Claim Me (21 page)

I’m so immersed in that disconnected state that it doesn’t frighten me when his fingers withdraw and something smooth and thick presses against my back opening instead. My body remains limp and relaxed, even when I feel a massive, stretching pressure and hear Lucas groan under his breath, “Fuck, baby, you’re tight…” The pressure intensifies, edging into pain, and it’s only then that some of my fear returns, along with the urge to tighten against the intrusion.

“No, sweetheart, don’t tense. Just breathe through it.” The command comes in a low, strained voice, and I realize what this self-restraint is costing Lucas, how tightly he’s reining himself in to avoid hurting me. Oddly, the knowledge calms me somewhat, and I take slow, deep breaths, trying to keep my muscles relaxed.

“Yes, that’s it,” he praises hoarsely, and I feel him begin to penetrate me, the broad head of his cock stretching the tight ring of muscle at my entrance. It burns, the urge to clamp down almost unbearable, but I continue to breathe evenly, and slowly, he advances, working his massive cock into me millimeter by millimeter.

When the head is all the way in, he pauses, stroking my hip soothingly, and after a few moments, I feel the stinging burn subside. I’m able to relax a bit more, and Lucas resumes his slow advance. As he pushes deeper into me, however, my calm flees. He’s big, far too big. My heartbeat picks up, my breathing turning shallow and frantic. The slickness of the lube reduces friction, but it doesn’t alter his size, and my insides churn as Lucas forces more of himself into me, stretching me past my limits. Overwhelmed, I whimper into the mattress, and he kisses my nape, the tender gesture a stark contrast to the merciless invasion of my body.

“Just a little more,” he murmurs, and I realize that I inadvertently tightened around him, trying to prevent him from going deeper. “You can take it, baby.”

No, I can’t
, I want to protest, but all I can do is make an incoherent noise, something between a grunting moan and a whimper. I’m shaking and sweating, my hands clutching at the metal pole I’m handcuffed to. This is nothing like the horrific pain Kirill inflicted on me that day, but in its own way, it’s just as agonizing. Lucas’s slow, careful movements allow me to feel his length fully… to absorb the immense, overwhelming pressure forcing my insides apart. His cock seems to fill every part of me, violating and possessing me at the same time, taking me to a place where darkness and eroticism collide, twisting together in some perverse symphony.

“Fuck, Yulia, you feel amazing,” Lucas groans, and I realize he’s in me fully, his balls pressing against my sex. His hand is still between my legs, his fingers putting pressure on my clit, and I bite back a cry as he shifts inside me, my stomach roiling at the strange sensation. “You’re tight… so fucking tight.” He presses harder on my clit, two of his fingers catching it in a scissor-like grip, and sharp, unexpected pleasure jolts my core, making me gasp out loud.

“Yes, there it is, beautiful…” Lucas’s voice brims with dark satisfaction. “You can do it. Come for me one more time.” His fingers begin to move in that scissoring motion, and to my shock, my body tightens on a wave of heat. The extreme fullness inside me both hampers and enhances the sensations, the pulsing ache from my clit warring with the agony from my overstretched ass. His cock feels like a steel pipe inside me, but the way his fingers are touching me makes my insides cramp in a different, distinctly pleasurable way. I cry out, trembling at the impending rush of orgasm, and Lucas grips my clit harder, pinching it almost painfully.

“That’s it, just like that, baby…” He pinches my clit again, and helplessly, I explode, my abused nerve endings electrified by his rough touch. My body spasms over and over again, clenching around his thick length, and I sob at the painful ecstasy, at the scorching wrongness of it all. The pleasure is dark and brutal, and when he begins to move inside me, the thrust and drag of his cock sends me spiraling higher, the foreign sensations enhanced by the blindfold and the cold steel around my wrists. I don’t know how long it takes before Lucas comes, his hot seed flooding my raw insides, but by the time he withdraws from me and unlocks my handcuffs, all I can do is lie there, weak and shaking, my ass burning and my clit pulsing with residual aftershocks.

Silently, he draws me into his arms, and I cry against his chest, feeling both broken and freed.

