I shake my head frantically, but he continues reading.
"He pushed her against the wall, one hand circling her throat—not squeezing, just holding, just reminding her who was in control. 'You're going to come on my fingers,' he told her, 'and then you're going to beg me to fuck you.' His other hand slid beneath her skirt, finding her already wet, already open for him. 'Just like I thought. You want this. You've always wanted this.'"
Every word lands heavy, a pulse under my skin, and I can feel myself getting wet, right here, right now, while he watches me fall apart.
He sets the book down, and his focus shifts entirely to me. My deepest secrets lay forgotten in favor of something more immediate.
"Here's what's going to happen," he says. "Dmitri and I have been at each other's throats for months. After last night, it's war. He probably already has eyes on this building and definitely has people looking for you. You're stuck here until I handle him. Could be days, even weeks."
"You can't just?—"
"I can and I will." He sits on the barstool across from me. "But we both have needs, Lila. And based on your artwork, our needs align perfectly."
"This isn't... I don't..."
"Don't lie. You've been fantasizing about me for months. Drawing me. Reading about men like me and wishing it wasreal." He leans forward, elbows on the counter. "I like to savor my conquests. Take my time. Break them down slowly until they're begging for what they claimed they didn't want."
"Screw you. I'm not your conquest."
Defiant or not, my voice wavers. Because looking at him now—the sharp angles of his face, the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders, the heat in those blue eyes—my resolve cracks. Three months of wanting compressed into this single moment, and my body doesn't care about pride or resistance. It wants what it wants.
"No?" He reaches across and plucks a strawberry from a tray I hadn’t noticed. Fresh fruit, pastries, and orange juice await, like room service in a five-star hotel. "Let's find out. We'll go step by step. Like a game."
"I don't want to play games."
"Sure you do. You've been playing them in your head for months." He holds the strawberry to my lips. "Step one—introduction. I am Ivan Petrov, Pakhan of the Chicago Bratva and son of Viktor Petrov. I've killed seventeen men with my own hands.”
I swallow hard, but my lips part automatically for him. I hate myself for it. Hate how easily my body betrays me. How the scent of him makes me dizzy.
His thumb brushes my mouth with the fruit, and it’s like static under my skin. Strawberry. A refreshing coolness. Sweetness that makes my thoughts scatter. My thighs press together involuntarily, seeking friction, seeking relief from the ache building there.
I swallow.
"Good girl," he murmurs.
The praise shouldn't affect me. It's manipulation, control, precisely what I should be fighting against. Still, heat floods through me, pooling between my legs, making me shift on the barstool.
I pull back like I've been burned. "Don't."
"Don't what? Acknowledge that you liked it?" He grabs another strawberry, larger this time. "Step two—you'll eat every meal from my hand today. Every. Single. Bite."
"That's insane?—"
"That's foreplay. Open."
"No."
"Lila." My name in his mouth is a command and a caress. "Open."
I shouldn't. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to refuse, to fight, to maintain some boundary between his fantasy and my reality.
But my mouth opens anyway.
He feeds me the strawberry slowly this time, watching my tongue catch the juice. His thumb lingers on my bottom lip, pressing gently. I feel the touch everywhere.
"Each step will be more obscene than the last," he says quietly. "By the end, you'll be begging me to fuck you like in your sketches."
"Never."
