The Prey: A Dark Enemies to Lovers Romance (Oakmount Elite Book 3)

My entire plan is a wash. I had Elyse dangling like forbidden fruit right in front of Sidorov, and I couldn’t bring myself to offer her up to him. Fuck.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Why bother asking myself that question? I already know the answer.

Elyse. She’s the fucking problem. The whole problem.

I fight with myself for the next twenty-four hours, trying my best to stay in control, balancing on the edge between right and wrong. The alcohol helps to dissolve some of the desire. It keeps me tipsy enough to numb most of my feelings, but it never brings me to the point that I’m sloppy. Even if it’s tempting.

I let my eyes fall closed for half a second, and I’m reminded all over again why I haven’t slept a wink. It doesn’t help that we’re stuck in this tin can together at thirty thousand feet, her clean scent surrounding me, her sunshine personality making me want to slit my throat. Escape is impossible at this point, but that doesn’t mean I need to continue torturing myself.

And still, my brain refuses to think of anything else. I can still see the way she looked up at me with so much trust in her eyes. I remind myself that she only felt that way because I was the lesser of the two evils in the scenario; still, it doesn’t change the fact that she had my cock in her mouth.

I spear my fingers through my hair in frustration. The memory of her warm mouth on my skin and her little nails digging into my thighs will be my undoing. Dammit. I need another drink. I can feel her eyes on me, even if she thinks I can’t since she looks away as soon as I look at her. I’m not dumb. I know she has things she wants to say and maybe even questions she wants to ask, but I don’t have the mental fortitude to deal with all of that right now, nor do I ever want to deal with it.

I’m barely keeping myself in check as it is. God forbid we talk about what happened. It might spark me to do something irrational, like take her back into the bedroom, bend her over, and fuck her until she screams my name. Thinking about sinking inside her wet heat is the only other thing I can seem to think about after the blow job. My brain keeps reminding me that I could have all of her, every single inch. I could let Sidorov have her too, but I’m too much of a pussy to do it.

Jesus fucking Christ. I should just jump out of this plane right now. Fucking pussy.

“We haven’t talked about what happened, and I don’t really want to return home with this strange awkwardness.” She gestures to the open space between us.

“There’s nothing awkward, at least not on my end.” I shrug, dismissing her feelings entirely. I don’t even bother looking at her as I speak. I don’t want to encourage this conversation to continue. I just want the plane to land so I can put more than five feet of space between us.

“Okay, sure.” She huffs out a breath. “Well, there is for me.”

“And what is it that you want me to do about it? Apologize?” I snap.

I know I’m being an asshole, but it’s either be this way or put her on her back and fill her with my cock until my balls touch her ass. I think being an asshole is a better choice.

“No, but I didn’t expect you to give me the silent treatment either. You’re acting even stranger than normal, which says a lot.” I notice the way she anxiously wrings her hands together in my peripheral vision. I’m honestly shocked she held back this long. I was positive she would word-vomit all over me last night but she shocked the hell out of me when she didn’t make a peep. Most likely internalizing everything that happened.

That doesn’t matter—hell, her feelings don’t really matter, not when it comes to keeping myself in check. In the long run, she should consider this a favor. Stopping myself from claiming her offers her a chance at freedom—if she ever pays off her father’s debt, that is.

I cling to the frustration hovering just beneath the surface, because the alternative is not something we’re thinking about right now. “Jesus Christ, Ely, it was a blow job. I didn’t take your virginity. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Don’t make it something that it isn’t.”

She drops her gaze, and I pin her with a glare.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“It is something.” I eye her speculatively, playing back what I said until it hits me. “Fucking hell.” In essence, I did take one of her virginities because I’d bet money that was her first fucking blow job. Mixed with an unexpected and weird sense of shame is a feeling of victory. Mine was the first cock that took her throat.

Play your cards right; it could be the last. Could be the only.

I shove that thought away and concentrate. Ely’s talking, her soft, earnest voice doing something to my insides.

“That’s just it. I’m not trying to make it anything, but you’re acting weird, making it difficult for me to let it go.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say or do. All I’m doing is sitting here. Would you have preferred I let him have you?” It’s a shitty response, but I need her to shut up, and the easiest way to make someone do that is to hit them where it counts.

“No. That’s not what I would’ve preferred. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it. I just wanted to reassure you that nothing has to change between us. If it were up to me, I’d forget it even happened.”

“Sounds like it.” I arch a brow in question at her. “You’re the only one talking about it, and somehow you want me to think you want to forget it happened?”

Her mouth opens and then closes like a fish out of water. After a few seconds, she finally mumbles, “I do.”

“Then shut up about it. What’s done is done.”

“Okay,” she whispers, tucking her bottom lip under her top. I look away, my desire for her growing tenfold, burning hotter than the sun. Fuck her. Fuck this need she’s planted deep inside my chest with her pretty eyes and her soft lips and her and delicate features. She’s making me crave things I have no right to take. I want to hurt her for making me feel this way. Mark her skin. But touching her would only set me off at this point, so my only other option is to cut her with my words.