The past with Kirill is officially behind me. Every part of me now belongs to Lucas, for better or for worse.

Y
ulia

A
t breakfast
, Lucas is unusually quiet, his gaze trained on me thoughtfully, and I have to fight a blush every time I look up from my plate and see those pale eyes watching me. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, but some bizarre shyness keeps me silent. It doesn’t help that I’m sore, my every movement a reminder of what occurred between us. He didn’t tear me like I feared, but I’m still very much aware that something large and thick had been inside me, taking me places I never knew I could go… making me feel things I never knew I could feel.

To expedite the meal, I make quick work of my mushroom-spinach quiche and get up to take my plate to the sink. When I return to the table to get Lucas’s plate, he surprises me by catching my arm, his long fingers closing around my wrist in an unbreakable grip.

“Yulia.” His eyes glint with something indefinable. “That was delicious, thank you.”

“Oh.” I blink. “You’re welcome.” I expect him to let go of my wrist at that point, but he continues holding it without saying anything else.

“Um, let me get your plate…” Awkwardly, I reach for it with my other hand, but he moves it to the side, out of my reach.

“I’ll get it myself, don’t worry. Yulia…” He inhales deeply. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” My face burns all the way to the roots of my hair, but I force myself not to avert my gaze like some blushing virgin. “Everything’s fine.”

“Good.” His eyes darken. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” I swallow. “Not much, at least.”

Lucas studies me for a few more moments, then nods, seemingly satisfied. Releasing my wrist, he stands up and carries his plate to the sink. He washes it along with my plate, and I just stand there, unsure whether this odd conversation is over. Finally, I decide to leave the kitchen, but before I can walk out, Lucas wipes his hands on a paper towel and turns toward me.

In a few long strides, he closes the distance between us, stopping less than a foot in front of me. “Just so you know,” he says quietly, “I’d never truly harm you. You
are
mine, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever abuse you. Your happiness matters to me, Yulia. You can believe me or not, but it’s the truth.”

I open my mouth, then close it, unable to form a coherent sentence. This is the closest Lucas has ever come to telling me how he feels—and to acknowledging hurtful things said in the heat of jealousy. Yet there’s no regret on his face, no real apology in his words. What he said last night is the absolute truth—in this relationship, I have all the rights of a slave—and he’s not about to deny it. What he’s promising, however, is to be a good owner, and strangely, I do find that reassuring. Last night—any night, really—he could’ve hurt me badly, but he didn’t, and as I look at the hard man in front of me, I know with sudden certainty that he never will.

It may be stupid of me, but I trust my captor—in this, at least.

Before I can formulate how to tell him this, Lucas bends his head, kissing me on the mouth, and walks out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there dazed… and filled with new, fragile hope.

W
e don’t discuss
the issue of me cooking for the guards again, but a week later, I get a delivery of restaurant-grade kitchen equipment, everything from an enormous oven to huge pots and pans. Diego and Eduardo spend two days remodeling the kitchen and installing everything, and when they’re done, I have everything I need to cook for a small army.

And by the time the next week is through, that’s exactly what I find myself doing. As soon as Lucas leaves for work, I get busy preparing for the madness that is lunch. Diego and Eduardo must’ve told the other guards that Lucas relented, and the kitchen teems with visitors from ten in the morning until late into the afternoon. And then the dinner rush begins. One day, seventy-nine guards stop by—I count, just to make sure I’m not exaggerating—and I realize I’m going to have to do something to manage the situation. Lucas is remarkably stoic about everything, putting up with the insane disruption of our routine without any complaints, but I’m sure he won’t let this go on forever. And I myself miss having meals with just the two of us—or three, if Misha comes over. There’s a huge difference between giving a few leftovers to the guards and running what is quickly becoming an all-day restaurant operation. By the time dinner is over, I’m exhausted to the point of passing out, and several times, I do pass out in the living room as we watch TV—a situation that usually results in Lucas carrying me to bed and fucking my brains out before letting me go back to sleep.

There’s also another, more tricky concern.

