We discuss our next steps until Alina walks into the room without knocking.
“Oh. Sorry,” she says when she sees Viktor, whose mouth is gaping at her audacity.
“He was just leaving,” I tell her.
Viktor exits with his orders while I study Alina. She fidgets under my gaze, shifting from one foot to the other, and finally blurts out, “You’re not going to find Archer…are you?”
My jaw tightens. “I’ll find him.”
“And you’ll try to keep him alive when you find him?” she presses, her voice trembling just enough to betray her.
My answer isn’t the one she wants. “That’s up to him now,” I say, deliberately slow and cruel because she needs to understand the stakes. “And it depends on whether or not he gives me a good reason to keep him breathing.”
Her lips part, eyes wide, horrified. She takes a step closer, then stops herself like she’s testing how far she can push me. “You promised me.”
“We agreed on the terms, yes. He would give back what he stole, you would spend a week with me, and he would get to live. He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, did he?”
She flinches, but her chin lifts. “So, I have to give up my freedom now because he chose his own?”
The pain is making me moodier than usual. I hate feeling weak, looking weak in front of my men or her.
I stand, ignoring the pull of stitches, and cross the room. Alina backs up, one step, then another, until her spine meets the wall. I cage her there without touching her. Her breath hitches, quick, shallow. Her fear is real, but so is the spark underneath it. I can see it in the way her pupils dilate, in the way her lips partlike she wants to argue but can’t decide if it’s safer to speak or to stay silent.
“You and I have a deal. One that you agreed to postpone after your brother got me shot and ran off, abandoning you.”
“Extended for how long? A week? Okay, fine. But what if that turns into two or more? This doesn’t feel…temporary anymore.”
“It’s not temporary,” I say quietly. “You’re mine now.”
That truth is one I didn’t mean to give her but couldn’t take back if I tried.
Alina’s pulse jumps in her throat, and I feel it like it’s under my own skin. She whispers, “You can’t keep saying that. You can’t just decide something like that without giving me a choice.”
I lean closer, brushing a strand of her hair back with deliberate slowness until my knuckles graze her cheek. She shivers, betraying herself. “You and I don’t need to decide anything, because it’s a simple truth.”
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The world narrows to her breath against my mouth, the faint tremor of her body, the way the heat between us turns into something dangerous. I want to taste the defiance on her lips again, to claim her fear and her fire. My restraint snaps and I act on the impulse, the one I’ve had since the moment I saw her. I slam my mouth over hers, taking what I don’t deserve, but needing it all the same.
If this is a mistake, it’s the kind you make twice.
Alina doesn’t push me away, but she doesn’t kiss me back either. Not at first. Not until my tongue strokes along hers. With a whimper, she sinks a few inches down the wall, grabbing onto my neck with both hands as if to keep herself upright, just like she did the other night. Finally, fucking finally, her lips move, and her tongue seeks mine out eagerly.
My hands grip her waist, my bigger, harder body pinning her to the wall. She makes a gasping sound of surprise and concern when she feels how much I want her, like she isn’t sure if she cantake all of me. Then she rubs herself against me and moans like she’s desperate and wet enough to try and take every inch.
Those little noises are the sexiest things I’ve heard, telling me everything I need to know.
Alina wants me too.
But a second later, she’s shaking her head, breaking our kiss and urging me back from her by grasping my shoulders. “No… exertion.”
“I’ll lay down and let you ride me,” I suggest as I steal another kiss.
“Dom,” she huffs in warning against my lips. That’s all it takes for me to step back, to lower my hands. Now isn’t the time, even if my wounds didn’t need more time to close. First, before I can cross that line with Alina, I need to handle shit with Archer. I need her to see that it’s handled, and then choose me, if I’m still who she wants afterward.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “No exertion… yet.”
She nods and licks her lips, and I know she’s tasting me on them.
“Go rest,” I order, my voice low. “You shouldn’t have slept in here last night.”
