Page 170 of Born in Depravity

But he barely glanced at the price before he handed over a black card and told one of the men we were with, whose name I found out was Leo, to take the bags to the car.

We went to a women’s lingerie shop next—without the bodyguards, which I counted as a small blessing—but Nikolay seemed to want to spend more time in here than the other stores.

I looked around at the women who were all looking at us—no, not us,him—with varying degrees of amusement, disbelief, and envy as he plowed through all the silky fabrics and picked out the ones he liked without my input.

I could only stand there in shock and amazement.

And he got my size without asking.

I wasn’t very well endowed, like some of the women here, so I supposed it was easy to guess, but still, this level of expertise was a little unnerving.

He looked at me and caught my expression. Tapping my chin, he said, “Close your mouth, sweetheart. You never know what might fly in.”

I closed my mouth and watched him add more to the already growing pile. I tugged on his arms when he made his way to the thong section.

“What?”

I shook my head, pouting a little.

“Five pairs, princess, and I’ll take you out to buy a new toy.”

Toy?

I wasn’t a child. Was he really trying to bribe me with a toy? He took advantage of my confusion and threw a handful of thongs in the basket. There were more than five, and there was no way in hell I would ever wear them.

He spent five hundred bucks at the place.

Who the hell spent five hundred bucks on scraps of fabric that barely covered anything?

“Worth every penny,” he said, close to my ear. Obviously, he didn’t say it low enough, because the girl checking us out at the counter giggled.

We walked out of there and he handed the man who drove us here, Gleb, the bag to take to the car. Then he rubbed his hands together, a sort of manic expression overtaking his face.

“Ready for your toy?”

I dipped my head to the side. I didn’t like the look on his face very much, though I didn’t protest as he grabbed my hand and took me toy shopping …

* * *

I groanedand covered my face with my hands.

I couldn’t believe I let him drag me in here.

“What’s wrong, princess? Don’t you want to pick out a toy to play with?”

I shook my head. I didn’t need to look at him to know the stupid smile was back on his face.

“But you’ve been so good. I think this deserves a reward. Go on, pick something out.”

I wasafraidto pick something out when I didn’t even know the function of half the things on display in front of me.

I felt his hot breath on the side of my face. “That’s okay. I’ll pick something out for us to play with.”

Something hard pushed against my hand. Curious, I looked down at him holding out something smaller than my hand.

It was some sort of silver thing in the shape of a bullet on one end, flaring out a bit and attached to a narrowed bar in the middle, and at the end was a flat surface with a pink jewel on it.

It looked … pretty.