She just looked at me.Waiting.Not afraid.
“Come,” I said, and led her to my bedroom.
The familiar space felt different tonight.Charged with anticipation I refused to name.The bed where I’d touched her, where I’d made her cry out, where I’d proven over and over that her body belonged to me.It waited like a question I didn’t know how to answer.
“Lie down.”
She climbed onto the bed and reclined against the pillows, watching me with those eyes that saw too much.I stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at her, and felt the walls, decades in the making, begin to give.A hairline fracture spreading through everything I’d constructed.
This was the arrangement.This was what she’d agreed to.One year of her body in exchange for her family’s hotel.
So why did it feel like I was the one being undone?
I moved to the bed, settling beside her.My hand found her hip, fingers pressing into the soft flesh there.She was warm beneath my palm.Warm and alive and looking at me like I was a man, not a monster.
“Raphael.”
My name on her lips.Not “Mr.Antonov.”Just my name, spoken softly, without fear.
My control splintered.
I kissed her.
Not like this morning, where I’d used my mouth to prove a point, to stake a claim, to remind her who owned her body.This kiss was different.Slower.My lips against hers, tasting the surprised gasp she made, the way her mouth opened for me without resistance.She tasted like mint tea and something sweeter underneath.
Yes, the wolf crooned.Ours.Care for her.Please her.
I told myself this was still control.Still dominance.I was choosing to be gentle, choosing to give her pleasure instead of taking it.That made it mine to command.
But my hands told a different story.They moved over her body with a reverence I didn’t intend, learning the curve of her waist, the dip of her hip, the softness of her inner thigh.When I unhooked her bra and peeled it away, my thumbs traced circles around her nipples instead of pinching.
She arched into my touch, a soft moan escaping her lips.Her scent deepened, honey-warm with arousal.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
I expected her to say something about permission.About needing to come.The phrases I’d trained into her, the way I’d taught her to beg.
Instead, she reached up and touched my face.
Her fingers traced my jaw, the stubble there, the hard line of my cheekbone.Touching me like I was something worth touching.Like she wanted to understand the shape of me the way she’d understood the shape of my past.
I froze.Every muscle locked.
Let her, the wolf demanded.She sees us.She wants us.Let her touch.
My hand shot out, catching her wrist and pinning it to the pillow beside her head.“Don’t.”
She didn’t look away.Didn’t apologize.Just held my gaze with that impossible understanding while her pulse fluttered against my fingers, quick and warm and alive.
“I’m not going to break you,” she said quietly.
The words hit like a blade between my ribs.
Because that was what I was afraid of, wasn’t it?Not that I would break her.I knew I could do that, had already started.What terrified me was that she would break me.That this girl with her soft hands and softer heart would crack me open and find nothing inside worth saving.
I released her wrist and slid my hand between her thighs instead.If she wanted to understand me, she could understand this.The way I could make her body sing.The way I could pull pleasure from her whether she wanted to give it or not.
