“It’s not like that,” I say, keeping my voice measured. “And I would never hurt you or touch you without your consent. No matter how much I want to.”
She narrows her eyes as my words land, appraising me from across the room.
“Right,” she says. “Even though I walked in on you murdering a man in cold blood.”
“That does complicate matters,” I confess, pushing a hand through my hair this time, as I try to keep the frustration at bay.
I take a step closer, slow and deliberate, because if I move too fast, I might prove myself a liar by caging her against the nearest wall and forgetting every line I’ve drawn tonight. She doesn’t flinch. She watches me like she’s bracing for impact, but not retreating from it.
“You saw something you shouldn’t have,” I say, words ground out through my teeth. “And the moment you looked at me; I forgot how to be the kind of man who fixes loose ends.”
Her pulse jumps visibly in her throat. I follow the movement with my eyes, drawn helplessly to the life beating there.
“I do not kidnap women. I do not fuck every woman I come across. Tonight's circumstances were not usual, and I’m doing my best to do the right thing by my work, by my family, and by you.”
My phone buzzes on the counter. My brother’s name flashing on the screen.
Rurik: Heard you’re hiding something. Call me.
I turn it facedown. He can wait.
“You’re not making sense,” she says, voice barely more than breath. “First you terrify me. Then you feed me. Then you tell me I belong to you now, but you won’t touch me.” She shakes her head slightly. “What am I supposed to think?”
“It’s not about what you think, Callie. It’s about what you feel.”
“That’s not fair,” she fires back, a spark lighting behind her frustration. “I don’t know what to think or feel.”
The flicker of anger, that brave defiance, fuck, it ignites something feral in me. The urge to push her back against the glass and claim her mouth until she stops questioning everything and just feels.
She tips her chin up, and for a moment, she doesn’t look confused at all.
She looks like a woman daring a monster to bite her.
“You aren’t going to kill me,” she whispers. “You already decided that. And my life is serving drinks in this place to earn enough money to keep my grandma safe. Nothing you can do to my life currently can make it worse.” Her voice goes high as she admits that truth and the possessive creature inside of me swells, wanting to give her everything, show her everything “So what now, Dariy Korolyov? Because one way or another, you will put me out of my misery before daybreak.”
The steel in her voice makes my cock throb. No one talks to me that way. No one has ever dared. But the grit and ferocity in her demand don’t anger me. Nor does it feel disrespectful or insubordinate. It feels like a dare.
God help me, she’s going to ruin me.
I crowd into her space, close enough that our breaths tangle. She doesn’t back away, she rises onto her toes, meeting me at the edge of something neither of us knows how to pull back from.
“What I want…” My voice comes out rough as gravel. “You can’t handle.”
“Try me.”
I curse under my breath. The room tightens. The air thickens. She is standing there in nothing but my clothes and every damn weakness I didn’t know I had comes to the surface.
My hand lifts before I can stop it, fingers brushing the side of her throat, sliding to the delicate hinge of her jaw. Her skin is warm. Soft. Alive.
She closes her eyes, just for a heartbeat, and leans into the touch like she has been starved for affection for too long.
“How old are you?” I ask, noticing she has peeled the false lashes off. Her face looks so much younger without the layer of makeup hiding who she really is.
“Twenty-two,” she says, her face crumpled as though her heart is breaking.
There are fifteen whole years between us.
I should stop, but I can’t.
