“Very noble of you.”
“Anya.” His thumb traces my cheekbone, and I hate how my body leans into it. “You or forty thousand strangers. I pick you. Every time. I don’t even have to think about it.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Yeah.” His forehead drops to mine. “It is. And you’re scared because when I touch you, you stop caring about being a good person too.”
I shove him back before I do something stupid like kiss him.
“Put your fucking shirt on.” My voice shakes, and I don’t care. “I need to get dressed.”
I don’t wait for him to respond. I just let the robe fall.
The silk puddles at my feet, and cool air hits my bare skin, and his breathing catches behind me, and good.Good. He doesn’t get to be the only one who affects people, doesn’t get to be the only one with power in this fucked up thing we’re calling a marriage.
I take my time stepping into the emerald silk, pulling it up slowly over my hips. I settle the bodice against my breasts while his eyes burn into my back.
“Zip me.”
He crosses the room and his hands find the zipper at the base of my spine, and when his knuckles drag up my back one vertebra at a time, I have to lock my knees to keep from shivering.
When he reaches the top, his hands don’t leave my shoulders.
“Not yet.”
He reaches into his pocket, and my stomach drops.
“No.” I turn around, seeing what he’s holding in his hand. “Absolutely not. Not tonight.”
“Anya—”
“We’re walking into a room full of people who want us dead, and you wantthis? No. Find another way to mark your territory.”
“This isn’t about territory.” His voice is calm, patient, and infuriating. “This is about keeping you alive. Vadim’s going to be watching you all night. If you’re flushed and distracted, he’ll think it’s because you’re overwhelmed by the crowd, not because I fucking told you the truth.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“It’s a strategy.”
“It’s you wanting to control me in public because it gets you off.”
“Both things can be true.”
“God, you’re an asshole.” But I’m not walking away, and we both know what that means. “Fine. But I’m saying yellow the second it’s too much, and if you push past that, I will actually poison you.”
“Understood.” He pulls out the case and opens it, and the rose gold device catches the lamplight. “Bend forward. Hands on the dresser.”
Oh well. I turn around and press my palms flat against the mahogany, because apparently I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
His hand slides up the back of my thigh, pushing the silk higher, bunching it at my hips until I’m bare from the waist down, and cool air hits skin that’s already way too sensitive.
“No underwear.” His voice drops an octave, rough with approval. “Good girl.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why? Because it’s true?”
His fingers brush between my thighs, and I jerk, a gasp tearing out of my throat. I’m soaked. Slick, hot, and humiliatingly ready for him.
