His smile froze.
Got him.
I tapped a finger against his chest. “Relax. I haven’t decided what kind of trouble you are yet.”
“I can show you.”
“I bet you can,” I said, brushing past him to look at the city. “But you’ll have to earn it.”
“Oh?” he asked behind me. “And how does one earn you?”
I glanced back over my shoulder, giving him a slow, taunting smile. “Surprise me, little Dragunov.”
That did it.
His pupils dilated, his expression layering with hunger, amusement, and dangerous intent.
“I just might try, princess,” he grinned.
When I finally turned back to the skyline, heart thudding against my ribs, I knew the truth with sudden clarity.
I wasn’t just dancing around one Dragunov, I was circling all three.
Or were they circling me?
CHAPTER 16
Dubai, two weeks ago…
Andrei
The private shopping gallery smelled faintly of expensive perfume and polished marble. It was the kind of place I normally found insufferable unless I was there to amuse myself with Viktor’s bad behavior, but today, I barely noticed any of it. My attention stayed fixed on her.
She walked slightly ahead of us as we exited the final boutique, her dark brown hair catching the ambient light, dress hugging her hips in a way that made it very difficult to keep my thoughts professional. The bags she carried swung lightly at her side, and she moved with this quietly formidable confidence that made everyone in that overpriced corridor step out of her path without realizing why.
She tossed her hair back without thinking, chin tilted, eyes sparkling for half a second before she remembered herself and smoothed her expression. She kept trying to hide joy like it wasweakness. She didn’t understand yet that none of us wanted to smother her joy or keep it small.
Especially not me.
As Mikhail and Viktor argued about something pointless near the curb, I took the moment to study her, really study her. The dress she wore was expensive, but she looked like she could fight in it. The short-heeled boots she wore elongated her legs, but she stood like someone who could run full speed if necessary. Her face was flushed from the afternoon heat, lips faintly parted as she caught her breath.
Most people looked fragile in Dubai’s relentless sun. She looked carved from it. Absolutely radiant.
And yes, my body reacted before my mind caught up. She’d been with Viktor first, then with Mikhail, and that should have made me step back, should have triggered every self-preservation instinct I had. My brothers didn’t share easily. Dragunovs didn’t, by nature. And yet…
I wanted her too.
It wasn’t a passing flicker of desire. It wasn’t a stray recognition of beauty. It was hunger mixed with amusement, fascination laced with a much darker desire. She wasn’t just physically beautiful, though she was, painfully so. She was intelligent, bold, sarcastic, and sharper than a well-honed blade.
I’d felt that spark when she smiled at me, when she threw that verbal grenade at my chest earlier, when she told me I might be afraid to show her ‘how small my dick was.’
That one had punched straight into my spine and stayed lodged there.
My brothers had touched her, tasted her, left their marks on her skin and in her memory. And something in me—a part I didn’t want to examine too closely—didn’t find that threatening. I found it challenging. Almost like a gauntlet thrown down right at my feet.
I didn’t want what they had. I wanted something else. Something that was mine alone. Something she hadn’t given them. Something special…
And I would take it. Eventually.