“Lucas, are the guards defraying any of the food expenses?” I ask him one morning as I mix up batter for
blini
—Russian-style crepes. “Or is Esguerra paying for the ingredients?”

“No, and no,” Lucas replies, watching me with a hooded stare from the table. I have no idea if he wants the crepes, or if it’s my tiny shorts that have him intrigued, but there’s a distinct look of hunger on his starkly masculine face.

Refusing to let it distract me, I put down the whisk on a paper towel and frown at Lucas. “No? But this is a lot of food—and some of the ingredients are really expensive.”

“So what?” His gaze travels over my body, lingering on the sliver of stomach exposed by my tank top. “You’re enjoying this, and we can afford it.”

I tug down the shirt and wait for his eyes to meet mine again. “We?”

“Sure,” Lucas says without blinking. “I told you, Esguerra pays me well, and I’ve accumulated a nice stash over the years.”

“Right.” I decide that he misspoke with that pronoun, and return to the topic at hand. “But that still doesn’t mean you should pay out of pocket for everyone’s food,” I say. “I mean, we’re talking hundreds of dollars a day.”

Lucas shrugs. “All right. If you’re worried, I’ll tell the guards to start paying for their meals. Your food is certainly good enough for a high-end restaurant, so I think it’s a good idea if you charged like one.”

“Seriously?” I stare at him. “You want me to run a real restaurant?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you
are
running a real restaurant.” Lucas gets up to walk over to me. His eyes gleam as he stops in front of me and says, “A very good restaurant, as evidenced by the fact that a third of the guards come by at least once a day. And the rest… Well, many are still stuck on the crash, but most who don’t come simply can’t—they have duties that prevent them from leaving their posts.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t realized my food was that popular, though the seventy-nine visitors that one day should’ve given me a clue.

“Yes, oh.” Lucas reaches out to brush a strand of hair off my forehead. “You’ve been having fun with this, so I haven’t said anything, but now that we’re talking about it, I think it’s a good idea to make the fuckers pay, and pay well. That might weed out some of the cheaper bastards and reduce the workload for you.”

“All right,” I agree after a moment of deliberation. “If you think that would be okay, I’ll try.”

I
follow
Lucas’s suggestion with trepidation, certain that no one in their right mind would want to pay for my cooking when they could eat in the cafeteria for free. The main reason I do it is because I don’t want to bankrupt Lucas with my hobby. He’s been beyond generous with me, but I can’t ask him to subsidize everyone’s meals forever. Also, I’m not exactly opposed to a reduced workload; as fun of a challenge as this has been, laboring in the kitchen for ten-plus hours a day is hard work. I’m so tired I’m having to wear concealer to hide my undereye circles, and I know if Lucas notices that, he might put a stop to the whole operation.

My health is still his top worry.

To my surprise, when I post the prices—genuine high-end restaurant prices, written in black marker on a sheet of paper pinned to the front door—nobody so much as voices a peep of protest. By the time the day is over, I make over six million Colombian pesos—nearly two thousand US dollars.

Stunned, I show the haul to Lucas. “They paid. Can you believe it? They actually paid.”

“I can, unfortunately.” He glowers at the pile of money on the table. “They’re not as cheap as I’d hoped.”

And so the madness continues. My business—and I have to think of it as such now—is very lucrative, but it’s also exhausting. I do everything from the cooking to the serving to the cleaning. By the time another three weeks have gone by, I realize that if I’m going to operate as a restaurant, I’m going to need to either get help or limit the scope of what I’m doing.

“I think I’m going to serve only lunch,” I say to Lucas as I scrub the pots and pans left over from dinner. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll put out a few tables in the back yard, make it into a sit-down cafe of sorts instead of giving everyone takeout. That way, if more people come than can be comfortably seated during open hours, they’ll have to make a reservation for another day.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Lucas says, coming over to help me lift a heavy pan out of the sink. “For tonight, why don’t you go to bed early? I’ll finish up here and join you.”

“No, that’s okay, I can do it,” I say, but he brushes me aside and goes to work scrubbing the remaining pots. Seeing that he has no intention of budging, I sigh and thank him before wearily trudging off to take a shower.

