"I'm thinking perfectly clearly." My hand finds his chest, palm flat over his heartbeat. It's racing. Pounding against my touch like it's trying to escape. "I think you want me. I think you've wanted me since Mexico. I think you're standing here in the dark watching me instead of sleeping because you can't stop thinking about what it would feel like to stop being professional."
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"Then show me."
Something breaks behind his eyes.
His hand fists in my hair—sudden, rough, tilting my head back until I'm looking up at him. The grip is just shy of painful.
Perfect.
"I'm not a good man." The words come out like a warning. Like a confession. "I've killed people, Isabelle. Dozens. I've done things that would make you sick. Things that should make you run."
"I'm not running."
"You should."
"Make me."
He kisses me.
Not soft. Not gentle. This is a collision—teeth and tongue and five days of tension igniting like someone dropped a match in a room full of gasoline. His hand tightens in my hair and I moan into his mouth, the sound swallowed by his hunger.
He tastes like whiskey. Like violence. Like the worst decision I'll ever make and the only one that feels right.
I should stop this. Should think about consequences and complications.
But my father's dead. My mother's a murderer. My uncle wants me in a cage or a coffin. And right now, the only thing keeping me tethered to this world is the feel of Sergei Orlov's hands on my body.
So fuck consequences.
I clutch his shirt, dragging him closer, needing more contact. More heat. More of whatever this is that's burning through mybloodstream. His free hand finds the tie of my robe, tugging it loose with a sharp pull that makes the silk fall open.
Cool air hits bare skin. I'm not wearing anything underneath.
He pulls back just enough to look.
The sound he makes—low, guttural, almost pained—sends heat pooling between my thighs.
"You've been walking around like this?—"
"Hoping you'd notice."
"I noticed." His thumb traces my collarbone, my shoulder, pushing the silk until it pools at my feet. "I noticed every fucking time you bent over in that robe. Every time you walked past me smelling like vanilla and sex. You think I haven't been going out of my mind?"
"Then stop talking about it and do something."
He moves.
One second I'm standing in the kitchen. The next I'm lifted off my feet, my legs wrapping around his waist automatically, and he's carrying me—not to the bedroom, but to the windows.
The glass is cold against my back. Thirty-eight floors of nothing between me and the glittering city below, and I don't care. Can't care about anything except his mouth on my neck, his hands gripping my thighs, the hard length of him pressing against my center through his sweatpants.
"Here?" I gasp.
"Here." He pins me against the window with his hips, one hand leaving my thigh to palm my breast. "I've been thinking aboutthis for five days. You pressed against this glass. The whole city watching while I make you scream."
"Arrogant."
