Page 73 of Beautiful Cruelty

His fingers tighten in my hair, and I whimper at how right it feels to be controlled like this. To surrender to someone who can corrupt me so effortlessly.

"This is where you belong. On your knees with my cock in your mouth. You were made for this. You were made forme."

His dark praise fills my mind with contradictions and I quicken my pace. I shouldn't be okay with falling to my knees in a jewelry store before a dangerous bratva pakhan like Vadim Stravinsky and letting him do whatever he wants to me.

I should be terrified. I should be fighting this. Instead, I find myself giving in to him. I stare up into his storm-gray eyes as I swallow him deeper into my throat, hoping to hear him praise me again.

And then he does.

"I bet nobody's ever told you what a good little cocksucker you are."

I moan against his cock as it pummels my throat. He's right. Nobody's ever told me that. And I wouldn't want anyonebuthim telling me that. Somehow, despite how wrong this is, it feels perfectlyright—being called such filthy things while wearing nothing but hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds.

To be degraded and adored at the same time.

The contradiction makes my head spin. I'm kneeling before a bratva pakhan who a few seconds ago was pressing a piercing gun against my nipple with every intention of breaking skin.

And I feelsafe.

I shouldn't feel safe, but I do.

Oh God, I do.

His fist in my hair grounds me, anchoring me to this moment where I can forget everything else.

Where I can justbe.

The weight of the necklace reminds me of everything he represents—danger, power, control. Yet his touch remains gentle even as he commands me.

I've never realized just how badly I craved this.

"No one else gets to see you like this,zvyozdochka." He growls. "Just me."

His words tap into something primal inside me—a need to be claimed, corrupted,ruined. To be told I'm both pure and wanton. Innocent and depraved. His perfect angel and his filthy whore.

I'm a good girl on my knees doing very bad things, and I fucking love it.

He throws his head back, letting one muttered praise after another wash over me in dark waves. Each strained whisper of "good girl" sinks deeper into my core, igniting something I never knew existed.

And as his praise gets darker, more possessive, I can feel myself getting wetter.

Yes, I'm your good girl. Your perfect, precious star. The dirty little slut worshipping your cock on her knees.

The proper thing would be to stop this madness before it consumes me entirely. But proper feels hollow compared to the raw honesty of this moment—of finally letting someone see all of me, the light and the dark, the way that I've always wanted to be seen.

This is what we both wanted, right? Theimproper?

From our first meeting at Mrs. Klossner's, we've danced around those two words: proper and improper.

No proper lady should ever end up on her knees in a jewelry store.

And no proper gentleman would ever put her there.

Yet here we are.

Just as his perfectly tailored suits and cultured manners mask the dangerous man underneath, my defiance and bravado mask the submissive whore at his feet.

In this single moment, all the lies we’ve spun around ourselves have fallen away.

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