A hand clamps over my mouth from behind.
I'm jerked backward into a hard chest, with one arm wrapping around me like a vise. I try to scream but the hand muffles everything.
I kick backward, connecting with a shin. My attacker grunts but doesn't release me. He's too strong, too big.
Panic floods through me.
I fight harder, desperate, using every dirty trick I know. But it's useless against someone this much larger and stronger.
He drags me backward, away from the door, away from the voices I was trying to hear.
Then I smell my captor. I’d know that smell anywhere.
Maksim.
The realization makes me stop fighting.
He drags me into his room. His hand is still over my mouth, his body pressed against my back, holding me immobile.
"Stop fighting," he breathes against my ear. Too quiet for anyone else to hear. "It's me."
I nod, and slowly he lowers his hand from my mouth.
I spin around, fury overriding fear. "What the hell—"
He covers my mouth again. "Quiet. They're right outside."
He's right. I can hear footsteps in the hallway.
“Just stay here,” one of my guards says. “I’m going to get something to eat. She’s not going anywhere.”
Thank God. They believe I’m still in the room.
I relax just a little.
Until I remember I’m nearly naked.
In Maksim’s room.
Chapter Twenty
Maksim
I pull her into my room with every intention of interrogating her.
What was she thinking, eavesdropping on Roman's men? Getting that close to dangerous conversations?She could have been caught. Killed. Disappeared like so many others who've crossed Roman.
But the moment I have her body pressed against mine, her back to my chest, my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet—everything changes.
The fear in her body. The way she fights until she recognizes me. The smell of her hair, her skin, familiar, despite all the reasons it shouldn't be.
My body remembers what my mind has been trying to forget.
I should step back. Should put distance between us.
"What were you thinking?" My voice comes out a harsh whisper. "You could have been caught—"
"I was trying to hear—"
