Release: Davlova: Book One (14 page)

Toes, then ankles, then up to my hips. I gasped as it splashed over my stomach, suddenly chilled, but then Donato was there, warm and strong. He took me in his arms.

“Wrap your legs around my waist.”

I followed his orders. He put his hands under me and lifted me, guiding me up as he sank down. He was still standing on the ladder, I realized, hanging onto it with one hand, and he pulled me up until my legs were wrapped around him.

“Lie back,” he said.

“In the water? I can’t. I’ll sink.”

“You won’t, I promise. Your body knows how to float, and I won’t let you go.”

I tried to lean back, to do as he requested, but fear made me stiff and awkward.

“I’m afraid.”

“Hush, my love,” he said softly. “Listen to my voice. You’re safe with me. Now, close your eyes. Spread your arms, like wings. Forget your fear and let your body go soft. Let it find its natural buoyancy. Let the water lift you up.”

Bit by bit, I followed his directions. I concentrated on his voice, on the feel of his hand on my hip, on his body between my legs and the seemingly solid presence of the water beneath me, until, miraculously, I was floating on my back, held aloft by the strength of the sea. I opened my eyes and gasped. Infinity yawned both above and below, and in between, there was only me. If Donato released me, I would cease to exist. I’d be swallowed by the sky. But he held me fast, and I breathed deep. I drank the night. I tasted the stars. I made love to the sea. The enormity of it brought tears to my eyes. I felt wondrously alive—wild and pure and achingly free.

“Thank you,” I said.

Eventually, what felt like hours later, he helped me back up the ladder. I stood shivering while he wrapped the robe around me. He handed me my half-empty glass. “May as well finish it,” he said.

I felt drained, but I took the glass and drank it in one swallow. I was still wet, and even with the robe, the night air suddenly seemed frigid. I began to shiver.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into his warmth. He took me into the cabin, led me down the hall to the bedroom. He used a towel to wring the water from my hair, then tucked me into his bed. He cuddled against me from behind and I gladly snuggled into the heat of his body. I could feel his cock against my ass. He was hard again, and I wasn’t surprised when he used his fingers to part my cheeks, to find what he sought, to oil my entrance, and then he was pushing into me. The drug burned away any trace of drowsiness. It smoldered in my veins, seared my synapses, made me flush with desire. I wanted to sob from the pleasure. He wrapped his hand around my cock as he moved gently against me, fucking me with a slow deliberateness that made me whimper and tremble until I was begging, saying I knew not what, lost in the rock of the boat, the feel of his touch, the smell of our shared sex mixed with the brine of the sea, until I came again, blissfully impaled upon his cock, thrusting into his wet, sticky fingers, crying with relief.

With release.

I was spent; so sated and satisfied that I could happily have ceased living at that moment.

He pulled out of me and held me tight against him. “What about you?” I asked. My words were slurred, mushy in my mouth, but I knew he hadn’t come.

He chuckled against my neck. “I’m not as young as you. Three times in one night is a bit beyond my abilities.” He kissed my shoulder. “No more sex. And no more wine. Just sleep.”

And I did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“There’s nothing else to tell!” I said to Anzhéla the next afternoon for at least the third time. “We went out on his yacht. We fucked. That’s it!”

Anzhéla stared at me over the table in Talia’s office, her expression skeptical. But there was nothing else to say. She’d apparently heard that Donato had kept me out all night—something he’d never done before—and she’d rushed over, sure I’d have something to tell her. But I didn’t. Not really. Sure, I could tell her about being drugged silly, but was there any reason to share the truth of how it felt to be lustful and seductive and unrestrained?

No. Definitely not.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, trying not to let the memory of my night with Donato arouse me in front of her. I’d woken that morning with a curiously heavy head. My mouth tasted like ash. I was alone. When I’d finally made my way on deck, I found the yacht docked. The butler was waiting for me. He ushered me wordlessly off the boat and into a waiting carriage. Back at Talia’s, I’d burrowed under my covers and slept for half the day, until the relentless pounding on my door had caused me to surface from my dreams, sputtering and confused.

And now here I was, facing Anzhéla’s suspicion.

“An entire night with him, and he said nothing?”

“He didn’t take me out for an evening of conversation!” I snapped. “I’m a whore. He fucks me. Remember?”

Her eyes narrowed. “A few days ago, you were itching to take him down. Now, I think you’re developing feelings for him.”

I leaned over and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t deny it. I felt ill when I remembered the night with the slave, the way Donato had sweated as he’d pushed his fist into the boy, and the slave’s wails of mixed pain and pleasure.

But the man who’d kicked me in the stomach wasn’t the man I’d spent the night with. That was some other person. Some
thing
. It was the beast that ruled him when he lost control. But the man I’d been with on the yacht, Miguel, was somebody else entirely. Generous and passionate. I remembered how it felt to be wrapped in the warmth of his body as he fucked me in the bed at the end of the night. I thought of the things he’d whispered to me as he made love to me on the deck.

My hands began to shake and I had to bite back tears.

“He used to have a wife.” That piece of information came back to me suddenly, but having said it, I felt horrible. Yes, a few days ago I’d hated him, but now the last thing I wanted was to betray him.

“We know that. She lives in Layola now.”

I sighed. My guilt was eased a bit by the fact that I hadn’t revealed anything new.

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing! How many ways do I have to say it? We fucked, we ate, we slept.”

“Without talking?”

“Yes!”

“Misha—”

But Talia chose that moment to come to my rescue. “Anzhéla, I think he’s telling the truth. The few times Donato’s made use of my in-house girls, they’ve said the same thing. He’s extremely private. Hiring whores seems to be his one indulgence, but friendship doesn’t appear to be part of the package.”

