LOGINShare
CHAPTER 13
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56In fact, that was all they expected of him. That was, the whole of the small town and his grandfather agreed… his destiny. His fate. That was what became of kids like him, conceived in disgrace and summarily discarded by both his parents. And yet, despite this, he had tried so hard, always looking for a kind word or just a nod from the only man he knew as being his family.
His lips curled now, remembering those empty, fruitless years. He’d wanted so badly to belong, since he’d first understood, as a small boy, that he didn’t. He’d obeyed his grandfather in all things.
Andrey Romanoff had excelled at school. He’d worked tirelessly in the family’s small shop, and he’d never complained, while other boys his age played soccer and roamed about, carefree, no respon
Related chapters
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 14
In the middle of the night, on a terrace in Italy, Addison was forced to admit the fact that she had never truly got a handle on just how devastatingly attractive Andrey Romanoff was, or how much it had always affected her. Even before that night in Cadiz.“Oh… s-sorry… I didn’t know you were out here,” Addison said, and she could hear it in her voice, that slight quaver that gave her away. That all but shouted the things she didn’t want to admit to herself and certainly didn’t want him to know. How she melted for him, even now, even after all he did to her… or how he behaved… How she ached in all the places she wished he would touch her with those capable hands or with that difficult, addicting mouth. Her lips, her breasts… And that hu
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 15
Andrey was in a very bad mood. He sipped his espresso, as black as his current mood, and eyed Addison over the top of it when she appeared at breakfast the next morning. He had spent what was left of the night chasing the ghosts of his past out of his head and failing miserably. Now, in the bright morning light, the opulence of the suite’s great room like a halo all around her, Addison looked her usual, sleekly professional self, and he found it profoundly irritating. The woman he’d been unable to keep from touching on the terrace in the dark was gone... like she never existed. Gone as if she had been no more than a particularly haunting dream. And still, Andrey wanted Addison. Then… Now… Always…“We are going to Bora Bora,” Andrey announced out of the blu
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 16
She thought of Lowell’s ashes, packed away in the tin that functioned as an urn and sat in the center of her bookshelf back in London. And of the promises she’d made, to him and to herself. That she would let him go into the wind, the water. The least she could do was honor the man he might’ve been, had he made different choices, or been stronger against his own demons. And she knew that she needed closure too.“Something like that,” she said now, not quite meeting Andrey’s eyes.“Such depravity…” His tone was taunting. And it hit hard, though she should’ve been impervious to him.“A word you know well, Mr. Romanoff,” she snapped. Unwisely. Everyth
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 17
Addison woke to sunshine on all sides. It streamed in the open windows of her room, bathing her in light and the sweet, fragrant breeze. It felt like some kind of blessing, chasing away what shadows remained from the long night before. She stretched on the soft mattress and told herself she was fine now. Fully restored. Andrey’s touch, his words, that fire that only seemed to build between them… it was all part of the past. With a slight smile on her lips, she rose from her bed and dressed slowly choosing a loose and flowing pair of linen trousers and paired them with a strappy black vest. Then she swept all of her hair up into as sleek a ponytail as was possible in this climate. Addison slipped on a pair of sandals and stepped outsi
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 18
She had the oddest sense of déjà vu for a moment and then it came to her. Andrey was talking to her like she was a person. Not as his employee, but as another human being. Someone he actually knew. The last time he’d done this, he’d teased her in just this way. They’d smiled, told stories, shared parts of themselves over small dishes of food and large glasses of wine. Or she’d thought they had.“I’m not here to play games,” she said quietly, hoping he couldn’t hear the unevenness in her voice, that clash between what was good for her and what she really wanted. “I’m here to be your Executive Assistant. The only other offer on the table was to be… your dog on a leash. Isn’t that what you said? Is that what you’d prefer?” Hi
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 19
She tasted the way he remembered. Even better. So hot and good and so his. Andrey’s arms came around her, pulling her against him, into him, needing to feel the weight of her breasts against his chest, the softness of her belly against the thrust of his hardness, the gentle swell of her hips against his. He kissed her again and again, reveling in the punch of it. And Addison met him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her mouth moved against his with the same urgency, the same demand. Andrey thought she said his name. He wasn’t sure he could speak or if he did, what language he might use, or if it would all come out as nonsense. He didn’t care. She was intoxicating, and he could finally let himself indulge in her as he wished.
