"What did he say?" Slava asks again, and his voice is softer now, which is worse.
I don't know how to fight softness.
He told me you’re a murderer. That you’re a rapist. But I don’t want to believe him.
"He accused me," I say, and my voice is too breathy. Fuck, I need to get it together. "Of wanting to sleep with you."
Slava's expression doesn't change, but his gaze intensifies. A new darkness—possessive and hungry—flits into them. "Don’t you?"
The question is so direct it takes the breath out of me. No games, no subtext, and no double meanings to hide behind. Just a yes or no question, plain and simple. But he delivers it like he already knows the answer and wants to hear me say it.
"No." The word comes out too fast, too fierce. "I would rather die than sleep with my brother's killer."
Slava smiles and my heart skips.
That's the wrong response. That's such a wrong response that I want to reach into my own chest and shake my cardiac muscle into behaving itself. A man I just accused of murder is smiling at me like I'm a puzzle he can't wait to solve, and my body is responding like this is foreplay.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
"Liar." Slava’s voice is as soft as a caress.
"I'm not?—"
His hand drops from my chin, and I should feel relieved, I should feel like I've won something, but instead I feel the absence of his touch like a wound.
"You changed your name to get closer to me,” he says. “You inserted yourself into my life and my business. And every time I look your way, I catch you staring.”
He leans in closer with every phrase.
"You’re obsessed with me, Bella. I can feel it. I can smell it. I can practically taste it if I’m close enough.”
My dress has an open back. I chose it deliberately as my armor. I did not anticipate Slava’s fingers traveling up the curve of my spine, and tracing the sweaty exposed skin above the fabric with a light yet hungry touch.
“You’re delusional,” I say. “You’re just projecting what you want onto me.”
“Or I’m holding up a mirror of what you want to do to me.”
We are now so close that we’re far beyond the limits of appropriate distance. My back presses against the balcony railing. Sweat continues to roll down my skin. His body is a wall of fire against mine, burning every inch of me up through my dress.
Then his hand finds my waist.
I need to pull away and throw my drink in his face. But I stay still and let his hand keep traveling upward. A bead of sweat rollsdown my back and melts into his fingertips trailing fire up my spine.
His fingers find the back of my neck to cradle my nape in his palm, I clench my jaw in time to prevent a whimper from escaping my lips.
Slava clinks his drink on the railing next to me and theclinkof glass on metal might as well be a gunshot going off next to my head.
“Clearly, we’re at an impasse,” he says.
“Clearly,” I echo.
“So how do you want to prove it?”
“Prove what?”
“Prove that you don’t want to fuck me.”
“How?”
