He watches me cry like it’s an equation. No flinch. No smirk. Just a steady, clinical assessment that feels like heat. Then he takes out his phone, and I hear the click of his camera going off.
I lunge for his phone, but he steps back.
“What are you doing? How did you get here? The door was locked,” I whisper, furious with how small my voice sounds.
“It was,” he says, tone even, Russian lilt tucked like a blade behind velvet. “You didn’t answer when they called your name.”
No one called my name?—
“Cal?” Lila’s voice floats down the hall, closer now. I see that the door is half open, and she can probably see me inside. “Where did you go? The Mertons are asking for you.”
Panic thumps my ribs. If they see my face like this—red eyes, streaked mascara—it’s over. The queen can’t bleed in public.
Panic spikes in my chest. I can hear footsteps approaching me. People outside can probably see me. The door is open. Somebody’s hand is pulling it away, mumbling, “If you’re done, can you come out? I need to go.”
“No!” I scream, but all that comes out is air.
I feel like the world is spinning away from me. I’m about to crash.
I try to turn away, to grab for concealer, for anything. My hands shake. I have an image to protect.
Dmitry moves before I do. Big hands bracket my hips and lift me. Just enough to angle me off the vanity and against him. The cool silk of my dress skims his shirt. He smells clean and expensive, something crisp with pine, like winter in a bank vault.
I stiffen. “Don’t?—”
His mouth is at my ear. “If you don’t want them to see you crying with your mascara running down your cheeks, you’re going to let me help.”
Another knock. Closer. “Cal? Babe?”
He turns me without asking, my breasts smooshing against his chest. If I weren’t wearing a padded bra, he’d know my nipples were hard. He just lifted me up and put me on the counter like I was a doll. Like he owned me.
I swallow, realizing my body likes the feeling of being owned by Dmitry Anotonov. My veins are zinging with desire. My thighs clench, and the moisture between them is spilling down, soaking my panties.
Dmitry is so fucking dominant, so sure of himself, and it turns me on even though it shouldn’t. My pulse skyrockets. I feela sense of danger, and it coils low in my belly. My pussy throbs. I feel the wetness between my pussy lips, the intense arousal of being caged by a dangerous man.
He holds me down with his strong hands, kneading my fleshy hips, making me feel seen in ways I never imagined.
As my walls are coming down, as I’m relaxing, he lowers his mouth to mine. His hot breath washes over my neck, making goosebumps erupt all over my skin.
My heart misfires. The tension between us is palpable. I can feel the chemistry scorching my skin, turning my skin red like a sunburnt crisp.
He doesn’t kiss me. He just looks like he’s taking an inventory: breath, pulse, ruin. Then he bends that last inch and covers my mouth with his.
It isn’t tender. It isn’t mean. It’s… deliberate. The shape of a kiss performed for an audience that doesn’t know it’s the only thing standing between me and public collapse. His lips are warm, firm, patient. He lets me decide whether to pretend.
Something inside me—trapped and feral—goes quiet. It’s like he soothes the fighter in me, makes me lay down my arms and relax. In his arms, I feel like I can surrender. Because he’s giving me more than pleasure. He’s giving me a safe space, a sanctuary to hide in, a place where my flaws don’t matter anymore. He saw me crying, and he still kissed me. Just to protect my reputation.
I never knew Dmitry Antonov had a heart of gold. I chide myself for believing in the rumors that he’s connected to the mafia, for being shallow and assuming he’s a thug because he has tattoos. A thug would never care for a girl he just met. I wonder if he took that picture of me earlier because he likes me.
The doorknob rattles. Dmitry lifts his head, his mouth a breath from mine.
“Occupied,” he calls, all amused sin. “She’s with me. Go take a piss somewhere else.”
He stretches a leg backward, pushing against the door, slamming it closed. The thud is both comforting and relieving. My shoulders relax, and he moves away from me as we’re trapped together in a quiet bathroom.
Then the squeal I knew would come penetrates through the door, the giggle racing down the hall like wildfire. “Oh my God,” someone stage-whispers—probably Cal. “She’s kissing him in the bathroom.”
I sag. He doesn’t let me fall. He tips my face toward his shoulder, shielding.
