I look away from him because I refuse to get caught up in his physical beauty, in how attracted I actually am to him.

All of those feelings are hormonal and physical reactions. They mean nothing.

I lean on my hands on the bed, carefully maneuvering my dress and my cast on the mattress so that I’m sitting with both legs stretched out in front of me. He can show me his worst tonight, but I’ll separate my body from my mind and my heart. It’s time I wake up and see Adrian for what he truly is—an unfeeling monster.

He removes his belt and loops it around his strong hand, and when he speaks, his voice is laced with a subtle threat, “What did I tell you before we went into Sergei’s office?”

I lift my chin and purse my lips.

He steps closer, or more like, he stalks, similar to a large cat with a black soul. “What did I say, Lia?”

“I wasn’t going to let you talk about me as if I were an object and stay quiet about it. I might have lost my dream, but I haven’t lost my pride and self-worth. I won’t allow you or your stupid bosses to humiliate me.”

“Wrong answer.”

He reaches for me and I flinch back out of pure survival instinct. Everything in me tells me to escape this man, to stay as far away from him as possible. But wherever I go, he’s standing there like a permanent shadow. It’s been like this since the first time I saw him kill a man in cold blood.

Adrian wraps both hands around my waist and flips me, forcing me to lie flat on my stomach with my head on the pillow. He rips the zipper down my back and yanks the dress away, letting the white silk pool by the bed. Since it has a built-in bra, I’m in only my panties and my veil that’s now draped by my side.

When Adrian sits next to my good leg, I stare out of the corner of my eye to find him looping the wide leather around his hand a few more times. The sight liquefies my insides, both in utter fear and maddening anticipation.

“You seem to have forgotten how things go, Lia. But I’ll be happy to whip it out of you until you learn your place.”

“And what am I? Your mute wife? The wife you forced into marrying you?”

“Keep telling yourself lies if you think it’ll help you cope better, but you and I both know you want this. You want to be mine to fuck and punish, to own and deprave.”

“I never agreed to anything when comes to you, Adrian. You’ve coerced me into everything since the beginning.”

His jaw tightens and a shadow darkens his face. “Coerced you? Did I coerce you into waiting for me every night or coming undone around my cock or tongue or fingers? Did I coerce you into craving the lash of my hand or belt? You’re practically shivering in anticipation, Lia, so don’t you fucking dare say I coerced you. If anything, I freed your sexual fantasies. You know it, I know it, and your shrink would know it, too, if you weren’t ashamed to admit it.”

“So now you think of yourself as my savior?”

“I never claimed to be. What I am, however, is your husband and you are mine.”

“I’ll never be yours. Not willingly.”

Adrian grabs my hair and veil, tugging my head back in a merciless grip. “You are mine, Lia. In fact, you always were, so it’s best you admit it.”

“No.”

His hot, threatening breath tickles the side of my face. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“No.”

“Lia…you really don’t want to anger me more than I already am.”

“You’ll whip me, anyway, so do it and leave me alone.”

“Oh, I won’t leave you alone. Not unless you fully admit you’re mine.”

“Never.” I hold his fast-darkening gaze with my determined one. It may not be wise to provoke him, but that’s not my aim. I’m only protecting myself so he won’t take the small parts I still own. If I give them up, he’ll stomp all over them and me, then toss me aside to die in a locked room.

“Very well. It seems you’re in a hurry to start your punishment.” Adrian lets my head fall on the pillow and runs the tip of his belt down my naked back. I shiver as my body’s memory of him kicks into gear.

If there’s anything I can’t deny about my fucked-up relationship with him, it’s definitely the physical connection. We have more chemistry than I could ever imagine, and I hate that right now. I hate that he has this hold on me or how much I crave his touch after weeks of being starved.

I hate that I miss his callous handling of my body.

I hate that I love our difference in size and how easily he can overpower me, throw me down, and own me.

His hand bunches around my panties and he rips them off. I gasp as the ruined material brushes against my folds before he throws it away. It doesn’t matter how many times he does it, how many destroyed pairs of panties I have. It doesn’t get old and he never fails to turn me on.

“When I order you to do something, you don’t think about it, you don’t try to defy me, you fucking do it. Is that clear?” His words are as calm as the up and down motions of his belt on the hollow of my back and the curve of my ass.

“Then you should’ve gotten a toy, not me.”

A swish echoes in the air before the belt comes down on my ass. I cry out as the burn settles on my skin and zaps straight to my core. It’s been a long time since he took his belt to me or touched me sexually, and my body—that has been revolting against the lack of stimulation for weeks—is now resurrecting from the ashes like a phoenix.

“Don’t talk back to me.”

“I won’t let you break me,” I manage between strangled pants. “If you wanted an obedient pet, you should’ve gotten a different wife.”

My self-worth is the last thing I have, and I will fight till death before I let Adrian take that away, too.

“You are my wife, Mrs. Volkov, and I will whip and fuck that fact into your body until you act like it.”

Swish. Slap.

Swish. Slap.

I gasp, my lips trembling at the ferocity behind the hits. He really is out to punish me and isn’t pulling any punches. But the most embarrassing part is that I don’t only feel the hit on my ass. It’s simmering under my skin and sending pulses to my aching core.

“You will not talk back, whether in front of me or anyone else in the brotherhood.” Slap. “You’ll keep your thoughts to yourself.” Slap. “You will not go against me in public again.”