Calliope's heart was slamming so hard against her ribs she thought it might tear free of her chest. Pain from his fist tangled in her hair had spread across her skull in a white, blinding sheet, making it difficult to remember how to breathe. He still held her head tipped back against the edge of the desk, leaving her staring at the ceiling, the soft gold of the lamp and, at the very edge of her vision, the calm line of his jaw.
"I… I'm sorry," she gasped before leaning in and pressing her mouth to his.
Alexander gave her nothing back, merely watching her kiss him until she pulled away. Calliope stared into those black, empty eyes and felt her entire life rearrange itself behind them—every choice that had led her here, every decision that had slowly dismantled her for the sake of one man. Humiliation lodged deep in her chest because even now, she could not hate him. She knew this was not love. It was madness, and she was still drowning in it.
He drew his hand from her hair with unhurried care, giving her one foolish second to believe he might step back before his fingers wrapped around her throat and found the frantic pulse beating beneath them.
Alexander did not squeeze at once. He held her there as though testing the rhythm under his fingertips, then gradually increased the pressure until her hands flew to his wrist and her nails scraped uselessly over skin that did not so much as flinch.
Darkness began creeping in from the edges of the room. A wet, strangled sound reached her ears before she realised it was coming from her own throat, and her feet kicked against the floor while her vision narrowed into a tunnel with his face at the far end—still smooth, devastatingly handsome and utterly empty.
Alexander eased his grip the instant blackness threatened to swallow her completely, allowing air to rip into her lungs so violently that she doubled over coughing. His hand returned to her hair before her legs could give beneath her, keeping her upright as his voice reached her through the ringing in her ears.
"Look at me."
Calliope dragged her watering eyes back to his face and found no rage she could wait out or hatred she could appease. Only that unnerving patience remained as he watched tears stream down her cheeks with the detached curiosity of a man observing the result of an experiment he had deliberately begun.
Without taking his eyes from her, Alexander leaned closer and caught her lower lip between his teeth.
He bit down until the soft flesh split, flooding her mouth with the taste of copper and wrenching a choked cry from her throat. He kept his teeth there for another agonising moment before releasing her, leaving blood to trail over her chin and drip onto the front of her blouse.
Alexander regarded the blood with mild curiosity, angling his head as though the colour had produced a result he had not expected. Calliope sobbed openly beneath his scrutiny, one hand covering her mouth while tremors ran through her hard enough to make her teeth click.
His brow drew inward after a few seconds, almost as though her reaction genuinely confused him, but Calliope knew every façade he wore too well to believe that. Alexander could be charming enough to draw strangers closer and cold enough to make them regret it in the next breath; only someone who had never known him would mistake anything on his face for innocence.
His hand dropped from her and he crossed towards the bed with the leisurely ease of a man going to pour himself a drink, leaving Calliope where she stood with her chest heaving.
Alexander sat with one hand braced behind him and looked at her across the room.
"Come."
The command came with such casual softness that another chill moved through her before her body obeyed. She knew better than to make him repeat himself.
Her legs felt weighted as she crossed the room, and when she stopped a few feet from him, she kept her eyes on the carpet rather than face those empty black eyes again.
"Sit down, Cal."
A single tap against his thigh told her exactly where. Calliope looked up despite herself, but one glimpse of him destroyed whatever thought of refusal might have formed. She lowered herself carefully onto his lap, spine rigid as his hand came to the nape of her neck and drew her backwards against the solid wall of his chest.
When his mouth brushed the shell of her ear, every muscle in her body drew taut.
"Come on, baby," he murmured, his voice velvet-smooth against her skin. "Lighten up. You used to like things like this. Didn't you?"
Calliope tried to answer, but nothing passed her throat, and Alexander seemed in no hurry to help her find the words.
His right hand came to rest on her bare thigh, the rough surface of his palm dragging slowly over smooth skin. A silent gasp caught in her chest as she stared at the thick muscle of his forearm—the same arm that had once sent pleasure crashing through her body so intensely she had dreamed of it for months afterward.
"Don't you want me to touch you, baby?"
He leaned closer until scarcely an inch remained between them, watching the fear gather across her face with the detached curiosity he might have given something preserved beneath glass. Calliope turned towards him despite herself, their mouths nearly brushing, and her eyes betrayed her by dropping to the full curve of his lower lip, lingering there before lifting past the straight line of his nose to those dark, unreadable eyes.
His hand slipped beneath her skirt and eased higher along her thigh until his fingertips caught the edge of her panties.
"Ah—"
The sound escaped her on contact, soft and involuntary, while Alexander kept his eyes on hers as though the reaction had been exactly what he was waiting for.
