She shivers. Goosebumps race down her arm, visible proof of her response.
Satisfaction coils through me, dark and possessive.
"Might want to change first," I say, voice dropping lower. "Don't want to blind the staff. They're good people. Would hate to take away their vision."
I watch her throat move as she swallows. She nods.
"I'll walk you to your room," I say, letting the strap slip off my finger slowly, deliberately.
We move toward the elevator together, and I'm hyper-aware of every inch of space between us. The way she moves, fluid, controlled. The way her shorts ride up with each step, revealing the curve of her ass, the back of her thighs.
I'm going to have a serious fucking problem.
Her room is in the opposite wing from ours. We all agreed on that. Give her privacy. Space. Make sure she feels comfortable instead of caged, respected instead of owned.
Now I'm regretting every single logical reason we had.
The distance feels like punishment.
"I'll wait here," I say when we reach her door, forcing myself to lean against the wall instead of following her inside.
She slips through, and I'm alone in the hallway. I let my head tip back against concrete, eyes closed. My dick is hard enough to ache, pressing against the waistband of my shorts. I adjust, tucking it up so the shirt hides the evidence.
I have a feeling I'll be doing this a lot with Victoria around.
Minutes later the door opens. She steps out wearing black leggings and a cropped top that shows a strip of toned stomach. Better. Marginally.
Not really.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Ready."
I give her the full tour. Start on the ground floor. Garage, gym, the hidden armory she doesn't need to know about yet.
She's quiet. Observant. Taking in details, the exposed steel beams, the bulletproof glass in every window, the way every surface is deliberate. Nothing soft. Nothing accidental.
"Did you just move in?" she asks suddenly.
I stop mid-step. "We've been here almost five years. Why?"
She waves a hand vaguely at the space around us. "It doesn't look like it."
"Unfortunately," I say, letting my grin sharpen as we walk the rest of the house, "we don't have a pool. Real shame. I was looking forward to a repeat performance."
Her cheeks flush. Pink spreads across her skin, down her neck. She knows exactly what I'm talking about. The way we all staredlike idiots when she walked into Arthur's office dripping water and defiance in that red bikini.
"About the staff," I continue, moving past the moment before I say something that crosses a line. "Mostly security. Ex-military, vetted, loyal. Cleaning service comes once a week. We own the company, so they know when to see things and when to develop sudden blindness." I wink. "Food comes from our restaurant sometimes, but mostly we just eat out. Or order in."
She nods, processing.
The second floor opens into the main living space. Kitchen with industrial appliances that have never been properly used. Living room. The long corridor that connects everything, including the door at the very end.
She moves toward it, hand reaching for the handle.
I catch her wrist. "That's Maksim's private space. Off-limits."
She looks up at me, and there's mischief in her eyes. Playfulness. "What is it? A BDSM dungeon?"
