Chapter 11: Witness
The mansion hallway stretched before Rosé, a cold, beautiful cage of marble and murmured history. She’d emerged from the powder room, her hands still damp, just in time to see the tail of Jennie’s skirt disappear around the corner of the grand staircase, followed by the solid, unmistakable shape of Leonid carrying her.
Her breath hitched. She should go to her guest room. She should lock the door and pretend she’d seen nothing.
Instead, her feet, in their quiet flats, carried her forward on the plush runner, soundless as a ghost. She stopped at the base of the stairs, one hand on the cool newel post. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
From above, she heard a door open, then softly shut.
Silence.
Then, a low, rhythmic thumping. Muffled, but unmistakable. The headboard of Jennie’s ornate French bed, knocking against the wall.
A sharp, broken cry filtered down—Jennie’s—followed by a deep, male groan that Rosé felt in the pit of her stomach. Leonid’s.
Her cheeks flushed with a heat that was equal parts shame and a startling, violent need. She glanced down the hall—empty, dark, the portraits watching with indifferent eyes. Her fingers trembled as she gathered the hem of her simple cotton dress and crept up the stairs, each step a negotiation with her own guilt.
The sound grew clearer as she ascended. Grunts, the wet, slapping sound of skin on skin, the creak of bedsprings under a demanding weight. And Jennie’s voice, not in protest, but in a high, desperate keening that spoke of pleasure pushed past bearing.
Rosé reached the upper landing. The door to Jennie’s room was ajar, a sliver of golden lamplight cutting across the dark hallway. The thumping was a frantic, driving beat now. She moved as if in a trance, her back pressing against the wall just beside the doorframe. She could see inside.
Leonid had Jennie on her knees at the edge of the massive bed. He was behind her, fully clothed except for his slacks pushed down to his thighs. His white shirt was taut across the muscles of his back, darkened with sweat in patches. One of his large hands was fisted in Jennie’s disheveled black hair, pulling her head back in a cruel, beautiful arc. The other hand gripped her hip so tightly Rosé could see the white of his knuckles even from this distance.
He was fucking her with a brutal, piston-like efficiency. His cock, slick and glistening in the lamplight, drove into her again and again, each thrust making her body jerk forward, her small breasts swaying. He was so deep, so impossibly big inside her. Rosé could see the strain in the defined tendons of his thighs, the bunching of his ass with every punishing push.
“You like that?” Leonid’s voice was gravel, strained and dark. “You like being used, котёнок? Being my little fuck-toy?”
Jennie’s reply was a garbled, tearful mess. “Y-yes! Please!”
“Please what?”
“Please… don’t stop! Please, Leonid!”
He growled, a sound of pure carnal possession, and increased his pace. The slap of their bodies meeting was loud, obscene, rhythmic. Rosé watched, frozen, her own breath coming in short, sharp pants. A throbbing ache had started between her legs, urgent and undeniable.
Her hand slipped under her dress, her fingers finding the damp silk of her own panties. She was soaked. The sight of him, the sheer raw power of his movements, the way Jennie completely surrendered—it unlocked a furnace in her core. She pushed her panties aside, her middle finger finding her clit. She was swollen, sensitive. A tiny, shameful gasp escaped her lips as she touched herself.
In the room, Leonid shifted his grip. He released Jennie’s hair, letting her collapse forward onto the mattress with a sobbing gasp. Then he leaned over her, bracketing her smaller body with his arms, and changed the angle. His thrusts became shorter, harder, deeper. The bedframe slammed against the wall with renewed force.
“Who do you belong to?” he snarled, his face buried in the crook of her neck.
“Y-you!” Jennie cried out, her voice breaking on the syllable.
“Say it.”
“I belong to you! Leonid, I’m yours!”
He gave one final, devastating thrust, driving her into the mattress, and held there, his body rigid. A long, low groan tore from his throat, a sound of utter release. Rosé could see the cords in his neck standing out, see the powerful clench of his jaw. He stayed like that for several seconds, buried inside her, shuddering with the last pulses of his climax.
Rosé’s own fingers moved faster, chasing the coil of tight pleasure gathering in her belly. She bit her lip to stifle a moan, her eyes glued to the scene—to the sweat-sheened muscles of Leonid’s back, to Jennie’s limp, claimed form beneath him.
Slowly, Leonid pulled out. Rosé saw him, fully exposed for a moment—his cock, thick and spent, glistening with their mixed fluids. The sight was so profoundly intimate it felt like a violation to watch, but she couldn’t look away. He straightened up with a weary, fluid grace, pulling his slacks back over his hips with a casual practicality that was almost more shocking than the violence of the act.
He looked down at Jennie, who lay motionless except for the ragged rise and fall of her back. He placed a large hand on the nape of her neck, a gesture that could have been possessive or tender, maybe both. “Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice back to its usual low monotone, though roughened at the edges. “Go to sleep.”
He turned then, and Rosé’s blood turned to ice. He was walking toward the door.
She scrambled back, her hand yanked from under her dress, her own pleasure forgotten in a wave of panic. But there was nowhere to go on the long, open landing. She stood there, exposed, as Leonid stepped out of Jennie’s room, pulling the door shut behind him.
He saw her immediately. His dark eyes, still heavy-lidded and sharp with the aftermath of sex, locked onto hers. He didn’t look surprised. He looked… assessing.
His gaze traveled down her body, noting her flushed face, her trembling hands, the telltale shift of her dress. He took a slow, deliberate step toward her. The scent of sex and sweat and him, musk and salt and something primal, washed over her.
He stopped a foot away. He lifted his hand, and for a wild second, Rosé thought he might touch her. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his slacks. He pulled out a scrap of black lace—Jennie’s torn panties from the library. He held them for a moment, then let them drop. They fluttered to the floor between them, a soiled, silken accusation.
“See something you liked, Rosé?” he asked, his voice quiet, devoid of emotion.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat was sealed shut by shame and a desperate, clawing want.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He simply stepped around her, the scent of him trailing in his wake, and walked down the hall toward his own room. He didn’t look back.
Rosé stood there, rooted to the spot, listening to the soft click of his door closing. Then she looked down at the torn lace on the polished floor. Her body thrummed with unmet need and a jealousy so profound it made her teeth ache. From behind Jennie’s door, she heard the soft, choked sound of weeping.
Slowly, she bent down, picked up the panties, and crushed them in her fist. The fabric was still faintly warm.