expression and Luka turned cold. “Are you ready?”
Was I? His angry expression left me feeling unprepared.
Luka’s hand was tight on my wrist as he led me down the stairs, and my pulse roared beneath his fingertips. It wasn’t until I smelled the food that I realized I was famished. I’d only eaten the bagel this morning. Yet that was standard fare for me these days. I didn’t put on the freshman fifteen, mostly because I skipped meals. Studying for the MCAT last year on top of everything else had me down to eating once a day.
We turned the corner and I fought not to dig in my heels and skid to a stop. Luka had presence and gravity, but Mr. Markovic was a black hole.
He was seated at the head of the long dining table and looked to be in his early fifties. His patterned dress shirt appeared tailored and expensive. His face was rugged, his eyebrows thick and dark, and his hair had a few streaks of silver near the temples. If this was an indication of what Luka would look like in twenty years, he’d be handsome and distinguished when he was older.
But there was a dark, frenetic energy radiating from the elder Markovic man, and I could sense it clear across the dining room. A quiet rage boiled just below the surface of his skin.
My mouth went totally dry and my throat closed up as Mr. Markovic’s discerning gaze discovered me alongside his son. Luka had warned me not to speak, and it was not going to be a problem. I’d held out the tiniest shred of hope that Mr. Markovic could help me, but no. I suddenly had no desire to say a word. His eyes were as black as Luka’s, but far scarier.
“Who’s this?” His voice was loud and accusing. I wanted to shirk behind Luka’s broad shoulders, but Luka’s insistent hand pulled me forward toward the table.
“This is Addison Drake. We met at Vasilije’s frat party last night.”
Mr. Markovic’s face twisted into a scowl, and he peered at me like I was dirt. “You brought the situation home with you?”
“I didn’t have any other options.” Luka squared his shoulders to me. “Addison, this is my father, Dimitrije Markovic.”
Was I supposed to espouse some sort of pleasantry after he’d just referred to me as a situation? My mouth wouldn’t cooperate, so I stared at Luka’s father and nodded my acknowledgement.
Luka put his hand on the back of one of the dining chairs and his tone was flat. “I see you brought the whore.”
Dimitrije Markovic was so dominating, I hadn’t even noticed the blonde woman sitting to his left until then, and my mouth fell open at Luka’s insult. It was impossible to guess her age. Her casual dress was tight and low-cut. She had flawless makeup, perfectly colored blonde hair, and a wide, bright smile. The ageless woman could have been thirty or fifty, and I suspected she was closer to the latter, maybe with an excellent plastic surgeon at her disposal.
Her laugh was shrill and she grinned, waving away the comment like it was hilarious, her wedding ring glinting in the chandelier light. “Oh, Luka.”
Only there was nothing in Luka’s demeanor that said his statement had been a joke. He looked like he’d meant it exactly as it sounded. He pulled out the chair and pointed to it, wordlessly demanding I sit. I collapsed into the seat, and as he sat, I was thankful Luka was a buffer between me and his father. It put the blonde woman directly across from us, and my gaze naturally went to her.
“I’m Tori,” she said, when it was apparent neither of the Markovic men was going to introduce her. “You’re the first girl Luka’s brought to meet Dimitrije.” Her sharp blue eyes shifted Luka’s direction. “I was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t into girls.” She’d said it with a light tone and a smile on her lips like she was teasing, but I could hear the burn beneath.
There was no love lost between these two.
Beneath the table, I balled my hands into fists. The tension in the room was stifling.
“You met at a party?” Tori asked me.
“We know each other,” Luka answered. “She was a student in the calculus class I was a TA for.”
I stared at the plate in front of me. The china was simple but elegant. White with a silver rim, and I wondered if a single plate cost more than my mother’s entire set of good china.
“Why is she here?” Dimitrije demanded.
There was an excellent question.
Luka drew in a long breath. It was the same as he’d done on the couch at the party, right before he’d forced himself on me. “I drank last night,” he said, “and so did she. We went upstairs and things got out of control.”
Oh my God. I had to breathe through my nose to try to keep myself calm.
