"Isabelle," he says, voice hoarse.
"Don't." I cut him off before he can say something that ruins this. Something logical. Something about how this was a mistake and it can't happen again. "Don't ruin it."
He looks at me for a long moment. I don't know what he sees—this wrecked woman with sex-mussed hair and bruises blooming on her skin—but whatever it is makes his jaw tighten.
He doesn't argue. Just follows me to the bedroom and we fall onto my sheets and do it all over again.
Slower this time. Deeper. His mouth mapping every inch of skin while I arch beneath him and forget how to speak. He learns what makes me gasp, what makes me moan, what makes me dig my nails into his back and beg for more. And I learn him—thescar on his ribs that makes him hiss when I kiss it, the spot on his neck that makes him groan, the way he says my name when he's close like it's the only word he remembers.
We don't talk.
We just exist in it. Two broken people using each other's bodies to forget, just for a few hours, that the world outside this bedroom is full of people trying to destroy us.
It's not healthy.
It's not smart.
But fuck if it isn't exactly what I need.
After, I can't sleep.
Sergei's passed out beside me, one arm thrown over his head, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. Even unconscious he looks dangerous. Jaw tight. Silver threading through dark hair. That scar bisecting his left eyebrow that I traced with my tongue earlier.
Tasting violence.
I slip out of bed, wrapping myself in silk.
The lighter sits on my nightstand where I left it. I pick it up, running my thumb over the engraving. The metal is warm.
In the living room, I light the candle on the coffee table. Vanilla and bergamot—my favorite scent. The flame catches, small and defiant against the darkness.
I sink onto the couch and stare at it.
Behind me, I hear Sergei's breathing. Deep and even. A man who just took me apart with his hands and mouth and cock.
One night.
The flame flickers.
I need a husband in two and a half months.
The lighter's metal bites into my palm.
And I think I just found him. My weapon. My shield. My way out of this nightmare and into something that might actually survive the fire.
The Wolf doesn't know it yet.
But I'm about to make him an offer he can't refuse.
Even if it destroys us both.
4
Sergei
"You smelllike expensive perfume and bad decisions."
Elena's voice cuts through the morning air before I'm even out of the car. She's standing on the front steps of her brownstone, arms crossed, dark hair pulled back so tight, it looks like it hurts. Still beautiful in that cold calculated way that used to work on me before I figured out beauty with teeth is just another predator.