At this point, I’ll take any help I can get.

T
he next day
, I start implementing my ideas. At first, some guards grumble about being deprived of dinner, but when Lucas shows up and gives them a glacial stare, all the grumbling stops. By the time the week is over, I’ve successfully transitioned from a disorganized all-day takeout operation to a small and highly sought-after lunch cafe.

“I’m booked solid for the next three weeks,” I tell Lucas in gleeful disbelief as we go on a morning walk—our first in almost two weeks. “Seriously, I’m having to take reservations for the next month.”

“Of course, what did you expect?” He gives me a warm smile. “I’ve always told you your cooking is amazing.”

I grin, delighted at the praise. I suspect Lucas is more excited about the return of our private dinners than my cafe’s popularity, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s been incredibly supportive of my venture. I’m sure the profit the cafe makes doesn’t hurt, but he was on board with everything even when my hobby was a financial drain.

“What have you been doing with the money?” I ask, wondering for the first time what happens to the pile of cash I give Lucas every night. “Do you deposit it somewhere? Invest it?”

“I put it into your account, of course. What else?”

“My account?” My eyebrows crawl up. “What do you mean, my account?”

“The account I opened for you in the Cayman Islands,” Lucas says casually, as if that sort of thing is done every day. “Well, technically, it’s in both of our names, as per the advice of my accountant, but you’re the primary account holder.”

“What?” I stop and frown at him, certain I must be misunderstanding something. “You’ve been depositing that money into an account for me? Why?”

“Because it’s your money,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “You earned it, so what else would I do with it?”

“Um, keep it, seeing as I’m cooking with the ingredients you buy using equipment that you paid for?”

“Yes, but I’m not the one doing the actual cooking,” Lucas says reasonably. “Besides, I do deduct food expenses before making the deposits. The money going into the account is pure business profit—
your
business profit.”

My head spins as I stare at him. “But what do you expect me to do with that money? And how much money is there by now, anyway?”

“As of yesterday, there’s a little over forty thousand dollars.” He resumes walking, and I hurry after him, feeling like I’ve fallen through a rabbit hole. “As to what you want to do with it, it’s up to you. If you want, I can ask my portfolio manager to invest it for you, or if you feel like playing the stock market yourself, you can do that too. Or just leave it sitting there until you have a better idea of what you want to do with it.”

My Alice-in-Wonderland feeling intensifies. “I can play the stock market?”

“If that’s what you want to do. Or you can leave it to the professionals—Winters, my portfolio manager, is quite good.”

Right. Because everyone knows captives have access to topnotch portfolio managers. My mind races as I try to work through the implications of this. “Lucas, are you…” I glance at him cautiously. “Are you going to set me free?”

He stops and turns to face me, his casual demeanor gone without a trace. “What do you mean by that?” His pale eyes glint dangerously. “Are you saying you want to leave?”

“No, but”—I swallow, my pulse kicking up—“would you let me if I did?” Could Lucas have changed his mind about our relationship? Is it possible he’s grown to care about me enough to give me this choice?

He steps toward me, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun streaming through the trees. “Never,” he says with harsh finality. “You’re not leaving me. You can do whatever you want, run a thousand restaurants, make millions if you feel like it, but you’ll do it by my side. I’m not letting you go, Yulia—not now, not ever.”

I stare up at him, my heart pounding with a contradictory mixture of dismay and elation. “Never? But what if you get tired of me?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You can’t say that for sure—”

“Yes, I can.” He steps even closer, forcing me to back up against a tree. Bracing his palms on the thick trunk behind me, he leans in, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you. You’re like a fire under my skin. I want you every minute of every day. It doesn’t matter how often we fuck; the moment I pull out, I want to be in you again, feeling your wet, silky heat, smelling you… tasting you.” He draws in a deep breath, his muscular chest expanding, and I feel my own breathing quicken as his hard pecs touch my peaked nipples. My palms press against the tree behind me, the rough bark digging into my skin. I’m caged by him, surrounded, the fire that he just talked about burning under my skin as well.