Page 57

Keeping this baby a secret was the only tool I had left in this power play that persisted. And the longer I tried to stay strong and not let myself be too attached tohim, not the sex, I deluded myself into thinking he would never fully own me. My body, maybe. But not my mind. And never my heart.
This wasn’t love. This was… something else that remained too complicated to understand.
One morning a week after he came into the room and stripped, I woke up with his mouth on my pussy, lapping at me and startling me.
“Maxim?” I tried to get up, but he pushed his hand on my stomach to keep me flat on my back.
“You gonna be a good girl today?” he asked between long, sensual licks.
I moaned, nodding at this wakeup call, and threaded my fingers through his thick, brown hair to keep his face there.
“Then fuck my face.” He slipped out from my grasp and shifted us until he was lying back and I was straddling his head. Wrapping his fingers around my thighs, he held me in place as I humped his mouth, crying out loud and with tears of happiness when I came.
“Good girl,” he praised, leading me over so he could kneel behind me. Fisting my hair in his hand, he tugged me backward until his dick poked at my entrance.
And again, he filled me with his cum.
And again, when we cleaned up in the shower, I refrained from telling him the truth that I was already carrying his child.
As I came down from the high, I tried to imagine what would happen if I told him.
I’d still be here, trapped and captive.
But then my baby would be too.
It was twisted to not want freedom from Maxim because he was practically drugging me with sex, but I couldn’t forfeit my child’s freedom with mine.
“You like being my good girl, don’t you?” he asked as we got out of the shower.
I whined. “Oh, my God, Maxim. I need like two more minutes. You’re going to make me so sore.”
He chuckled, kissing the top of my head, clearly proud of himself.
“Would you agree to cooperate with me?” he asked as he toweled himself off.
“How?” As soon as I asked it, I laughed dryly. “I mean, you’ve made it clear I have no control here.”
“Not just in this room,” he clarified. “In this house.”
I perked up but tried not to show it. “You mean you’d let me out of this room?”
He nodded. “It’s not feasible to keep you only in here. You will be my woman, Sloane. That won’t change. Youaremy mistress and you will give me a child.”
I swallowed hard.Yeah, I know—more than you do.I interpreted his words as his continued plan to own me and keep me here, not that I’d carry a baby. But hearing him repeat his intentions to keep me captive, a small voice that hadn’t died out in the back of my head yelled louder.
No, I’m not. I’ll never beyourwoman.I couldn’t willingly agree to commit to him as his woman like that. Because this survival instinct hadn’t died out. I had to get out of here. If not for myself, then for this baby to have a free life.
“Will you cooperate with me—in all ways—if I permit you access to more of this house?”
I blinked, surprised and cautious about why he was cutting me some slack. I wouldn’t be duped to think that he’d trust me.
Maybe this is a trick.
“I have commitments to see to, and as much as I’d rather be in here with you as often as I was this past week…” He stepped closer to me as I tied a towel around myself. Tipping my chin up, he kissed me tenderly at first but ended it with a nip.
He had been in his room more this week—all to fuck me. The isolation wasn’t as bad because when he was gone, I could rest from the intensity of sex.
“I can’t be here all the time.”