“You really don’t need to worry about anything changing between us. I can promise nothing has changed. You’re still the maid who owes me a debt that you’ll never be able to repay, at least not in this lifetime. Sucking my cock doesn’t change that… although maybe I’ll let you do it again, just for the fun of it.”

It happens in a flash, so quick that I don’t even have time to react. One minute, she’s sitting, and the next, she is out of her seat, her palm colliding with my cheek. The sting of her slap ripples across my face and twists my head to the side from the impact.

“You’re despicable. I hate you.”

Lord, please explain to me why my cock is harder than it’s ever been in my entire life? Her violence makes me harder than steel, and I find it even more difficult to focus. I’d love nothing more than to show her what happens when you fuck with a man like me, but I can’t cross that line. I won’t cross that line. Swallowing down my arousal, I focus on her anger. I cling to it, because if she hates me then she’ll stay away from me, right?

“Weird, you weren’t saying that yesterday. In fact, you said you’d do anything I wanted you to as long as I didn’t sell you. Maybe I made a mistake when I didn’t let Yanov take you home? Or maybe Sidorov? He wanted to fuck you, too.”

Red spots bloom on her cheeks, confirming her embarrassment, but beneath it is fear. It shines like a beacon of light in her eyes. I know I’m an asshole, but someone has to be. I need her to hate me, need it like my next breath. She takes a trembling step back, her lip quivering, and I can physically see her slipping somewhere else in her mind.

“Did I? Did I make a mistake, Elyse?”

“Please…I’m sorry. Please don’t let him hurt me again.”

“Again?” I growl, my emotions spiraling. I’m caught off guard by her words. She’s so fragile, broken. As bad as I want to hurt her, I want to protect her, too.

How the fuck is that possible?

“Wait, you need to go back to the beginning and explain this to me because, after everything I did to save your ass, I deserve an explanation.” I don’t deserve shit, but I’m not telling her that. “Like, why are his initials carved into your shoulder? Why did your father agree to sell you to him?” I shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t even be asking these stupid questions, but I need to know. “I know he did something to you. I could tell by the way you shrank back from him and how he acted, like you belonged to him. Now tell me what happened, and don’t lie to me. Otherwise, I might go to your father and ask him myself.”

Her big blue eyes fill with worry, and she shakes her head. “No, please. I’ll explain.”

“Then do it,” I snap.

She sags back down into her seat, tugging her legs up to her chest so she can wrap her arms around them. Without looking at me, she speaks. “From the moment I turned fifteen, he’s had an interest in me. He begged my father to give me to him, even going out of his way to endear himself.”

“Give you to him? What, did your father owe him money, too?”

She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “That, or a favor. I don’t know, really.”

“So how did that end with his name carved into your shoulder?”

Her gaze goes hazy, and I wonder if she’s going back in time.

“I don’t know, exactly. When I was sixteen, my father threw me a birthday party, but it wasn’t really a party for me. It was a party for his friends. He wanted to show his newly grown-up daughter off to his friends. Yanov didn’t like this at all. Sometime during the party, he cornered me and dragged me into a back hallway. One second, I was okay, and the next, I was so sleepy I could barely stand. All I remember is falling asleep, and the following morning, when I woke up, I was in my bedroom, my shoulder aching and crusted with blood. Ever since that day, he’s considered me his property.”

Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance? Stick my knife in his stomach and gut him like a fish?

“I don’t care what hold he had on you before. You’re mine,” I snap. “My property,” I add at the last moment.

The words send her diving headfirst back into reality. The hazy look in her eyes disappears, and instead, the Elyse I’ve slowly watched her transform into reappears.

“I’m no one’s property. I belong to myself. And even if I didn’t, I’d never willingly belong to that asshole. I’d rather die than return to him or my father.”

Apparently, I haven’t made myself clear enough. “I don’t care about Yanov or whatever disgusting obsession he has with you. Until your debt is paid, the one from your father and the one you accrued all on your own in my closet, you’re mine. Every breath, whisper, tear. It’s mine. You belong to me entirely, and I’ll do whatever I want with you.”

She nods, even though the look on her face tells me she wants to fight me. “Whatever. I get it. I’m forever in your debt.”

“Exactly. We’re not equals. And don’t ever think that we are because I won’t hesitate to remind you of the truth.”

“Thanks.” She shakes her head and turns away from me. “You only care about me enough to ensure my father’s debt to you is paid. Not because I’m a human who deserves to be cared for, right?”

Wrong. I want to tell her so badly it hurts, but this can only end one of two ways, and I’m not going to lead her along. I can’t have her, not beyond the capacity of her debt being repaid.

“Right, Little Prey. My only care for you is to ensure you stay alive long enough to repay your father’s debt.”

“I hate you,” she whispers, and I almost tell her that I hate myself, too. Instead, I take a drink of the whiskey and let it burn away the guilt that’s threatening to choke me.

“Get in line, sweetheart. There’s a lot of fuckers who hate me, and you are merely a number at this point.”