“How out of control?” Dimitrije’s voice sliced through the tension-filled silence.
“We fucked. She said I moved too fast.”
I gasped and glared at Luka, my eyes burning with furious rage and my face flushed hot.
There was a terrible crash as Dimitrije brought his fist down on the edge of the table, making the silverware rattle and both Tori and me jump. Then a slew of words burst from Mr. Markovic, but I couldn’t understand a word of it except for Vasilije. Was he speaking nonsense? No. My stunned mind was slow. It was a foreign language, and one I didn’t recognize.
Luka did. His posture snapped straight and his eyes narrowed, and then he was responding in the language with the same vitriol his father had used. From Tori’s blank expression, it seemed doubtful she understood any better than I.
“You don’t think I tried?” Luka said, abruptly switching back to English. “It didn’t work. All it did was make her sick. She remembered everything, and it didn’t matter. She was a virgin.”
I stood up so quickly the chair almost tipped backward. I had no plan, only that I needed to get the hell away from the table before I lost it completely. I couldn’t listen to Luka tell his father all the sordid details of last night.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Dimitrije bellowed. “Sit back down.”
The voice stopped me cold, but I couldn’t get my muscles to comply. I stood as a statue halfway to the front door, facing the illusion of freedom. I was in a sleeveless dress, it was November, and I was barefoot. Plus, it was dark outside and I hadn’t a clue where I was. The cards were stacked against me, and yet every cell in my body was still screaming to run.
“Luka,” Dimitrije said. “There’s a simple solution to this problem.”
A chair squealed as it moved back. “No,” Luka said quickly. “I’m handling it.” Footsteps approached, but I still flinched when Luka grasped my shoulders. “Come back to the table.” His voice dropped low so only I would hear. “Please.”
I would have been less surprised if he’d stabbed me. The single word was a request, and I got the feeling Luka didn’t make requests, not unless it was something extremely important. His strained tone was unsettling, and I allowed him to turn me to face the table, but I kept my focus on him.
“Please,” he whispered again, his face desperate.
It was the most emotion I’d seen from him, and it was heartbreaking. Did he realize he was more powerful than he’d ever been when he was like this? In spite of everything, I wanted to do whatever I could to take his worry away. The desire to please was absolute. I found myself back in my seat, staring at the plate once more.
His father’s voice was deep and booming. “How exactly are you handling it?”
“She’ll stay here.”
There was a pregnant pause. “Until when?”
“Until she changes how she feels about me.” Luka corrected himself quickly. “How she feels about the situation.”
It was achingly silent for a long moment.
Tori laughed softly. “Your plan is to make her fall in love with you?” Her grating laughter swelled until it was a cackle. “Jesus, Luka. You can’t be as smart as your father says you are, because that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Be quiet,” Dimitrije snapped, and the laughter ceased instantly. “Although she has a point.”
“It’ll be fine,” Luka said. “Addison understands who’s in control, and I’m confident I can do this.”
The blasé tone dug under my skin like a splinter, and grew more uncomfortable with each breath, until the words spilled out. “I’m not a puppet you can manipulate.”
Luka’s head snapped my direction and his whole body seemed stressed. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”
His father’s eyebrow lifted in the same arch all the Markovic men had. “This is under control?”
“Yes.” Luka’s tone was strict and harsh. It commanded me to obey. “It won’t be difficult. Addison’s halfway in love with me already.”
Fire erupted from deep inside me like a volcano. “The fuck I am! You raped me.”
My words pulled the trigger in the already tense room, detonating like a bomb. Dimitrije sneered at my profanity and his face had a violent cast, while Luka launched to his feet.
“I warned you,” he said. He fisted my hair and yanked upward so hard he pulled strands from my scalp. I cried out in pain as I scrambled to stand, only for Luka to slam me down on my stomach, face turned to the side on the flat surface of the dining table. The place settings jumped from the impact.
I stared at Mr. Markovic in shock, my cheek pressed against the polished, smooth wood. Luka grabbed the back of my skirt, flung it to my waist, and the air was cold on my thighs. He exposed my naked lower body for everyone to see, and my heart screeched to a stop.