My blood pumps louder in my ears, my core pulsing.
Another rough thrust and my body trembles on the edge. Just a little more and it’ll be over. I can go home. Pretend this never happened.
“But you…” His tone dips lower, harsher. “You don’t deserve it.”
The next drive of his fingers is sharp enough to make my knees buckle. His nose drags up my throat, inhaling me like he’s memorizing my scent.
“You don’t deserve anything from me except the humiliation of knowing exactly what I can make you do…any time I want.”
Then…he stops.
What?
The absence is violent. Every nerve in my body screams in protest, heat slamming into cold.
No. No, no, no. That son of a bitch.
He eases back, that haughty look etched into his face like it’s been there his whole life as he slides one hand into his pocket as if none of this ever happened.
“Y-you…” My words fracture, too jagged to form anything coherent.
He tilts his head, studying me like I’m a puzzle he’s already taken apart piece by piece.
“You should get home, Ms. Prosecutor.” His voice turns low and deceptively gentle. “Late night. A lot of dangerous men out there.”
Then he turns, strutting away like I’m already forgotten. While I’m still here, breathless and furious, shaking with something that has nothing to do with fear.
Desire. Loathing. Temptation. A tangle of contradictions, all tied up in the man I didn’t want to be close to.
Yet his presence still clings to me—on my skin, in my breath—like he never left at all.
CHAPTER THREE
ALEKSEI
Three screens glowagainst the black marble of my kitchen island, surveillance feeds flipping like a roulette wheel of her life.
One shows the courthouse steps. Another, the street outside her office building. The last one, which is my personal favorite, stays trained on the alley facing into her office.
She doesn’t know much about how I do what I do. How I can see her sitting at her desk right now, catching the side of her face as her brows tighten while she reads something on her computer.
Steam curls from the rim of my mug as I sip my coffee—black and scalding, just as I like it. No sugar. No cream. Nothing to soften the burn.
I watch her for a while, eyes locked on the flickering feed while she works, buried in files. Typing, pausing, brushing her hair behind her ear the way she always does when she’s thinking hard. The way I crave to do it instead.
She picks up her cup of green tea, and I don’t have to look at it closely to know I’m right. It’s what she drinks every morning, while she prefers chamomile tea before bed. She only drinks coffee on occasion.
Fiona is predictable, and that makes it that much easier to know her every move without even needing these cameras.
I know her schedule better than she does. I know where she gets her tea, what time she takes her lunch, which streetlight she always speeds through when she’s late.
So when she finally stands, smoothing down her suit jacket and reaching for her coat, I already know where she’s heading.
My finger drags across the trackpad, and the camera angle slides to the next feed.
There she is, sauntering across the street, hips swaying like she forgets that the one she tried to bury has been watching her every move since the day she lost.
The day I won.