"When I ask you a question," he said, his tone still soft enough to sound almost pleasant, "I expect an answer."
Calliope gave a hurried nod, and a low, approving "Good girl" left him as his fingers swept along the side of her neck before slipping beneath the thin fabric and rubbing her through the damp cotton in slow circles. He brought their foreheads together, his voice sinking into that deeper register she always seemed to feel somewhere behind her ribs before she properly heard it.
"I'm going to ask you one question. I want a quick, simple answer."
She nodded again as one corner of his mouth lifted, never quite becoming a smile, while a miserable heat crept up her neck beneath the lazy movement of his fingers. Closing her eyes only made it worse, leaving her painfully aware that he could feel exactly how wet she was while fear kept the rest of her body rigid against him.
"Did Anthony help you? Yes or no."
Her eyes flew open at that, because it was nothing like the question she had prepared herself for, and the faint curiosity resting across Alexander's features made it obvious that he knew it. Calliope hesitated for barely a second before he turned them in one fluid motion and put her flat on her back, the mattress bouncing beneath her hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
"What did I tell you?"
His voice never rose, and before Calliope could force an answer past the tightness in her throat, his hand came down hard between her thighs.
Smack.
The crack split the quiet room, pain flaring alongside an unwanted jolt of sensation that made her gasp and jerk beneath him. Alexander gave her no chance to recover before one hand closed around her throat again, pressing her deeper into the mattress until panic surged through her so violently that she could barely drag in another breath.
"Please—"
A small, almost affectionate smile touched his mouth as his fingers tightened by another fraction.
"Shh, baby." The softness of his voice only made the words worse. "Be a good girl and answer the question. Or else…"
He let the unfinished threat hang between them while his gaze roamed over every tremor and tear with unnerving patience.
"You already know what I'm capable of."
Calliope nodded frantically. "I'm sorry—"
"If you say those words again, I'll give you something to be sorry about."
The warning came without anger, his nails pressing into the side of her neck with just enough force to make her wince and break whatever fragile resistance had kept the answer trapped behind her teeth.
"Yes—yes, he helped me, but not this time. I did it alone. Please—"
The plea died on her tongue when she remembered his warning, and she clamped her mouth shut before another apology could escape. Tears slid from the corners of her eyes and disappeared into her hair while Alexander watched her in silence, looking almost bored.
"Good girl." He released her throat and sat back. "Was that so hard?"
He hauled her upright by the back of her neck as though she were nothing more than a rag doll, leaned back against the headboard and drew her across his lap again while Calliope shook hard enough for her teeth to chatter. Alexander stroked her hair with unsettling gentleness, the slow motion resembling the way someone might soothe a frightened animal before doing something cruel to it.
"You know you're still going to be punished, baby."
Calliope closed her eyes and nodded even as every instinct inside her screamed at her to run, fight, kick, do anything except stay there and let him decide what happened next. The thought was so useless she almost laughed. Fighting would only turn this into a game for him; he would come after her, catch her and make whatever followed last longer simply because she had dared to make him work for it. Most men, even violent ones, seemed to carry some final hesitation about hurting a woman, but Alexander had never possessed that instinct.
She stayed where he had put her, trying to memorize the stillness because something told her she would miss it soon.
"Give me your hands, baby."
Calliope placed them in his, unable to stop their trembling as Alexander turned them over and ran his thumbs along the insides of her wrists with almost tender care.
"This is going to hurt," he said with the same unnerving calm he had maintained throughout. "But what's the fun if it doesn't?"
A faint note of pleasure threaded through the words, subtle enough that anyone who knew him less intimately might have missed it, but Calliope knew every shade of his voice too well.
"Wait."
She turned in his lap and kissed him, looping one arm around his neck while the other remained caught in his grip, then swallowed against the tightness in her throat and closed her eyes.
"I'm ready."
Something disturbingly close to satisfaction passed over Alexander's features as he regarded the unnatural calm that had come over her, then lowered his gaze to the pale length of her arm lying across his palm.
His thumb moved once over the delicate skin of her wrist before he glanced towards the window, where the black glass reflected Calliope curled against his chest and Alexander holding her with such deceptive tenderness that anyone looking in from the outside might have mistaken them for lovers. The reflection drew a slow smile across his face, wide enough to show the first trace of teeth, as his fingers dug into the small bones of her wrist with measured force.
Beyond the sealed windows, the city continued glittering beneath the night, thousands of strangers moving through the streets far below with no idea that somewhere above them, a woman's scream had just torn through the upper floor.