Slowly. Deliberately.
He circles me like a predator gauging the right angle of attack, his boots soft against the carpet. My pulse jumps, and I hate that he can probably hear it.
He stops behind me, so close I can feel the heat of his breath ghosting over my neck.
“Get used to it,” he murmurs, his voice low, dangerous. “You belong to me now.”
Every nerve in my body goes taut. I turn sharply to face him, forcing steel into my spine even though my hands tremble.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I whisper.
Roman’s lips twitch—half-smirk, half-warning. He tilts his head, eyes glinting under the dim light. “We’ll see.”
The tension between us thickens, electric and suffocating. I should move. I should run. But my body betrays me, rooted to the spot, trembling with anger and something I stubbornly refuse to acknowledge.
I snap. The word is ugly, desperate, and meant to repel. “I’m a virgin.” I clench my teeth, throwing the truth in his face as if it’s a shield, a mark of impurity he wouldn’t dare touch. “You wouldn’t want me anyway.”
A dark smirk breaks across Roman’s mouth, a cold, indifferent gesture that makes my blood run cold. It’s the look of a man who has just been given a pointless piece of information.
“I know.”
The casualness of the reply is a violent blow. It drops the air right out of my lungs.
“What?”
“I know everything about you, Elara Chang,” he continues, his voice a low, gravelly counterpoint to the ticking clock. He steps closer, closing the last few inches between us. “Your habits. The precise route you drive to work each day. Your history. Your secrets.”
He lifts a hand and gently touches the sharp curve of my jaw. The sheer humiliation of being so thoroughly studied, so known without my consent, is worse than the kidnapping.
“You have no secrets from me,” he murmurs. “Only things I haven’t yet decided to tell you.”
Furious that he has pried so deeply into my life, furious at the soft invasion of his touch, I shove at his chest with both hands. “Get away from me, you monster!”
He doesn’t budge. My resistance feels like batting against granite. Instead of using his strength to hold me, he uses it to strip away my defenses. His touch changes. The cold, assessing quality disappears, replaced by a devastating, deliberate tenderness.
He reaches for the thick lace bodice of my wedding gown, his thumbs tracing the fabric that covers my collarbones. His eyes, fixed on mine, are no longer rifle sights, but deep, smoky pools of something complex and unsettling.
“I’m not here to taunt you,” he says, his voice losing its edge, becoming rough, almost coaxing. “I’m here to claim what is mine.”
His fingers find the small silk buttons lining the back of the dress. Slowly, methodically, he begins to undo them, the sound of the fabric parting a quiet, intimate violation in the silence.
His gaze never leaves my face, compelling me to watch his intent. He is offering me a strange, horrific choice: to fight him physically, or to submit to this careful, terrifying seduction.
Shame and power scramble inside me, and my frantic defiance begins to bleed into a confused, agonizing heat. He is using tenderness as a weapon, and it is working.
He works the last of the buttons free and then, with a swift, predatory movement, he hooks his hands beneath the heavy layers of lace and silk. He lifts me slightly, easily, and the wedding gown slides down my body, pooling on the carpet like a discarded shell.
The sudden cold air on my skin forces a gasp. I look down, shocked into stillness. I’m naked before him. By the time I realize my vulnerability, he’s already claimed my lips.
His mouth is hard, hot, and utterly relentless. There’s no coaxing here, only command. The kiss is a violation and a promise, driving out the last reserves of my hatred. The soft, seductive touch is gone, replaced by a raw, demanding hunger that I find—to my horror—I’m starving for.
My carefully built walls collapse. My body melts into him so easily it infuriates me, yet I can’t stop. I latch onto the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, my hands trembling against the hard planes of his back. He kisses with abandon, not seeking my permission, but taking my surrender. It tastes of fire and sin.
He deepens the kiss, using his body to pin me against the desk, my dress still in a puddle at my feet. The metallic scent of his cologne, the sharp musk of his skin—it all floods my senses, cutting off every thought but the urgent, desperate need to becloser. Our hate burns into a wild, consuming passion, leaving me boneless and trembling beneath him.
He pulls back, his hazel eyes dark and narrowed, tracking the shift in my composure. He doesn’t need to ask a thing; he can feel my answer in the frantic rhythm of my heart beneath his palm.
“Mine,” he breathes against my mouth, a single, violent vow.
