Something about the honesty steals my breath more than the corset.
“Then stop pretending you did this out of some grand design.”
“I’m not pretending anything,” he says. “But if I had refused you, Vadim would’ve picked a woman who wouldn’t last a week. I don’t want a corpse in my house.”
There is something twistedly sincere in that, and it scares me more than cruelty.
“The lab,” he says, continuing to unbutton. “I told Luka to start the conversion tonight. You can check it tomorrow.”
“Why offer me that?” I whisper.
“Because you’d rot otherwise.” His knuckles graze lower. Electricity shoots straight between my legs.
He finishes the last button.
The dress drops.
I step out of it, shaking.
Roman steps away from me, and for a second, I think he’s actually leaving the room, which would be the first merciful thing he’s done since this nightmare started.
But no.
He stops beside the bed, turns just enough that the firelight hits him in a way that makes my stomach free-fall, and looks over his shoulder at me like he’s checking whether I’m watching.
I am.
Unfortunately.
“Don’t faint,” he says quietly, like he’s amused, and then he reaches for the first button of his shirt.
My mouth goes dry.
He unbuttons the shirt slowly. The kind of slow that says he knows exactly what he’s doing to my nervous system and is content to let me drown in it.
The shirt parts over his chest an inch at a time.
Pale skin.
Hard muscle.
A dusting of dark hair that disappears under the waistband of his trousers.
My brain short-circuits like a machine overheating.
Holy shit.Holy actual shit.
My eyes are glued to him as I’ve never seen a naked man before in my life.
He pulls the shirt free of his trousers and shrugs it off his shoulders, and I swear time slows down just to humiliate me. The shirt slides down his back, catching on the curve of his biceps, revealing—
“Oh my God,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His back is carved like a sculpture and tattooed like a sermon. A whole cathedral covers him—domes, arches, stars inked across muscles that move when he breathes. Scars crisscross the ink—knife, bullet, burn—stories written on skin I’m pretty sure I’m not emotionally stable enough to process right now.
He drops the shirt on a chair, then his hand goes to his belt.
My entire body tightens.