Anzhéla held her hands up in surrender. “You’re right.” She sighed. “I have to be patient. We knew this might be a long haul, right kid?”

I could only nod, my stomach in knots. Yes, I’d known it might be a long con. I’d known I was expected to betray him. What I hadn’t known was how my feelings for him would begin to change. When this had all started, I’d dreamed of escape.

Now, I had no idea what to hope for.

News reached us later that day of another raid, this time of one of the lower city’s underground boxing circuits. It had taken place during the night. While I’d been making love in the starlight, Benedict’s men had been rounding up citizens of the trenches and dragging them off to jail, never to be seen again. Had they done so on Donato’s orders? I wished I knew, but I didn’t dare ask.

That night, Donato requested my services, although I received no special instructions regarding my appearance. I wore no makeup. I tied my hair back in a modest queue and dressed in my own clothes. I knew without being told that there were two points of preparation I could not forgo: to tuck a few ildenaaf into my pocket, and to grease my entrance.

Butterflies roiled in my stomach as the carriage took me up the hill. I couldn’t decide if I was excited or apprehensive. In love, or just horny. My heart raced at the thought of seeing him, but I tried to temper my growing feelings with memories of how he could be when he lost control.

It was a sobering thought.

The carriage left me at his back door, and the butler showed me in. Not to the bedroom as he had every other night, but to the dining room. It was a long, rectangular room, papered in cream tones with rich burgundy accents. The table was big enough to seat a dozen people, but was set for two, one spot at the end of the table, and the seat directly to its left.

“Here you are,” Donato said. I hadn’t heard him come in, but suddenly he stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. He kissed my neck, then turned me around to take my mouth with his. It was a wonderfully sensual kiss, deep and passionate, and I put my arms around his neck and let myself remember the feelings of the night before. I let myself believe that he loved me.

All too soon he let me go. He took the spot at the head of the table and indicated the other place setting. “Have a seat. I don’t have much time. Let’s eat, and then we’ll talk.”

“Not much time? Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes.” The look he gave me made me feel I had disappointed him. “As I said, we’ll talk
after
we eat. Not before.”

So, despite the kiss, despite being here in his dining room instead of in the bedroom upstairs, we were back to our previous roles: a whore and his employer. “Yes, sir.”

The dinner was superb, although I found it hard to eat. I couldn’t help wondering about the boy. Was he locked in a room somewhere? Was he comfortable? I wondered if he’d ever sat in the chair I now occupied, or if he’d ever enjoyed a night on Donato’s yacht. I wanted to ask about him, but I didn’t dare. Donato watched me the entire time. I wasn’t sure if he was looking for fault, or if it was simply because he thought I was beautiful. Either way, it unnerved me. I almost began to worry that he could read my mind. That he somehow knew I was thinking about the boy.

Finally, I pushed my plate away. Donato refilled my glass of wine—a red wine with deep earthy undertones, nothing like what he’d served me the day before. I sipped it, trying not to be disappointed. It probably cost a fortune, but it didn’t make my blood run hot as the other had done.

“I hear you had a visitor today.”

I was drinking as he said it, and I nearly choked. “Sir?” I asked as I put the glass back down, lest it betray my shaking hand. How much did he know?

“The woman who runs that theatre in the slums. What’s her name? Anzhéla? She came to see you. Do you know her?”

My heart began to pound with dread. Was this a test? I thought quickly. “Anzhéla. Yes. I didn’t know she worked in a theatre.”

“I didn’t say she worked there. I said she runs it.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Do you know her?” he asked more pointedly this time.

“Today was the first time I’ve met her.”

“What did she want?”

I tried hard to sound casual. “My services.”

He went very still. A small tic twitched near his left eye. His face began to turn red, contrasting sharply with the blue tattoos that graced his right cheek. “I explained quite clearly to Talia that I am paying for you. Not only for your company, but for exclusive access to
you
. I won’t have you fucking rabble off the street. You belong to me now. Has that not been made clear?”

I was sweating now. With any luck, he’d blame it on my fear of him rather than on my desperation to find a suitable lie. “She didn’t want sex, sir. She wanted...” I stumbled. I had one idea, but was it too absurd?

“She wanted what?” Not a question, but an order. A demand for obedience.

“My seed,” I said at last. I was embarrassed to say such things about Anzhéla, but he would expect me to be embarrassed by such a discussion, so I didn’t try to hide it. “She wants a child—”

“Isn’t she a bit old for that?”

I swallowed. I hadn’t considered that. “I don’t know, sir. I only know what she told me. She wants a child, and it seems her partner is impotent.”

Donato’s eyebrows rose a bit. The corner of his mouth twitched. He might almost have smiled. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“So she asked for my seed,” I said, emboldened now by his fading anger.

“And will you give it to her?”

“I don’t see how, sir.”

“In the traditional way, I assume?” He was joking now, and I let myself laugh, although it came out rather brittle.

“She isn’t sure her partner will like that. Plus, I’ve never risen well for women. I could use the pills, but I fear I wouldn’t, uh, perform in the end, if you know what I mean.”

“I see.” He was definitely amused now, which helped me relax.

“She wanted to know if I could, you know, produce it on my own and then she could—”

“I understand,” he said, mercifully cutting off my explanation. Just thinking about Anzhéla in such a way was disturbing to me. “But you will tell her no. She can find a father for her brat elsewhere.”

I flinched inwardly at his words, but kept my smile in place. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t abuse your freedom, pet. I’m a jealous man when it comes to my toys. I’ll allow you your friends, but no other lovers.”

“I don’t want any others.”

Whether he believed me or not, I knew I had given the correct answer. “Good.”