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 20
He moved slowly, hypnotically. As if he didn’t wish to build that fire between them this time so much as encourage it to burn high on its own. She matched his lazy rhythm, her hips rising to meet his, every part of her exulting in the way they fit together. In the way they moved together. Slow and easy and devastating. And it was the only thing that mattered. This time, she could reach up and explore him. Smooth skin stretched across steel. Hard male beauty unlike any other. Ferocious and proud. Fierce and demanding. She pulled herself up from the bed to kiss his chest, to taste the bold heat of him, the incomparable strength. The pace began to change, then, the fire burning ever hotter. With every thrust, Addison forgot everything but him. Andrey slid down to
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 21
They sat out on one of the patios one evening, surrounded by softly flickering candles, with the canopy of stars bright and astonishing above them. Addison leaned back in her chair and stared up at them, aware on some level, that time was passing even in moments like this one when she felt outside of time altogether. ‘Don’t forget what temporary means,’ she advised herself. ‘Don’t pretend that any of this can last. That he is yours… That this is going to be your life from now on… Because it’s not, and never will be…’ Across from her, Andrey was finishing a call with a CFO at one of his New York companies. He frowned out toward the dark ocean as he talked, his voice growing increasingly more impatient. While sipping at her wine, Addison watched him, imprinting that impossible face
Latest chapter
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 30
After drinking all her pleasure in, after tasting her essence, an extremely satisfied Andrey smiled his way back up the line of her body, trailing kisses all along the way. When he reached her mouth, he kissed her long and deep and hard. Her hands, shaking with the aftershocks of her orgasm, came up to frame his face, caressing the slight stubble on his jaw. Andrey groaned at the gentle touch, feeling his own skin ripple, the muscles beneath constricting in anticipation of what would come next. Trailing his fingers over her hip and between her legs, he found her opening, slick with a mix of moisture from his mouth and her own feminine juices. Centering himself, Andrey pushed inside. Slowly. An inch. He gave a silent but heartfelt groan. Then another. His nostrils flared as he tried to school his breathing. In, out. In, out. And
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 29
For what felt like a long time, whole ages, perhaps centuries, Addison could only stare at him, stricken, too deeply shaken even to weep. She felt cracked open by his words. “And you do, Andrey?” she asked eventually, in a belligerent tone, though her voice quaked. “You know what love is?” Andrey’s eyes were brilliant. Dark and gold and molten fire, burning her alive. He reached over and took her hands in his, and Addison should’ve jerked away. But instead, she exulted in the feel of his skin against hers after all this time. It pumped through her like heat, as though there was no part of her that wasn’t his no matter what she told herself. Or told him. “Let me tell you what I know, Addison,” he said to her, his voice low, intense, urgent. “All I know is I want you so badly that my body literally hurts. I want you in ways that I don’t understand and I
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 28
He tracked her back to a part of London that was a world away from his three-story penthouse at the top of an old Victorian warehouse perched at the edge of the Thames. ‘This is what she prefers to a life with me,’ Andrey told himself as he caught the door from one of her neighbors and climbed the narrow, grimy stairs to her second-floor flat. ‘This dingy little place and the dim little life that comes with it.’ Andrey was so angry with her, he thought it might actually burn off the top of his head. He pounded on her door, not even pretending to be polite.“Open this damn door, Addison! I know you’re in there,” he growled. “I saw you enter this building five minutes ago.” He heard
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 27
Andrey looked as though he wanted to take her apart with his teeth. Addison fought to control herself… Control her pounding heart, her galloping pulse, that heaviness in her stomach that couldn’t decide if it was desire or anxiety. Or some combination of both.“If you would like to beg, don’t let me stop you,” Andrey bit out after a long moment, though his midnight amber eyes gleamed. “You can begin on your knees.” Addison remembered that day in Bora Bora with picture-perfect clarity. She remembered crawling to him across the polished wood floor, smiling up at him from between his strong legs. Wanting him more than her next breath. She still did. Heat flashed over her, and Addison was afraid she turned bright red. His eyes were narrow and hot, and she knew b
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 26
She laughed hearing him saying the word ‘clay’ referring at himself. He was anything but.“Metal that might, under certain circumstances, be welded, perhaps,” she’d said. “Never clay.”“I bow to your superior knowledge,” he’d said, swirling his sherry in his glass, his gaze oddly intent on hers. Addison had felt herself flush with heat and had felt out of control. Reckless. Yet it had felt right, even so. Righter than she could remember anything else feeling, maybe ever. He’d leaned close, then murmured close to her ear.“What would I do without you, Addison?” That was the first time, in three years, he’d ever said her name… and the last until Bora Bora
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 25
Andrey had forgotten all about it, until now. Had she been warning him? Had she known that she would get into his blood like this, poisoning him from the inside out, making him a stranger to himself? He frowned out the window now, through the rain lashing across the glass. For the first time in almost twenty years, he wondered if it was worth it, this great empire he’d built and on which he focused to the exclusion of all else. Lately, he wondered if, given the chance, he would trade it in. If he would take her instead. Not that Addison had offered him any such choice. His intercom buzzed loudly behind him. He didn’t move. He didn’t know, anymore, if he was furious or if he was simply the wreckage of the man he’d been. And he didn’t like it, either way.
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 24
‘If this is what it was like to love somebody,’ Andrey thought some weeks after he’d returned from Bora Bora and Addison had left him on the tarmac without a backward glance, ‘then I was absolutely right to push it away for my entire adult life.’ ‘When I decide to sabotage you,’ Addison had told him once, ‘there will be nothing the least bit passive about it.’ Andrey couldn’t help but wonder if this was what she’d meant. This… aching, annoying sense of loss, that colored everything a dull gray. ‘I hate it.’ He glared at one of his many vice presidents acros
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 23
Perversely, it only made him want her more. He’d told Addison that she was the only person he’d ever had any kind of close relationship with, and the stark truth of that haunted him. She was the only person alive that he had EVER trusted. He had allowed her unparalleled access to all parts of his life. To him. No employee had ever been so entrenched in his personal life before and Andrey had certainly never allowed one of his women anywhere near his business. Only Addison bridged those worlds. Only Addison. And his time with her was almost up. Giving in to an urge he hardly understood, as if it might ease the sudden heaviness in his chest, Andrey reached over and took her hand. Addison’s eyes flew to his, but he concentrated on the slide of her fingers against his. The way they fitted toge
SLAVE TO YOUR LOVE CHAPTER 22
The moment she said that Addison just hated herself. So deeply and so comprehensively it made her feel ill. She slid the wineglass back onto the table and wrapped her arms around her middle, certain she needed help to keep herself together. Andrey didn’t look away. He simply sat much too still and much too close across the table, watching her fall apart.“I’m so sorry,” he began after a moment, his voice calm.“No,” Addison interrupted him, her words feeling thick in her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that. How would you know? It’s just… It happened rather recently and I’ve still not managed to figure out how to talk about it. About him…”“How recent?” Andrey frowned then.
